Speakers Of Different Languages Research Articles

Electrophysiological Evidence for a Whorfian Double Dissociation of Categorical Perception Across Two Languages

AbstractTaza in Spanish refers to cups and mugs in English, whereas glass refers to different glass types in Spanish: copa and vaso. It is still unclear whether such categorical distinctions induce early perceptual differences in speakers of different languages. In this study, for the first time, we report symmetrical effects of terminology on preattentive indices of categorical perception across languages. Native speakers of English or Spanish saw arrays of cups, mugs, copas, and vasos flashed in streams. Visual mismatch negativity, an implicit electrophysiological correlate of perceptual change in the peripheral visual field, was modulated for categorical contrasts marked in the participants’ native language but not for objects designated by the same label. Conversely, P3a, an index of attentional orienting, was modulated only for missing contrasts in the participants’ native language. Thus, whereas native labels influenced participants’ preattentive perceptual encoding of objects, nonverbally encoded dissociations reoriented their attention at a later processing stage.

Conceptual structure of emotions.

Theories of semantic organization have historically prioritized investigation of concrete concepts pertaining to inanimate objects and natural kinds. As a result, accounts of the conceptual representation of emotions have almost exclusively focused on their juxtaposition with concrete concepts. The present study aims to fill this gap by deriving a large set of normative feature data for emotion concepts and assessing similarities and differences between the featural representation of emotion, nonemotion abstract, and concrete concepts. We hypothesized that differences between the experience of emotions (e.g., happiness and sadness) and the experience of other abstract concepts (e.g., equality and tyranny), specifically regarding the relative importance of interoceptive states, might drive distinctions in the dimensions along which emotion concepts are represented. We also predicted, based on constructionist views of emotion, that emotion concepts might demonstrate more variability in their representation than concrete and other abstract concepts. Participants listed features which we coded into discrete categories and contrasted the feature distributions across conceptual types. Analyses revealed statistically significant differences in the distribution of features among the category types by condition. We also examined variability in the features generated, finding that, contrary to expectation, emotion concepts were associated with less variability. Our results reflect subtle differences between the structure of emotion concepts and the structure of, not only concrete concepts, but also other abstract concepts. We interpret these findings in the context of our sample, which was restricted to native English speakers, and discuss the importance of validating these findings across speakers of different languages. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Crosslinguistic Differences in Food Labels Do Not Yield Differences in Taste Perception

AbstractResearch has shown that speakers of different languages may differ in their cognitive and perceptual processing of reality. A common denominator of this line of investigation has been its reliance on the sensory domain of vision. The aim of our study was to extend the scope to a new sense—taste. Using as a starting point crosslinguistic differences in the category boundaries of edible bulbs, we examined whether monolingual speakers of English and bilingual speakers of Norwegian and English were influenced by language‐specific categories during tasting. The results showed no evidence of such effects, not even for the Norwegian participants in an entirely Norwegian context. This suggests that crosslinguistic differences in visual perception do not readily generalize to the domain of taste. We discuss the findings in terms of predictive processing, with particular reference to trigeminal stimulation (a central tasting component) and the interplay between chemosensory signals and top‐down linguistic modulation.

Языковые основы субэтнической, этнической и этнополитической идентичности

The purpose of the research is to determine the relationship between the concepts of “ethnos” and “language” in the peripheral zone of ethnic self-determination where some part of the society considers itself a separate ethnic group, but this belief is not supported by its linguistic separateness. The material is the data on the ethnic situation in a number of countries around the world which is obtained either from social surveys or based on ethnographic descriptions of the relationship between linguistic and ethnic self-identification in different countries. The study applies the method of correlation analysis to establish the relationship between linguistic and ethnic self-determination. The work also uses the method of sociolinguistic interpretation and the method of sociolinguistic reinterpretation which is based on the analysis of secondary material, that has already entered in scientific circulation, for sociolinguistic purposes. The basis for identification processes is the linguistic identification of an ethnic nation, on the basis of which ethnographic, ethnic and ethnopolitical national unity is formed. As a result the study highlighted four situations which are based on the correction of ethnic identification according to language identity. Firstly, a situation of ethnic transition, when a person, who defines himself as belonging to a nation “by blood”, according to his linguistic identity moves to another national group. Secondly, a situation of subethnic transition, when an ethnic subgroup designates itself as part of a nation, that uses the regional dialect or dialect of a given nation. Thirdly, the situation of ethno-political identity, when the nationality is determined by the political factor such as citizenship while preserving the language of the ethnic nation living in another, base state. Finally, multiethnic political identification, which is a type of ethnopolitical identity, when several ethnic nations, which are speakers of different languages, are united into one political nation. This interpretation of the “ethnos – language” relationship allows us to adjust the parameters of sociolinguistic and social stratification of society.

