The Function of English Usage on Linguistic Landscape of Padang: A Case Study on Khatib Sulaiman Street

Abstract

This study deals with linguistic landscape found on Khatiib Sulaiman Street, Padang. The aim of the study is to identify the dominant language of the monolingual, bilingual and multilingual signs and to investigate the function of English displayed on the signs. Thus, this study uses mixed method, quantitative and qualitative, since the data and the analysis of this study is in the form of pictures and text and the justification is proven by the percentage. By using multilingualism approach on a linguistic landscape research, 236 pictures of signs displayed on Khatib Sulaiman Street as the data of this study were collected on July, 2021, and then was classfied to be monolingual, bilingual, or multilingual based on the languages that exist on each sign. This research found that there are 117 signs in Bahasa Indonesia-only, 14 signs in English-only, 82 signs in Bahasa Indonesia-English, 12 signs in Bahasa Indonesia-Minangnese, 6 signs in Bahasa Indonesia-Arabic, 3 signs in Bahasa Indonesia-English-Minangnese, and 2 signs in Bahasa Indoensia-English-Arabic. Monolingual signs are dominated by Bahasa Indonesia indicating that national languages still has the strongest position. Foreign language that is predominant in bilingual and multilingual signs is English. Gorter (2006) divides types of signs in linguistic landscape into two: bottom-up and top-down, type of sign that uses English the most is type bottom-up, displayed to live both informative function, which are to tell the name of shops and to do marketing and symbolic function, which are to symbolize modernity, sophistication, professionalism, and social status.

Muslim majority yet without preference for Arabic: Mapping linguistic landscape studies in Indonesia

“…In addition to the domination of English in Nusa Dua and Labuhan Bajo LL, English is in the second place after Indonesian and the most frequently used foreign language apparent in the Indonesia LL research. Ramadhani (2018), Pamuji and Khristianto (2018), Harbon and Halimi (2019), Riani et al (2021), da Silva et al (2021, Khazanah et al (2021), andZahara andWijana (2022) reported the phenomenon. English is present in technology-related signs and has a prestigious status in da Silva's (2017) research.…”

“…Indonesian dominates the use of language in the Indonesian LL research. When a quantitative analysis is conducted, Indonesian is almost always apparent as the most dominant language ( 88%) apparent in the LL studies by da Silva (2017), Fakhiroh and Rohmah (2018)), Ramadhani (2018), Pamuji and Khristianto (2018), Harbon and Halimi (2019), Purwanto and Filia (2020), Riani et al (2021), da Silva et al (2021, Sianipar (2021), Paramarta (2022), Yusuf et al (2022), and Zahara and Wijana (2022). This seems to translate the National Language Regulation Number 24 of 2009 and the Presidential Regulation Number 63 of 2019 that Indonesian is the official language.…”

“…However, the existence of Arabic in LL research in Indonesia does not reflect this point. The appearance of Arabic that is lower than English is observable in the studies of Fakhiroh and Rohmah (2018), Harbon and Halimi (2019), Riani et al (2021), andZahara andWijana (2022). Arabic is even non-existent in da Silva's (2017), Ramadhani's (2018), Pamuji and Khristianto's (2018), Munawarah and Datang's (2019), Saragi's (2018), da Silva et al's (2021), Paramarta's (2022, Rastitiati and Suprastayasa's (2022), and (Datang et al, 2022) studies.…”

The Position of English in the Linguistic Schoolscapes in an Indonesian Islamic Boarding School

“…The country's constitution also requires that only Indonesian be taught in all Indonesian schools (Coleman, 2016). The finding relates to the study that Javanese (Khazanah et al, 2021) and Minangnese (Zahara & Wijana, 2022) are local or regional languages that do not receive much attention in sign. Astillero (2017) also discovered that, while taking into account the multilingual inhabitants of Irosin, the languages present in the classroom demonstrate how little space local languages have in formal education, particularly in secondary education.…”

English Depiction of Given-New Information in Business-Scape in Padang: a Linguistic Landscape Exploration

“…Studies on how English is utilized throughout the linguistic landscape have been done by several researchers. In 2022, Zahara and Wijana conduct a linguistic landscape study in Padang entitled "The Function of English Usage on Linguistic Landscape of Padang: A Case Study on Khatib Sulaiman Street" (Zahara & Wijana, 2022). It aims at revealing the language dominance of monolingual, bilingual, and multilingual signs and investigating the functions of English used on the signboards.…”