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Article published In: Linguistic Landscape
Vol. 5:1 (2019) ► pp.52–79

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Cosmopolitanism in ethnic foodscapes

A geosemiotic, social literacies view of restaurants in Bloomington, Indiana

 | Indiana University
Published online: 7 March 2019
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https://doi.org/10.1075/ll.17019.aba
Abstract
This paper opens up a perspective for viewing the effect of globalization on ethnic restaurants in a college town, Bloomington, at Indiana, in the US. While existing scholarship on shop signs were focused on interpreting signages that are mostly visible from the exterior (e.g. Collins, J., & Slembrouck, S. (2007). Reading shop windows in globalized neighborhoods: Multilingual literacy practices and indexicality. Journal of Literacy Research, 39(3), 335–356. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Malinowski, D. (2009). Authorship in the linguistic landscape: A performative-multimodal view. In Elana, S. & Durk, G. (eds.), Linguistic landscape: Expanding the scenery (pp. 107–125). New York & London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Ong, K., Ghesquière, J., & Serwe, S. (2013). Frenglish shop signs in Singapore: Creative and novel blending of French and English in the shop fronts of beauty and food businesses in Singapore. English Today, 29(3), 19–25. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), this study examines publicly displayed material artefacts, and the dialogical relationship between customers and waiters, taking into account one aspect of Scollon, R., & Scollon, S. B. K. (2003). Discourses in place: Language in the material world. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar perceptual space which is highly visible in a restaurant: tastes. Through interviews, participant observations and geosemiotic analysis of signs inside and on the exterior of restaurants, I evinced a configuration of semiotic aggregates (Scollon, R., & Scollon, S. B. K. (2003). Discourses in place: Language in the material world. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) drawing from my ethnographic work on ethnic foodscapes. Findings from the study suggest that multiple social actors contributed to shaping cosmopolitanism in a college town.
Abstrak
Artikel ini membuka perspektif untuk melihat kesan globalisasi terhadap restoran etnik di sebuah bandar kolej, Bloomington, di Indiana, Amerika Syarikat. Sehingga kini, kajian yang ada pada tanda-tanda kedai kebanyakan tertumpu pada papan tanda yang paling banyak dilihat dari luar (misalnya Collins & Slembrouck, 2004; Malinowski, D. (2009). Authorship in the linguistic landscape: A performative-multimodal view. In Elana, S. & Durk, G. (eds.), Linguistic landscape: Expanding the scenery (pp. 107–125). New York & London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Ong, K., Ghesquière, J., & Serwe, S. (2013). Frenglish shop signs in Singapore: Creative and novel blending of French and English in the shop fronts of beauty and food businesses in Singapore. English Today, 29(3), 19–25. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). Oleh itu, saya bentangkan hubungan dialog di antara pelanggan dan pelayan, dengan mengambil kira satu aspek ruang persepsi Scollon, R., & Scollon, S. B. K. (2003). Discourses in place: Language in the material world. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar yang sangat kelihatan di kesemua restoran, iaitu, rasa. Melalui temubual, pemerhatian peserta dan analisis geosemiotik, tanda-tanda di dalam dan di luar restoran, saya mendapati bahawa konfigurasi agregat semiotik (Scollon, R., & Scollon, S. B. K. (2003). Discourses in place: Language in the material world. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) sering berinteraksi di lanskap restoran etnik. Penemuan kajian juga menunjukkan bahawa beberapa faktor membentuk kosmopolitanisme di sebuah bandar kolej.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Ethnic foodscapes and geosemiotics
  • 3.Connotations of “ethnic” in restaurants
  • 4.Shop signs in the linguistic landscape
  • 5.Cosmopolitanism and situating cosmopolitan literacies in the current study
  • 6.Research methodology
  • 7.Findings and discussions
    • 7.1Interaction orders and preference for cuisines
    • 7.2Restaurant menus and names of cuisines
    • 7.3Restaurant names and shop signs
    • 7.4Displays of artefacts
    • 7.5Hybridization of cuisines
  • 8.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgement
  • References
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