WESLAY MONEYTRANSFER - CUENTA SMILE: A Linguistic Landscape Analysis of a Money Transfer Service in Lleida by Valeria del Portillo, Lucie Čevelová and Alexandra Rus

  

WESLAY MONEYTRANSFER - CUENTA SMILE:
A Linguistic Landscape Analysis of a Money Transfer Service in Lleida.

Valeria del Portillo, Lucie Čevelová and Alexandra Rus.

Introduction:

As our world has become increasingly globalized, English has been rising as an influential language in non-English speaking countries. These countries have experienced a growth in English in day-to-day life by using the language in diverse linguistic landscapes (referred to as LL). Linguistic landscapes work as a way to inform group members of the territorial and language boundaries as well as the linguistic characteristics of the region, displaying its socioeconomic profiles, too. Added to this, reflecting upon the linguistic factors of a community reveals the social, political and economic information of its area, and it might help us understand the increasingly multilingual worlds as well as the rapidly-changing urban landscapes, (Bolton, 2012) which we can see in our daily life - now in Catalan metropolitan areas like Lleida. 

According to Scollon and Scollon (2003), there are four different types of signs: regulatory, infrastructural, commercial and transgressive signs. Regulatory signs encapsulate traffic signs as well as legal prohibitions, infrastructural ones work to label things for a public, transgressive signs are associated with any signage found in a “wrong” space and the last one, the commercial are used for advertising. Knowing this and applying this theory to our token, we have come to the conclusion that our LL aligns with the commercial discourse.

It is thanks to these functions of an LL that we have decided to analyse and consider how languages displayed in current LLs impact the city of Lleida. For this we have chosen a front-shop sign: "Weslay MoneyTransfer: Cuenta Smile". English is the predominant language in the front-shop, and Spanish is a secondary one, thus, we can say that this LL is monoglossic and uses the Roman alphabet.

This study will aim to expose the functions of this banner added to its values, which we have stated to be aesthetic, identity and productive values (see analysis section). Furthermore, this study will allow us to use specific tools to gather information regarding sociolinguistics through TKA (Technologies of Knowledge Acquisition) and TEP (Technologies of Empowerment and Participation), which will heighten our creative skills as well as apply the in-class knowledge to the outside world as seen in the concluding remarks. 

Contextualization:

The language and name of this LL makes a connection between migrant communities and language through the usage of a commercial signage aimed at attracting customers. Blending two languages into one establishment reflects on the growing use of globalised language in business communication, as English has been found to induce internationalness and success to a bigger scale than local languages. (Hornikx, Van Meurs, & Tenzer, 2023)
Given the area in which the establishment is located, it becomes important to us to analyze at a deeper level its commercial environment as well as the social groups living in the area to see if it aligns with the economic status of the residents. By studying the signage of this and nearby establishments, we can understand more closely how languages exist and affect multiculturality in this district of Lleida. 

The token is located in the University area of Lleida. That district has one of the lowest populations in the city. Looking at the map one can see that the area is used for the university or other public and non-residential facilities. Because of that, the number of foreigners living there comes up to around 30 %, but it is only 8 % of the overall population of foreigners of Lleida. The somewhat high percentage of foreigners might be given by the closeness to the city center or the neighbourhood of the university, where foreigners might be working or studying, given that around 9 % of the students of The University of Lleida are international students (University of Lleida | DistanceLearningportal, 2024). 

Figure 1. Map of the districts of Lleida.  

Source: Sabaté Dalmau (2023). https://www.gifex.com/Europa/Espana/Cataluna/Lerida/Lerida/Politicos.html

Found in Street Ramón y Cajal, 28th, Lleida, the socio-economic background of the district falls in the more economically stable categories, but it is the least stable one, with the monthly living cost being of approximately 3,323 euros while its monthly income finds itself at an average of 3,589 euros, (Teixidó and Carbonell (2026), CARTO Workspace. (n.d.)) as figure 2 displays. The small gap between the two values suggests that people can afford the living cost, even if the gap is quite small. This hints at a working/middle class society living there. This aligns with the commercial emplacements found in the neighborhood, which are quite affordable places (see figure 3): a low-cost copy shop, some hair salons and the most expensive business being a nail salon. Regardless of the last one, it is a neighborhood that positions itself positively in the socio-economic background related to its commercial world. Additionally, the percentage of immigrants in the region, which, as mentioned before is of 30 %, may be seen in some of the businesses such as “Peluquerías El Amel”, while its local counterpart can be found in places like “Finques Esteve” or “Comoditat Al Malalt”. The marketing diversity suggests that the minority, immigrant population co-exists peacefully with the bigger, local one, hence offering a peaceful, even if not balanced, neighborhood.