Probing the impact of exposure to diversity on infants' social categorization.

Humans learn about the world through inductive reasoning, generalizing information about an individual to others in the category. Indeed, by infancy, monolingual children expect people who speak the same language (but not people who speak different languages) to be similar in their food preferences (Liberman et al., 2016). Here, we ask whether infants who are exposed to linguistic diversity are more willing to generalize information even across language-group lines. To test this, we ran an inductive inference task and collected data on exposure to linguistic diversity at the interpersonal and neighborhood levels. Infants with more linguistically diverse social networks were more likely to generalize a food preference across speakers of different languages. However, this relationship was not seen for neighborhood diversity. We discuss implications of this work on understanding the development of bias and its malleability based on early social experiences. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Переклад як інструмент комунікації фахівців з міжнародних економічних відносин

The communication skills of specialists in international economic relations determine the ease of overcoming linguistic and cultural boundaries in today’s globalized world. As businesses expand into international markets, the demand for professionals with a high level of language competence, including translation and interpretation skills, is high. The article substantiates that translation competence is an integral part of the professional competence of applicants for economic direction, since integration processes and international cooperation increase the requirements for foreign language proficiency not only in the interpersonal sphere, but also in the economic, especially in the field of international business. In the course of the study, the main key challenges and barriers to effective communication in international business are identified and characterized, namely: cultural differences, language barriers, non-verbal communication signals, technological challenges, time zone differences, cross-cultural misunderstandings, translation and interpretation. Emphasis is placed on translation and interpretation, as it is an important tool for facilitating communication between speakers of different languages. Correct translation and interpretation requires not only knowledge of the language, but also cultural competence, understanding of the context and knowledge of the subject. The authors identify the main areas of application of translation and interpretation in international business, including: legal and regulatory documents; financial reports and market analysis results; marketing and promotional materials for international markets; translation of technical specifications, instructions and documentation for products; diplomatic negotiations, international conferences and diplomatic correspondence on economic issues. Thus, translation is an effective tool for effective communication, cooperation and negotiations in international economic relations. By overcoming language barriers, fostering intercultural understanding, and the exchange of information and ideas, translation plays a vital role in promoting economic cooperation, trade liberalization, and sustainable development on a global scale.

Linguacultural Representations in Specialized Migration Discourse: A Lexicographic Perspective

In the last two decades increasing movements of people across countries, due to economic and social reasons, have produced high levels of exchanges among speakers of different languages where English is used globally as a lingua-franca (ELF). Moreover, migration flows across nation states (especially from non-Western countries to Western ones) have encouraged the movement of people, mainly of African and Asian origin, from students to skilled workers, who are often involved in English-mediated interactions where migrants’ native linguacultural background inevitably connects to the language spoken by the host community (e.g., in European countries), and at the same time shapes the use of English as a global means of interaction (Canagarajah, 2013). ELF cross-cultural interactions and translingual processes, naturally occurring in intercultural settings, are particularly remarkable, since they plainly show how ELF speakers, engaged in intercultural interactions, differently appropriate the English language, according to their own native linguacultural patterns, and to specific pragmalinguistic purposes and processes (Guido, 2012, 2018; Mauranen, 2018). This study will address the influence that lexical actualizations in authentic spoken encounters, as well as in written productions in specialized contexts have on the current role and function of English as an international language and which deserve coverage and consideration in lexicographic resources. Research studies on migration narratives, language mediation, cross-cultural conceptual representation and reception of traumatic events, where ELF lexical processes are often activated by the speakers involved, are particularly important to address the development of linguacultural representations that should be covered in dictionaries, lexicons and other lexicographic resources, especially online.

