A Study Of Urban Linguistic Landscape From The Perspective Of Language Economics

Linguistic landscape is a kind of symbol resource in public space and an important part of city image construction.For nearly two decades,the emerging field has aroused extensive discussion at home and abroad.With the rapid development of global economy,people pay more and more attention to the interaction between linguistic landscape and economy.Therefore,it is very important to explore the interactive relationship between linguistic landscape and economy.Domestic scholars mainly study the translation of linguistic landscape or the impact of linguistic landscape on the second language teaching,but there are few literatures concerning linguistic landscape from the perspective of language economics.As a result,this thesis describes and analyzes the urban linguistic landscape from the perspective of language economics.The study of urban linguistic landscape from the perspective of language economics can not only broaden the research scope of linguistic landscape,but also provide new research ideas for language economics.Beijing is both an ancient cultural capital with a long history and a center of politics,economy and culture of contemporary China,for which reason it can be safely regarded as a good representative when coming to doing research on urban linguistic landscape.This thesis firstly sorts out the related achievements at home and abroad.Secondly,885 research samples are collected in Nanluoguxiang,Qianmen & Dashilanr Commercial Street and Sanlitun in Beijing by means of field investigation,and then these samples are classified and described by employing SPEAKING model and place semiotics theory.Finally,the thesis analyzes the economic motivations behind the construction of linguistic landscape by using relevant economic concepts.The study has the following findings:(1)The official linguistic landscape of the three scenic spots in Beijing is not as free and diversified as the private linguistic landscape.Chinese is the dominant language of both official and private linguistic landscapes,and English shares the priority among all foreign language codes appearing on both linguistic landscapes.Multilingual signs are not common inboth official linguistic landscape and private linguistic landscape.(2)Based on the analysis of some economic concepts,the official linguistic landscape of Beijing conforms to the principle of cost and benefit,and achieves the balance between instrumental rationality and value rationality.However,some private signboards are driven by instrumental rationality and violate relevant national language policies.The research also finds that multilingual landscape can bring use value and non-use value.Official linguistic landscape brings mainly use value,while private linguistic landscape has both use value and non-use value.(3)There are many non-standard language signs in the linguistic landscape of the three scenic spots in Beijing,such as the use of pure foreign language codes,non-standard spelling,the use of archaic characters,etc.Therefore,based on the above findings,the thesis summarizes three principles of constructing linguistic landscape: principle of economy,principle of diversity and principle of rationality,and four suggestions: constructing normative and harmonious linguistic landscape,constructing concise and condensed linguistic landscape,constructing multilingual linguistic landscape,constructing linguistic landscape with local characteristics.