Localising English in Lleida

“EVERY DAY IS WOMEN’S DAY”   English-mediated global fight for gender equality in Lleida  by Georgina Llanes and Teme Ivanova Figure1. English-mediated LL token. Source: Picture taken by Georgina Llanes and Teme Ivanova (3/4/2020) INTRODUCTION The main objective of this project is to analyze the different landscapes that we can find in public spaces, in this case of Lleida. The main languages in Catalonia and in Lleida are Catalan and Spanish, both cooficial(Spanish as a nation-state language and lingua franca; and Catalan as a “vernacular code, historically minoritized. “The distinction between official and nonofficial signs official/non-official [speak of] the distinction between what is written by the authority (the names of roads, for instance, or traffic rules signs) and what is written by the citizens (the names of shops, graffiti, commercials, etc.). There are two different ways of marking the territory, two inscriptions into the urban space” (Backh...

Dees-froo-tahr: The aestheticisation of English for commercial purposes - Marta Baró and Maria Alamillo 1. Introduction The aim of this project is to observe, document and analyze an example of a Linguistic Landscape (LL) that can be found in Lleida, in order to demonstrate the uses and meanings of English in the city. According to Bourhis and Landry (2002, cited in Gorter, 2006), a Linguistic Landscape could be defined as “the use of language in its written form in the public sphere” (pg. 2). Our token, named “dees-froo-tahr”, pertains to a T-shirt located inside a shop from Carrer Major, which shows that it belongs to the commercial activity domain as it offers goods in exchange of money to the public. More concretely, it is located in Mango, a multinational firstly established in Barcelona (Spain) in 1984 by Isak Ermany and that nowadays, has been spread to more than 105 countries. Besides, in order to open a franchise in a city, it needs to be located in...

Mister English: Oxford test of English Promotion of EFL certificates in Lleida Authors: Amina Djabali, Maria Berzal and Anna Vadrí Figure 1. Chosen Linguistic Landscape. Source: Picture taken by authors. (20/02/2020) 1. INTRODUCTION Mister English is a well known English academy around Lleida, especially for students of all ages and school years who want to improve their use of the English language. There is only one academy, nonetheless, it works with several state-funded and semi-private primary schools from surrounding areas: Huesca and Lleida. In this case, the advertisement of the academy is hung up in the corridors of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Lleida (UdL), where foreign languages students assist to classes assist. The advertisement analyzed here includes the usage of two different languages: Catalan and English. Moreover, the language mostly used is Catalan. Nevertheless, English is much more remarkable since it is used for the titles ...