Linguistic Landscapes

A Comparative Study of Urban Multilingualism in Tokyo

Peter Backhaus

• Publisher: Multilingual Matters
• Year: 2006
• ISBN:
  9781847699527
• Topic: Sprachen & Linguistik
• Subtopic: Soziolinguistik

Linguistic Landscapes is the first comprehensive approach to a largely under-explored sociolinguistic phenomenon: language on signs. Based on an up-to-date review of previous research from various places around the world, the book develops an analytical framework for the systematic analysis of linguistic landscape data. This framework is applied to a sample of 2, 444 signs collected in 28 survey areas in central Tokyo. Analytical categories include the languages contained and their combinations, differences between official and nonofficial signs, geographic distribution, availability of translation or transliteration, linguistic idiosyncrasies, and the comparison of older and newer signs, among others. Combining qualitative and quantitative methods, the analysis yields some unique insights about the writers of multilingual signs, their readers, and the languages and scripts in contact. Linguistic Landscapes thus demonstrates that the study of language on signs has much to contribute to research into urban multilingualism, as well as the study of language and society as a whole.

Chapter 1

Introduction

The city is a place of language contact. City walls throughout human history have attracted people of various origins with differing linguistic backgrounds. This applies to ancient capitals like Rome, Athens, or Constantinople just as it holds for post-modern metropolises like New York, London, Paris, or Tokyo. The spatial coexistence of different languages and linguistic varieties has made the city a favourable environment for variationist studies (e.g. Labov, 1972; Milroy, 1980; Trudgill, 1974) and, more recently, multilingualism research (e.g. Extra & Yağmur, 2004; García & Fishman, 1997; Mackey, 2000). The bulk of this research has focused on spoken language, whereas written language has not been given much attention so far. The city, however, is not only ‘a place of talk’, as Halliday (1978: 154) has emphasised. It is a place of writing and reading, too.

This study focuses on urban language contact in the written medium: the languages of the signs. Every urban environment is a myriad of written messages on public display: office and shop signs, billboards and neon advertisements, traffic signs, topographic information and area maps, emergency guidance and political poster campaigns, stone inscriptions, and enigmatic graffiti discourse. These messages bring together a variety of languages and scripts, the total of which constitutes the linguistic landscape of a place. The aim of this book is to provide a first general introduction to the study of language on signs and show what insights about multilingualism and language contact can be gained from this type of research.

The book consists of three shorter and two longer chapters alternating in order. Chapter 2 is a brief theoretical introduction to language on signs. It explores the semiotic properties of this special type of language use distinct from most other forms of written and spoken communication. The visibility and salience of these messages makes up the linguistic landscape, a term that is only gradually gaining currency in multilingualism research. Chapter 2 reviews the common definitions of the term and introduces a terminological distinction between the process and the results of linguistic landscape actions. It closes with a few comments about the heuristic potential of linguistic landscape research in the study of multilingualism.

Chapter 3 gives an overview of previous approaches to language on signs in various places around the world. The review spans from the pioneer research of the 1960s and 1970s to an accumulation of linguistic landscape approaches since the turn of the century. Included are studies from comparatively monolingual, traditionally bilingual, and highly multilingual environments in North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. In part due to the fact that many of them have been available only in languages other than English, most previous studies do not directly refer to each other. Nevertheless it will be seen that there are many common points, despite differing research environments and research interests.

Chapter 4 establishes the link between the theoretical and the empirical part of this book. It summarises the basic points made in previous research and presents some general conclusions. This is done by introducing an overall framework for the study of the linguistic landscape. The framework is based on three guiding questions that can be found underlying all previous approaches to language on signs. They refer to the sign writers, the sign readers, and the dynamics of the language contact situation as a whole, respectively:

(1) Linguistic landscaping by whom?

(2) Linguistic landscaping for whom?

(3) Linguistic landscape quo vadis?

Chapter 4 also touches on some methodological issues of empirical research into language on signs. Discussing the main problems with regard to survey areas, survey items, and linguistic categorisation, it emphasises the importance of a sound methodology of data collection for this type of research.

Chapter 5 applies the framework introduced in Chapter 4 in practice. It works with a sample of 2444 multilingual signs collected in spring 2003 in the centre of Tokyo. The data are discussed on the basis of the following nine analytical categories: languages contained; combination patterns; differences between official and non-official signs; regularities in geographic distribution; availability of translation or transliteration; order of the languages combined; visibility of the multilingual nature of a sign; occurrence of linguistic idiosyncrasies; and coexistence of older and newer versions of a given type of sign.

