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Article published In: Linguistic Landscape
Vol. 9:4 (2023) ► pp.413–437

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The prominence of English in the Linguistic Landscape of Jamshedpur

ORCiD logo with link | School of Social Sciences and Languages, Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore
Published online: 24 May 2023
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ll.22001.mis
Abstract
The study explores the public and private signs in the Linguistic Landscape (LL) of Jamshedpur city in India. It employs a mixed methods approach as it integrates quantitative and qualitative methods of data analysis to reveal the city’s careful display of monolingual, bilingual, or multilingual signs representing distinct identities. The study investigates the distribution of signs across five sample locations while focusing on the signs’ content, their functions (symbolic vs informational), and explores the sign producers’ motivation for their language choice on signs.
सारांश
यह अध्ययन भारत के जमशेदपुर शहर के भाषाई परिदृश्य में सार्वजनिक और निजी संकेतों का पता लगाता है। यह मिश्रित विधि दृष्टिकोण का उपयोग करता है, क्योंकि यह मात्रात्मक और गुणात्मक डेटा विश्लेषण की विधियों को एकीकृत करके शहर के सतर्क एकभाषी, द्विभाषी या बहुभाषी संकेतों की प्रदर्शनी को प्रकट करता है जो विशिष्ट पहचानों को प्रतिनिधित्व करते हैं। अध्ययन पांच नमूना स्थानों के भिन्न संकेतों के वितरण का अन्वेषण करता है, साथ ही साथ संकेतों की सामग्री, उनके कार्य (प्रतीकात्मक बनाम सूचनात्मक) पर ध्यान केंद्रित करता है और संकेत निर्माताओं के भाषा पसंद के लिए उनकी प्रेरणा का पता लगाता है।
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.About Jamshedpur city
  • 3.Conceptual frameworks
    • 3.1Linguistic capital
    • 3.2Uncertainty Reduction Theory
    • 3.3Translanguaging
    • 3.4Transliteration
  • 4.Methodology
    • 4.1Data from photographs
    • 4.2Data from interviews
  • 5.Findings
    • 5.1Language distribution on signboards
    • 5.2Analysis by the genre of the signboard
      • 5.2.1Shopfronts
      • 5.2.2Restaurants and menus
      • 5.2.3Public, government, and educational institutions
      • 5.2.4Traffic and transport signs
      • 5.2.5Advertising posters
    • 5.3Strategies employed by the sign producers
      • 5.3.1Strategies employing symbolic perspectives
      • 5.3.2Strategies conveying informational perspective
    • 5.4Motivation for the language choice
  • 6.Conclusions
  • References
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