FISH & CHIPS SHOP
Fish and chips, #BritanisationInLleida
1.INTRODUCTION
1.INTRODUCTION
The concept of linguistic landscape is used to describe the study of the language situation in a specific place. In order to elaborate on this essay, the following of a specific token from the city of Lleida has been done. The objective is to analyze the interaction of multilingualism in urban spaces and understand how citizens relate in public spaces.
The Linguistic Landscape chosen is “Fish and Chips” which is the sign of a fast food restaurant located in Carrer Canonge González, 3 in Lleida, and it is part of the Historical centre of the city thus belonging to the oldest part of the town.
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Table 1. Description of the Linguistic Landscape
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As previously mentioned, our token belongs to the neighbourhood of “Centre Historic” and more specifically in Carrer Canonge González, 3. The neighbourhood itself has a gentrified demographic profile, and we can see according to Table 3. That most of the population concentrates in the ages of forty and above. While the area has one of the most important streets of the city itself, areas outside this have grown old and barely renovated, outside Carrer Major, most of the buildings are worn out and housing prices have lowered. This may be one of the reasonings why the average social class that lives in this area has lowered over the years and is now a more migrant-populated area. According to studies made by Paeria in 2012, more than 45% of the population of the area are migrants. We considered this area to belong to the middle-lower classes of the spectrum.
Specifically to Carrer Canonge itself, there’s not much to mention, it’s a residential-minded street where all the building are strictly residences with the exception of the building that hosts our Linguistic Landscape
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Image 1. Depiction of the areas considered to be part of the Centre Historic
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Image 2. Satellite image of the area surrounding the token
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Table 2. Comparison on the type of population in Lleida
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| Table 3. Age Comparison in Centre Historic |
This particular Linguistic Landscape belongs to a restaurant banner (>>sign), making this a commercial sign. Since it hasn’t been written by any form of authority member, we can assert this as a bottom-up sign. It’s written mainly in English although there’s a presence of Catalan and Spanish as secondary languages. The alphabet used is roman.
Socioeconomically wise, we believe that the inhabitants of the neighborhood belong, at least most of them, to the mid-lower class (move this info above together with the rest of demographic info). Most of them are immigrants who are looking for better opportunities than in their home country, therefore we believe that they will look for cheaper prices. This corresponds to three reasons. In the first place, it belongs to a shabby area, with most of the walls dirty and with graffiti paintings; secondly, run-down old flats and finally, as a consequence, this produces a devaluation of the buildings and the whole area.
3.METHODOLOGY
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Our first visit took place on the 13th of March at nighttime, where we took the first image of our token. The second image was taken on the 20th of March and a third visit took place on the 23rd of March and, on this occasion, we were able to see the establishment from the inside.
Due to its linguistic situation, Catalonia has a different top-down language policy in comparison to other regions. According to both “Llei 1/1998 de 7 de Gener” and “Llei 22/2010, 20 de Juliol”, “Bars and restaurants must have, at least, menus, bills and tickets in Catalan […] Information located in posters or signs must also contain information in Catalan” and as Goter (2006) mentions “…Spanish remains a secondary language”, and we also have to consider the "Article 3 of the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia declares that Catalan is the official language of Catalonia and in section 3.3, establishes that "the Regional Government is to guarantee the normal and official use of the two languages, adopting the measures that are necessary to create awareness and foster the suitable conditions for achieving full equality in reference to the rights and obligations of the citizens of Catalonia".
In Lleida, any type of Top-Down information comes from a total of three different institutions. The first one is the Spanish Government, the second one is the Catalan Government, and the third one is the local government, on this occasion, the city council of Lleida. Any information provided by any of these three institutions is transmitted in both Catalan and Spanish.
The bottom-up policies are "non-official" policies, the ones made by the citizens. For this token, in this case, we have a mixture of Spanish, Catalan, and English. As said before, the use of Catalan is a priority in the whole Catalan territory and, in fact, that is what we can see in this case. At first sight, the restaurant label is written in Catalan "el Convidat" and in English "Fish & chips shop", but if we take a look at the menu inside, it is mainly in Catalan and the use of English is only intended for the naming of some dishes such as "Fish and chips", as we can see in the picture below.
4.RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
El Convidat is an innovative restaurant which has an aesthetic function because it uses the English language as a modern twist an as a way of appealing a young public.
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| Photo taken by customers Ros, M. (2019). El Convidat [Image]. Taken from http://www.google.com/maps |
In relation to this and, in regards to the linguistic context, the waiters interact with customers using both, Catalan and Spanish, and the use of English is only destined to mention a few products on the menu. This finally lets us know the aesthetic function and also an actual/modern point of view, which is also linked with the globalization nowadays.
5. CONCLUSION
The purpose of our project was to analyze a linguistic landscape in Lleida. This city has a huge variety of cultures and languages and even though, it is not a city where English is our official language, it is really present in different places such as billboards, restaurant signs or shops.
In the token analyzed, it is noticeable the interaction between three languages, Catalan, Spanish and English. It is common to use this type of signs that mix two or more languages for commercial purposes. The name of the restaurant is written in Catalan since it is one of the official languages of the country and its aim is to address the local people. Therefore, the second phrase we can see is in English which, is used to increase their wealth through tourism.
Englishization can be seen in restaurant signs due to the international power this language has so, it can appeal not only local people who live in that country but also, international customers. This could be one of the consequences of globalization nowadays and shows how English has become a Lingua Franca and it is used around the world.
This project has given us the opportunity to learn about the English language in context and how Linguistic Landscapes can be used as an instrument in the field of sociolinguistics. We have realized that the number of languages can show the social and political diversity involved in a specific place. In this case, Lleida is a city which has a bilingual population, Spanish and Catalan, but also has the influences of English in a big part of the commercial areas. Furthermore, during the process of this blog, it has been almost impossible not to realize how influent English has become and in specific in the advertisement field.
6. REFERENCES
Hernandezrabal.com. (2019). Rutas interesantes: Lérida. [online] Available at: http://www.hernandezrabal.com/espana/cataluna/lerida/segria/leridac.htm [Accessed 24 Mar. 2019].
La Paeria (2019). Butlletí econòmic. [Online] Source from http://paeria.cat/butlletieconomic/2012/03-juliol/06-poblacio.pdf
Lleidaparticipa.cat. (2019). Ordenança municipal de civismo i conveniència de la ciutat de Lleida. [online] Available at: http://www.lleidaparticipa.cat/public/197/docs/6c2e2ab8cee8ef11cc82f1e8621d78b5.pdf [Accessed 24 Mar. 2019]
Ros, M. (2019). El Convidat [Image]. Taken from http://www.google.com/maps
Sant Pau's Library (Barcelona.Catalonia) Català language policy. [Online] Avaliable at:
http://www1.euskadi.net/euskara_lingua/PDF/Kataluna/Ingles/CA_IN_PO.pdf
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