A closer analysis of the data will bring to light various insights about Tokyo’s linguistic landscape and the points referred to in the three guiding questions: the writers of multilingual signs, their readers, and the languages and scripts in contact. They are summarised in Chapter 6, which draws some general conclusions about the city’s linguistic landscape. It emphasises that the study of language on signs is a promising new research field that may provide valuable insights about multilingualism and language contact, both in Tokyo and elsewhere.

Linguistic landscape research is a relatively young sociolinguistic subdiscipline for which few theoretical preliminaries have been developed so far. Since some of the relevant literature was not yet available when I conducted my empirical research in Tokyo, the order of the parts of this book does not completely faithfully represent the order in which these parts have actually been prepared. This becomes most obvious from the fact that some of the surveys discussed as ‘previous’ approaches in Chapter 3 have actually been published after the 2003 Tokyo survey. Nevertheless, it was considered necessary to include them into this first overview of linguistic landscape research because they are substantial to the development of the discipline worldwide.

Before entering the main part, a few general remarks about terminology and notation should be made. Though the second half of the book focuses on Japan, care has been taken that the discussion remains accessible also without knowledge of Japanese. Technical terms about the Japanese writing system have been kept to a minimum. They are explained at the beginning of section 3.10, which discusses previous linguistic landscape research in Tokyo. A closer account of the Japanese language is given in Shibatani (1990) and Tsujimura (1996). More about the Japanese writing system and its development can be found in Gottlieb (1995), Seeley (1991), Stalph (1996), and Twine (1991).

All translations are attached in square brackets. Japanese terms mentioned in running text are transliterated according to the rules of the Hepburn system (SWET, 1989). They are indicated by italics and – where necessary – attached in their original script in summarising tables. Transliterations cited from signs are not marked by italics but given in quotes. An example is the toponym shinbashi, which may be encountered on official signs alternately as ‘Shinbashi’ or ‘Shimbashi’. I follow notational conventions in using slashes to enclose phonemes and in indicating single graphemes by angled brackets. An example is Japanese syllabic /n/, which is represented in the Roman alphabet as <n>but can be altered into <m> when preceding <m>, <b>, or <p>.

Where directly quoting Roman alphabet texts from signs I make no effort to imitate the original design with regard to line make-up, font type, font size, etc. However, I do follow the original in the use and non-use of capital letters.

Chapter 2

Semiotic Background and Terminology

This chapter gives an introduction to the basic characteristics of language use on signs. Exploring the semiotic background to written language in public space, it will be held that language on signs is a specific type of language use distinct from most other forms of written and spoken communication in everyday life. The visibility and salience of language on signs constitutes what has now come to be referred to as the linguistic landscape of a place. The term will be discussed in more detail by reviewing some of its recent definitions. It will be held that the study object of linguistic landscape research should be confined to language on signs, since an expansion to other forms of language use in the public sphere would water down the usefulness of the concept as a whole. In addition, a terminological distinction between linguistic landscape and linguistic landscaping will be made.

2.1 Signs

The noun ‘sign’, according to the Oxford Dictionary of English, has the following five meanings (Soanes & Stevenson, 2003: 1645):

1 an object, quality, or event whose presence indicates the probable presence or occurrence of something else . . .

2 a gesture or action used to convey information or instruction . . . a gesture used in a system of sign language

3 a notice on public display that gives information or instruction in a written or symbolic form

4 (also zodiacal sign) Astrology each of the twelve equal sections into which the zodiac is divided . . .

5 Mathematics the positiveness or negativeness of a quantity.

Two of these entries, 1 and 3, are of importance to the present study. First of all, it is common knowledge that ‘sign’ is a key term in semiotics. The semiotic sign comprises any meaningful unit interpreted as standing for something other than itself. This type of meaning is included in entry 1. Signs usually take a physical form, such as sounds, images, acts, etc. From a semiotic point of view, the world we live in is a world of signs. Anything we understand about ourselves and what is happening around us is based on emitting and interpreting signs. Communication in whatever way without them would be inconceivable.

Best known in semiotic theory are two conceptions of the sign. One is based on the theoretical framework of the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913); the other follows the US American philosopher Charles S. Peirce (1839–1914). According to Saussurean semiology, the basic characteristic of the sign is a bilateral relationship between a ‘signifier’ as its material form, and a ‘signified’ as its conceptual content (Saussure, 1916: 65–70). Most adherents of Peirce, who has assumed a triadic interaction between a signifying ‘representamen’, a conceptual ‘interpretant’, and a designated ‘object’, emphasise the interpretation process and the role of an interpreting entity (hearer, reader, etc.) in making sense of a given sign. This ‘pragmatic’ dimension of the sign is not captured by Saussure’s dyadic conception (Chandler, 2002: 32–6).

