Understanding Different Rhetorical Preferences between English and Indonesian

Indonesian IELTS candidates are categorised into EFL learners, i.e. they learn English as a foreign language. A number of Indonesian EFL learners struggle with IELTS despite the fact that they have completed their university or tertiary education.

This article discusses different rhetorical preferences between English and Indonesian. Rhetoric means ways of effective communication, including in speaking and writing. In this case, Indonesian should realise that when taking IELTS, they engage in the language assessment which has been agreed by English discourse communities.

By knowing that English and Indonesian are two languages from two different discourse communities, Indonesian IELTS takers are expected to activate agreed features of English when taking the test. Here are top three different rhetorical preferences between Indonesian and English in academic or professional domains:

1. Main ideas

While Indonesian might express their main ideas at the beginning or at the end of the sentences, English discourse communities prefer the main ideas to be expressed at the beginning.

Therefore, when writing a professional email in the IELTS Writing Task 1 General Training, the purpose of the email is generally stated after the greeting (Dear Mr/Ms. X) or before the body email. In the IELTS Writing Task 2 Academic, main ideas are effectively written as first sentences in each body paragraph.

2. Tenses

While Indonesian verbs are consistent due to the absence of different tenses, English generally consists of three major forms of verbs. These forms of verbs are different based on the tenses.

In this case, IELTS candidates are expected to use numerous tenses in speaking and writing to achieve a higher score.

3. Vocabulary

Indonesian is a relatively young language compared to English. When engaging in an English test particularly IELTS, Indonesian candidates should demonstrate a good range of vocabulary as an indication of their proficiency level.

Historically speaking, one of the factors that English has become a global language nowadays is colonisation. It has absorbed and borrowed vocabulary from more than 350 languages around the world, including Indonesian heritage (search “batik” and “orangutan” on https://dictionary.cambridge.org/).

In contrast, Indonesian was the language of resistance rooted from Malay during the Dutch colonisation. In fact, Dutch was introduced as a structured language with a wide range of vocabulary. However, Indonesian fighters opted for Indonesian to become the language of unification.

While people in India and Malaysia speak English as a second language (ESL), Indonesian people have not been interested in Dutch being their second language. There are some borrowed words from Dutch, such as Indonesian “dosen” from Dutch “docent” and “bioskop” from “bioscoop”. However, Dutch and English remain foreign languages since Indonesian rhetoric is more preferred, e.g. Indonesian structures and vocabulary are easier to learn and understand.

Overall, this article does not say that the rhetorical preference of English is better than Indonesian, and vice versa. This article encourages Indonesian learners to know that English and Indonesian have different ideas of effective communication. They should activate the agreed or expected features of English when taking IELTS General Training or Academic.

Author: Norma Sholikah. Norma completed her Master of Applied Linguistics at the University of Sydney, Australia. She is now doing her doctoral degree in Linguistics at Universitas Indonesia.