Haters: “English as a tool to catch your eye in Lleida”



Haters: “English as a tool to catch your eye in Lleida"

Authors: Hanía Benaabou and Vanessa Tomàs

Figure 1. Chosen Linguistic Landscape. Source: Picture taken by authors (11/03/2020)

1. Introduction:

The previous Linguistic Landscape can currently be found in Gran Passeig de Ronda, 99, one of the most important and popular areas, situated in the heart of the city of Lleida. As it can be appreciated un Figure 1, this particular Linguistic Landscape is a sign, with commercial purposes, situated in the window of a Santander’s bank. Banco Santander, commercially known as just Santander, is a Spanish bank allegedly specialized on business loans and insurances. This bank offers its services internationally in more than 150 countries, such as Argentina, China, Morocco and Germany. That is why, in their website we can select our language of preference among a vast variety. However, Spain remains the country where Banco Santander has more influence, having more than 17 million costumers.

The neighborhood where our token belongs is named Joc de la Bola, which is situated in the centric part of the city. In this particular part of the downtown area, a vast mixture of cultures, languages and ages can be found. Many posters, stickers and signs that reflect this society mixture can the found all across the area. The participation of three languages, Catalan, Spanish and English, Catalan being the prominent language, makes our token a polyglossic sign. Nowadays, the use of multilingualism and linguistic diversity in commercial sings allow commercial enterprises to get international recognition and, moreover, it also allow brands to expand their influence among future possible costumers.

As previously mentioned, this Linguistic Landscape fits in the commercial typology, since its activity domain is to offer and/or sell a particular product to potential buyers. The sign is property of the bank, meaning that it was posted by an employee or an advertising company, which makes it a bottom-up sing, particularly addressed to business owners and, possibly, also to business shareholders. Besides, it also follows the language policies in Catalonia, which establish that "La retolació pública de tota mena s'ha de redactar normalment en català" (Article 14, Ajuntament de Lleida, 2016).

 2. Contextualization: 

As previously stated, our Linguistic Landscape can be found at Gran Passeig de Ronda. This specific area of the city counts with a wide variety of shops, small independent business and leisure establishments, such as, supermarkets, bars and betting houses. As a consequence, Gran Passeig de Ronda tends to be a highly crowded and busy place.

Considering the length of the city block, we can surely affirm that Joc de la Bola’s demographic profile is both immigrants and Spanish citizens populated. However, according to what we observed during our time at the specific street where our Linguistic Landscape, that zone is inhabited by Spanish citizens.   

As it can be deduced from Table 1. Statistics of Spanish and Foreigners citizens in Lleida, the number of Spanish residents (94,74%) in the area is nineteen times higher that the amount of immigrants citizens (5,26%) residing in the same area. Moreover, for further information, we can take a look to Table 2. Inhabitants of Joc de la Bola where we will be able to appreciate that Joc de Bola’s neighbourhood is mostly populated by women around the ages of fifthly-six and sixty, making it an area mostly populated by women of middle to advanced age. Furthermore, if a close look is taken into Figure 2 and Figure 3 we will be able to observe the exact location for the token and its surroundings.

Table 1. Statistics of Spanish and Foreigners citizens in Lleida (2017)

Table 2. Inhabitants of Joc de la Bola (2012)
Figure 1. Joc de la Bola (Localising English in Lleida, Google Maps)
Figure 2. Gran Passeig de Ronda, 99 (Google Maps)

3. Methodology:

Figure 3. Street view of the location. Source: Picture taken by authors (11/03/2020)

One of our intentions with this project was to portrait it in a specific way in order to make it as complete and informative as possible, and to delve into the main theme of the project, which is sociolinguistics. That is way, during the process of choosing and photographically capture our token, we did not only pay attention to, in this case, the window sing of Santander’s bank, but we also took into account external factors, such as the people that were strolling nearby, the languages that were being spoken, the specific date and time when the picture was taken, etc.

 The moment when we first noticed and captured our token was, specifically, on March 11 at 12:35 p.m. during a Wednesday’s early afternoon. At that time, the street was very calm and not crowded at all, for the only exception of two middle-aged women passing by while having a casual conversation in Catalan. This particular place of Lleida is not a place of great tourist interest, that is way no tourists were to be found, and therefore only Catalan language was heard.

 To deepen the into the subject, a series of Internet searches have been made. These searched included Banco Santander’s and Barcelona’s stock exchange official websites. After having done a deep reading of the information found, we came to the conclusion that, usually, in Spain people are more likely to open small to medium size businesses during this precise period of the year. Therefore, we believe that is probably the reason why Santander decided to announce its business insurance services at this exact period.

