DEIXIS IN ENGLISH AND MUNA LANGUAGES: A CONTRASTIVE STUDY

DEIXIS IN ENGLISH AND MUNA LANGUAGES:

A CONTRASTIVE STUDY

Abstract

This paper, is contrastive analysis, which is concerned with the study of person and location deixis in English and Muna languages. It aims to describe the similarity and the difference of person and location deixis in both languages. It used both oral and written data which are collected by using recording and note taking technique and analyzed by contrastive analysis. The result of the study shows that Muna language does not exist the terms of personal pronoun as person deixis for object because the usage of personal pronoun can be as subject and also the object in the sentences such as inodi, intaodi, ihintu/intaodi, anoa and andoa. It is different to English which has personal pronoun for subject such as I, we, you, she, he, it and they and also another terms for object such as me, us, him, her, them. The deixis location of Muna language very vary which are used based on the distance of the referred object, near and far from the speaker such as aini, aitu, amaitu, atatu, awatu, we ini, we itu, we watu. It is slightly different from English that only consist of this/these, that/those and here/there which are used based on the numeral, singular and plural beside the distance of the referred object from the speaker.

INTRODUCTION

Language is a system that holds an important role in human life. It becomes a fundamental instrument of communication that allows people to communicate. They communicate through a language in order to convey their ideas, their needs, feeling, and expectations towards someone or something. Besides, the ways which people use language in their daily life are in order to have a connection or relationship.

The use of language in communication is a part of pragmatics study. According to Mey (2001:6) pragmatics as a study of the way human use their language in communication, bases itself on a study of those premises and determines how they affect, and effectualize, human language use. Moreover, according to Hence as cited in Mey (2001:6) pragmatics studies the use of language in human communication as determined by the condition of the society. In other words, pragmatics refers to the social language skill which people use in their interaction with others. It includes what they say, how they say, their body language and whether it is appropriate to the given situation or context.

In studying about pragmatics could also mean studying about culture in society. Language as the product of culture, whether local or foreign languages, has its own characteristics depends on the culture itself. The aspects of pragmatics study in language use involve presupposition, speech acts, conversational implicature and deixis. These aspects will be different or similar in one language and another because of the cultural distinction. This paper will more concern in the discussion of deixis as a part of pragmatics study. Deixis can be found in every language.

Yule (1996:9) gives notion that deixis is a technical term (from Greek) for one of the most basic things we do with utterances which means ‘pointing’ via language. According to Levinson (1983:54), essentially, deixis relates to the way in which languages encode or grammaticalize features of the context of utterance or speech event, and thus relates to the ways in which the interpretation of utterances depends on the analysis of that context of utterances. It is clear that the meaning of the utterances in deictic expression can be interpreted through context and w must know who the speaker and hearer are being interpreted by certain situation.

Deixis is basically a speaker content notion where the central speaker is the speakers, where the central place is the speaker location, whether central time is a time at which the speaker utter a particular sentence or produce a particular utterance, whether the central discourse element is the one containing the speaker utterance. Levinson (1983:62) state that there are five types of deixis, namely: personal deixis, place deixis, time deixis, discourse deixis and social deixis.

Person deixis is normally realized by personal pronoun and it is concern with encoding the role of the participants in the speech situation which is given utterance was produced. Person deixis usually localises an entity in relation to the position of the speaker and/or hearer. According to Levinson (1983:62) personal deixis concerns the encoding of the participants in the speech event in which the utterance in question is delivered.

Place or location deixis expression denotes the special location of people and object relative to the participant in the speech event. Encoding the location of entities requires that the Speaker has a good orientation and understanding of his/her environment. Languages may diverge significantly from each other, depending on how the spatial arrangement is construed by their speakers. Levinson (1983:62) gives notion that place deixis concerns the encoding of the spatial locations relative to the location of the participant in the speech. Location deixis usually marked with demonstrative.

In some culture, demonstrative can be distinguished on principles other than distance from the speaker such as close to the addressee, close to the audience, close to the persons not participating in the event, on the basis direction, visible or non visible to the speaker, and upriver or downriver from the speaker. Those are depending on the system of conceptualizing space used in the particular language.

Based on the explanation above, this paper will be discuss about the deixis in Muna language,  one of local languages in Indonesia, and English language as a foreign language. This will be limited in discussion about deixis of person and location (place) between those languages by contrastive analysis.

According to Kridalaksana (2013:13), contrastive analysis is a synchronic method to find out the similarities and differences of language being compared. Therefore, contrastive analysis can be used to deal with, or solve the difficulty of language learning as well as predict the difficulties, so that the interference of the first language can be minimized.

