TEA SHOP

ENGLISHISATION IN LLEIDA: TEA SHOP   By Nadya Ziyani, Joana Sirera and Mar Roca

INTRODUCTION

Support (medium/text typology): Poster 

Activity domain: Hospitality

Type of sign: Commercial and hospitality/ Productive value (the landscape has the capacity to provide financial benefits)

Main/foregrounded language(s): English

Secondary/backgrounded language(s): Catalan, Italian and Spanish

Alphabets: Polyglossic (where two or more languages coexist within a speech community)/ Multimodal (combines both letters and numbers and image)

CONTEXTUALISATION

Our token can be found in Centre històric, specifically in Carrer Major, 29. When it comes to the neighbourhood’s demographic profile it is gentrified because we can clearly see how it is old and has not been renovated. This may be the reason why people of a higher social class do not live there, and it has become a migrant-populated area. A study done by Paeria in 2012 shows that 55.19% of the population is Spanish and 44.81% are migrants. When it comes to tourism, according to Idescat (Institut d'Estadístiques de Catalunya) Lleida had about 28.000 tourists in 2018 (see Table 1). If we compare it to the rest of Catalonia Lleida is not a very tourified city. However, the small number of people who come here tend to visit Carrer Major, as it is one of the highlights of the city.

Regarding the neighbourhood’s socioeconomic profile, the vast majority of the people seen in Carrer Major belongs to the middle-class profile. However, after visiting the street we can also see some transit housing of homeless people and beggars. In general, the street buildings are torn out, for this reason, the neighbourhood can be seen as impoverished but it also gives a special touch to the street. Moreover, buildings are worn out, and as the selling prices and housing rents are more affordable, the migrant population tends to live there. A study done by Paeria in 2004 shows that "Els barris del Centre de Lleida (Centre Històric, Rambla Ferran – Estació, i Universitat) concentren el major percentatge d’immigrants (5.718/ 36,4%)". 

Figure 1. A map of the neighbourhood. Paeria Carto Lleida, 2019.

Figure 2. A street view map of its surroundings. Capture by authors.

Table 1. Tourism in Catalonia. Idescat. Anuari estadístic de Catalunya 2018.

 METHODOLOGY 

We took a critical sociolinguistic ethnographic approach and, as data, we used ethnographic material, census, visual information and, finally, an interview. The interview, as it will be explained below, was taken in the third visit. It was one of the most interesting parts of this project because we could get additional and useful information.

Our first visit took place on 13th March of 2019 at 11:30am. We took three pictures: one of the token chosen, one of the whole shop and another one of the street. Our second visit took place on 21st March of 2019 at 15:00pm. We could observe a big change in the token because the poster was missing. That was due to the fact that the shop was closed. Our third visit took place 26th March of 2019 at 19pm, the token had not changed since our first visit. During this third visit, we interviewed the shop assistant. She was a local middle-aged woman called Arancha Olivera. She speaks Catalan, Spanish, and even though she does not perfectly speak English, she manages to understand the costumers. We asked her questions about the customers, the languages that she hears in the shop, whether they have more local customers or foreign ones, why does the poster have English as the main language and if it is changed during the year.

When it comes to top-down language policies in Catalonia and municipal language policies in Lleida the official language is Catalan. " In Catalunya, there is a legal obligation to have at least some presence of the Catalan language on all public and private signs" (Goter, 2006: 85). According to Paeria (2012), the public signing of any kind must be done in Catalan and Spanish remains a secondary language. In Lleida, the top-down signs can be done by three different official institutions: the Spanish government, the Catalan government, and the local government. Moreover, according to Scollon and Scollon (2003: 217), there are four categories of signs. Our token would pertain to the commercial category, that has to do with advertising and related signage.