 Regarding language policies in Lleida, the town council, called La Paeria, is the main public entity owning the right and duty to choose and regulate the used of different languages in posters, sings, etc. located on public locations. According to La Paeria official website (La Paeria, 2020), all governmental or institutional sings, posters etc. that are in a public area of the city need to be in the official language, Catalan and, may or may not, also have to include a Spanish translation depending on the modality of the Linguistic Landscape. Moreover, if a sing is specifically directed to a certain community of people that speak another language, the sing will need to be in Catalan, in the language of the particular community and/or in Spanish.

 Furthermore, we believe that our token, which is bottom-up, meaning that it is non-governmental and non-institutional, does not need to apply or be associated with the previous norm, since it is directed to top-down Linguistic Landscape. However, our token can still be evaluated according the policies established by the authorities. In our sing, we can clearly see the use of a vast majority of Catalan language, and a minimal use of English, used as a commercial and/or marketing tool in order to increase sells, meaning that this sign does not, contradict the legal policies established.


4. Results and discussion: 

Figure 4. The selected token. Source: Picture taken by authors (11/03/2020)

Our token makes use of two languages, Catalan and English, and one more language, in a secondary part of the sing, Spanish. We personally think that many could be the reasons of the decision taken by the company, one being wanting or needing to call people's attention as fast as possible. If we pay close attention to the sing provided, you will be able to appreciate that the word “haters” not only is in a different language than the rest of the text, but it is also written in a different font and represented with a different colour, with the only exception of the word “inoportuns” which is the adjective that complements the previous noun (haters), with a Catalan word order for noun phrases. All these changes, on that particular part of the text, cause the person that is seeing the sing (clients) to catch and retain the most important and relevant information of the text within seconds.

Another reason for the justified use of English in the sing, could be the lack of the same or a similar word, in the Catalan or Spanish vocabulary, that suits the sentence the way the word “haters” does it. Meaning that in the Catalan and Spanish vocabulary there is not any specific word that could replace “haters”. Therefor, it is actually an English from being accommodated into the Catalan language norms.

The last justification we came up with for this mixture of languages is the intent of seeming more modern and appealing to potential customers. Within the world of commerce, English is used as an hegemonic language in order to suggest leadership, innovation and knowledge domain, which are, in all probability, appealing facets for possible costumers. Moreover, since the people that are more likely to open a business, and therefore, to need an insurance, are probably around the ages of thirty and forty, the use of simple English will not suppose a obstacle of the understanding and comprehension of the window sing. Furthermore, we consider that formulating  the advertisement in the form of a question is a commercial/marketing technique to get into people’s minds, and a smart way to be remembered and kept in mind. 

5. Conclusion and thoughts:

Despite being a relatively small city, Lleida is, since the past few years, an area in process of growth and expansion, meaning that the city is constantly welcoming new habitants, specially immigrants from foreign countries, and physically expanding due to the new edifications and internationalised commerce being constructed in order to suit the habitants' needs.

When we first started working on this project, we were worried we would not find any fitting Linguistic Landscape to work with, since we considered Lleida to be way too small as to find a vast variety of languages in use. However, once we started looking around the streets, we were able to find endless examples and suitable Linguistic Landscapes for this project, in less than one hour, which made us realize that there is increasing linguistic diversity in Lleida which is a clear indication that the city is going through Englishisation processes.

During our search for an adequate Linguistic Landscape, we found out that, despite not being in an English-speaking country, many business, shops and establishments in general used English in their promotional posters or even in the own name of the establishment, as an advertising technique in the commercial realm. That let us to think that English is actually a highly present language in our society and daily lives, which most of the times might pass unnoticed.

Personally, we think that this could be due to the processes of globalization, Americanization and Englishization that the world is going through at the moment. What these three concepts have in common is that they are due to the influence of a superior element, in this case English. The term Englishization, is defined as " a social phenomenon where English exerts its influence over other languages and transforms them according to its rules" (Kwok-kan Tam, 2009, pg. 84). English has gained tons of power all around the world during the last century due to, mainly, commercial elements, such as, popular TV shows, music, food chains or even fashion. Therefore, it is not surprising to see use of English across countries where English is not an official language. 

Finally, we consider that the particular technique of using Linguistic Landscapes as a way to go further within sociolinguistic and the understanding of our society is a highly productive technique, since "understanding the linguistic landscape is important for the understanding the space in which we live" (Mooney & Evans, 2015, pg. 107). Moreover, and regarding the technology of knowledge acquisition, "estos métodos de enseñanza tratan de orientar las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación hacia unos usos más formativos, tanto para el estudiante como para el profesor, con el objectivo de aprender más y mejor." (Roser Lozano, 2011, pg. 46). Working with Linguistic Landscapes is a great idea in order to keep the students interested in the topic and specially to keep our eyes open to the languages of the world and society that surround us.

 6. References and  web sources:




Comments

  1. Javi Royes26 April 2020 at 11:57

    Such an interesting blog!! I had no idea about this place.

    ReplyDelete

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