REQUESTS IN JAVANESE (A CASE STUDY ON READERS FORUM OF PANYEBAR SEMANGAT, A JAVANESE MAGAZINE)

Abstract

Javanese, as one of languages used by 70 million people, has limited use in written media. So far there is no newspaper well published in Javanese and only few magazines are written in Javanese. This condition shows that Javanese can be classified as an endangered language because of its limited use in printed media. This paper deals with the use of Javanese in Panyebar Semangat as written by its readers using pragmatics point of view. The focus of this study is how requests are realized in terms of forms and directness of the utterances. The result shows that in writing letters the writers use both direct and indirect forms of requests. In relation to the directness, the writers prefer to use more direct utterances than indirect ones. The use of imperative mood which is quite dominant (17 out of 42 utterances) shows the reality. This phenomenon may arise because in writing letters the writers don’t have personal relation as it happens in spoken communication.