"Kebab Barris Nord Fast Food Halal" Englishisation and language diversity in Lleida commerces
Alba Sentís and Adna.
“Kebab Barris Nord Fast Food Halal” Advertising English and migration accommodated in Lleida:
1.Introduction:
The Linguistic Landscape that we have chosen to analyse is a Kebab restaurant sign located in the Pardinyes neighborhood, specifically in the street “Carrer Girona, 46”. Its activity domain is commercial because it is used to advertise and promote the restaurant, the goal of which is to sell food.
It consists of a multilingual restaurant sign in which we consider that the main language is Turkish (word “Kebab”) because it is the biggest word in the sign, it is located on the top and it is written in red color; the other languages present are Catalan (“Barris Nord”), English (“Fast Food”) and Arabic (“Halal”), all in the Roman script.
Even though four different languages are used, only one alphabet is present, the Roman alphabet; so, we can consider that our Linguistic Landscape is monoglossic.
2.Contextualisation:
This Linguistic Landscape is localized in “Carrer Girona, 46”, in the Pardinyes neighborhood of Lleida (25005). It is situated in front of the Barris Nord Parking zone, it is a well-known neighborhood in Lleida that is slowly growing.
According to “La Paeria” (on date 27/02/2025 https://www.idescat.cat/poblacioestrangera/?b=8&geo=com:33&lang=es) Lleida has approximately 144.878 inhabitants (2024). The Pardinyes neighborhood has around 12.913 inhabitants (2021); according to Idescat, 6.388 inhabitants of Pardinyes are Men and 6.525 inhabitants are Women.
Most of the population of the area is in the age range between 30 and 55 years, these are considered young and active population.
Immigration is present in all the neighborhoods in Lleida; according to “La Paeria”, in Pardinyes, 2.276 inhabitants are immigrants (2023).
Tourism is also present in Pardinyes, even though it is a working class neighborhood, it has some beautiful parks that are attractive to tourists.
The surroundings of our Linguistic Landscape are composed of shops, bars and discos; we can see a School supplies store, a hair salon, a bar, a disco, and the area is full of buildings because it is a neighborhood street where many people live.
Figure 1: Neighborhood map of Lleida
Source: https://gifex.com/fullsize2/2011-04-14-13453/Barrios_de_la_ciudad_de%20_Lerida.html
3.Methodology:
For our linguistic landscape we have done three fieldwork trips to observe and photograph the source token analysed; we were interested in seeing the surroundings, the demographic that was in the area, and the age demographic and gender of the customers that were on the restaurant. We have chosen to do a qualitative approach.
The first trip was on March 6, we walked to see the different Linguistic Landscapes of the city and we photographed the Linguistic Landscape that we decided to analyse. On the second fieldwork trip, on March 8, we focused on the surroundings of our Linguistic Landscape (what shops where at the front and sides of the restaurant) and we also focused in the neighborhood location, and on the third fieldwork trip, on March 12, we tried to discover what kind of people entered to the restaurant and what language did these people speak.
The top-down language policies of Catalonia in Lleida, as indicated in Article 14, state that everything in public sources has to be in Catalan (“Public signage of all kinds must normally be written in Catalan”). In the Article 17.2 which states that outside the linguistic landscape of Catalan the publicity has to be done in Catalan and in the own language of the territory that is targeted.
The bottom-up language policies of Lleida state that it is prohibited the use of any kind of advertisement and propaganda in public spaces destined to give specific services, which are, for example, transgressive signs like graffiti.However, advertisements can be present if there is a license and permission previously given (Ajuntament de Lleida, 2018).
The predominant languages in Pardinyes are Catalan and Spanish, but we can also hear other languages such as Arabic and Mandarin Chinese. There is a lot of bilingualism of Catalan and Spanish among the residents of Lleida, most of the population is able to understand both of the languages.
4.Results and Discussion:
The values of this linguistic landscape are: Productive, aesthetic, spiritual and identity.
It has a productive value because the aim of the shop is to sell food to make money, and the goal of the sign is to attract customers to the restaurant.
It also has an aesthetic value because we can see multimodality present in the use of text, image of the kebab and the star sign like “seal of quality” and also in the red colour, which symbolizes vitality and youth (according to Kress 2001). The use of English for market production/consumption is also present, attracting more people to the restaurant; in the text “Fast Food” we can see an example of using the English language to sell and, even for the customers that don’t read english, they can understand the meaning.
