Linguistic LandscapeLCD 205Presented by

Don Brosnan & Ayako Kumagai

Introduction

Linguistic Landscape is:“The language of public road signs, advertising b

illboards, street names, place names, commercial shop signs, and public signs on government buildings combines to form the linguistic landscape of a given territory, region, or urban agglomeration”. (Goter and Cenoz Introduction: The Study of the Linguistic Landscape as a New Approach to Multilingualism)

Background information on Elmhurst

• “Immigration officials have described Elmhurst as the city‘s most ethnically diverse neighborhood.”

(Kleinman, Dena. " A HOSPITAL WHERE ETHNIC CHANGE IS CONSTANT" )

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DemographicsRace Number Percent

Hispanic/Latino 45,529 43.1%

Asian 41,175 38.9%

White 35,598 33.7%

Some other race 19,960 18.9%

Two or more races 6,096 5.8%

African American 2,114 2.0%

American Indian/ Alaska Native

705 0.7%

2000 US Census

Research Questions

1. Which are the language displayed in the linguaistic landscape of Elmhurst (Broadway between Whitney Ave and Pettit Ave) and their relative weight?

2. What are the bilingual and multilingual signs like?

Methodology

• Complete inventory of the linguistic landscape of Broadway between Whitney and Pettit in Elmhurst, New York.

• Our approach involved digital pictures of all the text we saw in the shops and local businesses.

• We catalogued a total of 120 items. • Each business was a unit of analysis.

Methodology continued

Variables we used;1. Number of languages found.2. Bi/ multilingual sign-first language.3. Placement/prominence of language.4. Size of language.5. Amount of information

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Research

Whitney

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88 Broadway

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82-90 Broadway

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Broadway

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81-12 Broadway

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Broadway

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ConclusionWhen we try to summarize the order of

dominance of the three languages, we see that English is by far the most prominent language in the linguistic landscape of Elmhurst, followed by Chinese as the second language and in third place comes “9”other languages; Korean, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Thai, Bengali, Arabic, Spanish, Burmese and Nepali.