Elite Sport Center: Commercial Multilingualism in Lleida by Oriol Salla & Iraia Samper

 

  Elite Sport Center: Commercial Multilingualism in Lleida 

    

     by Oriol Salla & Iraia Samper 

1. Introduction 

   
   

This project aims to analyse one Linguistic Landscape (LL) found in the streets of Lleida. Thus, it is to demonstrate that cities are no longer monolingual and to define why, and how citizens use different languages in their daily lives. We will focus on the use of English in Lleida. 

Our LL is an informational sign, which is used by many businesses to highlight their commerce in a crowded street, in order to be found more straightforward, and quicker as well as to have more publicity among all inhabitants. 

Elite sport is not only a gym but also a place where you can buy sports dietary supplements. It is very popular because of its location (see context below) and its modern appearance.  

This street sign includes the usage of two languages: English (Elite sport center) and non-standard Spanish (Elite), this word can be understood or said in both languages. Nevertheless, the matrix language is English, which index an image of being cooler, trendier, and more international (Gorter & Cenoz, 2009). Both languages come from the Roman alphabet, therefore have some shared characteristics, that is, they include English loan words already accommodated into the Spanish sociolinguistics dynamics which can be understood by connotation, so non-users or English or Spanish can understand it. This is called "advertising English", which is a form of commercial multilingualism strictly aimed at selling and branding (Eldeman & Gorter, 2010). 

2. Contextualization 

   
   

The LL presented is located in Avinguda Alcalde Rovira Roure, 40, 25006 Lleida. Avinguda Alcalde Rovira Roure is one of the most important streets of the city. It is in its upper zone and it is characterised by a high density of pedestrians, numerous commercial establishments and restaurants, bars and cafes. Elite Sports Center is located in the neighbourhood of Camp d’Esports (See Figure 2 below), named after the stadium of the city’s football team Club Lleida Esportiu. In this neighbourhood, we can also find the Hospital Universitari Santa Maria, where many university students share their daily life. In front of the hospital, there is another gym named EKKE (a bigger multinational sports company; see viding EKKE, 2023), which is the competitor of Elite Sports Center. This gym is well-known for its upper-class clients, who are the main inhabitants of the neighbourhood. Moreover, if we take a look at the statistics of the percentage of Spanish and immigrant population (see table 1), we can see how the Spanish population takes over the immigrant population (79.64% versus 20.36%). Also, if we take a look at Table 2, we can see the nationalities with more population in the neighbourhood (Romanian: 34, Moroccan: 29, Colombian: 29).

Figure 1: Map of Avinguda Alcalde Rovira Roure. Screenshot taken from google maps by google maps by Oriol Salla., on the 6th of March. (https://www.google.com/maps/place/Elite+Sport+Life/@41.6223722,0.6150968,586m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x12a6e03e4e06eb91:0x9fbc0452dc17b95!8m2!3d41.6223682!4d0.6172855!16s%2Fg%2F11clgwmzf6?hl=ca)

Figure 2. Map of the neighbourhoods in Lleida. Source: Sabaté-Dalmau (2023)

(https://www.gifex.com/fullsize2/2011-04-14-13453/Barrios_de_la_ciudad_de _Lerida.html )

Table 1: Statistics on percentages of Spanish and immigrant population in Lleida’s neighbourhoods (Sabate-Dalmau 2023). 

Taula 2: Statistics on the three most abundant immigrant nationalities in this neighbourhood (La paeria, 2023).

3. Methodology

   
   

It was a sunny day, on the 25th of February, when we met with our friends to have a drink. On the way to our meeting point, I saw many street billboards using multiple languages, however, this caught my attention since one word could be understood in two languages (Spanish and English). This is the reason why I told my colleague to go with me another time. On the 2nd of March, we came back and took some more pictures and thought that it was original and that it could have many aspects to analyse. The last visit was on the 7th of March, to see if other gyms compete with them, the kind of people that live there or that frequently are in that area, to find potential clients. 

Regarding the language policies in Lleida, we can see different rules when it comes to the language of the banner. According to Article 14, normally, all public signage and inscriptions have to be in the Catalan language. Another example of the language policy is Article 17.2, which states that outside Catalan linguistic scope, advertisements should be written in a double version where Catalan and Spanish or the language of the territory which is referred to have to be present (Sabaté-Dalmau, 2023). In our LL we can see how Article 14 is ignored as Catalan is not present in the banner. We can also observe that Article 17.2 is not followed either as the main languages are Spanish and English.

As this is a private emplacement, the owners have the right to use language as they please, so we can affirm that the language policy applied here is bottom-up. Established by the owners, who compel to provide information to clients in the local languages too.  As we can see in Cots (2013), bottom-up policies are related to Spolsky’s work on languages, ideologies and beliefs of the society, where those are established by cultural, historical, economic and political factors. So the national administration had no influence when the owners decided to name the place. Hence, we believe that this decision is made since English is considered “the default foreign language and one of the keys to internationalisation" (Cots, 2013, 4). So, they take profit from this to make people believe this place is international and modern, that they have the best equipment, full diet and prestige; a branding technique to present themselves as leading and modern.

