UNS — The Linguistic, Literature, and Culture International Seminar was held by the Faculty of Cultural Studies (FIB) Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta on Friday (17/12/2021). The hybrid international seminar was held offline from Ruang seminar Building III FIB UNS and online through the Zoom Cloud Meeting application.
Four speakers were invited to the two-session seminar that received high enthusiasm from FIB students and faculty members, with a total of 90 participants from undergraduate to doctoral programs attending the international seminar.
As reported by fib.uns.ac.id, two Linguistics experts shared their expertise in the first session of the seminar. They were Prof. Wayan Arka from Australian National University and Dr. FX. Sawardi, M. Hum from FIB UNS. Prof. Wayan discussed the linguistic complexity of Bahasa Indonesia affected by time dimension, marked with the use of word ‘mau’ (want/will).
“The word “mau” in Bahasa Indonesia is complex from functional to structure,” Prof. Wayan stated in his Categorial Gradience, Grammaticalisation and Prototype Theory in Linguistic: Evidence from Indonesia Languages presentation.
The next speaker, the head of Master Program in Linguistics FIB, Dr. FX. Sawardi discussed the Language Richness and Linguistics Development in Indonesia. Dr. FX. Sawardi stated that Bahasa Indonesia has 718 languages, according to a study conducted by Badan Bahasa (Language Board) in 2019.
The second day of the seminar was spent with two speakers from foreign universities—Prof. Frank Dhont from the National Cheng Kung University and Prof. Norhayati Ab. Rahman, from Akademi Pengkajian Melayu (APM), University of Malaya (UM). Prof. Frank Dhont discussed the power to maintain and protect culture and gave an example of Semar’s character that does not exist in the original story. “But in Indonesia, Semar becomes a character that is close to the Javanese culture that brings beauty and power of a culture,” he added.
The closing discussion from Prof. Norhayati Ab. Rahman focused on the collaboration in language and literature among Southeast Asian countries and a discussion on several notable Indonesian writers, such as Rendra, Sapardi Djoko Damono, and Ajib Rosidi.
The seminar meets the expectation of Prof. Warto, the Dean of FIB UNS, who hoped that the seminar could run excitingly. Participants took turns to discuss with the invited speakers.
“I hope this international seminar could bring a warm discussion, sharing of experiences on linguistics, and improve the knowledge continuously,” Prof. Warto stated. Humas UNS
Reporter: Alinda Hardiantoro
Editor: Dwi Hastuti