Abstract
The paper examines the linguistic landscape in an indoor public place, Robot Open Space in Zhongguancun Dream Laboratory, which is a building housing a handful of innovative entrepreneurial enterprises. The subject of analysis in this present paper is the impact of different spaces on the features of linguistic landscape. Each of the three major sub-spaces in the company Robot Open Space has different functions and the linguistic landscape with its different features varies accordingly. This present study has the following contributions. First, the shift of analytical attention from the outdoor linguistic landscape to the indoor linguistic landscape provides a new angle for LL analysis and further expands the scenery of linguistic landscape. Then, the newly establish analytical framework, the “multimodal model for linguistic landscape analysis” enrich the current theoretical models that is quite rare. Last, the qualitative analysis of the linguistic landscapes in different spaces shed light on the correlation between space and linguistic landscape, indicating that space is an integral factor to be considered when it comes to LL analysis.
Highlights
While related studies on language in public spaces began much earlier (Rosenbaum, 1977; Spolky & Copper, 1991; Calvet, 1990, 1994), the term “Linguistic Landscape” was first used by Landry and Bourhis in their seminal work entitled “Linguistic landscape and ethnolinguistic vitality: An empirical study” published in 1997
According to Shohamy and Gorter (2009:1), “It is the attention to the language in the environment, words and images displayed and exposed in public spaces, that is the center of attention in this rapidly growing area referred to as linguistic landscape (LL)”
It should be noted that the company is not a company in the normal sense, but a laboratory-like public space designed for selling robot products and offering robotics classes to students
Summary
While related studies on language in public spaces began much earlier (Rosenbaum, 1977; Spolky & Copper, 1991; Calvet, 1990, 1994), the term “Linguistic Landscape” was first used by Landry and Bourhis in their seminal work entitled “Linguistic landscape and ethnolinguistic vitality: An empirical study” published in 1997. The theoretical frameworks established in this field are relatively rare and immature, which poses a problem to many researchers when dealing with the LL studies Another problem concerning the LL studies is that most of the researches conducted centers predominantly around the bilingual (or multilingual) aspect of LLs, discussing the presence or absence of particular language codes in public spaces. The related research field, namely public sign research has attracted a host of scholars in China and a lot of works and academic papers have been published in the past decades. Experts in this field mainly study public signs or in Chinese gongshiyu from the perspective of translation and focus on Chinese-English translation and the problems of translations of these public signs, which belongs to the category of translation (Li, 2015: 5). The large graffito put on the office wall signals that innovative ideas do matter for employees
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