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ABSTRACT
The visibility and salience of specific languages in public spaces are important parameters of their ethnolinguistic vitality in a society. Drawing upon data from first-hand fieldwork, this paper explores the display of multiple languages in shop names presented in Singapore’s neighbourhood centres in order to reveal how local shop owners address multilingualism in this ethnically heterogeneous and linguistically hybrid society. In addition to spelling out the commercial drive to seduce potential clients, shop names also serve to mark off shop owners’ identity and prioritisation of relevant languages. It is found that English is prevalent in all types of shop signs, though Chinese is the preferred code on bilingual and multilingual signs and tends to be used to represent the primary shop names. The other official languages are rarely presented on shop signs. We argue that the disparate vitality of languages might result from a mixture of social factors such as the state’s macro language policy, demographic structure, as well as ethnic and cultural identity construction. The linguistic landscaping in Singapore’s neighbourhood centres suggests that for grassroots individuals, pragmatic and affective adequacies are top priority in their discourse construction.
Acknowledgments
We would like to express our sincere thanks to the anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. According to HDB, EIP policy was implemented to ensure a good mix of residents of different races in different neighbourhoods and blocks, thus promoting racial integration and harmony (Refer to HDB website at http://www.hdb.gov.sg/fi10/fi10321p.nsf/w/BuyResaleFlatEthnicIntegrationPolicy_EIP?OpenDocument for more details).
2. Due to certain unforeseen reasons (e.g. antipathy of the shop staff), a small number of shop names failed to be included in our data set.
3. It should be noted that font size is not the only way to index prominence. In fact, prominence can be projected to some elements of a shop name via bold colours or special fonts.