Coexisting varieties of English in the linguistic landscape of tourism: the Bay of Palma

Since its early studies, linguistic landscape has been approached from an increasing number of perspectives, which include the relative weight of languages in the signage of international holiday resorts. However, the coexistence of varieties of a given language in a single destination remains to be...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of multilingual and multicultural development 2020-02, Vol.41 (2), p.157-174
Main Authors: Bruyèl-Olmedo, Antonio, Juan-Garau, Maria
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accuracy
accuracy and fluency (CAF)
complexity
Difficulty Level
English
English (Second Language)
English as a native language (ENL)
English as an international language
English as an international language (EIL)
Fluency
Foreign Countries
Language Fluency
Language Variation
Language varieties
Linguistic landscape
Native Language
Resorts & spas
Semiotics
Signs
Social classes
Sociolinguistics
Tourism
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Summary:Since its early studies, linguistic landscape has been approached from an increasing number of perspectives, which include the relative weight of languages in the signage of international holiday resorts. However, the coexistence of varieties of a given language in a single destination remains to be addressed. The research adopts a corpus-based approach to study English texts on display in the tourist resorts of S'Arenal and Magalluf in the Bay of Palma. Data analysis applies the framework of complexity, accuracy and fluency (CAF) to bring to the forefront the lexical features that delineate the presence of two varieties of English and the implications of their choice. Our findings reveal that English is not homogeneous in the Bay. Notwithstanding their common tourist activity, the existence of lexical peculiarities in each resort suggests the coexistence of two varieties that appear to be associated to the native or non-native background of holidaymakers and local sign initiators, with social class possibly intervening as well.
ISSN:0143-4632
1747-7557
DOI:10.1080/01434632.2019.1606226