Linguistic Regulation and Nation Character Building: The Neglected Phase of Development

Abstract

Due to the advancement of technology and science; the effect of globalization cannot be avoided by any countries in the world. Therefore, every country has to simultaneously apply the sustainable development in various aspects such as environment, sociopolitical (social and political), and economy. The sociopolitical sustainability aspect consists of several dimensions such as language, science, culture, etc. However, in some developing countries, the sustainable development is more focused on economic sectors, like how to increase the national income or how to improve the export volume. Language as one of the essential aspects in sociopolitical sustainability is often neglected. It is closely related to the nation character building, which is the basic foundation for the development of each country. Nation character has two basic principles: religionism and nationalism. The principal of nationalism is extremely important in international relationship. Language is one of the most crucial aspects in the principal of nationalism because language reflects the identity of a nation. This paper is based on a qualitative research to portray the role of language (local and foreign language) and the urgency of language in every aspect of the national sustainable development by using discourse analysis approach. The analysis is intertextually supported by some previous empirical studies about the role of language in the development of countries. The analysis shows that some languages are specifically used in certain aspect of development. For example, English that is specifically used for international economy. In another side, local or national language is only used in social and culture. Therefore, some people start asking a question about the existence of local language. From the literary review, the writers conclude that every country needs to formulate linguistic regulation or legislation in order to regulate the role of language (local and foreign) in some aspects of sustainable development. This regulation will support the sustainable development in the future. Lastly, the writers provide this paper with our hypothesis about the rules needed in the construction of linguistic regulation or legislation.

Keywords: discourse analysis, globalization, linguistics regulation, nation character building, sustainable development