Morphological Forms and Metaphorical Dynamics of Banana Lexicon in Balinese Language: An Ecolinguistics Study

Abstract : This paper aims at (1) describing and analyzing the morphological forms of the Balinese lexicon on bananas, (2) analyzing the categories’ and revealing their dynamics, and (3) describing metaphors related to bananas and revealing their dynamics. Structural linguistic and Ecolinguistics theories proposed by Haugen are used for the analysis which refer to the three objectives. The data was collected through interview and observation methods; qualitative method was applied on the analysis of banana forms, the categories, as well as its metaphors. The dynamics of the lexicon were analyzed based on quantitative methods and descriptive-analytic technique. The results of the analysis were presented by using formal and informal methods completed with inductive and deductive techniques. The results of the analysis show (1) the morphological forms of the banana lexicon in Balinese are base forms (free morphemes), derived forms (affixed, reduplications, compound words, and phrasal forms); (2) the vocabulary of the banana lexicon consists of categories such as: 16 nouns, 16 numbers, 21 verbs, and 25 adjectives. Traditionally there are 18 types of bananas. In relation to the dynamics of banana lexicon there are found 4new names of bananas. The knowledge of the banana’s terms shows a decrease from generation to generation. This is evidenced by the results of the questioners for the older generation to adults, for the adolescents both the terms, the category of bananas and the knowledge of the Balinese metaphor for bananas.