Muna language is an Austronesian language which becomes one of languages which utter in Muna Regency, South East of Sulawesi. According to Berg (1989:26) Muna dialect situation allows the following estimates of population figures (1) Standard Muna 150,000 (2) Tiworo dialect 10,000 (3) Southern dialects: a) Siompu 7,000, b) Gumas dialects 60,000. This study will use the data of native speaker from southern Muna dialects, particularly in Lombe area, Gu Subdistrict.  

Contrastive analysis or contrastive linguistics is a study that learns the similarity and the difference of two or more languages. The data of this study uses both oral and written which are obtained from the Muna native speakers and books Muna and English Language. The method used is qualitative description in contrastive analysis technique. Therefore, this writing consists of three subtopics, namely (1) description of person and location deixis in English language (2) description of person and location deixis in Muna Language (3) description of similarity and differences of person and location deixis between English and Muna Language

DISCUSSION

1. Description of Deixis in English Language

a.       Person Deixis

In English, person deixis involves the speaker reference to himself that is the first person (I/me, we/us), the speaker’s references to the addressee(s) that is the second person (you), and the last is the speaker’s reference to other person and entities that is typically the third person (he/him, she/her, it, they/them). In short, we can see in the table below:

			PERSONAL PRONOUN
			Subject	Object
1st Person	Singular		I	Me
	plural		We	Us
2nd person	singular		You
	plural
3rd person	Singular	masculine	He	Him
		feminine	She	Her
		neutral	It
	Plural		They	Them

The examples of person deixis in English language are:

1. I/me

Ø  I am going to buy some books tomorrow.

Ø  Do you know me before?

2. we/us

Ø   We are having a trip next month.

Ø   I want you to come with us.

3. you

Ø  You are not my boyfriend anymore

Ø  I don’t like you

4. he/him

Ø  He never wears hat.

Ø  My father go to the dentist with him

5. she/her

Ø  She works too hard every day.

Ø  Some of my friends are very like her.

6. it

Ø  It is hot in this room.

Ø  Do you like to drink it?

7. they/them

Ø  They have been married since 1988.

Ø  We played tennis for two hours with them.

b.      Location Deixis

Deictic terms in English can be used to identifying an entity includes for example a  set of demonstrative determiners such as this/these;that/those. Deictic terms can also be used to inform the addressee about the location of an entity. Speaker typically uses locative adverbs such as here/there to denote such cases.

DEIXIS OF LOCATION
demonstrative (pronoun)	This (singular object) These (plural object)	That (singular object) Those (plural object)
Demonstrative (adverbs)	Here	There

The example as follow:

1. this/these

Ø  This house is not very large

Ø  These flowers come from Netherland.

2. that/those

Ø  That boy is very rude when talk to the older person.

Ø  Those policemen are practicing together.

3. here/there

Ø  You can come here whenever you want

Ø  The beggar sometimes sits at there.

2. Description of  Deixis in Muna Language

a.       Person Deixis

In Muna language, the first person singular deixis is inodi  means I. The first person singular, Muna language uses intaodi as we. Intaodi also can be you in polite way and using for respect someone because of the culture. The culture makes different of social class. People speak with the high class person in the society will use the polite language. Second person  singular is ihintu or intaodi. intaodi is polite language than ihintu as mentioned before. Third person singular is anoa. Anoa describes woman, man, animal and noun. In Muna language there is not distiction between man, woman and animal. Anoa can use for all kinds of noun. The third person plural is andoa  means  they.

 The person deixis in Muna language can be shown in table below:

	PERSONAL PRONOUN
I	Inodi
We	Intaodi
You	Ihintu
	intaodi (polite)
He	Anoa
She
They	Andoa

The usage of personal deixis in Muna Language can be seen in the following sentences:

1. Inodi

Ø  Inodi nando aefongkoha bae we abu.

            I am cooking rice in the kitchen

Ø  Suha aini misuano so inodi

           This letter is not for me.

2. Intaodi

Ø  Intaodi da pohofa da kumala we dawa.

            We will go to the market together.

Ø  Anoa naoma we intaodi

            She/He wants to eat with us.

3. Ihintu (impolite way)

Ø  Ihintu melengko pihi

           You wash the dishes.

Ø  Motoro aini so ihintu

           This motorcycle is for you

                Intaodi (polite way)

Ø  Intaodi nengkoha te fafono kuhusi

           You should sit on the chair.

4. Anoa

Ø  Anoa haicini no kala te kampo

            She/He has been gone to the garden.

Ø  Noafa ondo-ondo anoa?

           Why are you looking at her/him?

5. Andoa

Ø  Andoa nando no pogolu.

           They are playing football.

Ø  Kamukula awatu nando no huma be andoa.