Low proficiency level learners' translingual and transmodal practices in teletandem: Challenging the separation of languages principle

Teletandem is a model of virtual exchange in which two speakers of different languages meet over videoconferencing tools so that they can learn each other's language and culture. Research and practice on teletandem draw on the principles of autonomy (each participant should make decisions about their own learning), reciprocity (each participant should assist their partner's learning), and separation of languages (each language should have its own moment of practice and should not be mixed). Some researchers, however, do not consider separation of languages to be a principle of tandem learning and few studies have challenged it from the theoretical perspective of code-switching (Picoli & Salomão, 2020) and investigated learner interaction using translanguaging (Canals, 2021; Satar, 2020; Walker, 2017). In this paper, data come from the MuLTeC teletandem corpus. Using social semiotics, we investigate six recorded videoconferencing sessions of a Brazilian/American dyad with low language proficiency level and explore learners' transformative engagement with signs (Bezemer & Kress, 2016). Results reveal that participants draw on all the resources in their complete language repertoire (García & Wei, 2014) through translingual and transmodal practices, which allows them to make meanings beyond what they can express within their target language proficiency, creating opportunities to extend their semiotic repertoires. The findings evidence the inappropriateness of the separation of languages principle which neither works in practice nor is useful within current perspectives in language learning and teaching. Therefore, we propose a reframing of the principle as the translanguaging principle: based on the notion of translanguaging as co-learning, each participant should play fluid roles of expert/learner and capitalise on opportunities to extend each other's semiotic repertoires within multilingual and multimodal interaction.

Lexicography, Culture and Mediation. Or Why a Good Lexicographer Must Also Be a Good Cultural Mediator

Culture-bound items are often omitted in lexicographic resources, and when they are present, they are rarely described in an appropriate way, especially in bilingual dictionaries: the listed equivalents often do not reflect the meaning of the cultural word precisely, usage examples may be missing and above all — especially for a non-native speaker — important information on the cultural level is omitted (Nied Curcio 2020). Communication problems and misunderstandings which are triggered not by divergences on the linguistic level, but on the cultural level, can arise between speakers of different languages and cultures. Specific cultural knowledge and an advanced level of intercultural competence are required. Mediation of texts and concepts and using mediation strategies can provide significant input developing the lexicographer's intercultural competence, which is essential for an adequate lexico­graphic description of cultural aspects. Mediators often resort to their plurilinguistic and pluricul­tural repertoire and use mediation strategies. The same skills can also be harnessed by lexicogra­phers for adequate and successful descriptions of culture-bound items in lexicographic resources. In this article the focus is on the concept of mediation; the Companion Volume of the Common Euro­pean Frame­work of Reference for Languages (2018) shows parallels in the requirements of skills between mediators and lexicographers, and advocates the use of mediation strategies by lexicogra­phers to ensure that cultural information is adequately represented in the dictionary. Keywords: bilingual dictionaries, cultural items, translation, inter­cultural competence, mediation, mediation strategies, plurilingual com­petence, pluricultural competence

Dyslexia phenotypes in Chinese‐speaking individuals with Primary Progressive Aphasia

AbstractBackgroundThere are more than 7,000 living languages worldwide with wide heterogeneities in their linguistic features. Varying dementia symptomatology has been noted across speakers of different languages. Chinese languages adopt logographic scripts that contrast greatly from Indo‐European languages with alphabetic writing systems. For instance, Chinese characters have weak grapheme‐phoneme correspondence, with only 19‐ 39% pronounced per their phonetic components. Chinese characters also have 20 different spatial configurations with varying visuospatial complexity and abundant heteronyms. Past literature has focused on the reading presentations of primary progressive aphasia (PPA) patients that adopt Indo‐European languages. This study outlined the reading presentations of Chinese‐speaking PPA patients.MethodThe CLAP (Chinese Language Assessment for PPA) battery is designed to characterize the neurolinguistics features of Chinese‐speaking PPA individuals. In CLAP character reading test, participants are tasked to read aloud 50 Chinese characters that vary in lexicality (pictographic, regular compound, and irregular compound characters), character frequency and concreteness. Voxel‐based morphometry(VBM) was performed to examine the neural basis of reading performance. Participants are also tasked with reading pairs of compound words with heteronyms (e.g., “bow tie” vs “bow down).ResultsA total of 15 Mandarin‐speaking controls and 38 PPA individuals [6 nonfluent variant (nfv) PPA, 9 semantic variant (sv) PPA and 23 logopenic variant (lv) PPA] completed CLAP reading task. In character reading test, svPPA scored significantly lower than controls and nfvPPA (pictographic: p = 0.026; regular compound: p = 0.007; irregular compound characters: p<0.001). Regardless of lexicality, the reading score significantly correlated with volumetric changes over left temporal pole. While over‐regularization errors/surface dyslexia was the most common reading error across control and PPA groups, it was not specific to svPPA (p = 0.109). Conversely, on heteronym word reading test, svPPA and lvPPA scored significantly lower in accuracy, with over‐regularization errors more frequently noted in svPPA group.ConclusionContrary to English svPPA patients that struggled specifically with irregular word reading and showed frequent surface dyslexia, Chinese PPA patients showed no variant‐specific differences across lexicality, and svPPA‐specific over‐regularization phenomenon were found at the lexical (i.e., heteronym‐reading) and not sub‐lexical reading. Diagnostic criteria for PPA syndrome vary with languages and should ideally be tailored linguistically.