The majority of the neighbours are Catalan and Spanish speakers. If we look at the photos below, we can see these languages aside from English. There is an insurance company called Cervera Assegurances, which uses Catalan, next to it there is a shop called Tabacs (tobacco in Catalan). Alongside it, there is a household appliances shop called Bosch Services, which uses "advertising" English. Finally, if we take a look at the other side of our linguistic token, we can see an orthopaedic and health establishment called “Equipaments i serveis de salut” which is in the Catalan language. Therefore, we can conclude that local and global languages, especially in this area (Catalan, Spanish and English), coexist and interplay in our daily lives and in our businesses. 

Figure 3. Businesses around our LL. Screenshot taken from google maps by Iraia Samper on the 7th of March.

Figures 4 . Businesses around our LL. Screenshot taken from google maps by Iraia Samper on the 7th of March.

4. Results and discussion 

Figure 5. Informative sign of the gym. (Photo taken by Iraia Samper on the 25th of February)

LL can have many values since their intentions can cover plenty of areas of interest, such as reflecting identity or ideologies. Our chosen LL values are aesthetic, productive and social according to the landscape observatory of Catalonia (2023). 

Firstly, the most important value is the productive value. There is the intention to make money, as all businesses do. This gym uses advertising English which is a form of the language whose function is commercial and, by connotation, local residents are able to understand it. We could claim that it is an attention gatherer, as it is innovative and a fetish, which attracts potential customers (Eldelman & Gorter, 2010). 

Secondly, it is aesthetic since the owners have carefully thought about a game of words that could be understood in both languages (Spanish and English). The first one is for the local clients to transmit confidence and a sense of proximity. On the other hand, English gives the gym prestige, glamour and internationality to engage Erasmus students and foreigners. 

Furthermore, they have written the letter E in an artistic way and added and underlined the word “center” in a special typographic manner to make it more minimalistic and visually attractive. 

Eventually, it has some kind of social value since, according to the landscape observatory of Catalonia (2023), which states that landscape sociability is: "Quantity and diversity of social relations in the broadest sense, linked to the landscape and generated by the landscape in a certain social-spatial and temporal context." That is to say, the gym is a place where one can meet new friends, with whom one may have something in common. Additionally, one can join some activities organised by the gym and socialise.

5. Concluding thoughts 

   
   

We believe that this new pedagogical proposal to learn sociolinguistics is super beneficial for students. This implies, not only learning all the tough concepts explained in class but also putting them into practice and corroborating that everything learned is happening right now. Additionally, it is a way to boost students into the research field of sociolinguistics, seeing it as an interesting topic to focus their studies on. 

Furthermore, projects have a significant impact on students' learning and they are a funnier way to put our learning in practise, that is the reason we completely agree with the next quote: “There are hardly any obstacles for such assignments and they can greatly contribute to raising awareness about language use, literacy practices, globalization, multilingualism and multimodality (Gorter, 2012, 10)”. In other words, through this project, students are empowered to share their knowledge with their colleagues and the world. Moreover, seeing that the variety of LLs helps raise awareness of the increasing importance of English in town, and all the social meaning, values and statuses attributed to multilingual practices, makes society realise about the new era of globalisation. 

Finally, using TKA (Technologies of Knowledge Acquisition) and TEP (Technologies of Empowerment and Participation) has helped us a lot. It was kind of new as we were not used to using these technologies. Using the map (TKA) was totally new to us, but it was easy to use and it was very useful to track all the LLs in Lleida. Regarding the blog (TEP), we had used it before and we think that it is a great tool to show our project to the world as well as see the other projects of our peers.

6. References 

Cots, J. M. (2013) Introducing English medium instruction at the university of Lleida: Intervention, beliefs and practices. In Doiz, A., et al. (eds.) English-medium instruction at universities: Global challenges.  Bristol, England: Multilingual Matters

Edelman, L. and Gorter, D. (2010) Linguistic landscapes and the market. In: Language and the Market (ed.) by H. Kelly-Holmes & G. Mautner. London: Palgrave. 96-108.. 

Gorter, D., & J. Cenoz. (2009). Language economy and linguistic landscape economy and linguistic landscape. In: E. Shohamy & D. Gorter (eds.), Linguistic landscape: Expanding the scenery (55-69). New York / London: Routledge.

La paeria. (2021). ESTRANGERS PER BARRIS I PAISOS. ANY 2021. [Online] Available at https://aplicacionsweb.paeria.es/eOpenDataPublicWeb/faces/ca/cataleg/territori/demografia/estrangers-per-barris-i-paisos-2021/detalls 

The Landscape Observatory. (2023). Presentations. Olot. http://www.catpaisatge.net/eng/glossari.php

Sabate-Dalmau, M. (2023), Handout Unit 2 [Online] Available at https://cv.udl.cat/access/content/group/101266-2223/Part%20A%20Sociolinguistics/Unit%202/Hand-out_and_Ppt_Unit_2_19_20.pdf

Sabate-Dalmau, M. (2023), Handout Unit 3 [Online] Available at https://cv.udl.cat/access/content/group/101266-2223/Part%20A%20Sociolinguistics/Unit%203/Hand-out_and_Ppt_Unit_3_19_20.pdf

VIDING EKKE. (2023). OUR TEAM. https://ekke.cat/es/