In contemporary democratic societies, political apologies have evolved into strategic rhetorical acts used by state leaders to manage public perception, repair moral standing, and reinforce political values. In Indonesia, President Joko Widodo’s public apology near the end of his presidency attracted widespread attention and provoked discourse about its underlying ideological motives. Rather than a spontaneous expression of regret, the apology appeared to be a calculated act of political communication, shaped by cultural values and designed to influence the public’s perception of his leadership. This study aims to uncover the ideological tendencies embedded in Jokowi’s apology by analyzing how the apology is represented in two prominent English-language newspapers in Indonesia, The Jakarta Post (TJP) and The Jakarta Globe (TJG). It seeks to determine how transitivity choices in the language are used to convey deeper political and cultural meanings. Employing a qualitative research design supported by quantitative content analysis, the study integrates Fairclough's Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), particularly the transitivity framework, to examine 43 clauses extracted from news articles published in TJP and TJG. The transitivity analysis reveals that material processes dominate the discourse (40.5%), followed by mental (25.5%) and verbal (23.2%) processes. In terms of participant roles, Actor and Sayer occur most frequently, indicating that Jokowi strategically presented himself as an active doer and a sincere speaker. These linguistic patterns suggest a deliberate construction of identity, emphasizing responsibility, empathy, and leadership. The analysis further shows how Jokowi's apology aligns with Javanese cultural ideals of humility and Islamic values of repentance, which are embedded in Indonesian socio-political discourse. The findings contribute to a broader understanding of how political apologies are not only personal but also ideological acts embedded in media discourse. This study highlights the usefulness of integrating CDA and SFL in uncovering how language functions to maintain power, shape public memory, and preserve political legitimacy in post-presidency contexts. It also underscores the cultural specificity of apology strategies in Indonesia, suggesting that future discourse studies consider local traditions and values when analyzing political speech.
As global environmental crises continue to grow, greater attention to indigenous ecological knowledge is urgently needed. This study explores the ecological narratives embedded in the oral tradition of Gending Seblang Olehsari within the Osing community, Banyuwangi, East Java Province, Indonesia, through a decolonial ecolinguistic perspective, and examines its role as cultural resistance against hegemonic environmental discourse. In positioning this study within contemporary ecolinguistic and decolonial scholarship, the research emphasizes the urgency of recovering marginalized ecological epistemologies that have been systematically silenced by colonial and modern development paradigms. Employing qualitative methods, the research analyzes oral texts, engages in participatory observation of rituals, and conducts in-depth interviews with community leaders. This methodological design allows the study to capture not only linguistic structures, but also the socio-cultural, historical, and cosmological dimensions through which environmental meaning is produced and sustained in everyday community practices. The findings demonstrate that Gending Seblang embodies ecological symbols, such as kembang gadhung (toxic flower) and ombak umbul (ocean wave), which reflect the Osing cosmology of harmonious and sustainable human–nature relations. These symbols operate as ecological signifiers that encode ethical principles of restraint, reciprocity, and interdependence between human and non-human life forms, offering an alternative worldview to anthropocentric environmental models. Metaphors including Seblang Lukinta (trance upon nature’s bed) and Layar Kumendhung (critique of ecological colonialism) function as linguistic strategies to preserve local knowledge while resisting exploitative Western logic. Through these metaphors, the Osing people articulate a counter-narrative that challenges the reduction of nature into mere economic resources and reasserts indigenous cosmology as a valid and authoritative system of ecological knowledge. The study concludes that this oral tradition is not merely intangible cultural heritage, but a living knowledge system significant for ecological decolonization movements. As such, Gending Seblang should be understood as an active site of epistemic resistance that continues to shape community identity, environmental ethics, and political consciousness.These insights provide a new perspective on integrating local wisdom into environmental policy and sustainability education. Ultimately, this research demonstrates that the preservation of oral traditions is inseparable from the pursuit of ecological justice, particularly in the context of accelerating environmental crises and the enduring legacy of colonial environmental governance.