           That old man is eating with them.

b. Location deixis

Location deixis encodes spatial locations relative to the interlocutor. Classified by forms, there are eight location deixis of Muna language. Those are:

1.      aini 'this'

2.      aitu 'that'

3.      amaitu 'that'

4.      atatu 'that'

5.      awatu 'that'

6.      weini ‘here’

7.      weitu ‘there’

8.      wewatu ‘there’

Related to their functions as references or deictic of certain object, their usage depends on two aspects: distance of object, near or far from the speaker/hearer and based on topography of the object, at a lower or higher place than the speaker's and hearer's. The usage of the eight location deixis are as follows:

1.      Aini 'this', the object is near or close to the speaker, or touched by the speaker. It is possibly near or far from the hearer. The object might be seen or not by the hearer.

2.      Aitu 'that', the object is rather far from the speaker, but it is near from the hearer; it

might be or not seen by the speaker, but can be seen by the hearer.

3.      Amaitu 'that', the object is rather far from both the speaker and the hearer, but both of them can see the object.

4.      Atatu 'that', the object is far from both the speaker and the hearer, but both of them can see the object. The position of the object is higher than the speaker's and the hearer's.

5.      Awatu 'that', the object is far from both the speaker and the hearer, but they still can see it. The position of the object is lower than the speaker's and the hearer's.

6.      We ini ‘here’, the location where the speaker and hearer in the same location.

7.      We itu ‘there’, the speaker can see the reference, which is not far.

8.      We watu ‘there’,the speaker doesn’t see the reference point.

In short, the location deixis  in Muna language can be seen in the table below:

DEIXIS OF LOCATION
demonstrative (pronoun/adjective)	aini	aitu, amaitu,atatu, awatu
Demonstrative (adverbs)	we ini	we itu, we watu

 For further comprehension, it can be seen in the following example below:

1. aini

Ø  Kuhusi aini no daimo

            Chair this broken

            This chair has been broken

2. aitu

Ø  O baju aitu a olie we dawa

            Clothes that buy in the market

            That is the clothes that I bought in the market

3. amaitu

Ø  Ala kaaho amaitu!

           Take broom that!

           Take that broom!

4. atatu

Ø   Atatu ofo te puuno no taamo

            That mango on the tree ripe

            That mango which is on the tree has been ripe.

5. awatu

Ø  Kamukula awatu nando ne kamalo pagala

           Old man that paint fence

          That old man is painting the fence

6. we ini

Ø  Naewine mae huma we ini

            Tomorrow please eat here

            Tomorrow, please eat in here.

7. we itu

Ø  Hunsae we itu kaosumua.

            Put there shoes.

            Put your shoes there.

8. we watu

Ø  Maimo do kala we watu.

            Let’s go there.

            Let’s go there.

3. Comparison of  Deixis between English and Muna Language

Muna language doesn’t exist terms of the personal pronoun as person deixis for object. The usage of personal pronoun can be as subject and also object in the sentences such as inodi, intaodi, ihintu/intaodi, anoa and andoa. It is different to English which has personal pronoun for subject such as I, we, you, she, he, it and they and also another term as the object such as me, us, him, her, them.

In English, the second person uses you, whether in polite or impolite way. In contrast of Muna language, the second person using ihintu for impolite and intaidi for polite way. Besides, there is not distinction between masculine or feminine for third person as in English. Furthermore, pronoun it doesn’t exist in Muna language as in English Language.

The deixis location of Muna language very vary which are used based on the distance of the referred object, near and far from the speaker such as aini, aitu, amaitu, atatu, awatu, we ini, we itu, we watu. It is slightly different from English that only consist of this/these, that/those and here/there which are used based on the numeral, singular and plural beside the distance of the referred object from the speaker.

CONCLUSION

There are several conclusion based on the the study related to the person and location of deixis in English and Muna Language. First, it can be concluded that English and Muna language have its own person and location deixis. English has many personal pronouns as the person deixis and the usage can be different based on the subject and object. However, Muna language has more less personal pronouns than English has. The person deixis both can be used as a subject or object. Second, in terms of deixis location, English has only two-term system and the usage consider the singular and plural object. However, Muna language has many terms in referring the location and there is no distinction for the numeral usage.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Berg, Rene Van den. 1989. Grammar of the Muna Language. Leiden: Summer

Institute of Linguistics.

Kridalaksana. 2001. Kamus Linguistik Umum. Jakarta: Gramedia.

Levinson, C. Steve. 1983. Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Mey, Jacob L. 2001. Pragmatics: An Introduction, 2^nd Edition. British Library: Blackwell

Publisher

Yule, George. 1996. Pragmatics. London: Oxford University Press