A Review: RC Sentence Processing

The question of whether and how native speakers and L2 learners process speech differently, as well as if transfer implications being available, may be answered by looking at ambiguity decision, one of the basic parsing procedures used in natural language processing. Studies have looked into how L1 and L2 speakers of different languages handle the RC ambiguity differently. In order to address the issues of transfer effects as well as the distinctions between L1 and L2 interpreting, differences between native speakers' and L2 learners' parsing selections, as well as some factors (working memory, animacy, discourse, syntax or semantic information, etc.) used during the experiments in ambiguity resolution, may add an entirely novel viewpoint. Although most of the studies tried to bring a solution with one-stage or two-stage models, the argument of this study is that there are definitely differences between the L1 and L2 processing and ambiguity resolving, and also, universality is impossible. Therefore, there needs to be much more evidences with the same instruments, tasks, and same sources of information conducted to vast amount of participant groups (from different ages, or different backgrounds) in order to reach a certain conclusion to state the reason behind this difference.

The impact of monolingual language policies on the multilingual language ecology of Sri Lanka

AbstractThis qualitative study examined the role of different languages used in the country in the lives of 12 participants from the four main ethnic groups of Sri Lanka (i.e., Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim, and Burgher). It sought to understand how monolingual language policies have impacted upon the country's plurilingual language ecology. The study examined the language ideologies of participants to understand how structures of social power have worked through monolingual language policies to influence and shape their language behaviors and practices. While the impact that language policies have had on different Sri Lankan languages has been examined, no study has analyzed it through the point of view of language ideologies of actual speakers of different languages. The observations made by the participants show that the monolingual ideologies of the language policies of 1832 and 1956, by assigning sole official language status to English and Sinhala respectively, have caused them to gain dominance and diminished the status of other languages, thereby altering the plurilingual language ecology of Sri Lanka. Their observations also showed how the 1956 policy's establishment of Sinhala as the dominant language within the language ecology of the country had elevated the position of the majority community—the Sinhalese, and strengthened the power of the then government which had ridden into power through the Sinhalese majority vote. The analysis of data also indicated that, although the 1956 policy was implemented with the aim of dismantling the structures of power introduced during colonial rule, both policies have served to support and reinforce a social hierarchy based on a Western model. What the data revealed about the role that the two monolingual language policies of 1832 and 1956 seem to have played in establishing and reinforcing the dominance of Sinhala and English respectively, suggest that although political subjugation of the country by European powers has officially ended, Sri Lanka continues to operate within the structures of power established during colonial times.

THE ORIGINS OF THE EARLY CLOSURE BAN IN THE RUSSIAN LITERARY STANDARD

: The Early and Late Closure phenomenon has been present in the psycholinguistic spotlight since the 1970s. Decades of research on the topic have shown not only that resolving attachment ambiguity is influenced by such factors as the length of the relative clause and speaker’s working-memory capacity, but that speakers of different languages tend to prefer either Early or Late Closure. Investigations of attachment ambiguity in Russian have come to the conclusion that Russian is a language with a preference towards Early Closure. However, during the trials some speakers of Russian claim that high attachment is ungrammatical and justify their view by some kind of grammatical rule they have been taught in school. The origins of this supposed rule have so far been unknown. The article at hand shows that the Early Closure Ban in literary Russian has its roots in works on Russian grammar that date back to the early 19th century. This rule evolved from a simple generalization of the linear position of relative clauses to an outright ban which came to life with the advent of Soviet mass media. Such stylistic guidelines in other literary standards are theorized to be factors which need to be accounted for when conducting research on attachment ambiguity in languages of the world.

