Burger Lover's
Burger Lover's
THE POWER OF ECONOMY
The adoption and incorporation of English as the international language in other societies have shown a notorious influence during the final decades of the twentieth century and more acutely in the twenty-first century (Enric Llurda & Guzmán Mancho-Barés, 2021). This influence was not only in the different areas where English is used (education, business, ...) but also in simple things such as words and images displayed and exposed in public spaces through banners, posters, hand-written notes, etc. that we referred to as linguistic landscape (LL) (Shohamy & Gorter, 2008).
The linguistic landscape (LL) selected in this study is a poster. A poster's leading role is to spread a message to a large audience through a simple and affordable, in this case, a print advertisement. These signs are used by different business types and they provide flexibility regarding their size, shape, visual aids, and designs, for branding, advertising, and selling purposes.
The linguistic token that will be analysed is a multilingual and commercial poster from a restaurant/coffee shop called ‘Abat’. In this LL token, the use of English as the dominant language and Catalan (local language) as a secondary one can be seen. As the languages presented in the poster use the Roman alphabet, we will say that this poster is monoglossic.
This study will be part of a project entitled ‘Localizing English in town’ by Dr. Maria Sabaté Dalmau. A project in the English Studies degree of Universitat de Lleida started in 2017/2018. According to Sabaté Dalmau (2022), the main objectives of this project are: On one hand, to provide knowledge by students themselves about local and global languages in contact in Lleida to reflect on, and critically analyse, the linguistic diversity and to focus on English as a Global Language. And on the other hand, to learn how to do research in sociolinguistics through participatory tools of knowledge (like a blog or a city map, both public).
The linguistic token we are going to analyze is Abat, which is located in Avinguda de Catalunya, 18, in the city of Lleida situated in the "Centre Històric" neighborhood, in the center of Lleida (See Figure 1). Catalunya Avenue is one of the most important ones in the city and a very active one (see Figure 2), furthermore, in this neighborhood, we can also find one of the most important streets in Lleida in terms of economic growth and present-day power which is “ El Carrer Major” a street packed with all well-known business brands.
Having a look at the population of Lleida (2021) the inhabitants were 140,080, 78.43% of whom are from Spain and 21.57% of whom are foreigners. Then if we look at the specific area of “ Centre Històric” on one hand we have 55.19% of Spanish people and on the other hand, 44.81% are foreigners.
Additionally, we have to comment that outside the restaurant Abat we can find other linguistic tokens. Not only in other posters and banners but also in the menus where they use several languages to attract more consumers. As we can observe in the image below ( See Figure 3) we can identify the usage of the Arabic language.
(https://www.google.es/maps/@41.6118757,0.619942,3a,90y,216.49h,86.53t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sT2wL4fX1wFDdyMyziBggOw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=es)
To analyze this linguistic token, we have adopted a critical sociolinguistic approach, which means investigating and identifying linguistic landscape tokens in public spaces looking into them from society's point of view. This is accomplished via ethnographic observation, this way we can observe our token in its natural surroundings making us see its context and experience local and global languages in contact in a particular time and space. The first visit was on 29/04/2022 at 21:27pm, when we were walking around the neighborhood of Centre Històric that this token caught our attention. And although we knew of the place before and have even gone there to eat before, it was not until that moment that we noticed the multilingualISM and multiculturality in the establishment. In the first and second visits, where the second visit was on 06/05/2022 at 15:05 pm, we only saw the use of multilingualism on the poster and the migrants walking on the street. The poster was still on display at the window so nothing had changed between these two visits.
