Linguistic landscape of university vicinities in Indonesia: a look at eatery signs

This study examines the linguistic landscape of student-dense areas located in the vicinities of six universities in the city of Malang, East Java, Indonesia. Each year, there is a large stream of young people from across the country who come to Malang to study, which makes the city a melting pot of culture and languages. Focusing on the eatery signs that are displayed in the areas, this study  examines the language diversity and discuss the possible impact and reasons for using the featured languages. The results show that the student-dense areas are characterized by the dominance of bilingual signs, with Indonesian-English and Indonesian-Javanese being the most prevalent pairs. The monolingual, bilingual, and multilingual eatery signs are similar in that kinship terms of address are used frequently to mark business ownership and identity as well as to add the impression of authenticity. The presence of other languages such as Korean, Arabic, and Walikan, although minor, mirrors a dynamic linguistic interplay among the young people in the areas surrounding universities. We argue that language choice is motivated by the need to ensure comprehensibility for all target customers, maintain local identity, show prestige, align with the Korean cultural trend, and display Islamic identity.