A second meaning of the term ‘sign’ relevant to this study is referred to in entry 3 of the above quotation: that of an inscribed surface displayed in public space in order to convey a message of wider concern to a non-specified group of readers. This type of sign is used in order to disseminate messages of general public interest, such as topographic information, directions, warnings, etc. Public signs also appear in commercial contexts like marketing and advertising, where their function is to draw attention to a business or product. There is no clear-cut distinction between commercial and non-commercial signs though, because the former can provide information of general interest, too. The semantic differences between the two types of signs given in entries 1 and 3 are fundamental enough to allow for a clear understanding about which one is referred to from context. Where it is necessary to explicitly distinguish between the two, I will use the term ‘semiotic sign’ as opposed to ‘public sign’.

Public signs are a specific type of semiotic sign in that they too stand for something other than themselves. Take as an example the name of a company attached to the front of a building. The sign on which the name is inscribed indicates that the premises of the company are situated in this building. The sign represents the company as a whole. The meaning to be conferred – ‘This is the building of company X’ – arises out of the combination of the sign with its referent, the building to which it is attached. In this sense, a public sign is in itself a signifier that relates to a specific signified, such as a company, a product, a place, a rule, or some other concept. A sign need not necessarily be attached to its referent though. Instead, it can give a direction how to get there, as in the case of guidance signs, or simply call attention to it, as advertisement signs do.

From a semiotic point of view, a public sign makes sense only in combination with its referent. The sign of company X does not fulfil its designating function properly on the sign writer’s desk or when attached to the building of company Y. It has to be put up at the right point in time and space. This applies not only to signs designating material objects, but to all other types of public messages, too. Joseph et al. give the following example:

A flat metal disc of characteristic size and design bearing certain Arabic numerals and attached to a pole planted by the roadside may be called a speed-limit sign. And in this usage it may count as a ‘sign’ from the moment of manufacture until long after it has been uprooted and consigned to a rubbish tip. But this usage is of no interest to the semiologist, who is concerned with the object only in so far as it functions semiotically, as a sign. And it can function as a sign only when in situ, i.e. when located in the appropriate topographical context. (2001: 209, emphasis original)

Following Peircean theory, the authors also underline the necessity of an interpreting entity. Unless interpreted by someone, human being or other, a public sign has no meaning (see Keller (1995: 119) for a counter-perspective). As Joseph et al. further explain:

Even when located in an appropriate environment, an object functions semiotically only in so far as someone makes it do so. The signhood of the speed-limit sign is not immanent in it. However impeccably positioned, it is not a sign when nobody is around to see it, for instance. Or when seen by strangers to our civilization who have no idea what to make of it. Signhood is conferred on a sign – on what thereby becomes a sign – if and when human beings (or semiotically competent creatures) attach a signification to it that goes beyond its intrinsic physical properties, whether in furtherance of a particular programme of activities, or to link different aspects or phases of their activities, to enrich their understanding of their local circumstances or general situation. (2001: 210, emphasis original)

More parallels between semiotic and public signs can be identified when taking a closer look at the different ways in which a sign makes sense. Following Peirce, it is generally held that a sign can function semiotically in basically three ways: as an index, as an icon, or as a symbol. An index is considered the most archaic type of sign. It is a sign with a signifier directly connected or pointing to its signified. There is a factual relationship between signifier and signified, which can be immediately observed or inferred. Commonly quoted examples are natural signs such as smoke indicating fire, medical symptoms indicating physical disease, or signals such as a knock on a door or the ringing of a phone.

A second possible way by which a relationship between signifier and signified can be established is through iconicity. In such a case the signifier is linked to its object of reference by virtue of resemblance or likeness. Examples are portraits, diagrams, or imitative gestures. The third type of sign is the symbol, for which the link between signifier and signified is arbitrary. It is based on neither similarity nor factual closeness but purely determined by convention. The most comprehensive symbolic sign system is language, which mainly functions by virtue of conventional speech signs. The three types of signs – index, icon, and symbol – are not mutually exclusive, but the relationship between the signifier and the signified of a sign can be based on more than one property (Chandler, 2002: 36–42).

Index, icon, and symbol are concepts applicable to different ways of information provision on public signs. Characteristic features of indexicality are arrows and other pointing elements used to show a direction in which the indicated object is to be found. These signs function by virtue of contiguity between signifier and signified. Use of iconic elements is a frequent strategy on public signs, too. Th...