Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 301

Part of Session 132: Re-writing and Engaging with Urban Spaces via Linguistic Landscape (Other abstracts in this session)

Where language becomes superfluous

Authors: Ben-Rafael, Eliezer; Ben-Rafael, Miriam
Submitted by: Ben-Rafael, Eliezer (Tel-Aviv University, Israel)

Studies of LL generally emphasize linguistic variations in LL as a function of social, cultural or political contexts. They mostly focus on the varying uses of the legitimate language, the impacts of ethnic groups on LL or the importance of international codes such as, and more particularly, English. This latter pattern is especially visible in the commercial centers of the present-day megapolis. Though, in recent years, one witnesses in this area a new phenomenon that gains in importance up to the point of becoming the prevailing model along the streets of commercial streets and squares. This model consists of the nearly exclusive use of names of firms to designate shops, boutiques, department stores or commercial buildings. These names may have French, Italian, English or German origins or connotations, but they in themselves do not have necessarily any other literally significance than their naming given firms. This phenomenon will be illustrated with data from Ku’dam and Friedrich strasse in Berlin that yield new considerations regarding contemporary urban LLs. These data lead, indeed, to new perspectives on the evolution of the linguistic dimension of consumption culture. When viewed in comparison with secondary centers of the megapolis marked by ethnic cultures and localism, these data also open the way to new understanding of the growing polarization between downtowns and peripheral neighborhoods. Last but not least, these data throw a new light on the relative and changing significance of the status of “lingua franca” in this era of globalization.

Sociolinguistics Symposium 19

Programme: accepted abstracts

Where language becomes superfluous