English and local languages in linguistic structuration of the public space in Islamabad and the neighbouring town

ABSTRACT

Research studies in the linguistic landscape (LL) in Pakistan seem to have been getting a foothold and topics like the survey of commercial public signs, the glocalisation of English in public signs, traffic signboards on highways, the cinematic-built environment, bilingual advertisements and LL in a tourist place of natural beauty have emerged recently in the LL field. In this study, three commercial locations from Islamabad city and one location from a neighbouring town were selected for data collection in the form of photo clips. The data were analysed by following the model introduced by Ben-Rafael [2009. A sociological approach to the study of linguistic landscapes. In E. G. Shohamy & D. Gorter (Eds.), Linguistic landscape: Expanding the scenery (pp. 40–54). Routledge] that is a sociological framework formed by four structuration principles which are the presentation of self, good reasons, collective identity and power relations. The data were compared to show the attitude of the surrounding population about English and local languages. Moreover, 12 shop owners, three from each location, were interviewed to know their motives behind the language selection on their signboards. The findings revealed that English dominated on signs in the city's commercial locations while Urdu or transliteration overwhelmed the signboards in the neighbouring town. Future studies should explore customers' points of view as well with regard to signboard language.

KEYWORDS:

• Linguistic landscape
• commercial signboards
• language policy
• sign creators’ views

Acknowledgement

We are grateful to the participants of this study for their valuable time.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).