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Geosemiotic Analysis of Signs in the Linguistic Cityscape of China

Received: 15 July 2021     Accepted: 10 August 2021     Published: 23 August 2021
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Abstract

In the last several decades, adding English to public signboards has become a common phenomenon in China, and the inclusion of more foreign languages other than English for a sign in public sphere has drawn much attention in recent years. In sociolinguistic research, linguistic landscape is a more common term and has been adopted most in studies worldwide which always target at languages used in city centers as a tradition. This study is an attempt to investigate multilingualism in the public sphere of China. Focusing on the linguistic landscape of Xi’an, an ancient city of China, it explores the visibility and salience of languages used on signboards in the city center under the theoretical framework of Geosemiotics. The Geosemiotic analysis demonstrates that Chinese-English bilingual signs constitute about half of the linguistic cityscape of Xi’an; trilingual signs on commercial signboards often carry incoordinate information in different languages; for quadrilingual signs, a relatively fixed order is given to different languages. Besides, the display of traditional Chinese characters on signboards in the cityscape often appear on the wooden plates, which create an “ancient” feeling to visitors. This research also indicates that there is a tendency to standardize the display of language signs in the public sphere of Xi’an city, despite that the desire to be internationalized had been emphasized a lot by many researchers in early studies on linguistic landscape worldwide.

Published in International Journal of Language and Linguistics (Volume 9, Issue 4)
DOI 10.11648/j.ijll.20210904.23
Page(s) 226-232
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Linguistic Landscape, Geosemiotics, Public Visibility, Multilingualism, China

References
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[2] Ben-Rafael, E., Shohamy, E., Amara, M. H., and N. Trumper-Hecht. 2006. “Linguistic Landscape as Symbolic Construction of the Public Space: The Case of Israel.” International Journal of Multilingualism 3 (1): 7-30.
[3] Blommaert, J. 2013. Ethnography, Superdiversity and Linguistic Landscape: Chronicles of Complexity. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
[4] Bolton, K. 2012. “World Englishes and Linguistic Landscapes.” World Englishes 31: 30-33.
[5] Shohamy, E., Ben-Rafael, E. and Barni, M. 2010. Linguistic Landscape in the City. Bristol, Blue Ridge Summit: Multilingual Matters.
[6] Cenoz, J., and D. Gorter. 2009. Language Economy and Linguistic Landscape. In Linguistic landscape: Expanding the scenery, edited by E. Shohamy, and D. Gorter, 55–69. New York, NY: Routledge.
[7] Dimova, S. 2007. English shop signs in Macedonia. English Today, 23 (3 & 4). 18-24.
[8] Delanty, G. 2007. Public sphere. In Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, edited by Ritzer, G. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
[9] Hasanova, D. 2021. The linguistic landscape of Bukhara and Tashkent in the post-Soviet era. World Englishes, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1111/weng.12553
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[11] Gao, X., and Y. Zheng. 2019. Multilingualism and Higher Education in Greater China. Journal of Multilingual & Multicultural Development, 1-7.
[12] Goddard, A. 2001. The Language of Advertising: Written texts (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.
[13] Gorter, D., and J. Cenoz. 2008. Knowledge about Language and Linguistic Landscape.” In Encyclopedia of Language and Education, edited by N. H. Hornberger (2nd ed), 343–355. New York, NY: Springer.
[14] Griffin, J. L. 2004. The presence of written English on the streets of Rome. English Today, 20 (2), 3-7 &47.
[15] Kress, G., and T. Van Leeuwen. 1998. “The Critical Analysis of Newspaper Layout.” In Approaches to Media Discourse, edited by A. Bell, and P. Garrett, 86-219. Oxford: Blackwell.
[16] Landry, R., and R. Y. Bourhis. 1997. “Linguistic Landscape and Ethnolinguistic Vitality: An Empirical Study.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology 16 (1): 23–49.
[17] Magdalena K. 2020. Linguistic landscape in a city of migrants: a study of Souk Naif area in Dubai, International Journal of Multilingualism. DOI: 10.1080/14790718.2020.1781132
[18] MacGregor, L. 2003. The language of shop signs in Tokyo. English Today 19 (1): 18-23.
[19] Reh, M. 2004. “Multilingual Writing: A Reader-oriented Typology-with Examples from Lisa Municipality (Uganda).” International Journal of the Sociology of Language 170: 1-41.
[20] Schlick, M. 2003. The English of shop signs in Europe. English Today 19 (1): 3–17.
[21] Scollon, R., and S. W. Scollon. 2003. Discourses in Place: Language in the Material World. London, UK: Routledge.
[22] Shohamy, E., and D. Gorter. 2009. Linguistic Landscape: Expanding the Scenery. New York, NY: Routledge.
[23] Spolsky, B. 2007. “Forword by Bernard Spolsky.” In Linguistic Landscapes: A Comparative Study of Urban Multilingualism in Tokyo, edited by P. Backhaus, ix-x. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.
[24] Shang, G. W. 2021. Multilingualism in the linguistic landscape of Eastern China: City residents' perceptions and attitudes. Globe: A Journal of Language, Culture and Communication, 12:99-116.
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    Jing Jing Wang. (2021). Geosemiotic Analysis of Signs in the Linguistic Cityscape of China. International Journal of Language and Linguistics, 9(4), 226-232. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20210904.23

