Local Language as Communication Capital in Building Seller and Buyer Trust in Traditional Markets of Surakarta
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.61320/jolcc.v4i2.324-345Keywords:
Traditional market, social capital, local language, communication capital, trustAbstract
Traditional markets in Surakarta face declining visitor numbers as modern retail and online trading expand. Local language, Javanese in its ngoko and krama speech levels, is presumed to be one of the communicative advantages distinguishing traditional markets from other transaction spaces. This study examines how local language functions as communication capital in building seller-buyer trust in three traditional markets of Surakarta: Pasar Gede Hardjonagoro, Pasar Klewer, and Pasar Legi, drawing on cultural capital and social capital theory, extended through communication accommodation theory and heuristic-trust literature. The study uses a focused ethnographic case study design, combining participant observation with in-depth interviews with five core informants and supplementary interviews with twenty additional traders, buyers, and market managers across the three markets, for a total of twenty-five informants; data were analyzed using the interactive model of analysis and checked through source and technique triangulation and member checking. Results show local language functions as communication capital through three interrelated mechanisms: dynamic selection of speech levels marking familiarity and respect, code accommodation by traders that widens social acceptance toward buyers of differing linguistic backgrounds, and local language as a trust heuristic sustaining buyer loyalty even over price. The study also identifies a regeneration challenge: declining krama proficiency among younger traders, unsettling the assumption that this advantage will persist unattended. The findings contribute theoretically to culture-based commercial-communication studies and practically to market managers and local government formulating revitalization policies treating local language as a living, cultivable communication asset.
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