In the last few decades, there has been a growing interest in the linguistic landscape (LL) study of shop names, street signs, and signboards. However, the LL study of shop names has yet to be studied in Bhutan. More specifically, there is a need to evaluate the relationship between LL and language policy, and signage guideline practices in the shop names. To fill this gap, this study set out to examine the LL of shop names in the main street (Nordzin Lam) of Thimphu, the capital of Bhutan. A quantitative approach was employed to collect photographs of the shop names displayed in front and conspicuous areas. The findings indicate that English is prevalent in all the shop names irrespective of monolingual, bilingual, and multilingual shop signs. In addition, Dzongkha has a high presence in the bilingual signs, but English is the most preferred language of the shop signs. However, there is an inconsistency in the font size and layout of the shop signs. In terms of code preference, shop owners prefer Dzongkha above other languages and are aligned vertically. Taken together, the findings presented in this study add to our understanding of how shop signs adhere to signage guidelines and language policies. Policy implications for the effective implementation of signage guidelines and relevant language policies are discussed.

This study investigates the use of double modals in Australian and New Zealand English using Twitter/𝕏 data. Double modals are rare grammatical constructions long believed to be limited to regional dialects in the Northern UK and the Southern US. Utilizing a geolocated corpus of over 80 million tweets, the study identifies 314 authentic double modal instances across 51 types, primarily occurring in informal tweets. Findings reveal widespread, albeit low-frequency, usage across both countries without clear geographical patterns. The results align with recent studies suggesting double modals are not confined to specific regions but are possible for most English speakers. The study also questions the traditional Scots-Irish origin theory, proposing an alternative view where the feature is a broader syntactic possibility. Future research should explore larger datasets and extend investigations to outer-circle English varieties to understand better the historical spread and syntactic nature of double modals.