PERTANIKA JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

This research presents the linguistics perspective on the naming of nature tourism destinations in Pangandaran, Jawa Barat-Indonesia. Linguistic tools employed to analyze the data are morphology and metaphors. Formerly, a research was conducted by identifying the names of nature tourism destinations in Pangandaran, then they were analyzed based on the word formation studies. The meanings or messages of the destinations' names are discussed with the metaphors found in the names of the destinations. This research employs qualitative descriptive method by using data from the Jawa Barat Province Tourism Information Center about Pangandaran. The analysis aims to describe the destinations and their branding function based on their names. The results of this research show that the names of nature tourism destinations, morphologically, derived from blending, composition, and proper names, while metaphorically the names mean the physical characteristics of the nature tourism destination, location of the destination, and activity in the destination. Therefore, branding function of the destination names is in line with the metaphorical meanings.