Figure 2.  Socio-economic map of Lleida

Source: CARTO Workspace. (n.d.) https://pinea.app.carto.com/map/f3ee2769-cac0-4510-afcd-c5ee83878bad?layers=0%2C1%2C3%2C4%2C5&lat=41.615506&lng=0.625749&zoom=14

Figure 3. Surroundings of our LL

Source: Street View · Google Maps. (n.d.). Street View · Google Maps.

 

Methodology:

The first visit of the place was done on February 26th, 2026 at 10:35 AM. After strolling around the more hidden areas of Lleida, we found this store, whose logo caught our eye. After consulting with all the group members, we decided to analyze this token, so we took the first pictures of the business after ensuring that it is an LL. We then started the outline for our project, aiming to understand the reasons behind the choice of English and Spanish for their business.
Some weeks later, by March 3rd 2026, a second visit was done at 13:30 PM. We did not notice any changes compared to the first time we went there, and we wanted to visit the inside of the store, but it was closed. After some further online research we found that the business name was "Locutorio Hola Que Tal?" and the Google Maps information said that it was open from 9:30 AM to 14:00 PM and from 17:00 PM to 19:00 PM, so we decided to make a third visit on March 6th, 2026 at 10:40 AM, in which, aside from checking whether the place was open or not, we also checked for the linguistic context of its surroundings. Unfortunately, the place was closed, even though we went during its alleged opening hours, so we concluded that the place had been shut down for a while.
Out of these visits, we were able to apply the previous knowledge learnt in class to understand why did the owners choose English as well as explore commercial emplacements nearing the store, showing how they impact the overall ambience of the street.

The city where our LL is situated, Lleida, finds itself in Catalonia, Spain, an autonomous community which has Catalan and Spanish as official languages and whose residents have the right to know and use them (Jefatura del Estado, 2006).

Added to these guidelines, the government of Lleida released its own top-down policies in 2014, stating that all public signage must be written in Catalan. Furthermore, all advertising outside the linguistic field should be done in Catalan or Spanish (Diputació de Lleida, 2014), allowing, too, for the use of the targeted clients’ languages. 

Regardless of these government policies, the language choice of an establishment is solely chosen by the owner of the place, thus, the place follows a bottom-up policy rather than a top-down one. This LL token uses mainly the English language and alludes to the top-down policies by using Spanish words as a minority language. Through the usage of English as the main language, it can be said that English is used for commercial purposes despite the fact that it is not an official language of the autonomous community. As the English language has become globalized, it is now often associated with progress and modernity, and through the usage of the local language, this establishment fuses the effects of globalisation as well as the ones of local patriotism (Edelman, L., & Gorter, D., 2010).

All in all, using English as a main language for the establishment is for the purpose of modernisation and globalisation, while Spanish serves as a tool for localisation, balancing both concepts into one establishment. 

This place is surrounded by different establishments that offer a diversity of LLs, as seen in figures 4, 5 and 6. The closest business is a hair salon containing two alphabets: roman and arabic. As mentioned previously, the existence of this establishment aligns with the percentage of the immigrant population in the area, and the usage of Arabic suggests that this business wants to attract Arab speakers. Aside from a productive value, it wants to increase the clientele, attracting other Arab speakers in its establishment, thus creating a more open and welcoming ambience aimed at Arabic speakers. Two other establishments found near our LL are a nail salon and a copy shop. They both use English in their business, and we determined that its usage was probably to give a feeling of modernity and globalisation rather than to attract more clientele. It might be safe to say that here, aside from indexing a productive value, English is used as a linguistic fetish, in which the people, with or without English knowledge, may understand the products that these establishments present.
Added to this, a local organization could be seen: “Finques Esteve” (see figure 7). The lack of any other languages may point to a desire of maintaining its local origins and roots, even though it does not mean that foreigners are not welcome in the place.

Figure 4. Hair salon next to our LL.

 Source: picture taken by the authors on 09/03/2026.

Figure 5.  Nail salon near our LL.

 Source: picture taken by the authors on 06/03/2026.

Figure 6. Low Cost Copy Shop near our LL.

 Source: picture taken by the authors on 09/03/2026. 

