Cross culture communication between Javanese and Sundanese : miscommunication in

verbal communication
A. Introduction
Culture can be defined in numerous ways. In the words of anthropologist E.B. Tylor it
is "that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, and law, custom and
any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society. Alternatively, in a
contemporary variant, "Culture is defined as a social domain that emphasizes the practices,
discourses, and material expressions, which, over time, express the continuities and
discontinuities of social meaning of a life held in common.
Cambridge English Dictionary states that culture is "the way of life, especially the
general customs and beliefs, of a particular group of people at a particular time." [3] Terror
Management Theory posits that culture is a series of activities and worldviews that provide
humans with the basis for perceiving themselves as "person[s] of worth within the world of
meaning"raising themselves above the merely physical aspects of existence, in order to
deny the animal insignificance and death that Homo Sapiens became aware of when they
acquired a larger brain.
As a defining aspect of what it means to be human, culture is a central concept in
anthropology, encompassing the range of phenomena that are transmitted through social
learning in human societies. The word is used in a general sense as the evolved ability to
categorize and represent experiences with symbols and to act imaginatively and creatively.
This ability arose with the evolution of behavioral modernity in humans around 50,000 years.
This capacity is often thought to be unique to humans, although some other species have
demonstrated similar, though much less complex, abilities for social learning. It is also used
to denote the complex networks of practices and accumulated knowledge and ideas that is
transmitted through social interaction and exist in specific human groups, or cultures, using
the plural form. Some aspects of human behavior, such as language, social practices such as
kinship, gender and marriage, expressive forms such as art, music, dance, ritual, religion, and
technologies such as cooking, shelter, clothing are said to be cultural universals, found in all
human societies. The concept material culture covers the physical expressions of culture,
such as technology, architecture and art, whereas the immaterial aspects of culture such as
principles of social organization (including, practices of political organization and social
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institutions), mythology, philosophy, literature (both written and oral), and science make up
the intangible cultural heritage of a society.
In the humanities, one sense of culture, as an attribute of the individual, has been the
degree to which they have cultivated a particular level of sophistication, in the arts, sciences,
education, or manners. The level of cultural sophistication has also sometimes been seen to
distinguish civilizations from less complex societies. Such hierarchical perspectives on
culture are also found in class-based distinctions between a high culture of the social elite and
a low culture, popular culture or folk culture of the lower classes, distinguished by the
stratified access to cultural capital. In common parlance, culture is often used to refer
specifically to the symbolic markers used by ethnic groups to distinguish themselves visibly
from each other such as body modification, clothing or jewelry. Mass culture refers to the
mass-produced and mass mediated forms of consumer culture that emerged in the 20th
century. Some schools of philosophy, such as Marxism and critical theory, have argued that
culture is often used politically as a tool of the elites to manipulate the lower classes and
create a false consciousness, such perspectives common in the discipline of cultural studies.
In the wider social sciences, the theoretical perspective of cultural materialism holds that
human symbolic culture arises from the material conditions of human life, as humans create
the conditions for physical survival, and that the basis of culture is found in evolved
biological dispositions.
When used as a count noun, "a culture" is the set of customs, traditions, and values of
a society or community, such as an ethnic group or nation. In this sense, multiculturalism is a
concept that values the peaceful coexistence and mutual respect between different cultures
inhabiting the same territory. Sometimes "culture" is also used to describe specific practices
within a subgroup of a society, a subculture (e.g. "bro culture"), or a counter culture. Within
cultural anthropology, the ideology and analytical stance of cultural relativism holds that
cultures cannot easily be objectively ranked or evaluated because any evaluation is
necessarily situated within the value system of a given culture.

