Abstract
This research explores how English is used in the expanding circle: tourism areas in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Although Bahasa Indonesia is the official language used, this does not mean that other languages will have a little share in the linguistic landscape. The total data used were 519 signboards which were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. This research found that in monolingual boards, the use of English was 23.7%, and Indonesian was 73.5%. The magnitude of the use of English, which is close to as salient as the use of Bahasa Indonesia, is particularly shown on the bilingual and multilingual signboards. This study highlights discussion on the representation of power of English in the investigated signboards, which was shown from the number of appearance and combination of English and other languages in the signboards. It is revealed that English is expressed not only for informative reasons but also for symbolic reasons such as indexing sophistication, cosmopolitanism, and fashionable appearance.
Highlights
This is a Linguistic landscape (LL) study which discusses multilingualism as reflected for example in public signboards, names of goverment buildings, street names, advertising billboards, commersial shops in a certain territory
From local to foreign languages, such as Sundanese, Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Spanish, Italian, and French are reported to be used less than 2%. These results suggest that Bahasa Indonesia is the most salient and English is the second most salient in the investigated signboards
Using the calculation of the distribution of languages across the signboards, identification of the languages used in primary and secondary texts (Nikolaou, 2016) and visual prominence through visual grammar analysis (Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006), this study portrays the degree of power manifested in commercial signboards in the LL of several tourism areas in Yogyakarta
Summary
This is a Linguistic landscape (LL) study which discusses multilingualism as reflected for example in public signboards, names of goverment buildings, street names, advertising billboards, commersial shops in a certain territory. Various purposes of LL studies range from understanding the reasons behind the uses and language choices, ideologies, language varieties, and contestations of multiple forms of ‘languages’ as they are displayed in public spaces, including the discussion of power representation. The discussion on the use of LL to understand the power representation of English in Yogyakarta, Indonesian context of tourism can provide insights into the wide spread of English as a lingua franca of the world (Jenkins, 2015) even in Asia region (Bolton & Bacon‐Shone, 2020) where 817 millions are speakers of English.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callMore From: ELLITE: Journal of English Language, Literature, and Teaching
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
