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English in the linguistic landscape of Suzhou

Creative, fluid and transgressive English practices in a Chinese city

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2015

Songqing Li
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Extract

The concept of linguistic landscape (LL) covers all of the linguistic objects that mark the public space, i.e. any written sign one observes from road signs to advertising billboards, to the names of shops, streets or schools (Landry & Bourhis, 1997). Because it both shapes and is shaped by social and cultural associations (Ben-Rafael, 2009; Jaworski & Thurlow, 2010: 6–23), the LL has proved an important area for investigating the dynamics of major aspects of social life (e.g. Backhaus, 2006; Huebner, 2006; Curtin, 2009; Lado, 2011; Papen, 2012). One strand of this research is particularly concerned with the role of LL in relation to ethnolinguistic vitality that ‘makes a group likely to behave as a distinctive and active collective entity in intergroup relations’ (Giles, Bourhis & Taylor, 1977: 308). The higher the vitality an ethnolinguistic group enjoys, the more it will be able to use language so as to survive and thrive as a collective entity.

Type
Research Article
Information
English Today , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , March 2015 , pp. 27 - 33
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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