This study aims to describe and analyze the structure, function, translation techniques, methods, and ideology applied in the translation of three-word lexical bundles found in the book At-Taqrib Matan Abi Syuja’ (The Abridged Manual of Islamic Law by Abū Shujāʿ). In addition, this study seeks to reveal how recurring linguistic patterns in classical Arabic religious discourse interact with translation strategies and ideological orientation in the target language. This research is driven by the linguistic uniqueness of Arabic word groups, which differ significantly from those in other languages, such as English and Indonesian, in both their structural formation and communicative function. These differences create considerable challenges for translators, particularly when dealing with religious texts that require high levels of accuracy, consistency, and cultural sensitivity. To address this issue, a descriptive qualitative approach was used, involving data recording and sampling techniques to collect Arabic three-word groups, which were then analyzed using domain, taxonomy, component, and cultural theme analyses. The data were obtained from the chapter on prayer in At-Taqrib, as this section contains a high density of formulaic expressions related to time, procedure, and legal instruction. The findings show that most three-word lexical bundles appear in the form of prepositional phrases that function primarily as markers of location and time in the text. These forms are followed by noun phrases and verb phrases, each contributing specific discourse functions within the legal explanation. These patterns indicate that Arabic lexical bundles not only fulfill syntactic purposes but also play a crucial role in forming text cohesion and conveying contextual meaning. From a translation perspective, translators tend to emphasize the source language through frequent use of literal and semantic translation techniques, with limited application of communicative or idiomatic methods. This preference reflects the translators’ intention to preserve the original meaning, structure, and religious authority of the source text. It reflects an ideology of foreignization that aims to preserve the linguistic and cultural features of the Arabic text while minimizing adaptation to the target language. Such ideological positioning is particularly important in the translation of Islamic legal texts, where deviation from the source may affect theological interpretation. Overall, this study provides insight into the complex relationship between linguistic form, translation strategies, and ideological attitudes. The results show that translators' preference for source-oriented methods contributes to maintaining the sacred tone and authenticity of the text in religious discourse.
In the digital age, AI has become essential in translation, providing fast solutions for overcoming language barriers. This is particularly important for the accurate translation of cultural elements within tourism promotional texts, which is crucial for achieving effective destination marketing. This study examines the translation result of ChatGPT and Google Translate, advanced AI-powered translation tools, in translating a tourism promotional text from the Jadesta Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy, Indonesia. In detail, the study aims to answer any cultural aspects that are lost in the translation resulting from ChatGPT and Google Translate and to explore to what extent translation results favor source language orientation (foreignization) or target language orientation (domestication). Using cultural categorization from Chen (2024) to address translation loss and the concept of translation techniques from Molina and Albir (2002), a qualitative approach was applied to compare the translations of cultural references from ChatGPT and Google Translate. The steps of the study involved selecting a suitable tourism promotional text that contained culturally significant terms. The text was then translated using both ChatGPT and Google Translate, and the translations were evaluated based on their ability to convey cultural meaning. Expert validation was sought to ensure accuracy, followed by a qualitative analysis of the types and instances of cultural loss in each translation, leading to insights about the limitations of both tools in translating cultural terms. The findings reveal significant translation loss in terms of historical background, aesthetic imagery, local customs, and religion. Both ChatGPT and Google Translate show a cultural loss in translating local customs. Local custom terms are deeply ingrained in the source culture and often lack direct equivalents in the target language, making them particularly vulnerable to cultural loss during translation. Then, both tools predominantly employ pure borrowing techniques to preserve their cultural source and literal translation to ensure accuracy at the linguistic level but often overlook cultural and contextual values. In addition, both tools demonstrate a preference for source language orientation (foreignization). However, ChatGPT performs better than Google Translate due to its lower percentage of foreignization compared to Google Translate.
Alongside the Tūfānu 'l-ʔAqṣā or 'Al-Aqsa Flood' operation, the phenomenon of boycotting Israel was once again discussed around the world. This boycott caused a decrease in revenue for several Israeli companies in Muslim countries, including Arab countries. Media as one of the institutions that participate in shaping public image and opinion on various matters certainly has a hand in the spread of boycott propaganda. Moreover, media such as Al Jazeera which has a wide reach and high credibility in Arab countries, play a significant role in the spread of boycott propaganda. One of the features used by the media, which can construct a person's concepts and arguments fundamentally, as well as persuade, is metaphor. Moreover, one of the metaphors that is widely used in various fields, especially politics, to attract public attention and create influence is the war metaphor. This study aims to describe the conceptual metaphor of war and to reveal the ideology behind the use of war metaphors in the Israel boycott discourse on the Al Jazeera Arabic online newspaper. This study reveals that the war metaphor is not merely linguistic, but also expresses Al Jazeera’s ideological stance, shaping public perception of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, especially regarding the boycott. The news data source was obtained from the Al Jazeera Arabic online newspaper since the Tūfānu ‘l-ʔAqṣā or 'Al-Aqsa Flood' operation from 7 October 2023 to 31 May 2024. This qualitative descriptive study analyzes metaphors through three stages of Critical Metaphor Analysis: metaphor identification using MIP, interpretation using conceptual metaphor theory, and explanation. A total of 74 metaphorical expressions were identified from 12 war-related lexemes. All war metaphors frame the boycott positively by highlighting its urgency, power, effectiveness, and impact, especially within the context of Palestinian resistance. These findings indicate that Al Jazeera aligns with the ideology of resistance and promotes it through metaphorical framing. The significance of this study lies in its contribution to understanding how ideological war metaphors influence public perception and mobilize political action. It sheds light on the rhetorical strategies of Arab media in shaping resistance discourse, offering broader insight into the role of language in geopolitical narratives.
