The Linguistic Landscape of a Historic Center Commercial Area: Aspects of Foreignness and Multilingualism Practices in Top-Down and Bottom-Up Signs

Abstract

This paper reports aspects of foreignness and multilingualism practices displayed in the linguistic landscape, top-down and bottom-up signs, and shop owners’ motivation of the choice of languages, of thirteen streets in the historic center commercial area of São Luís. The results of the analyses indicated that 90.6 percent of the foreign language found was English and all of the top-down signage had translation Portuguese-English. All of the top-down city maps had a logo in its top left sign with three languages, Portuguese, English and French translation stating “World Heritage”, a title the city holds. 50 percent of the usage of adding an apostrophe and the letter s in bottom-up signage was done for aesthetic reasons, 40 percent said it indicated plural, and 10 percent said it was to show possession. 70 percent had the perception that foreign language usage is somehow superior to the native language what bestows both the notions of status and trust that are attributed to foreign language usage.