The Use of the Word ‘Galau’ Among Contemporary Youth

Abstract

In Indonesia, the word ‘galau’ is understood as an expression that shows negative emotions due to a serious problem and as a standard form to poetic word (written form) normally back then. According to Indonesian Dictionary (Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia) (2015), the word ‘galau’ means busy abuzz (sibuk beramai-ramai) or very crowded. In spite of this, there seems to be a shift of how it is used among Indonesian youth. Thus, this current study aims to understand how young people use the word ‘galau’ and does ‘galau’ experiencing a semantic change. The participants were one hundred students of faculty of language and literature in Satya Wacana Christian University. Questionnaires were distributed to one hundred youth of around eighteen to twenty-four years of age in any batches. The findings show that ‘galau’ is narrowing in meaning. Furthermore, the word ‘galau’ now seem to belong to more of informal register and frequently appear in daily conversation. Although, it still refers to “confused”, “sad”, or, “restless”. and the subjective level of the uncomfortable feeling seems to have decreased from ‘galau’ back then. At last but not least, I hope this research can help students to understand semantic change that happened in Indonesia.