In the third one, made on 12/05/2022 at 15:15, we wanted to see if we could only see the multilingual and multiculturality on the posters (as there was another one, see Figure 4) or if there were some in the interior of the restaurant. Then we found that in this establishment they use English and Catalan, like in the poster, however, in addition, they also use Spanish. We found this language in the restaurant menu (see Figure 5) where we saw the use of Catalan as the main language with English as a secondary language, but we also saw some words (like "nuevo") in Spanish. In addition, when some of the employers asked us what we wanted they spoke in Spanish too. As we were in the interior of the restaurant we also saw that there was multiculturality in the customers also. There was an Arabic family who was speaking in their language, which we guess is modern standard Arabic, beside us. And in other tables, we could hear people speaking in Spanish and Catalan.
During this visit we also looked at its surroundings and if a lot of people strolled around it. And what we found is that in its surroundings we also have more advertisements where we can see the use of English along with Catalan and Spanish (see Figure 6). These posters are found beside the establishment, on the righthand side. We also saw that this street has people strolling around all the time, as it is a busy street because it is near Carrer Major, an important street in Lleida.
As we have mentioned before, our LL token is located in Lleida, Catalonia, a bilingual autonomous community in Spain, where two languages, Catalan as a minoritised vernacular language and Spanish as a lingua franca and as the nation-state language coexist. For this reason, the Ajuntament de Lleida (2014) published a bulletin with top-down policies to regulate the use of Catalan. Article 14 establishes that public signage of all kinds must be normally written in Catalan. In article 17.2 that outside the linguistic field, advertising should be in a double version, in Catalan and the language of the territory which is addressed or in Spanish. (Ajuntament de Lleida. (2014))
However, our LL token is not identified as a top-down language policy but as a bottom-up one, as the choice of the languages to use in the establishment is decided by itself. When an establishment produces an advertisement, they have the power to decide what they want to do. In our LL token, we can see how they decided to use English as the main language but also use the Catalan language (minority language of the territory) as it is one of the official languages of the territory. Here we can see how they try to relate to the top-down policies of Lleida. We also see how they use English as the main language in their commercial initiative. In doing so, we can see how they have opted to use a multilingualism strategy to advertise as English is not an official language in the territory but is an attractive and powerful language internationally. Advertising in English and the use of English itself is a linguistic fetish not really an advertising instrument. So, it is a strategy that the establishment used to make themselves cosmopolitan and international.
In view of all said above, our project aims to observe what our LL token can show us about the population of Lleida and the use of foreign languages in the Lleida landscape.
As we have seen in the sections before, our LL token (see Figure 7) contains 2 languages Catalan (eg: “patates”, “beguda”, “completa”) and English as we see in the title of the poster (eg: “Burger Lover’s” and “Home-made”) and finally, at the bottom, there is the name of the establishment Abat. In this study (Ben-Rafael. E., Shohamy. E., Barni. M.; 2010) the area that the LL expresses most clearly its multilingualism as values like patriotism and national pride have a direct impact on the use of official languages and things like commercial competition and allegiances is what on the present-day makes us use the recognized lingua franca, i.e. English because of the impact of globalization. However we can also see national pride in this token as this establishment uses both, English to make it more global and Catalan for the national pride. We can describe it as national pride as the policies that regulate the advertisements, say that they have to use Catalan or Spanish. So, they could also have used Spanish and not Catalan in it. Therefore we find English in it because of the economic internationalization; and it is English being adopted in the Catalan sociolinguistics dynamics (like economy, profit, marketability). And Catalan for the national pride.
Figure 7. LL token. Photo made by the authors.
Situated in Avinguda de Catalunya, 18, Lleida on 29/04/2022
Another factor that helps understand the use of English in the Spanish advertisement is a sign of “modernity, progress and globalization” (Hooft et al., 2017:2). As we have this positive perception of English we have this use of LLs tokens as an innovative way of advertising as the messages of the tokens are understood as a form of public discourse aimed at selling and projecting an identity here seen through the branding (Sabaté-Dalmau, 2022). So, we can say that the general perception of English in our country is relevant to determine the values that can be observed in our LL token.