Diminutive forms in the aspect of intercultural communication

The article represents the essential features of diminutives in the Russian and English languages and their impact on intercultural communication. We analyze the types of diminutives in English and Russian, the specifics of their perception and interpretation by representatives of the two cultures, as well as their influence on the communication of speakers of different languages. The article contains examples of diminutive forms’ functions in speech, which demonstrate how these forms affect the perception and understanding of information. The article defines such key concepts as “intercultural communication”, “diminutive forms” and presents the characteristics of the forms in English and Russian in their lexical and grammatical aspects, illustrated by examples. The article considers cases of intercultural communicative failures associated with ignorance of the specifics of the word-formative forms’ functions, diminutives in particular, and their cultural context. Diminutive forms are a kind of special emotionality indicators inherent in the nature of the Russian people, therefore, when teaching Russian as a foreign language, it is necessary to pay special attention to the word-building forms that have additional connotations. The results of our research can be used by linguists, teachers of foreign languages and anyone interested in the issues of intercultural communication.

Inquiry into the challenges of translating idioms extracted from musical lyrics

Translation has always been described as an age-long activity that impacts the communication between speakers of different languages. An aspect of translation that has remained evasive is the translation of idioms, mainly idioms that are tied to contextual peculiarities. Generally, idioms have enabled language users to transmit ideas that mirror how they think and their perspectives on specific scenarios. Translation also represents a time-honored practice of presenting content initially written in one language in another. Idiom translation is a specialized field since it calls for in-depth familiarity with various cultural notions in the target language and the source language. This research considered several factors crucial in translating idiomatic expressions extracted from musical lyrics. The focus was to explicate the challenges faced by translators in reproducing the meanings of idioms in musical contexts in one language into another without distorting or entirely omitting the intended meanings of the idioms when translated into the target language. The study critically examined the challenge of adopting appropriate technique or strategy, the challenge of encapsulating the internal semantic compositions of the idioms, the challenge of transmitting the social, cultural, stylistic, and contextual projections of the idioms, and the challenge of generating connecting expressions in the target language to match the disintegrated nature of musical lyrics. The result of the study further expounds on the importance of the in-depth knowledge of the translator, both in the two languages and like language use in music. Translators also need to explore diverging methodological approaches and employ diverging techniques when translating idioms in musical lyrics. The study further recommended using self-generated techniques and conceptual alignment to produce suitable equivalents of idioms extracted from musical lyrics in the target language.

Speakers of different languages remember visual scenes differently.

Language can have a powerful effect on how people experience events. Here, we examine how the languages people speak guide attention and influence what they remember from a visual scene. When hearing a word, listeners activate other similar-sounding words before settling on the correct target. We tested whether this linguistic coactivation during a visual search task changes memory for objects. Bilinguals and monolinguals remembered English competitor words that overlapped phonologically with a spoken English target better than control objects without name overlap. High Spanish proficiency also enhanced memory for Spanish competitors that overlapped across languages. We conclude that linguistic diversity partly accounts for differences in higher cognitive functions such as memory, with multilinguals providing a fertile ground for studying the interaction between language and cognition.

Matched or moved? Asymmetry in high- and low-level visual processing of motion events

Abstract Consensus on the extent to which cross-linguistic differences affect event cognition is currently absent. This is partly because cognitive influences of language have rarely been examined within speakers of different languages in tasks that manipulate the level of visual processing. This study presents a novel combination of a high-level approach upregulating the involvement of language, namely self-paced sentence-video verification, and a low-level visual detection method without language use, namely breaking continuous flash suppression (b-CFS) (Yang et al., 2014). The results point to cross-linguistic effects on event cognition by revealing variations in visual processing patterns of manner and path by English versus Mandarin Chinese speakers. Language specificity was found on both levels of processing. An asymmetry in response speed across tasks highlights an important difference between facilitation of detecting contrasts when recruitment of verbal labels is automatic, versus facilitation of verifying correspondences when labels are overt.

