Introduction

What to do about these pairs is becoming quite important for teachers of Indonesian, as there are so many of them and the number is increasing all the time. The proportion of Western loanwords (WLWs) in the language is sufficient for it to create a distinctive style of language depending on whether a speaker favours WLWs or native words. Students and teachers have to decide: do we use them? and do we teach them?

Attitudes and Use

Australians dislike WLWs

There are several reasons why students might dislike WLWs. An important factor is ego, or pride. Students work hard to become good at Indonesian. They are proud of their ability (at whatever stage of competence they are at) and they enjoy exercising it, both for their personal satisfaction and to display their proficiency to other people. WLWs are unsatisfying for these purposes. They don't show the hearer how good you are at Indonesian (s/he is likely to think that you only know the word because it's the same as English), and they do not feel as intellectually challenging to retrieve from the memory and produce.

Another important reason WLWs may be disliked is aesthetic. I believe that WLWs sound ugly to most learners whose first language is English. The problem is that most Australian students, I would suggest, regard these words as a debased form of English. In this regard I think it is revealing how badly learners pronounce WLWs. Even good students tend to ignore all their knowledge of Indonesian sound rules and pronounce WLWs basically like the English word they resemble. I think this reveals that when they use these words they do not feel like they are speaking Indonesian.

Australians do not learn WLWs

WLWs are hard to notice

What to do about teaching WLWs?

Arguments for teaching the native word only

1. Students do not need to be taught WLWs in order to know them passively. They can comprehend them in speech and in writing without being taught them. 
2. A lot of WLWs may be used only by educated Indonesians. Therefore, even if your students go to the trouble of learning them, they can't use them to everyone they meet, whereas the 'native' word can be used more widely. It may not be appropriate to use (say) these words to a not-very-educated person you met in a small village. 
3. Some new WLWs at least may be ephemeral: they might be popular for a while but soon stop being used. (Do many WLWs in fact have a short life span? I am not certain.) If we teach such a word to our students and then it goes out of use, our students are likely to keep using it, wrongly. 

Arguments for teaching the WLW as well

1. Naturalness and appropriacy. I think it is highly appropriate for native English speakers to use WLWs, and it sounds strange when we use a style where WLWs are noticeably absent. 


I think for Indonesians, if anyone is expected to use WLWs, we are. Using WLWs is linked with being modern, having a Western outlook, knowing how to speak Western languages, qualities which we might be said to epitomise. And if we always insist on saying things like dayacipta instead of kreativitas, and daya khayal instead of imajinasi, it might sound cute - or even touching - but I think it will sound funny as well.
 

2. Flexibility of expression. Speakers have a desire to be able to choose how to express themselves, to select as they wish from their language resources, rather than being constricted by a narrow repertoire. In this regard, the ability to choose between a WLW and a native word is very satisfying. Knowing both words in a pair allows students to adjust their Indonesian more finely to the social context. 

Conclusions/Recommendations

1. For optimal teaching of WLWs, we obviously have to be sensitive to frequency. We must know when the WLW word in a pair is common, and when a native word in a pair has been largely replaced by a loan word. This kind of teaching obviously requires regular exposure to authentic Indonesian, from Indonesia. 
2. When we get the impression that a WLW is the more frequent word in a pair, then - no matter how much we personally may like the native word and dislike the Western one - I suggest we teach the WLW at least alongside the native one. 
3. When both words in the pair are very frequent, we should, sometimes at least, teach both words, together with a little information about social contexts for each. Of course it is often difficult to provide this kind of information but at least we can tell students what we do know or think we know about certain words. 
4. More generally, it is worthwhile simply to sensitise students to the issue of WLWs, when it comes up in class. Aspects worth raising with students: 

a) That WLWs exist. They should know that hundreds of native words do have a Western equivalent, and that the choices they make between WLW and native words will 'flavour' their Indonesian.

b) How they feel personally about WLWs, and why. Let points come up, such as that students may dislike using WLWs for reasons of ego, and that some students may perceive them as ugly, so they can know their own attitudes, judge whether they are rational or irrational, and decide if they want to change them.

c) That it can be hard to learn WLWs for active use. Help students to realise that they may not acquire WLWs automatically simply by being exposed to them, as they are difficult to notice in text. An implication for students is that when they do consciously notice a useful WLW, they should treat it like any other new Indonesian word, by using the same conscious techniques to learn it.

d) (Off the main topic, but perhaps worth mentioning nonetheless): That WLWs are very hard to pronounce well. Students should be aware of the problem that WLWs tend to be perceived as English words, and hence pronounced according to English sound rules.

Appendix

Paper given at the 5th ASILE (Australian Society of Indonesian Language Educators) Conference, July 8 -10, Australian National University, Canberra.