Language policy, linguistic landscape and residents’ perception in Guangzhou, China: dissents and conflicts

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis research studies language policy, linguistic landscape and residents’ perception of language use in Guangzhou, China, exploring the extent to which they are convergent with or divergent from one another. With the triad framework encompassing spatial practice, conceived space and lived space [Trumper-Hecht, N. (2010). Linguistic landscape in mixed cities in Israel from the perspective of ‘walkers’. In E. Shohamy (Eds.), Linguistic landscape in the city (pp. 235–251). Bristol: Multilingual Matters], linguistic landscape practice, language policy and residents' perception are conceptualized as three interconnected dimensions of linguistic landscape. Each dimension is examined independently before being compared with and contrasted to the other two dimensions. Results indicate that there are incessant conflicts and dissents in the city space of Guangzhou, especially in relation to the use of English, Cantonese and traditional Chinese characters. By showing the conflicts between multicultural/multilingual society reality and the ‘monoglot linguistic regime’ [Pan, L. (2010). Dissecting multilingual Beijing. Visual Communication, 9(1), 67–90] in the Chinese context, this study argues for the increasing importance of linguistic diversity and harmony. It also demonstrates the agency of linguistic landscape creators and the bidirectional relation in language planning between language planners and recipients.