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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 880

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

Linguistic landscape of ethnic businesses in the metropolitan area of Japan

Authors: Saruhashi, Junko (1); Arai, Yukiyasu (2); Higuchi, Kenichiro (3)
Submitted by: Saruhashi, Junko (Aoyama Gakuin University, Japan)

Recent linguistic landscape (LL) studies in Japan mainly focus on multilingual signs and billboards in public spaces in order to capture the attitude of the host society toward foreign residents and/or foreign tourists. The research outcomes have shown that the urban cities and sightseeing sites in Japan are gradually opening their doors to foreigners along with a growing awareness of languages other than Japanese.

In this study, authors focus on the LL of ethnic businesses in the areas around Tokyo, especially small businesses such as restaurants, ingredient shops, travel agencies, etc. There are some concentrated areas which are widely recognized as ‘ethnic districts’ or ‘ethnic towns’, but in most cases ethnic shops and restaurants are scattered, or several units are adjacently distributed. Some are even invisible to the host society, but are serving important roles for the certain ethnic group of people as a place of getting acquainted one another, exchanging information and providing job opportunities and so on. Therefore, carefully paying attention to small ethnic businesses in the metropolitan area is important not only to consider preferable language policy but also to grasp the reality of, to read signs of and to find the obstacles to the development of ethnocultural and ethnolinguistic vitality.

In this group research project, two kinds of LL data were collected; one is photographic images of signs, billboards, menus, product packages inside and outside of stores and the other is interview data with shop owners, workers, consumers and passersby talking about the backgrounds and the effects of those signs. Authors approached the same LL data from three different perspectives respectively: language policy, consumption culture and communication process. The first view takes shop owners and workers as language planners who may receive influences from the central/local governmental language policies. They may need to make decisions what to display in what language(s) in order to send their message effectively, while there are various restrictions such as official language policies and/or the residents’ opposition. The second view ascribes LL is the manifestation of consumption culture. This is an attempt to grasp the transformation of the present Japanese society, using an analogy of transformation from ‘the landscape of production’ to ‘the landscape of consumption’, which was described in George Ritzer's book titled Enchanting a Disenchanted World. And the third view ascribes LL items as snapshots which were taken in the middle of interaction among stakeholders. LLs might have been considered as the result of interaction. At the same time, once the items are displayed, they start affecting relations and interaction between senders and receivers of the message. Then the findings from three perspectives are compared in order to consider the possibilities and limitations of the multidisciplinary approach in LL studies in the future.