From blackboard to palate: Exploring linguistic landscapes in a cafeteria Rayhan Sora & Marina Acosta
Title:
From blackboard to palate: Exploring linguistic landscapes in a cafeteria
Source: picture taken by Rayhan Sora on February 26th, 2025
Predominance of Spanish ("la joya de la corona", "huevos Perico", "Noruego", “zumo de naranja natural", etc). Some words in English are associated with food (“waffles”, “porridge”, “pancakes”, “Sunday breakfast”, etc). Use of a blackboard in a cafeteria wall to provide the menu to the customer.
Introduction:
For our project on linguistic landscapes, I, Rayhan Sora, visited a local café to analyse how language is used in its signage. The café features a large chalkboard menu that is primarily written in Spanish ("la joya de la corona", "huevos Perico", "Noruego", zumo de naranja natural", etc), with some English words integrated into the descriptions (“waffles”, “porridge”, “pancakes”, “Sunday breakfast”, etc).
This mix of languages reflects the cultural and social influences shaping the business, as well as the diverse clientele it serves.
The café’s sign is handwritten on a blackboard, which makes it easy to adapt and highlights how language in public spaces is flexible and temporary. This allows the café to update menu items, prices, or special offers quickly. The establishment operates in the food and beverage industry, catering to a mixed audience of Spanish and English speakers, since tourists use it as the international language to communicate abroad. As a result, the choice of language in signage plays a crucial role in communication and customer engagement.
The type of sign is commercial. Spanish is the dominant language on the menu, reinforcing the establishment's cultural identity. However, English is used mainly for emphasis or to appeal to non-Spanish-speaking customers.
This bilingual approach helps the café connect with a broader audience. The Roman alphabet is used throughout the signage, as it is the standard script for both Spanish and English. Lastly, Marina uploaded the linguistic landscape to Google Maps by including each requirement and uploading a picture.
Contextualisation:
The cafeteria is located in Gran Passeig de Ronda, 159, 25008, Lleida, a major thoroughfare in the city. The street connects Plaça d’Europa to Avinguda de l’Alcalde Areny, near the Segre River and Pont Nou.
The area is known for separating middle-class residential areas from more working-class neighborhoods, like La Mariola, Instituts Templers, and Gardeny Hill. This contrast might influence the clientele of the cafeteria. Being one of the city’s main roads, Gran Passeig de Ronda likely attracts a mix of residents, commuters, and possibly tourists.
The neighborhood was rebuilt ex nihilo (from nothing) after the Spanish Civil War, which might explain its modern urban layout. The neighbourhood has a migrant population comprising 14,3% of its residents, indicating a multicultural community.
Figure 1. Map of the neighbourhood (Gifex, 2011)
Figure 2. Street view map of its surroundings (Google Maps, n.d.)
Methodology:
First Visit: The initial fieldwork visit took place on the 26th of February, 2025, at 13:07 hours. During this visit, the necessary observations were made, and data was collected as planned.
Second Visit: The second fieldwork visit was conducted on the 24th of March, 2025, at 14:30 hours. Unfortunately, upon arrival, the site was closed, and thus, the visit was unable to be completed as initially intended.
Third Visit: The final fieldwork visit occurred on the 27th of March, 2025, at 17:05 hours. As the site was closed upon arrival, we took pictures of the surroundings.
Top-down language policies in Catalonia aim to promote the use of Catalan. These policies include the Lleida municipal Policies, which reinforce Catalan through city-wide language promotion campaigns, public service language requirements, and incentives for Catalan-language business practices.
The cafeteria demonstrates the bottom-up language policies influenced by its clientele and operational needs; while most official signage is in Catalan (as required by law), informal signs or menu notes might be bilingual or include other languages reflecting the high migrant population.
The owner is Spanish from Latin America, and the clientele is likely from Latin America, especially from the Dominican Republic. There is also a significant presence of Catalan and Arabic due to the diverse demographic.
Figure 3: Surroundings of Bugui the Brunch. Photo taken by the authors (28/03/2025)
Results and discussion:
Figure 4. Bugui the Brunch LL token. Photo taken by the authors
The previous picture shows a handwritten blackboard sign used in the café. The blackboard format facilitates modifications, since by simply erasing the chalk the menu can be changed. Additionally, the aesthetic value of this token lies in its inviting and informal presentation, boosting the café’s atmosphere.
The fact that the text is handwritten gives a sense of genuineness that matches with traditional and welcoming Spanish cafés. That aspect is essential, since a landscape’s capacity to transmit a certain feeling or beauty is associated with its form, colours, diversity, scale, texture and unity elements (Observatori del Paisatge de Catalunya, 2025). It is a visual and creative invitation for clients to consume.
Regarding other values, this linguistic landscape is also productive since it allows quick updates of the menu depending on the demand and availability of ingredients. As for every commerce, generating income is key, and the use of both Spanish and English expands the market to attract both local and international customers. This bilingual strategy increases the café’s appeal and convenience.