According to the categorization of the linguistic landscape observatory of Catalonia, our token has a productive value as the establishment is a restaurant so they sell food to make money. However, it could be argued that our token also has the value of identity and aesthetics. On the one hand, we can say that it has the value of identity as the restaurant Abat is a significant point of reunion for a lot of people in Lleida, above all for the students as it is an economical place to eat. We also can see the union of a foreign language with the food more typical for America in a Catalan store. These could be indicators of a globalized identity. On the other hand, the aesthetic value as we see in its definition “a landscape's capacity to transmit a certain feeling of beauty, depending on the significance and cultural appreciation that it has acquired throughout history” (Sabaté-Dalmau, 2022). This token can be seen in the image of the burger and also its title “Burger’s Lovers” as a connection to the American society making it more appealing to international customers. It's thanks to this usage of English and this globalization that advertisements are done in English, as we see them in a positive connotation.
Once the analysis of this particular LL token has been carried out along with its report on this paper, we can affirm that the main aim of this project was to see that there is the presence of different social meanings and that English is present everywhere. This, consequently, shows the sociocultural and linguistic diversity of a community. In this case, we can include the term 'Englishization', which means a set of processes and practices that include English as a lingua franca (ELF) in the local language incorporating English in the city of Lleida. Hence, it is evident that the city of Lleida has a wide use of English within the linguistic landscapes that use words from this language. So, the use of English in societies reflects another way to transmit a message using in this case another language, and make people comprehend what is conveyed, however, that does not mean they can not understand the message of the token itself, alone without the need to use this international language, English.
Linguistic landscaping has become a way of applying and working with sociolinguistics, that is, students, who become knowledge generators, learned how to do sociolinguistics by applying the concepts used in class to their lives. Moreover, LL proves that it is an effective way of employing pedagogical tools and incorporating different skills, including Technology of knowledge acquisition (TKA)/Technology of empowerment and participation (TEP) skills. Students are the ones who have to manage and associate the divergent concepts to real situations, in this case, to the analysis of the LL, being this a new way of improving knowledge on the roles and uses of English in a dynamic way and applying the theoretical part worked in class.
In this study, we focused on a commercial LL token that allows us to realize that the use of English in posters and other advertising channels is used to capture the attention of the target population. The use of English is not only attractive and appealing to people in the community and tourists but also implements social, cultural, and multilingual perspectives, in this case, in Lleida city.
The study has been conducted with an analysis focused on the chosen LL token and including the environment to see that there is also a use of English, Catalan and Spanish languages. With this project we began to look at our surroundings from another viewpoint, paying more attention to what we see and the languages present. Overall, our token clearly reflects the use of English related to promotion and marketing, therefore related to the commercial world. Furthermore, we have to say that this selected token reflects a multilingual context in Lleida, strongly including Englishisation. All in all, we arrive at the conclusion that the pedagogical approach of this study works in an effective way.
6. REFERENCES
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Ajuntament de Lleida. (2012). Butlletí Socio Econòmic de Lleida. Número 14. Retrieved from http://paeria.cat/butlletieconomic/2012/03-juliol/06-poblacio.pdf
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van Hooft, A., van Meurs, F., & Schellekens, L. (2017). The same or different? Spanish-speaking consumers’ response to English or Spanish in product advertisements in Spain and the USA [Ebook]. Nijmegen (the Netherlands). Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318116394_The_same_or_different_Spanish-speaking_consumers'_response_to_the_use_of_English_or_Spanish_in_product_advertisements_in_Spain_and_the_USA
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Sabaté- Dalmau, M . (2022, April). Unit 4: The Market (Class Handout). English Department, University of Lleida. https://cv.udl.cat/access/content/group/101266-
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Shohamy, E., Shohamy, E., Barni, M., & Ben Rafael, E. (2010). Linguistic Landscape in the City. Clevedon: Channel View Publications. Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.21832/9781847692993
I found your entry blog fascinating. I have to say that you can learn different things about advertising and how multilingualism works.
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