The impact of globalization, language policy, and language learning on identity construction: an ethnographic case study of a high school community in Bima, Indonesia

An ethnographic case study of the impact of globalization, language policy, and language learning on identity construction was carried out at a public high school (Sekolah Menengah Atas Negeri [SMAN]) 1 Balada in Bima Regency, Indonesia mainly during June, July, and August of 2014. This research aims to find out the relationship between the emergence of English, the diffusion of Indonesian, and the maintenance of local language and culture in terms of practices in multilingual Bimanese context; to examine how national educational policy on language is translated into practice in Bimanese school community; and to explore how the school community members incorporate ideologies of globalization, national language policy, and local language and culture into the construction of their social identities. Analyses of questionnaires, interview transcripts, observation and interview fieldnotes, and curricular documents reveal the impact of globalization and Indonesia' language policy has manifested in the enriched linguistic repertoire among Bimanese speakers, marked with the multiple languages spoken by the speakers, code-mixing in the speakers' discourse, enriched Bimanese vocabulary, and speakers' orientation towards the use of Indonesian and English despite the dominant use of Bimanese in daily communication within the community. Constructing identity in the context of multilingual Bimanese community involves tensions at different levels of policy making and implementation.