The languages of preaching: Code selection in Sundanese Islamic oratory, West Java

Why do Sundanese Muslims of West Java in certain situations prefer Islamic oratory in their regional language, Sundanese, and in others prefer the national standard, Indonesian? This article answers this question by firstly exploring different preaching outcomes that are recognised and generally acc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Australian journal of anthropology 2012-12, Vol.23 (3), p.379-397
Main Author: Millie, Julian
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anthropology
Audience
Audiences
Biodiversity
Communication
Indonesia
Indonesia: Culture
Islam
Islam in Indonesia
Islamic media
Islamism
Java
Language
Language Shift
Languages
Muslims
Preachers
Public Sphere
Rhetoric
Sermons
Situation
Social conditions & trends
Social Values
Structural change
Sudan
Sundanese language and identity
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Summary:Why do Sundanese Muslims of West Java in certain situations prefer Islamic oratory in their regional language, Sundanese, and in others prefer the national standard, Indonesian? This article answers this question by firstly exploring different preaching outcomes that are recognised and generally accepted by Sundanese Muslims. Some preaching events are oriented pre‐eminently to the communication of affect within the temporal frame of co‐presence. In others, preacher and audience unite around a transformative ethos. These outcomes bear contrasting implications for code selection. Where the first outcome is desired, preachers display multivocal, heterogeneous preaching styles in which the regional language offers functional benefits. In the second, Indonesian preachers and audiences respond to the national language's indexing of transformation. The social value of transformation is a situational factor for which Indonesian is the appropriate code. In this way, code selection signals the diversity of ways of being Islamic in the West Javanese public sphere.
ISSN:1035-8811
1757-6547
DOI:10.1111/taja.12006