Between Spanish Language and Multilingualism in Spain: The Radical Right Placement

Abstract Since its irruption in Spanish public institutions in 2018, a new right-wing political party, Vox, has challenged the electoral spectrum of other parties under a nationalist form. This work justifies the classification of Vox within the so-called radical right based on the components of the party’s nativist and authoritarian positions. These premises are deployed in discourses on the Spanish language as the only linguistic axis capable of structuring the nation. Although similar arguments can be found in other right-wing, center-right, or center-left political parties in Spain, Vox explicitly shows its placement. Language policy in Spain fluctuates around two positions related to the legal nature of the official languages. On the one hand, Spanish is the official language of the State and is widely known by the population; on the other hand, linguistic officiality is shared with other languages in several regions. This legal and social situation implies that measures for the protection and promotion of regional languages are perceived as an attack on the vitality of Spanish. We propose an analysis of Vox’s discourse through three channels: first, the organic party documents, as the statutes or the electoral program; second, institutional and journalistic interventions of members with social significance; and third, the publications on Twitter of six relevant components of the party. This material reveals an attack on the linguistic policies of bilingual territories under the premise of Spanish as the common language that balances all citizens. Far from assuming a mere conjunction of particular political phenomena, Vox’s discourse articulates social loyalties, with a direct impact on the coexistence of people from different territories and speakers of different languages. Our purpose is, therefore, to unravel the ideological orientation and tone with which Vox transmits its discourse regarding the social relationship of minoritized languages in Spain with the most widespread language, Spanish.

Conceptual Foundations of Sustainability.

Threats to the health of our environment are numerous. Much research in science and engineering is devoted to documenting, understanding, and attempting to mitigate the harm itself. The root challenge for sustainability, however, is human behavior. As such, changes to human behaviors and the internal processes that drive them are also essential. Critical to understanding sustainability-related behaviors is the individual's conceptualization of the natural world and its components and processes. The papers in this topiCS issue address these conceptualizations by drawing from anthropological, linguistic, educational, philosophical, and social cognitive perspectives as well as traditional psychological approaches to the study of concepts and their development in children. They engage with many domains bearing on environmental sustainability including climate change, biodiversity, land and water conservation, resource use, and design of the built environment. They coalesce around four broad themes: (a) What people know (or believe) about nature broadly and about specific aspects of nature, and how they acquire and use this knowledge; (b) how knowledge is expressed and shared via language; (c) how knowledge and beliefs interact with affective, social, and motivational influences to yield attitudes and behaviors; and (d) how members of different cultures and speakers of different languages differ in these ways. The papers also point to lessons for advancing sustainability via public policy and public messaging, education, conservation and nature management, and design of the built environment.

A tale of three global cities: A comparative account of Dubai, Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong’s multilingual repertoires evidenced in their Covidscapes as part of Covid-19 crisis and public health communication

Living under the far-reaching ramifications of the Covid-19 pandemic, effective communication has been the order of the day in recent years. The very nature of the pandemic strikes home the crucial need to communicate multilingually in our increasingly (super)diverse world, in which translation has a big part to play. Constituting a socially shaped and socially shaping discourse, the multilingual communication and translation practices on the ground tell fascinating stories about a city’s demographic profile and multilingual repertoire during a public health crisis. So far, while a limited number of LL studies have been conducted in a few individual cities, there has been a glaring lack of scholarly engagement with Covid-related linguistic landscapes in our world’s global cities from a comparative perspective. To address this gap, framed within the broader context of crisis communication, this sociolinguistic study compares the Covidscapes between Dubai, Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong, three dynamic Asian metropolises and commercial hubs featuring speakers of different languages. The signs in the three cities’ Covid-scapes all share similar themes (e.g. mask wearing and social distancing), represent multimodal and semiotic assemblages, and are realised in the form of top-down and bottom-up signage. However, the Covid-scape in Kuala Lumpur tends to involve mostly Malay and/or English and the Covid-scape in the superdiverse Dubai tends to be predominantly bilingual in Arabic and English only. In comparison, Hong Kong tends to mobilise a wider range of linguistic repertoire where multiple ethnic languages such as Hindi, Urdu, Nepali, Tagalog and Indonesian are involved (especially top-down officially instituted signs). This is fascinating (and counterintuitive) considering Dubai and Kuala Lumpur are significantly more ethnolinguistically diverse compared with Hong Kong, which features an ethnic Chinese majority. Using authentic real-world examples, the observed features and trends are discussed and analysed. The tentative reasons and implications of the findings are also explored.