The bottom-up language policies of the emplacement are those made by the citizens. In this case, our token is bottom up as it was done by the commercial enterprise, Tea Shop. The main language used in the official website is English because, as it is explained, the commercial enterprise started its expansion 25 years ago in Barcelona and nowadays there are 50 shops across the world, in Brazil, France and recently in Italy. However, in the website there are two sections called "Discover our workshops" and "Tea Magazine" that use Spanish as the main language. That's because in the first section, they are advertising some different workshops in Madrid and Barcelona, whereas in the second one, they are showing the advantages of tea and how to use it in recipes.   

In general, people walking by the token speak in Catalan and Spanish. Moreover, other languages such as Arabic or Romanian can be heard on some occasions. When it comes to the languages surrounding our token, we find that there is a great variation of languages. For instance, we can find French (Dominique), English (Tiger, Twelve), Italian (KIKO Milano), Catalan (Museu d'Art Jaume Morera, Caselles) and Spanish.

Having said that, we must highlight that the analysis of the LL token has helped us to understand that apart from the official languages, there are other ones that people use within a community in order to communicate. As Mooney and Evans (2015:96) explain, regardless of what those in power claim about the linguistic profile of the community, the linguistic landscape is a testament to the languages actually being used in a place. That is, it is not the case that the only languages used in a community are the "official" languages. Close examination of a linguistic landscape can reveal languages that would otherwise be invisible.

Figure 3. Languages surrounding the token

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Figure 4. Picture of our token. Picture taken by authors (13th March 2019).

In our LL token, we can clearly identify the productive value, because the token analysed provides financial benefits and it is placed next to a shop where the customers go in order to taste and buy tea products. In our unit of analysis, tea is the main product and, as the main language is English, it clearly shows the process of Englishisation. Although “Centre Històric” is not a tourified area, English is the main language due to three main reasons. Firstly, it is considered to be more prestigious. Secondly, it is a Lingua Franca. Thirdly, this commercial enterprise has English-for-commerce policies,  as there are franchises all over the world.

Having said that, in the poster there are just three words in Catalan: “per emportar” and "cúrcuma". This last word, “cúrcuma” could be also in Spanish as it is written the same way as in Catalan. They play with words, such as "natural" and "cúrcuma", so people can read them as they want. These words are ambiguous because we don't know if they are written in Spanish, English or Catalan. Finally, some words are written in Italian: “matcha latte” and “latte”. The Italian language is used in order to give an exclusive scent. The rest of the token is written in English.  

Moreover, we decided that interviewing the shop assistant would be interesting. This interview was relevant as we collected more data about the presence of English in the shop and the languages spoken by the customers. The shop assistant also explained why we hadn't seen any change in the token; that's because they only change the poster when there is a change of season. For instance, in summer they turn around the poster, then the image and the tea advertised change. 

The interview provided data about the languages spoken by the customers, the vast majority of them are local people who speak Catalan and Spanish. Besides, there is also a large number of foreign people that are established in Lleida, most of them are Moroccan people, they address to the shop assistant in Spanish. Then, there is also a big amount of people that come from other communities of Spain, specifically from Andalusia, where there is a great tradition of tea. Furthermore, the shop assistant explained that lots of tourists enter the shop, such as French, Australian, German, Russian and Asiatic people. All of them use English to address the shop assistant, but when talking to each other they use their native language. Having said that, we can affirm that multilingualism, the ability to communicate in two or more languages, is clearly present in Lleida. Moreover, we want to highlight that according to Gorter (2006), languages are part of the cultural heritage and the sustainable development of linguistic diversity is seen as an important aspect of our heritage.

When entering the shop we could observe that the majority of names of the different teas are in English, whereas the explanation of what each tea is made of is in Catalan. An example of this can be seen in Figure 5. Before the expansion of this store to other places of the world like France, Italy and South America, the names of some of the teas were in Spanish. However, later on, they had to change those names to English in order to reach further, since English is a global language that is understood by everyone. According to Arancha Olivera nowadays there is only a type of tea in Spanish called "Siesta", which can be seen in Figure 6.