It does have an identity value because it uses English as the global minded index of quick/fast food; the use of the word “halal” according to the precepts of Islam, so it is also oriented to a migrant-community, and the words “Barris Nord” show that it also wants to approach local catalan/Lleida people of the neighbourhood (it can be interpreted as pride for the neighbourhood).
It also has a spiritual value that we can interpret for the word “halal”, that includes the beliefs and religious practices of a community. The word “halal” is an Arabic word that means lawful or permitted, but generally refers to what's allowed under Islamic law, in this case, related to food.
(https://www.catpaisatge.net/en/landscape-resources/landscape-glossary )
(ppt/handout unit 4 p 8 Cenoz & Gorter (2009: 57)
These values are product of the globalization of languages in Lleida.
In the last 20 years, Lleida has become a city with plenty of different languages. As a result, it has started a movement of everything becoming more multilingual, and a mix of different cultures. This happens because of the increase of tourists, erasmus students, and migrating people, for example.
However, even if all these languages are being represented, Catalan (the lingua franca) is becoming a minoritized language, losing visibility and speakers; we believe that it is underrepresented mainly because of the effects of globalization.
5.Concluding Thoughts:
This project has helped us in working with sociolinguistics in an experiential way. The transition from theoretical learning to applying that knowledge in real-world contexts has made the subject more engaging and useful for our learning. Working in Lleida, a city rich in linguistic diversity, has allowed us to see in firsthand how language shapes and is shaped by society and the process of englishisation.
We really liked the concept of treating students as knowledge generators. It empowered us to explore our surroundings actively, transforming us from passive recipients of knowledge into engaged participants in the sociolinguistic landscape. Each observation added depth to our understanding of how language functions in our daily lives. It discovered new perspectives of our surroundings.
Using TKA (map) and TEP (blog) as tools for our project was also very helpful and interesting. The map allowed us to visualize linguistic landscapes, highlighting where and how different languages coexist and interact in our city. It was helpful to see how public signage, advertisements, and community spaces reflect the multilingual identity of Lleida. Meanwhile, the blog provided a platform for us to share our findings and personal reflections.
All in all, this project has discovered for us sociolinguistics as a field of study and as a lens through which to view our world differently. It has expanded our knowledge about the field; for example, we found really interesting the direct relationship between language and society, and also the expanding process of englishisation in Lleida and all the multilingualism present in both the streets and the habitants of the city.
6.References and Web Resources:
Ajuntament de Lleida. (2018). Ordenança Municipal de Civisme i Convivència de la Ciutat de Lleida. https://www.lleidaparticipa.cat/public/197/docs/6c2e2ab8cee8ef11cc82f1e8621d78b5.pdf
Ajuntament de Lleida. (2024). Dades obertes de Lleida Open Data. Estrangers per barris i paisos any 2023. https://aplicacionsweb.paeria.es/eOpenDataPublicWeb/faces/ca/cataleg/territori/demografia/estrangers-per-barris-i-paisos-2023/detalls
Gifex. (2011). Barrios de la ciudad de Lérida. https://gifex.com/fullsize2/2011-04-14-13453/Barrios_de_la_ciudad_de%20_Lerida.html
Gorter, D., Cenoz, J. (2008). Knowledge about Language and Linguistic Landscape. In: Hornberger, N.H. Encyclopedia of Language and Education. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-30424-3_160
Idescat. (2025). Población extranjera a 1 de enero. Por municipios. https://www.idescat.cat/poblacioestrangera/?b=8&geo=com:33&lang=es
Landscape glossary. (2025). Observatori del Paisatge de Catalunya. https://www.catpaisatge.net/en/landscape-resources/landscape-glossary
Moustaoui, A. (2019). Dos décadas de estudios del Paisaje Lingüístico: enfoques teórico-metodológicos y nuevos desafíos en la investigación. Signo y seña. https://doi.org/10.34096/sys.n35.6935
Sabaté-Dalmau, M. (n.d.). English language in context. Sociolinguistics part. Collective project: Localising English in Lleida (pp. 7-8). https://cv.udl.cat/access/content/group/101266-2425/Part%20A%20Sociolinguistics/Project%20Localising%20English%20in%20Lleida/Project%20Information_Assessment_Steps_Outcome.pdf
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