Speak Global, Sell Local? Digital Linguistic Landscape of Local Small Businesses in the Social Media

This paper focuses on the online presence of languages and
linguistic patterns of local small businesses in a bilingual, HungarianRomanian ethnic community in Romania. By capturing linguistic diversity
and creativity via netnographic research, patterns of linguistic landscape
elements in the social media, such as marketing strategy of local small
businesses, can be analysed. The findings suggest that despite the need
to advertise by using the state language, Romanian, in order to maximize
the target audience, the concentration of Hungarian landscape elements is
the highest. Businesses construct their linguistic identity by their language
choices and practices, aligned with the collective linguistic identity of a
bilingual community and the need for a global representation, in order to
secure a place in the local market.