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    ACS Style

    Jing Jing Wang. Geosemiotic Analysis of Signs in the Linguistic Cityscape of China. Int. J. Lang. Linguist. 2021, 9(4), 226-232. doi: 10.11648/j.ijll.20210904.23

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    AMA Style

    Jing Jing Wang. Geosemiotic Analysis of Signs in the Linguistic Cityscape of China. Int J Lang Linguist. 2021;9(4):226-232. doi: 10.11648/j.ijll.20210904.23

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  • @article{10.11648/j.ijll.20210904.23,
      author = {Jing Jing Wang},
      title = {Geosemiotic Analysis of Signs in the Linguistic Cityscape of China},
      journal = {International Journal of Language and Linguistics},
      volume = {9},
      number = {4},
      pages = {226-232},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ijll.20210904.23},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20210904.23},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijll.20210904.23},
      abstract = {In the last several decades, adding English to public signboards has become a common phenomenon in China, and the inclusion of more foreign languages other than English for a sign in public sphere has drawn much attention in recent years. In sociolinguistic research, linguistic landscape is a more common term and has been adopted most in studies worldwide which always target at languages used in city centers as a tradition. This study is an attempt to investigate multilingualism in the public sphere of China. Focusing on the linguistic landscape of Xi’an, an ancient city of China, it explores the visibility and salience of languages used on signboards in the city center under the theoretical framework of Geosemiotics. The Geosemiotic analysis demonstrates that Chinese-English bilingual signs constitute about half of the linguistic cityscape of Xi’an; trilingual signs on commercial signboards often carry incoordinate information in different languages; for quadrilingual signs, a relatively fixed order is given to different languages. Besides, the display of traditional Chinese characters on signboards in the cityscape often appear on the wooden plates, which create an “ancient” feeling to visitors. This research also indicates that there is a tendency to standardize the display of language signs in the public sphere of Xi’an city, despite that the desire to be internationalized had been emphasized a lot by many researchers in early studies on linguistic landscape worldwide.},
     year = {2021}
    }
    

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    AB  - In the last several decades, adding English to public signboards has become a common phenomenon in China, and the inclusion of more foreign languages other than English for a sign in public sphere has drawn much attention in recent years. In sociolinguistic research, linguistic landscape is a more common term and has been adopted most in studies worldwide which always target at languages used in city centers as a tradition. This study is an attempt to investigate multilingualism in the public sphere of China. Focusing on the linguistic landscape of Xi’an, an ancient city of China, it explores the visibility and salience of languages used on signboards in the city center under the theoretical framework of Geosemiotics. The Geosemiotic analysis demonstrates that Chinese-English bilingual signs constitute about half of the linguistic cityscape of Xi’an; trilingual signs on commercial signboards often carry incoordinate information in different languages; for quadrilingual signs, a relatively fixed order is given to different languages. Besides, the display of traditional Chinese characters on signboards in the cityscape often appear on the wooden plates, which create an “ancient” feeling to visitors. This research also indicates that there is a tendency to standardize the display of language signs in the public sphere of Xi’an city, despite that the desire to be internationalized had been emphasized a lot by many researchers in early studies on linguistic landscape worldwide.
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Author Information
  • College of Languages and Culture, Northwest A&F University, Xianyang, China

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