Transmitting Environmental Educational Values through Javanese Traditional Children’s Play Songs: An Ecolinguistic Study
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24071/joll.v26i2.1989Keywords:
ecolinguistics, environmental education, Javanese ecological worldview, traditional children’s play songsAbstract
The inheritance of environmental education values is an important aspect in building ecological awareness from an early age, especially through traditional oral culture. One form of oral culture that plays a strategic role in this process is traditional children's play songs that are passed down from generation to generation. The present study aims to describe the environmental education values represented and inherited through Javanese traditional children's play songs from an ecolinguistic perspective. The present study employs a descriptive qualitative approach, underpinned by an ecolinguistic theoretical framework. This theoretical framework conceptualises language as a social practice that interacts dynamically with the natural and cultural environment. The research data consists of the lyrics of seven Javanese traditional children's play songs, which were collected through documentation and interviews with cultural informants. The results of the analysis demonstrate that Javanese traditional children's play songs constitute a coherent and ideological ecological representation system, rooted in an agrarian cosmology that positions nature as a moral, symbolic, and social entity. The depiction of fauna, flora, and landscapes transcends mere description, serving as a conduit for articulating the harmonious and sustainable relationship between humans and nature. Structurally and pragmatically, repetition, parallelism, metaphor, and onomatopoeia function as cognitive-pedagogical mechanisms that internalize ecological ethics through collective musical practices that are educational, regulatory, and affective. Thus, Javanese traditional children’s play songs can be understood as a form of beneficial ecolinguistic discourse as well as a model of eco-pedagogy based on local wisdom that is relevant for strengthening ecological literacy.
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