Commodification of English and English-like structures in shop names in Lombok Island, Indonesia

Abstract

Abstract English has been for centuries seen as the native language of speakers in the English-speaking inner circle countries, as the second language of speakers in the former British-colony outer circle countries and as an international business lingua franca among speakers in the techno-economically powerful extended circle countries. Little is known how speakers in the Expanding Circle countries where English is learned as an additional foreign language make use of the language in everyday life, for communication, and for business purposes. This article fills the gap by examining how and why English and English structures have been used in shop naming in the Expanding Circle. Surveying and observing shop names, products on sale, and neighborhood’s socio-economic conditions, the study identifies possible connection between the nature of the language used, the types of products being sold and the socioeconomic nature of the neighborhood. Distributing questionnaires and interviewing shop owners, staff and buyers in the central business districts on Lombok Island, Indonesia, the study establishes linguistic ideology and socio-economic and cultural expectation behind the name selection. Three clusters of CBDs were observed: urban, suburban and tourism areas. With Chi-square analyses, the study establishes a strong relationship between the choice of language for shop names and the types of products on sale irrespective of the socio-economic conditions of the shop neighborhood. With linguistic analyses, the study shows that the choice of names in English or in English-like structures is affected by the ideology of English as the language of science, technology and modern lifestyle. English is strongly associated with modern lifestyle and the majority of lifestyle, entertainment and fashion shops are named in the English language. English-like structures are connected to English as the language of technology and shops dealing with electricity and machinery technologies are named in English-like structures. The use of these linguistic ideologies is expected to boost the image of the shops and the sale of the products and this expectation was statistically verified.