Linguistic Landscape in Najran: A Sociolinguistic Approach

This study attempts to investigate the linguistic landscape (LL) of the city of Najran, a city located in the southern region of Saudi Arabia. To achieve this objective, a sample of more than 450 signs is examined. The study focuses on the shop signs which are usually known as bottom-up signs (Ben-R...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Theory and practice in language studies 2022-12, Vol.12 (12), p.2559-2567
Main Author: Al-Athwary, Anwar A. H
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Advertisements
Advertising
Aesthetic Education
Analysis
Arabic language
Arabs
Bengali
Bilingualism
Case Studies
Cities
Dravidian Languages
Economic Status
English language
Expatriates
Foreign Workers
Hindi language
Human Geography
Jargon
Language
Language and culture
Language dominance
Language Minorities
Language Planning
Language Usage
Linguistic landscape
Linguistics
Malayalam
Monolingualism
Mosques & temples
Multilingualism
Official Languages
Preferences
Resistance (Psychology)
Semitic Languages
Signs
Social Psychology
Sociolinguistics
Street signs
Tamil language
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This study attempts to investigate the linguistic landscape (LL) of the city of Najran, a city located in the southern region of Saudi Arabia. To achieve this objective, a sample of more than 450 signs is examined. The study focuses on the shop signs which are usually known as bottom-up signs (Ben-Rafael et al., 2006; Ben-Rafael, 2009). The analysis reveals that Najran’s LL is more multilingual than expected. In addition to Arabic and English, it displays some foreign expatriate languages such as Malayalam, Bengali, Tamil, and Hindi. Arabic appears to be the most dominant language followed by English, with the former having both informational and symbolic (cultural) roles while the latter has a commercial and advertising function through which shop owners want to appear more fashionable and more prestigious. The use of the expatriate languages of the Indian subcontinent serves mainly as a psychological tendency to compensate for the feeling of being homesick, and partially performs an informational function directed to the expatriate group.  
ISSN:1799-2591
2053-0692
DOI:10.17507/tpls.1212.11