During our third visit, we also got the opportunity to see some human interactions near the business, and we were not surprised to see that the people we found spoke in both Catalan and Arabic. While strolling around, we saw two Arab-speakers get out of the hair salon we mentioned before, and even if we did not understand what they were talking about, it showed us that there is, to a certain degree, diversity in the area. We also heard an older man talk about some personal issues on his phone in front of the copy shop, and in this case, the conversation was in Catalan, confirming the population statistics of the district.
Considering everything said, the linguistic context regarding “WeSlay Moneytransfer: Cuenta Smile” offers a range of LLs with diverse functions and languages, most of them indexing productive values with means to sell and earn. We also observed how English was used as a linguistic fetish and heard diverse human interactions with a linguistic variety. The linguistic coexistence in signage and day-to-day interactions implies that this is a neighborhood depicted by a linguistic and cultural coexistence. 

 Figure 7. Catalan-owned business next to our LL.

Source: picture taken by the authors on 06/03/2026.

Results and discussion:

Figure 8. Our LL token.

Source: photo taken by the authors on 03/03/2026.

Figure 9. Our LL token. 

Source: photo taken by the authors on 03/03/2026.

Before analysing the specific values of our token, it is important to contextualise our research process. We visited the establishment on several occasions and observed that it did not appear to be operational. Consequently, we conducted online research to determine the services it offers. We found the company’s official website and, through Google Maps, we discovered that the establishment was registered under the name “Locutorio Hola Que Tal?”. From this, we were able to deduce the specific services provided by this business.

Taking this into account, the Landscape Observatory of Catalonia (n.d.) has enabled us to define and identify the various interconnected values embodied by our token.
First among these is the productive value, as the main purpose of thesigns is to advertise and sell a service: international money transfer.
As shown in figure 6, the word "moneytrans" is a clear description of the business main activity, while  "Cuenta smile" (Spanish for "smile account")
refers to a specific financial product offered by the company, a bank account that can be opened with just a passport, as shown

on their website. The presence of English influences this value because of marketing purposes, especially since Moneytrans is an international franchise with
operative businesses across multiple countries worldwide. (Moneytrans, n.d.)

As mentioned above, we found that Google maps identifies this business as a parlour named “Locutorio Hola que tal?”, which perfectly aligns with this type of
value as it exchanges a service for money. Another value would be identity, as the sign projects multiple layers of identity. The term 'smile' for a money transfer agency serves to evoke positive emotions such as happiness and peace of mind, conveying to customers that sending money back home is a simple and secure process. It is clear from the nature of the business that the target audience includes migrant communities which need to send remittances outside the country. In this way, the sign speaks directly to their identity, positioning itself as a bridge between the lives of migrant communities in Lleida and their homes abroad. In addition, the use of the Spanish word "cuenta" reinforces this connection by grounding the product in one of the local languages, making it feel familiar and accessible to Spanish migrant customers as well. The hybrid expression "Cuenta smile" exemplifies code-mixing, combining the local "cuenta" with the global "smile” to project both trust and modernity.

While functional, the signs also possess an aesthetic value. The choice of the word "smile" is not just semantic but visual as it is more attractive and evocative for an account than a simple one. In addition, the use of the colour blue reinforces this aesthetic appeal. As demonstrated in the research by Gupta (2025), blue is commonly associated with trust, security, and stability, values that are important for financial services such as money transfer.  

As for the social meanings of this token, it might be said that it exemplifies the Englishisation process in Lleida since over the years, English has become more prominent due to its globalized values, to the point where some establishments use it as a linguistic fetish. Here, "moneytrans" operates connotatively rather than denotatively, since passersbys do not need to understand English to know that this is a money-related business.The reason for this is  that English has become associated with the stereotype of financial activity and modernity.

Moreover, English in this case works as a linguistic currency (Niño-Murcia, 2003) as the language is used to get an additional monetary benefit. All these factors are deeply connected to the growth of English in non-English speaking countries, with its rise causing the language to become positively stereotyped as a sign of modernity (Cenoz & Gorter, 2009). The stereotyping of English has consequently caused the local languages of the place to be dismissed as less-profitable languages, reinforcing the preference businesses have to use English to project modernity, globalisation and changing times. This concept is deeply linked to linguistic hierarchization, since using English as the main language and Spanish as a secondary one, while the city’s official language, Catalan, is missing, may indicate that the business aims to attract a diverse clientele composed of different global linguistic and ethnic groups interested in using the services provided by the company - particularly migrants, in need of remittances services. 

