Manns, H. (2010). Indonesian slang in Internet Chatting. In S. Babatunde, A. Odebunmi, A. Adetunji & M. Adedimeji (eds.), Studies in Slang and Slogans (pp. 71- 99). Munich: Lincom. INDONESIAN SLANG IN INTERNET CHATTING By Howard Manns Monash University ABSTRACT Indonesian subculture has long been a breeding ground for linguistic innovation, whether it the language of Jakarta gangsters, homosexuals or young people. This study examines how a relatively new subculture, Indonesian Internet users, fits into this tradition. Furthermore, it uses the Internet as a framework for discussing the phonological, morphological and lexical qualities of Indonesian slang. An examination of the language of Yahoo! Instant Messenger and interviews with chatters in East Java suggest that on the Internet, chatters partake in the Jakarta dialect fearless of the censure that sometimes occurs in non-Jakarta communities where they might be accused of dibuat buat ‘being phoney’. Furthermore, male chatters freely use slang which outside of the medium sometimes carries feminine stigmatisation. The Internet offers to Indonesian chatters an environment lacking in societal pressures, to researchers the opportunity to study Indonesian slang without the observer’s paradox, and, via weak social network ties, an ideal medium for the spread of Indonesian slang. INTRODUCTION When Bakhtin wrote “[s]uch speech forms, liberated from norms, hierarchies, and prohibitions of established idiom, become themselves a peculiar argot and create a special collectivity, a group of people initiated, a group of people initiated in familiar intercourse, who are frank and free in expressing themselves verbally” he had the marketplace language of French writer Rabelais’ novels in mind (1984, p. 188).