The myth of Ken Dedes in the mother cult of East Javanese society

Ken Dedes is a figure who is remembered by the East Java community through myth and folklore. The myth of Ken Dedes is related to her figure as the primary woman who keeps the secret of radiant beauty, intelligence, and the mother who gave birth to the kings of Java. This study aims to find the reflection of people's memories about Ken Dedes and to find the cult of the mother from her figure. This research used a descriptive qualitative method with anthropological and psychological approaches. The results of the study show that Ken Dedes is remembered and reflected in the views of the people of East Java. From this reflection, the memory of Ken Dedes' serves as a projection or wishful thinking, an education tool, and a way of justification. In addition, in the context of the patriarchal society of East Java, Ken Dedes is a form of mother cult. In conclusion, the memory and reflection of Ken Dedes in East Javanese society have different variants based on the category of young and adult or old age. Meanwhile, the cult of the mother of a patriarchal society is legitimacy of throne.

Active and passive voice in Bulungan Language

Bulungan Language as one of the langugaes in North Kalimantan Province has scattered speakers in 8 sub-districts. As language with scattered speakers made Bulungan Language get less attention from language researcher dan linguist to describe it thoroughly. Bulungan language has active voice and passive voice as part of its grammar which has not been studied furtherly yet. Then, the rseracher take this chance to discuss active voice and passive voice in the Bulungan language in this study. This research employed qualitative descriptive research. The data used in this study was oral data directly taken from the native Bulungan speakers. The data collection technique used in this study was by listening technique and the note-taking technique. This study revealed that the active and passive voice of the Bulungan language had different markers but same passive voice property across languages.

Who is afraid of the Gods? Rethinking escapism in Nigerian dramatic literature

Escapism can mean different things to diverse sets of people in various fields of study. To some people, it can mean escape to reality, while some can denote it as an escape to entertainment or distraction from boredom. Escapism in this paper takes a different turn and adopts the term to identify how different decisions can be influenced in any socio-cultural setting. Using South Western Nigeria as a case study, this paper questions the possible interpretations of escapism and the extent to which leaders, especially, identify with them. This paper uses Ahmed Yerima's Sacred Mutters and Iyase to explore the issue of misinterpretation and human machination to escape punishment from the gods. "Sacred Mutters" and "Iyase" highlight leaders' plight before their ascension into power, and the issue of human carelessness, and how he or she is misguided by his or her own intellectual and spiritual interests. The paper argues that modernization and Westernisation had crippled most of the significant and core aspects of African norms, values, and traditions. This degradation has affected the criminal justice system of the people. Against this background, the paper adopts Olawole Famule's connective cultural theory to explore escapism, misinterpretation, and machination in Nigerian discourse. The paper concludes that escapism is the main cause of corruption in the socio-political landscape of Nigeria and calls for a return to traditional African system.

Language use variation of L2 writers in weblog across different gender and genres

Despite the growing interest in investigating learners’ corpora, surprisingly little research has been conducted on the language use of L2 writers and its relation to the gender and genres in writing. Therefore, this study was aimed to find out the variation of language use in different genres or gender in weblogs, one of popular modes of computer-mediated communication (CMC). The study was done by conducting multivariate analysis using R program to weblog entries from a sample balanced of author gender (female or male) and weblog genre (diary or filter). Taking linguistic preferential features by Argamon et al (2003) and Pennebaker (2011) as dependent variables, the effect of genres or gender toward the use of the features was analyzed. The results showed that significant effects of several features can be considered as predictors. Personal pronouns and hedges (I think, and I believe) were found as predictors for diary; while the indefinite articles a/an and numbers were found as predictors for filter. As for the different language use by gender, female predictors were personal pronoun, verbs, negation, certainty words, and hedges. Meanwhile, the indefinite articles a/an, numbers, and preposition were the predictors of male writers.

Strategies and creativity used by fansubbers in subtitling 'Hot and Young Seoul Trip X NCT Life' to overcome language barriers

This research focuses on the subtitling strategies and creative subtitling used in translating the Korean variety show Hot and Young Seoul Trip X NCT LIFE (2018) into Indonesian and the impact of fan subtitles to overcome language barriers. In order to draw more understanding, qualitative content analysis was applied to describe the subtitling strategies and creative subtitling used by the fansubbers in producing Indonesian subtitles. An online survey was conducted to determine the impact of the subtitling from the fans' perspective. The research findings on subtitling strategies were obtained from 1599 data and showed that there were eight strategies applied in this research. Amid those strategies, transfer with 1434 data found is the most used strategy, followed by imitation, dislocation, expansion, paraphrase, transcription, condensation, and deletion. Then, the creative subtitling used in the work using different colors, fonts, and punctuation that is influenced by field (topic), tenor (relationship), and mode (circumstances). The online survey results prescribe that the subtitles of the fan help the audience overcome language barriers by producing translated audiovisual content into their language. Therefore, the fansubbers' decision to combine subtitling strategies and creative subtitling helps the foreign audiences overcome language barriers

Sugiharti Halim (2008): A Cinematic Portrayal of Chinese Indonesian's Ambiguous Identity

