The role of language in economic activities in the Borobudur area: a linguistic landscape study

Abstract

The presence of linguistic diversity in the Borobudur area’s public spaces shows a connection between linguistic, social, and economic interests. Linguistic landscape (LL) research in public spaces is important because of the widespread use of foreign language texts in public spaces. It is feared that this could affect the preservation of Indonesian and Javanese as local languages. This research aims to reveal the distribution of language diversity and its relationship with socioeconomic interests at the Balai Ekonomi Desa (Balkondes) ‘Village Economic Center’ in Borobudur District, Magelang Regency, Central Java Province, Indonesia. This research is of the descriptive-qualitative type. Data was collected using interviews, observation, photography, and documentation methods. Data collection was carried out using a purposive sampling technique. The data included 168 photos of public boards in the Borobudur Balkondes area as research subjects. Blommaert & Maly’s linguistic landscape theory analyses data on power relations in an area and the distribution of texts in public spaces. According to this study’s findings, the distribution of language signs is 1.2% multilingual, 14.9% bilingual, and 83.9% monolingual. These results show that the Borobudur area still maintains Indonesian as a national identity and Javanese as a regional identity. The Indonesian national language dominates the public area. The existence of Balkondes in the Borobudur area, supported by various language signs, is useful in boosting the local community’s economy.

Keywords

• balkondes
• Borobudur
• economic
• language sign
• linguistic landscape
• Jeroen van de Weijer, College of International Studies, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China