Next to the seriousness and ‘professionality’ that using English brings, we can see the word “smile” and a corresponding image. That would correspond with another social meaning that can be seen within this token. Using English, the word “smile” and a picture of a smiley face that can be called an emoji may also evoke youth, making the sign multimodal. Young people are more likely not only to understand, but also to use English themselves, even in a local context. Another thing associated with the ways young people communicate is the usage of emojis or other symbols to express emotions. By using these youthful ways of communication, the brand might approach young people, young clients who do not necessarily care about joining the globalized world of finance yet, but they are likely to stay with the brand in the future. Thus, multimodality is here used as an attention gatherer, understood either by denotation (for English readers) and by connotation (by non-English users).

Overall, by the values and means above, the brand wants to show that it offers a fresh, modern product/service, but is also reliable and serious. It is new and youthful but professional enough to be interesting for those in need of key resources like money transfers but serious enough for the client to trust it with their money. 

Concluding thoughts:

In conclusion, this project has significantly enhanced the linguistic awareness of our surroundings. It has been through deep research, hands-on cooperative work, exploration of our environment and through the application of the theory presented in class that analysing this linguistic landscape has made us better researchers and has helped us become more experienced regarding academic work.

Added to all these values, we realized how the English language has become more common and influential in non-English speaking environments over the years. Through working with a token of commercial nature, we started noticing similar patterns in other cases of Englishisation in Lleida which led us to being, even if not on purpose, competent observers of the places around us. The examination of this LL has also given us a heightened sense of creativity and academic knowledge applied to the outside world. 

Furthermore, the process of analysing the city’s linguistic landscapes allowed us to develop some technological skills. By integrating approaches such as TAK (Technology of Knowledge Acquisition) through the detailed Google Maps and TEP (Technology of Empowerment and Participation) via an interactive blog, into our work, we learned how to use research to become ethnographers and discover more about this city outside of the classroom walls. We would like to mention, though, the difficulties TEP brought to us, as, in our case, matching the text fonts, sizes and colors was an impossible task, but in the end, we managed to make a pretty organized blog of which we are proud of. 

All in all, this project has shown us how linguistic landscapes influence the social and economic background of the city of Lleida, and, through the analysis of English usage, we grew increasingly aware of the globalisation of said language in our day-to-day life. 

References and web sources:

Bolton, K. (2012). World Englishes and linguistic landscapes. World Englishes, 31(1), 30–33. 

CARTO Workspace. (n.d.-b). https://pinea.app.carto.com/map/f3ee2769-cac0-4510-afcd-c5ee83878bad?layers=0%2C1%2C3%2C4%2C5&lat=41.615506&lng=0.625749&zoom=14

Cenoz, J., & Gorter, D. (2009). Language economy and linguistic landscape. In E. Shohamy & D. Gorter (Eds.), Linguistic landscape: Expanding the scenery (pp. 55–69). Routledge.

Diputació de Lleida. (2014). Edicte publicat al Butlletí Oficial de la Província de Lleida (BOP). https://bop.diputaciolleida.cat/faces/consultaF/servlets/donarEdicte/?id=2014_212_9251 

Edelman, L., & Gorter, D. (2010). Linguistic landscapes and the market. Language and the Market, 96-108.

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Landscape Observatory of Catalonia: Glossari de paisatge | Observatori del Paisatge. (n.d.). https://www.catpaisatge.net/ca/recursos-de-paisatge/glossari-de-paisatge

Moneytrans: su historia, su misión y su equipo. (2024, March 4). Moneytrans Spain. https://www.moneytrans.eu/spain/sobre-nosotros/ (Moneytrans: Su Historia, Su Misión Y Su Equipo, 2024) 

Niño–Murcia, Mercedes. 2003. “English is like the dollar”: hard currency ideology and the status of English in Peru. World Englishes 22 (2), 121-141. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-971X.00283 

Scollon, R., & Wong Scollon, S. (2003). Discourses in place: Language in the material world. Routledge. 

Teixidó, J., & Carbonell, M. (2026, March 4). La renda dels veïns de Lleida: la del barri de Ciutat Jardí, quatre vegades més alta que a la Mariola i el Barri Antic. Segre. https://www.segre.com/ca/lleida/260304/la-renda-dels-vens-de-lleida-la-del-barri-de-ciutat-jardi-quatre-vegades-mes-alta-que-a-la-mariola-i-el-barri-antic_1131211.HTML

Theoretical implications for language-related IB research. Journal of International Business Studies, 55(2), 270–279. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41267-023-00639-6