Linguistic Landscape and Multilingualism in the Tourism Industry of West Anyer Coast: Language Strategies for Promotion and Global Competitiveness

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-563-8_3How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Linguistic landscape; Multilingualism; Cultural identity; Tourism promotion; Multimodal analysis

Abstract

Linguistic landscapes mirror the multilingual character of a society and play a significant role in shaping cultural identity and enhancing the appeal of tourism. This study investigates the forms of linguistic landscapes found in the multilingual communities of Javanese, Sundanese, and Lampung in Anyer, Banten. It explores how language is strategically utilized to promote local tourism. Using a qualitative approach, data were collected directly at 85 tourism sites, including natural attractions, artificial landmarks, religious and historical sites, hotels, restaurants, and souvenir centers. The signs were analyzed based on part writing, code preference, and multimodal to reveal patterns of promotional strategies. The findings show a predominance of monophonic part writing, equally distributed between Indonesian and English. However, polyphonic forms indicate the presence of local languages, which is evident in signage for natural tourism sites and restaurants. The overall linguistic landscape tends towards multilingualism, featuring Indonesian, English, Javanese, Sundanese, Lampung, and even foreign languages such as Italian, Dutch, and regional Indonesian. Language choice in signage serves a technical purpose and a branding strategy that shapes visitor experiences. These insights highlight the need to balance global, national, and local languages to create culturally rich, inclusive tourism destinations. The research contributes empirical insight into the linguistic landscape of a multilingual tourism area in Indonesia, highlighting how language use reflects and shapes cultural identity. Methodologically, it introduces a multimodal and code-preference analysis approach to signage in tourism contexts. Practically, it offers strategic considerations for tourism development, recommending fostering culturally rich and inclusive tourist destinations.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Linda Sari Wulandari
AU  - Sri Munawarah
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/04/28
TI  - Linguistic Landscape and Multilingualism in the Tourism Industry of West Anyer Coast: Language Strategies for Promotion and Global Competitiveness
BT  - Proceedings of the 4th International Conference of Research on Language 2025 (IROLE 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 13
EP  - 26
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-563-8_3
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-563-8_3
ID  - Wulandari2026
ER  -