Character Education Values of Responsibility and Chivalry in the Folktale ‘Tambun Bungai’: A Critical Discourse Analysis

Abstract

Although previous studies have explored the moral and educational values of Indonesian folklore, limited research has examined how these values are discursively constructed to represent the sociocultural ideology of the Dayak community through a CDA perspective. This study aims to describe the ethnopedagogy embodied in the character education values of responsibility and chivalry in the Dayak folktale Tambun Bungai through Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). This study employed a qualitative descriptive-interpretive approach. The data consisted of narratives, dialogues, and characters’ actions in the Tambun Bungai folktale. Data were collected through documentation and textual analysis and analyzed using Fairclough’s three-dimensional Critical Discourse Analysis framework, encompassing textual analysis, discursive practice, and social practice. The findings reveal that responsibility and chivalry are not merely portrayed as individual character traits but are ideologically constructed through linguistic choices, narrative structures, and power relations that reinforce the Dayak worldview of collective responsibility, social justice, communal solidarity, and devotion to protecting society. The discourse positions Tambun Bungai as a cultural symbol whose heroism legitimizes local norms, preserves collective identity, and transmits indigenous values across generations. These findings demonstrate that the folktale functions as an ethnopedagogical medium through which cultural knowledge and character education are socially reproduced. The novelty of this study lies in integrating ethnopedagogy with Critical Discourse Analysis to reveal how local folklore constructs and legitimizes cultural ideology, thereby offering a culturally responsive framework for character education and expanding the application of CDA in indigenous literary studies.