Personal Deixis Variation in Balinese: A Dialectology Study

Balinese is classified into the dialect of Lowland Balinese (LB) and the dialect of Mountain Balinese (MB). LB has a vertical variation, while MB does not. Vocabularies which are classified as Non-Refined (NR) in LB are common variants in MB. This can lead to misunderstandings for LB speakers who come from different sub-dialects. This study aimed to discuss personal deictic variations in LB both in terms of social stratification and geography. Geographically MB is represented by two villages, the village of Sembiran and the village of East Seraya, which divides MB dialect into Sembiran Dialect (SD) and East Seraya Dialect (ESD). The results of this study were expected to be useful for those who are interested in LB and Balinese in general. The theory used was dialectology theory and the theory of pragmatics related to deixis. The data were collected through elicitation methods and supported by note-taking technique. The data was analyzed by extra lingual equivalence with the techniques of extra lingual comparison; the results of the analysis were presented by means of an informal method with the deductive and inductive framework of thinking. The results of the study showed that in social stratification personal deictic variations of first person pronouns in LB titiyang, tiyang, icang, and kai are realized as oke and kaka in SD; (b)iba, uke, and wane in ESD. Personal deictic variations of singular second person pronouns in LB are ragane, cai, nyai, and iba;in SD they are realized as cai, nyai, and ngko; in ESD as cai and nyai, and in social stratification, personal deixis of third person pronouns are ida, dane, ipun, and iya in LB are realized as ya in both SD and ESD.