Religious performance in Malang, Indonesia: Linguistic landscape on worship sign

Abstract

The name of worship place is closely related to history, ideology, power, and social. Naming a worship place is a symbol of how power represented through text in public spaces. This study aims to look at an environmental print by investigating the performance of religions in Malang, Indonesia, through the use of language in the names of worship places. Data was taken through photography totaling 157 names of worship place including mosques, churches, Buddhist temples, Hindu temples, and Chinese temples. Linguistic landscape analysis carried out to investigate information and symbolic functions. The results show that writing the name of a place of worship involves seven languages, namely Bahasa Indonesia, Arabic, English, Javanese, Sanskrit, Dutch, and Chinese. Monolingual, bilingual, and multilingual forms emerge with Bahasa Indonesia involvement in all patterns. These findings indicate that Bahasa Indonesia has a high level of language competence in society, in addition to language policy, power, and prestige. Bahasa Indonesian used in all places of worship. It also found in English. These two languages combine to support the existence of religious ideologies in the region. Other languages are only able to characterize religious and ethnic identities.