konsep Maaf

Apa yang kamu pikirkan jika kamu berhadapan dengan seseorang yang meminta maaf (apapun alasannya). Apakah kamu memperhatikan caranya meminta maaf? Apakah body language.nya berubah?
Menarik juga loh untuk melihat "fenomena2" yang menyertai dibalik permintaan maaf seseorang; karenanya, daku coba menguak "fenomena" orang Indonesia meminta maaf.
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How do Indonesian men and women apologize?

Investigating the nature of apology across cultures is very interesting study since the underlying conceptions of conditions and norms of apology may differ from one culture to another. It is not surprising that there are many literatures explore the apology in many aspects, for example strategies of apology between one culture and another, situations that may influence the apology took place, the differences between men and women in making apology, etc. Meier (1998) and Bataineh & Bataineh (2006) in their articles stated that there is some evidence in the cross-cultures literature that apologies are a speech act where gender differences are likely to be found, especially in the English speaking countries. Meier discussed some studies that show gender differences significantly affect the use of apology, and from her own investigation, she found out that her females respondents used the word “really” more often than males in making apology, while the males used “terribly” as in “I’m terrible sorry” more often than the females did. In line with it, Bataineh & Bataineh believed that gender played an important role in the use of apology strategies. They found out that male and female respondents differed in their use of apology strategies. The females tend to apologize more than their male counterpart, as females used “statement of remorse” more often than the males. Although both male and female respondents used the same primary strategies of “accounts, reparation, compensation, and self-castigation”, female respondents used them more than male respondents. Furthermore, female respondents used slightly fewer non-apology strategies, i.e. avoiding a responsibility for doing something wrong and apologizing for it, than male respondents

Nevertheless, are the above conditions also occur in Indonesia? Wouk (2006a, 2006b) in her two articles tries to investigate whether there are any differences between Indonesian males and females in terms of making the apology. The respondents, who consist of 60 males and 44 females, were being asked to give their opinions of how will they respond to the following six situations that acquire them to make an apology, such as:

1. the speaker forgot to buy books that a younger sibling had asked for,
2. the speaker missed a friend’s party,
3. the speaker passed something to a same-aged stranger with the left hand (taboo in Indonesian culture),
4. the speaker kicked a ruler towards an older sibling instead of handing it to them,
5. the speaker bought the wrong office supplies for their boss, and
6. the speaker soaked an older man with a hose

Interestingly, from all the above situations there are variations of politeness in apologizing. For example in situation B (missed the party) and situation C (passed something to a same-aged stranger with the left hand), male respondents used significantly more upgrading pattern of apology (i.e. using words which equally mean really [bener, pasti, betul] or very/too [terlalu, sekali, sangat], as well as others relating to quantity, like banyak ‘a lot’ and sebesar-besarnya ‘as much as possible), more explanation, more intimate terms of address (i.e. honorific terms), and more solidarity oriented pragmatic particles (such as deh, sih, neh, or dong, koq, aja, and aja) than female respondents. This upgrading or intensifier form is employed to show speakers’ respect for the recipient of the apology, and usually it is used by younger person as a respect for the older ones or someone who has a higher status social than the speaker. While the female respondents are more likely to express lack of intent than men meaning that the females did not have the intention to do impolite behaviors such as in situation D (kicked a ruler towards an older sibling instead of handing it to them), C (passed something to a same-aged stranger with the left hand), and F (soaked an older man with a hose). From these findings, Wouk (2006) concluded that there are no significant differences between Indonesian men and women when making the apology. If it was compared to European languages studies, gender differences in Indonesian language seemed to be far smaller.

Although Wouk’s respondents were from Mataram (Lombok), it was an adequate representative of Indonesian people. However, it will have been better if she explore another people from another province, such as Java as the representative from western part of Indonesia and Moluccas as the representative from eastern part of Indonesia.

References:

Bataineh, R.F. Bataineh, R.F. (2006). Apology strategies of Jordanian EFL university students. Journal of Pragmatics, 38:1901–1927. Retrieved December, 10, 2007 from http://www.sciencedirect.com.ezproxy.library.uq.edu.au/

Meier, A.J. (1998). Apologies: What do we know?. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 8: 215-231. Retrieved December, 11, 2007 from http://www.blackwell-synergy.com.ezproxy.library.uq.edu.au/

Wouk, F. (2006a). Strategies of apologizing in Lombok Indonesia. Journal of Politeness Research, 2: 277-311. Retrieved December, 10, 2007 from http://www.swetswise.com.ezproxy.library.uq.edu.au/

Wouk, F. (2006b). The language of apologizing in Lombok Indonesia. Journal of Pragmatics, 38: 1457-1486. Retrieved December, 10, 2007 from http://www.sciencedirect.com.ezproxy.library.uq.edu.au/

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Bagaimana orang non-Indonesia meminta maaf yah??

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Picture reference : http://202.75.42.77/~scooters/gambaq/underconstruction.jpg