Figure 5.  Names of teas are normally in English and explanations are in Catalan. Taken by authors (26th March 2019).

Figure 6. Siesta tea. Taken by authors (26 March 2019).

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

The aim of our project was to analyse a multilingual sign with English as the main language. When we first saw the LL token, it appealed to us due to the fact that it fulfilled our requirements. Apart from being attractive, it contained an ensemble of languages including English, Catalan, Spanish and Italian. What also caught our attention is the fact that English is the main language used in almost all the signages of the shop, it is given even more importance than to Spanish and Catalan. 

The way we see it, it is essential to highlight the huge variety of the customers' origin. The presence of touristification is clear, as customers come from places as diverse as France, Australia, Russia, Italy, Japan, China and of course Spain. As has been mentioned before, tourists use English as a way of communicating with the shop assistant. This clearly shows the importance of English and how it has become a Lingua Franca used by people from everywhere around the world, that do not share the same L1 so as to interact. This Englishisation is clearly reflected in the linguistic signs of the whole shop (See Figure 7).

Figure 7. Other signs in English found in the shop. Taken by authors (26th March 2019).

By using ethnography, we were able to contextualise some of the imprints of our LL token in Lleida. Thanks to TEP (Technology of empowerment and participation) (Prego-Vázquez & Zas Varela 2018: 281) we could take part in this project, enabling us to appreciate the Englishisation in our city.

"Understanding the linguistic landscape is important for understanding the spaces in which we live. While many of the signs we encounter on a typical day seem normal and inconsequential, they nevertheless construct the space in which we live, communicate messages and convey ideological information."(Mooney, A. & Evans, B. 2015:107)

This project was very useful as it gave us the opportunity to apply in practice the theory taught in class and also helped us understand better some concepts that we had not very clear. Besides, this research work enabled us to use a pedagogical tool to learn how to do research in sociolinguistics and to raise awareness about the role of multilingualism in on-going social transformations.

REFERENCES AND WEBSOURCES

Gorter, D. (2006). Introduction: The Study of the Linguistic Landscape as a New Approach to Multilingualism. In: Linguistic landscape: a New Approach to Multilingualism (ed. by D. Gorter). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. 

La Paeria, Ajuntament de Lleida, Consorci de Promoció Econòmica, (2012). “Població al municipi de Lleida”. Available in: http://paeria.cat/butlletieconomic/2012/03-juliol/06-poblacio.pdf 

La Paeria, Ajuntament de Lleida (2004). La immigració a la ciutat de Lleida. Available in: http://www.paeria.es/arxius/noticies/Document_cat_399.pdf  

Mooney, A. & Evans, B. (2015). Chapter 5. Linguistic Landscapes. In: Language, society and Power. London & New York: Routledge.   

Prego-Vázquez, G. & Zas Varela, L. (2018). Paisaje lingüístico: Un recurso TIC-TAC-TEP para el aula. Lingue Linguaggi 25.    

Scollon, R., & Scollon, S. W. (2003). Discourse in Place Language in the Material World. London Routledge.   

Source of Figure 1. A map of the neighbourhood. Plànol de Lleida (Consulted on 16th March of 2019). Available in: https://cartolleida.paeria.es/cartolleida/ 

Source of Figure 2. A street view map of its surroundings (Consulted on 16th March of 2019). Available in: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1LCRMDaUyw-uq1_oVls8XH-vpFMBBkFQO&amp%3Bll=41.61383723507486%2C0.6253119485354546&amp%3Bz=20&ll=40.38365091293476%2C-3.668191015624984&z=14

Source of Figure 3. Languages surrounding the token (Consulted on 16th March of 2019). Available in: https://www.instantstreetview.com/@41.613863,0.625384,47.84h,1.17p,0.51z

Source Table 1. Tourism in Catalonia. Idescat. Anuari estadístic de Catalunya 2018. (Consulted on 28th March 2019 of 2019). Available in: https://www.idescat.cat/pub/?id=aec&n=556