B. Problem and discussion

1. Our Biggest Cultural Challenge: Intercultural Miscommunication

As more organizations extend their reach into new geographies, most recognize the
need to learn the basics about these new ethnics and culture: time zone differences, public
holidays, travel and safety issues, etc.
This is the easy bit: the information is researchable; it can be integrated into corporate
policy and easily managed within any type of business. Other less obvious aspects, however,
can be a little trickier.
2. Cultural miscommunication
Similar examples of potential cultural miscommunication abound, where certain
behaviors may be judged differently across cultures.
For example:
is answering a mobile telephone during a business meeting acceptable or rude?
is it ok to be spoken to differently depending on your job title, age, gender, etc.?
why do some people seem to get away with obviously and publicly breaking the rules when
others are punished over the violation of a technicality of the same rules?
All of these are examples of behaviors where cultural norms, values and behavior may
be interpreted very differently amongst different groups of people.
3. Javanese and Sundanese culture
Javanese ethnic group, are the largest ethnic group in Indonesia. There are around
90 millions Javanese in Indonesia. In Indonesia, the Javanese can be found in all areas of
work, especially as civil servants and the military. The Javanese are not prominent in the
fields of Business and Industry. The Javanese are also work as laborers and Indonesian Labor
(TKI) as domestic servants and workers in forests abroad, it reached nearly 6 million people.
Javanese community is also well known for the distribution of social groupings. Famed
American anthropologist, Clifford Geertz, in the 1960s split the Javanese community into
three groups: santri, abangan and priyayi. He said santri are Muslims who are obedient,
abangan are nominal Islamist or what they call as Kejawen, while the Priyayi is nobility,
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but today many people opposed this theory since it is mixing social groups with belief
groups.
Javanese people have stereotyped as a polite and refined ethnic. But they are also
well-known as a closed ethnic and unwilling to speak frankly. This trait is supposedly based
on the character of the Javanese who want to maintain harmony and avoid conflict, which is
why they tend to be quiet and not denied in case of disagreement.
In their daily lives, Javanese people are greatly influenced by some concepts which
are well rooted in the Javanese culture, namely: tata krama, andhap-asor, and tanggap ing
sasmita (the language styles, humbling oneself while exalting others, and being able to catch
the hidden meaning).
The phrase tata krama culturally means a good conduct or etiquette. Therefore, when
Javanese people behave impolitely, for instance when a young man passes in front of his
grandparents without asking permission and bowing down his body, he will be credited as an
impolite man or one who does not know tata krama.
The next concept of the Javanese culture is andhap-asor. This term is lexically
composed of two words andhap low and asor humble. Thus, to conduct the andhap-asor
in Javanese means humbling oneself while exalting the others. This concept dictates the
Javanese to be low profile. As a Javanese, one will not denigrate the interlocutor and praise
him/herself. If s/he breaks this rule, as it applies to tata krama, s/he will be considered
impolite; s/he may get the social sanction. Hence this two concepts have a close relationship.
Being polite in Javanese, one must know how to behave politely or to know tata krama, and
being polite also means one should have a sense of andhap-asor. Finally, as a good Javanese,
one should also have a sense of tanggap ing sasmita which can be translated as the ability to
read between the lines. Grice (1981) introduced the term implicature for the case in which
what the speaker meant, implied, or suggested is distinct from what the speaker said. It means
that a speaker may express his/her idea indirectly to the speaker. It is considered less polite or
it may hurt the addressees feelings if it is delivered directly. In Javanese, it is not always
necessary for the speaker to express his/her feeling directly because of the culture of having
tanggap ing sasmita a good feeling or implicature, according to Grice.
For the people in the western part of Java island, or better known as the province of
West Java, they can not be referred to as 'the Javanese' , residents in the province is better
known as 'Sundanese' .
Physically it is difficult to distinguish between the Sundanese and Javanese. The
differences are apparent as residents of the island of Java, will be evident in terms of their
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culture, including language, preferred food and art owned. Unlike the 'Javanese' the majority
living in the region of Central Java, Yogyakarta and East Java, the Sundanese are not using
the Java language but the language of 'Sunda'.
Javanese and Sundanese obviously have significant differences. Besides have
differences in spelling, pronunciation and meaning, the Java language is more dominant with
the use of vocal 'O' at the end of a word either when giving names of people or place names,
such as Sukarno, Suharto, Yudhoyono, Purwokerto, Solo and Ponorogo. While the dominant
Sundanese ending in the letter 'A' as Nana Sutresna, Wiranata, Iskandar Dinata, Purwakarta
and Majalaya.
For the people of Indonesia in general, Sundanese communities known love to eat
vegetables or leaves as 'lalaban' (vegetables are eaten raw with chili). For the Sundanese,
leaves and sambal is one of the main menu on every meal in addition to other side dishes
such as fish and meat. Besides culture and food, Sundanese is famous for his character that
are gentle and insistent. They behave well towards immigrants or Sundanese call as 'someaah
hade semah ka'.
4. Javanese and Sundanese Language
Java language has rules of vocabulary and intonation differences based on the
relationship between the speakers, which is known as the unggah-ungguh. This linguistic
aspect has a strong social influence in Javanese culture.
For example :Ora means can not which is kinda rough word and only can be
used if the people who talked with us within the same age or below, if it's subtle language is
mboten that can be use if we talked to elderly people.
It is almost impossible to speak Javanese politely without comprehending and
applying these cultural concepts. Speaking Javanese, therefore, cannot only rely on ones
vocabulary and grammar (morpho-syntax), but also on the comprehensiveness of the
Javanese culture (pragmatics). In other words, the uniqueness of the Javanese politeness is
the result of the reflection of the Javanese culture.
Unlike Javanese, the Sundanese language has several levels or what we call as
speech levels, ranging from lemes pisan (very polite), panengah (rather polite), up to kasar
pisan (crude). The nature of social relationship interlocutors influences selection of speech
levels. Many of Sundanese people, especially those living in urban areas no longer use such
language in speaking. As happened in the crowded centers of Bandung and Bogor, where a
lot of people who no longer uses the language. Some dialects in Sundanese, among other
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dialects Sunda-Banten, Bogor Sundanese dialect, dialect-priyangan Sunda, Sunda-Java