Sugiharti Halim (2008) provides a cinematic insight into the lives of Chinese Indonesians whose identities are perpetually labeled as liyan (other) in the eyes of the inlanders (pribumi). It narrates the story of Sugiharti Halim, a Chinese Indonesian girl, who struggles with her Indonesian sounding name which, instead of successfully assimilating her Chinese identity, makes her even more Chinese than before. This study aims to investigate the cinematic portrayal of Chinese Indonesian’s ambiguous identity as experienced by the female protagonist. The writer employs close textual analysis of the indie film and approaches the issue by the reading of cinematic codes (mise en scene) and the theoretical perspective of name giving developed by Watzlawik in 2016. The conflict highlited in this “indie” criticizes the position of Chinese filmmaker for being pigeoholed on the ground of their ethnicity as portrayed in most commercial films which put Chinese more as a marginalized group. Therefore, the study reveals that films have become a new means of politicizing the interest of certain ethnic group which somehow puts the Chinese Indonesians in their most vulnerable position. The study also concludes that independent films help the young Chinese filmmakers to reconnect with their Chinese heritage as they begin to pick up bits of their Chineseness which were previously miscontrued by the inherited ideals of the New Order regime.

Double colonization of Rhodesian women in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s 'Nervous Conditions'

Nervous Conditions focuses on the story of the Shona family living in a patriarchal culture in Rhodesia during the postcolonial era in the 1960s. Rhodesia was a former British colony, so the legacy of colonialism and its influence is not that easy to go away. Hence, those who were colonized, or the locals experience many problems to cope with, especially women. Therefore, the study aims to examine the postcolonial issues in the novel dealing with double colonization. The objectives of the study were to describe and explain how the novel builds the themes related to postcolonialism and how the women living in patriarchy experienced oppression from male relatives as well as a colonial power. The study was done qualitatively using a content analysis method. The data were analyzed using Edward Said’s theory of Orientalism. The findings showed the story highlighted the themes of patriarchy and cultural contestation which affect the lives of the female characters. Then, the findings explained how the female characters were oppressed traditionally and colonially. Therefore, it showed how women were doubly colonized by males and Western domination. Thus, they had not been able to get full authority since they were trapped between both.

The ‘Other’ physical transformations in 'The Adventures of Tintin' TV series

Describing a race through the verbal and visual description of physical appearance is often used to create binary opposition between ‘Us’ and ‘Other’, so it does in The Adventures of Tintin comic books by Hergé. In The Adventures of Tintin TV series adaptation (1991-2) by Stéphane Bernasconi, ‘Other’s verbal and visual physical depictions that are portrayed in the comic books undergo transformations that occur on non-White characters. These transformations－changes, additions, and omissions－ can be clearly seen in the Tintin TV series entitled The Blue Lotus, Cigars of the Pharaoh, and The Broken Ear that are adapted from the comic books of the same titles. The theory of adaptation by Linda Hutcheon and Orientalism by Edward Said are used to reveal and explain the adapter’s strategies to make the skin colours, costume, and deformity moderation and negotiation in order that the TV series can be accepted by the audience around the world today.

The discussion of body in 'Every Day' by David Levithan

In the novel Every Day by David Levithan, there exists a profound discussion about body through its protagonist A’s life, its plot, dialogues, and events that unfold. This paper uses qualitative textual analysis as its methods in order to obtain relevant data to be further analyzed using the theoretical framework from Stuart Hall (theory of representation (2013)) and Chris Shilling (The Body and Social Theory (2003)). Through the indexical signs from the text, there are discussions of how the body is represented, which are as something superficial, as a mask, and as something temporary. Through the analysis of the social body, it is also found that the body has become a social asset in which it could also contribute to one’s self-identity, creating the body as a project that one could work on throughout one’s life. Consequently, the metaphor of body as a machine appears, as well as the revelation that there is also a close relation between death and the body. Through death, the social body is reduced into individual body, where the living often avoids the dead, fearing subconsciously of their own. These aspects could be observed from A’s life and Rhiannon’s response towards it.

Skin whitening as a menace to African identity through Tony Morrison's 'The Bluest Eyes': An Afrocentric examination

The African democratic forces, among other things, aimed to resuscitate and re-essentialise African identities that the colonial administration had endangered earlier. These autonomous corps dispensed mechanisms to champion Africanism and conscientise African natives about their heritage. The cherishing of African identities automated decolonial shifts and inculcated an urge into Africans to be proud of who they are and where they come from. Notwithstanding these efforts, the study diagnoses skin whitening as a stubborn nemesis that menaces the authenticity of Africanism in the present day. Many Africans, especially black women appear to be gravitated to skin whitening. This act embraces the attempt to alter one’s dark skin tone to be bright. Most of the skin whiteners are postulated to whiten their skins in an effort to qualify into the modern-day Eurocentric criterions of beauty at the expense of their black (African) identity. This paper employed a qualitative methodology and has relied on secondary data to unveil the extent to which skin whitening imperils African identities. It has employed Morrison’s The Bluest Eyes as a lens to crystalise the impacts of skin whitening on Africanism. The study has discovered that the skin-whitening phenomenon epitomises and perpetuates Eurocentric ideologies and it is preferred by most women because of the assumed glory that comes with the white identity such as social class, privilege, attractiveness, favour, and admiration.