Moreover, the monetisation of English is related to globalisation, where production and consumption are interconnected with the marketplace. Businesses use English to attract more customers and increase their sales. As a result, the use of English is driven by economic motivations, with associations to values such as modernity, success, sophistication, and prestige (Cenoz & Gorter, 2009).
Commercial multilingualism serves as a branding technique to attract diverse customers and generate money. Advertising English is essential in the interplay between global and local economies, reflecting modernity, open-mindedness, and innovation. Therefore, this café’s chalkboard menu uses English to enhance international appeal, while at the same time Spanish grounds it in cultural identity (Edelman & Gorter, 2010).
On the other hand, identity is another value to highlight, where local and global are blended. It is an element of the landscape as a whole with an identity-based meaning for the local people to establish a sense of belonging or identification (Observatori del Paisatge de Catalunya, 2025). Therefore, the sign reinforces local cultural norms with the use of a blackboard and Spanish, while adapting to the globalised world we live in with the use of English in order to appear cosmopolitan.
Reflection:
The token chosen, a chalkboard menu written in both Spanish and English, reflects the connection of local and global languages in Lleida. English is used as a lingua franca to appeal to international visitors, including tourists, students, and migrants, linking global economic opportunities with local traditions. Therefore, it is a clear example of Englishisation. This Englishisation process shows cultural and social transformations in Lleida, a city marked by the global market and international commerce.
However, minoritarian languages such as Catalan could be overlooked. It is the co-official language of Catalonia, and yet it has no presence in the linguistic landscape chosen. That might be due to the fact that the café’s owners are Spanish-speaking immigrants and for marketing strategies. Also, the fact that the café serves meals for brunch (breakfast and lunch), an Anglo-American custom, reinforces its appeal to both locals and tourists who seek a cosmopolitan experience. By prioritising Spanish and English, both languages spoken by hundreds of millions of people, a wider audience can be reached.
While English increases accessibility, it also raises concerns about the dominance of global languages over local linguistic identities. Additionally, since getting financial benefits is the priority of every business, minoritarian languages as Catalan could be undervalued. Thus, societal, cultural, and economic factors play a key role.
Lastly, English phrases related to food demonstrate its current and growing presence in Catalan society. On a sociolinguistic level, English symbolises modernity, globalism, and mobility.
Concluding thoughts:
In conclusion, our linguistic landscape in a brunch café reflects the influence of Englishisation in Lleida. Due to economic, social, and cultural factors, tourists, students, and migrants are drawn to establishments such as the selected. Despite that, there is also the risk of the marginalisation of languages such as Catalan.
Furthermore, linguistic landscapes (LL) are a valuable pedagogical tool to engage and learn about sociolinguistics, promoting active participation in ethnographic research and citizenship. Through LL, students not only study language in context but also gain hands-on experience by observing and analysing the languages in their environment. As Prego-Vázquez and Zas Varela (2018) suggest, citizen sociolinguistics allows anyone, including university students, to collaborate with researchers and contribute to the creation of knowledge.
This approach fosters linguistic consciousness, where students go outside the classroom and gain meaningful, real-world insights into how languages function in their communities. Additionally, the integration of TKA (Technology of knowledge acquisition) allows students to categorise and understand languages in dynamic ways. Lastly, engaging with LL encourages lifelong learning, curiosity, and a deeper understanding of the social world, while reinforcing the importance of linguistic diversity in shaping identities and communities.
References:
Cenoz, J., & Gorter, D. (2009). Language and the globalization of the economy. In P. S. R. Feigenbaum & D. C. Knight (Eds.), Globalization, language, and culture: The economic implications of language use (pp. 155-178). Routledge.
Edelman, L., & Gorter, D. (2010). Linguistic landscapes and the market. In H. Kelly-Holmes & G. Mautner (Eds.), Language and the market (pp. 96-108). Palgrave.
Gifex. (2011). Barrios de la ciudad de Lérida [Map]. https://gifex.com/images/0X0/2011-04-14-13453/Barrios-de-la-ciudad-de-Lerida.gif
Google Maps. (n.d.). [Street view image of Bugui The Brunch and surrounding area in Lleida, Spain]. https://www.google.com/maps
Observatori del Paisatge de Catalunya. (2025). Landscape glossary. https://www.catpaisatge.net/en/landscape-resources/landscape-glossary
Paeria. (2023). Estrangers per barris i països 2023. Ajuntament de Lleida. https://aplicacionsweb.paeria.es/eOpenDataPublicWeb/faces/ca/cataleg/territori/demografia/estrangers-per-barris-i-paisos-2023/detalls
Prego-Vázquez, G. & Zas Varela, L. (2018). Paisaje lingüístico: Un recurso TIC-TAC-TEP para el aula. Lingue Linguaggi, 25, 277-295.
Sabaté, M. (2023). Project Information_Assessments_Steps_Outcome. Universitat de Lleida. https://cv.udl.cat/access/content/group/1012662223/Part%20A%20Sociolinguistics/Project%20Localising%20English%20in%20Lleida/Project%20Information_Assessment_Steps_Outcome.pdf
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