dialect, and several other dialects that have been mixed with Javanese and Malay due to the
influence of Javanese culture during the reign of the kingdom of Mataram Islam.
5. Miscommunication in verbal communication between Javanese and Sundanese
Some example of miscommunication between Sundanese and Javanese:
A.
Sundanese (father in law) that has a javanese in-law names Rono. This conversation
happens at evening when Rono just come back from work.
Bapak : Kenapa baru pulang, No?
Rono : Iya Pak saya tadi habis lembur..
Bapak : Oh kita baru selesai makan malam, kamu belum makan kan, No?
Rono : Iya Pak saya mandi dulu setelah itu makan Pak.
Bapak : Yasudah..

After one 30 minutes Rono had finish taking a bath and he directly had his dinner with
family.
Rono : *taking his dinner*
Bapak : *glancing to Rono*
Rono : Dahar Pak... *offering food to father in-law*
Bapak : *stare at Rono* Apa kamu bilang? Dahar? kurang ajar kamu ini saya disamakan
dengan seusiamu kalo bicara *father in-law looks angry*
Rono : *confused* Loh Bapak kok malah memarahi saya, saya kan menawari Bapak
dahar..
Bapak : Kamu ini dasar menantu tidak sopan..

Conversation above is an example of misunderstanding in cross culture

communication because the using of a word dahar.
The word dahar in sundanese is a basic word which means eat but the using of this
word is only for a person with the same age, but in Javanese dahar is only used for an
elderly person to show respect. These two people didnt understand each other culture that is
why miscommunication could be happened.
B.
Vivy comes from sunda and her friends siti from Pekalongan (Javanese)
Vivy: Siti,,, tolong kakak belikan gedang di pasar. Few minutes later siti comes and
brings some banana.
The banana is not the thing that Vivy wants since gedang in sundanese means papaya,
and gedang in Javanese means banana.
C.
This conversation occurs in public toilet when Tono (Javanese) were inside the toilet
and Sutrisna (Sundanese) waiting outside.
Sutrisna : Atos mas Tono?
Tono : *silent*, and a few minutes Tono coming out from the Toilet.
Tono : Atos ndas mu!*angry*
Sutrisna: *Confused why Tono angry him*
Miscommunication occurs in this conversation since atos in Javanese means hard, and
atos in Sundanese means finish.
Some other similar words in Javanese and Sundanese that might become
miscommunication are:

Javanese : Kasep : Late

Sundanese: Kasep: Handsome

Javanese Geulis; gelis(read) : Fast

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Sundanase: Geulis : beautiful

To prevent this kind of miscommunications between cultures we need to study and

understand other culture that might involves in our live, especially if the culture is actually
really close to each other.

References

Grice, H. P. (1975). Logic and conversation. In P. Cole, & J. L. Morgan (Eds.), Journal of
syntax and semantics, 3, (pp. 41-58). New York: Academic Press.

Grice, H. P. (1981). Presupposition and conversational implicature. In P. Cole (Ed.),

Radical pragmatics (pp. 183-198). New York: Academic Press.