The Role of Language as A Branding Strategy: Linguistic Landscape at Fashion Stores in Malang City, Indonesia Dany Ardhian(a*)- Sumarlam(b)- Dwi Purnanto(c)- Henry Yustanto(d)
(a) Linguistics Doctoral Program, Faculty of Cultural Science, Universitas Sebelas Maret, Indonesia
*danyardhian[at]student.uns.ac.id
(b,c,d) Faculty of Cultural Science, Universitas Sebelas Maret, Indonesia
Abstract
The increase of English usage and the appearance of Arabic in fashion store names are an interesting study when these two languages are not used in daily communication. Language plays an important role to characterize identity as well as labeling the theme of the product being sold. With the social conditions of the urban, modern, and Muslim majority in Malang City, language is a tool to attract consumers to choose a fashion store according to their social character, regardless of whether the consumer understands the meaning of the text. Apart from providing information on the identity of the fashion shop, the naming also represents the social symbols that play out in society. This study aims to analyze the texts of fashion stores names in Malang City using Landscape Linguistics by analyzing the frequency, form, and function of language use. Research location in Malang City, East Java. The data were taken from 158 fashion store signage scattered on the main street through photography. Sample interviews were conducted with shop owners and buyers. The results showed that (1) there were three patterns of language use, namely monolingual, bilingual, and multilingual- (2) there are six languages involved in naming fashion shops, namely Indonesian, English, Arabic, Javanese, French and Italian- (3) monolingual-English patterns dominate the emergence (40.5%) followed by monolinguals-Indonesian (29.7%) and bilingual-Indonesian-English (20.9%). The lingual units used are phrases and clauses with the use of the lexicons of personal names, fashion, boutiques, and busana that dominate the appearance. These findings indicate that the information function built aims to introduce the identity of the store name while using language as a product branding strategy so that it is closer to the social character of the people of Malang City.
Keywords: Linguistic Landscape, fashion store, Malang City
