Conference Agenda

The Beijing Subway, as China’s inaugural subway system, harbours a multifaceted linguistic landscape. Yet, the translation of station names has received scant attention, despite its paramount functional role and inherent inconsistency, serving as ‘top-down’ public signage with informational and symbolic functions and thus constituting an institutional discourse. This study integrated the three-dimensional analytical framework of Ethnographic Linguistic Landscape Analysis (ELLA) with Lefebvre’s (1991) conceptualisation of space to explore the translation strategies across time within the conceived space, compared to actual translations encountered in spatial practice. The aim was to unravel the driving forces behind translation changes and their potential ramifications for English-speaking commuters within the lived space.

The study yields the following conclusions:

1) The translation of station names displays a vacillation between globalisation and localisation, which is evident in translation modifications achieved through diverse discursive resources, encompassing audio and visual code selections and placements. Consequently, station name translations may reflect alterations in the official perception of attitudes towards the status and value of both the Chinese and English languages.

2) The translation of station names primarily adheres to ‘top-down’ norms and regulations, embracing at least two distinct categories (linguistic and practical) and spanning three hierarchical levels (national, municipal, and operational). Nonetheless, the translation process is not immune to the ‘bottom-up’ influence of the masses, challenging official translation tendencies.

3) The interplay between global and local factors, alongside pragmatic considerations, contributes to the emergence of inconsistencies in translation. These inconsistencies may compromise the informative function of station names, potentially limiting the access of English-speaking commuters to the subway’s transportation services. Such limitations become more pronounced when addressees are simultaneously located in multiple spaces characterized by imbalanced order scales, fuelled by increasing mobility in the context of globalisation.

References

Lefebvre, H. (1991). The Production of Space (D. Nicholson-Smith, Trans.). Blackwell Publishing.

The linguistic landscape (LL) in Taiwan has undergone significant changes since the late 1990s, primarily due to the rapid increase in intermarriage with immigrants resulting from work-related and cross-border migration. This transformation is visible in Taiwan’s public signage, which has shifted from monolingual Chinese and bilingual Chinese-English to multilingual signs in the public domain. Taiwan is a unique multilingual and multicultural society among Asian countries, as evidenced by the unprecedented proliferation of multilingual signage in Chinese, English, Japanese, Korean, and new immigrant languages such as Vietnamese, Indonesian, Thai, and Tagalog, created and regulated by a variety of top-down and bottom-up organizations. In this presentation, we will delve into the evolving dynamics of the multilingual linguistic landscape (MLL) in Taoyuan City, Taiwan. Additionally, we will explore the multifaceted intersections between language policy, geosemiotics, and linguistic landscape. This qualitative study addresses the following research questions: How is the MLL implemented and regulated in Taiwan and what types of signs have been created from top-down and bottom-up? And how is the diversity of the MLL manifested in terms of code preference and multilingual writing types? The findings shed light on the complex relationship between national language policy and public signage in Taoyuan City, Taiwan. The MLL in Taoyuan City not only reflects the increasing ethnic and cultural diversity within the city, but also showcases the determined efforts of the city government to foster a united society and a welcoming international atmosphere for Taiwan’s varied ethnic groups and foreign visitors. Furthermore, the visual representation of the MLL in the city functions as a significant resource for people in Taiwan. It aids in comprehending the social structure of Taiwanese society, strengthening linguistic and cultural appreciation, and broadening worldviews, ultimately contributing to the development of global citizens in the twenty-first century.

The Iranian constitution recognizes Persian as the only official language in the country, while at the same time it allows minority languages to be used in informal contexts such as the media, including out-of-home media, or what is referred to in sociolinguistics as linguistic landscape. Despite this, different settlements in linguistically similar contexts use different languages in their public signs. We asked: why does the employment of minority languages like Kurdish vary in different Kurdish dominated provinces? There can be little doubt that the non-official status of minority languages, or what Sapolsky calls 'language management' (Sapolsky 2004), affects the extent and quality of their usage and so do language practices and attitudes (ibid.). Since language attitudes have proven to be one of the main motivators of language choice (Borbely 1995), we hypothesized that the discrepancy in the use of Kurdish in public signs could have something to do with differences in language attitudes in those provinces; the more positive the province’s attitudes towards the minority language, the more usage of that language in public signs. To test this hypothesis, we have conducted a two-phase study. In the first phase, the linguistic landscape phase, a total of 772 signs were photographed and were later categorized according to the top-down (governmental) versus bottom-up (private sector) distinction in the three provinces of Kermanshah, Sanandaj, and Ilam. In the second phase, the language attitude phase, a questionnaire was distributed in the three provincial capitals. 450 people participated in this phase and answered the questionnaires voluntarily. Our findings show that there is a strong relationship between language attitude and linguistic landscape, since the more positive attitude people have toward their language, the more inclined they are to use their native language in public signs. The findings also showed that very few official and governmental signs used minority languages which indicated very limited to or no support for these languages. We suggest that these findings underline a strong interrelationship between language policies, attitudes, and language choice in the domain of linguistic landscape.

In this research, we delve into the linguistic landscapes of two representative Chinatowns: Bangkok, Thailand, and Yokohama, Japan. The significance of comparing these two Chinatowns lies in their shared genesis, primarily established by mainland Chinese immigrants, yet the visual language use in the linguistic landscape of these two communities has diverged over time due to the enduring influence of different language policies regarding minority languages in both societies. By examining visual language usage, our aim is to uncover the intricate interplay of linguistic landscapes and language policy from both top-down and bottom-up perspectives. This endeavor will provide suggestions for future directions in language planning.

Following the collection of data during ethnographic fieldwork in the respective Chinatowns, this study employs the geosemiotic framework (Scollon and Scollon, 2003) to dissect the specific social, political, historical, and cultural disparities embedded within the linguistic landscape of these two Chinese communities. This approach provides a comprehensive understanding of the distinct evolution of multilingualism within two Chinatowns, where languages are treated as mobile resources in the context of globalization within super-diverse metropolitans (Blommaert, 2010). Subsequently, nexus analysis (Scollon and Scollon, 2004), encompassing historical body, interaction order, and discourse in place, is employed to unveil both direct and indirect relationships (Hult, 2018) between language policy and its impact on visual language use within the linguistic landscape. This sheds light on the dynamic interplay of signs, discourse, space, and social actors, ultimately elucidating power relationships among different languages within minority language communities.

Through the comparative analysis of linguistic landscapes in two Chinatowns, this research not only provides comprehensive snapshots of the current linguistic ecology within these distinct sociocultural contexts but also offers invaluable insights into how language policies intersect with the lived experiences of communities, shedding light on the multifaceted role of language policy in shaping urban spaces.