Examining the linguistic landscape of Alicante (Spain): sociolinguistic and lexical
considerations
Amanda Roig-Marín
The on-going expansion of English all around the world seems an unquestionable
reality. In Spain its influence can be mainly attested by the large number of Anglicisms
existing in Spanish, as well as by its role in the country’s “linguistic landscape”, that is,
the actualisation of underlying sociolinguistic realities through a number of elements
such as commercial shop signs, street names and public signs. In this paper I explore the
prevailing social attitudes towards English by analysing the idiosyncratic role and
functions of this language as used in commercial shop signs present in the city of
Alicante, Spain.
1. Introduction
In Spain, a multilingual country where, according to the Eurobarometer survey
commissioned by the European Commission (2012:16), 54% of the respondents
consider themselves unable to speak any foreign language, the role of English may
appear not to be as paramount as in other geographical areas. Nevertheless, this figure
may be misleading concerning the presence of English in Spain. Its influence can be
attested by the following factors: (1) its preeminent position as the most demanded
foreign language studied in educational settings, (2) its pervasiveness through the ample
number of Anglicisms existing in the Spanish language, and (3) its role in the country’s
linguistic landscape (henceforth, LL), that is to say, the linguistic actualisation of the
underlying sociocultural realities in multilingual contexts.
The emerging research field of LL (e.g., inter alia, Barni & Extra 2008; Edelman
2009) is concerned with the documentation and measurement of the presence of
multiple languages in linguistically clashing or coexisting environments through several
markers in the public sphere, such as street signage or shop signs. Some authors (Griffin
2004; Luján-García 2010; Jingjing 2013; MacGregor 2003; McArthur 2000; Schlick
2003) have approached the topic broadly, and their works evidence the presence of the
global language in such distant regions as Beijing, Rome, Tokyo, and Las Palmas de
Gran Canarias and its impact in quantitative and qualitative terms. This study bears
resemblance to the aforementioned studies in so far as all these cities do not count with
autochthonous English speakers — in other words, their inhabitants study English as a
foreign language — and they are touristic, cosmopolitan areas to a greater or lesser
extent. Yet the present analysis differs from its predecessors in its more stringent
linguistic nature. The emphasis is not placed on measuring the impact of English on the
Proceedings of ConSOLE XXIV, 2016, 297-308
http://www.sole.leidenuniv.nl
© Amanda Roig-Marín
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Amanda Roig-Marín
linguistic landscape of the city but on characterising the idiosyncratic uses of the
languages used in shop names.
Following Crystal’s (2003) classification of the status of a global language in a
particular area, all the aforementioned cities should be grouped into the second group,
characterised by not having English as an official language and having to learn a
particular variety from an English-speaking country. Nevertheless, the choice of the
‘English’ to be taught in educational settings is not a resolved question.
Although in Europe the traditional variety studied is British English, international
mobility and the powerful cultural productions coming from America, among other
factors, seem to have changed this situation: learners — rather than institutions — seem
to be empowered to decide which variety they want to follow. This reality materialises
in the linguistic landscape of the city: an alternation between British and American
spelling can occur on shop signs within the same city (Luján-García 2010).
Moreover, it is worth mentioning that the status of English as a foreign language also
raises a phenomenon called “impersonal multilingualism” (Haarmann 1986). Haarmann
(1986) suggests that the use of a foreign language — especially English — in Japanese
media does not correspond to the real, everyday use of those languages in what is a
mainly monolingual community. To put it differently, English usage is not a means of
communicating a message, but it “serve[s] to stimulate the reader’s feelings and to
create a pleasant mood of ‘cosmopolitanism’”(Haarmann 1986:110). This emotional
function of English has also been identified in the data studied, which is why the
communicative purpose of shop names is herein contested, particularly in Section 4.6.,
entitled “English as a sign of prestige”.
In the current aggressive market, there is a growing attempt to internationalise shops,
independently of whether they are large companies or small businesses. In order to do
so, shop owners may give their businesses attractive but meaningless names in English.
Their objective with this strategy is twofold: on the one hand, to become more
competitive by drawing the pedestrian’s attention to their shop signs, and on the other
hand, and more importantly, to gain foreign customers, who — following the shop
owners’ rationale — are more willing to spend their money while they are on holiday or
on business trips. If successfully implemented, these two aspects may contribute to a
slow but steady expansion of a business locally or internationally.
2. Objectives and context
The present analysis attempts to give insights into the social attitudes towards English
in the residential neighbourhood of “Playa de San Juan” (‘San Juan Beach’), Alicante
(Spain), through its presence on shop signs. The use and expansion of English in this
touristic coastal region along the southeast coast of Spain can be partly explained by a
desire to sell more products in a constantly expanding area and to keep up with “modern
times”, characterised by the adoption of English as a lingua franca.
In the data examined, there is a systematic appropriation and copying of the
surrounding shop names, which has led to an endemic dissemination of specific
merchandise-related vocabulary and recurrent mistakes at different linguistic levels. All
this is problematised and discussed in the following sections. I also explore the
following issues: whether the most salient language in the linguistic landscape is
English or not, the visibility of English, Spanish and other languages, what languages
tend to be employed more in word-formation processes, and if the shop owners are
Examining the linguistic landscape of Alicante (Spain)
3
consistent with the use of a certain language or if, on the contrary, they create hybrid
varieties, combining English, Spanish or other languages.
It is worth mentioning that in the Valencian Community, where Alicante is located,
Valencian (a variety of Catalan) is the co-official language with Spanish. However, in
Alicante City (the capital of the province of Alicante) the use of Valencian is not as
significant as in other neighbouring regions and the other two provinces. Besides, there
is no local government law on the languages to be used in shop names, so the language
choice depends entirely on owners.
3. Methodology
Previous literature on linguistic landscapes tends to consider a small number of streets,
typically, in the city centre of the cities examined. This study, however, focuses on six
of the most transited avenues — some with small shopping centres — and other minor
streets in the area of Playa de San Juan, Alicante. The data was collected between
March 2014 - 2015 and comprises a total of 258 shop names.
The methodology followed was the systematic compilation of shop names on signs
or, in a smaller number of cases, shop windows along the streets. I annotated the
following elements in situ: shop name, its geographical location, the type of shop or
business, its size, products, and intended customers. For practical reasons, I could not
interview all shop owners, but I did ask when I had some doubts either on the
motivations behind the shop name or on any other aspect. I then created a file
containing all the information compiled. Subsequently, I considered the language(s) of
the shop name, how many words were in English, and whether they were prefixes or
suffixes, single words, phrases, or clauses, if they were spelt wrongly or not, and if they
included glosses.
4. Analysis and discussion of the data
Predictably, Spanish was the only language in 149 of the shop signs, representing 58%
of the total. The second most frequently attested language found was English, which
surprisingly occured in a large number of them together with Spanish (42 names), in
isolation (38), or with other languages (5) — the percentages for each variable are
shown in Figure 1. This represents a 33% of shop names in which there are elements in
English, in contrast to the 19% reported in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Luján-García
2010).
The total incidence of shop names in other languages (Italian, Valencian, French,
etc.) was not substantial (only 17, that is, 6%), which does not mirror the status of
Valencian as a co-official language in the Valencian Community.
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Amanda Roig-Marín
English &
other lang.
2%
Other
languages
6%
Only
English
15%
Spanish &
English
16%
Only Spanish
58%
Spanish &
other lang.
3%
Figure 1 – Percentages of shops in English, Spanish and other languages
Having considered the percentages of the languages used, I will now describe the main
trends identified within the 258 names analysed. I will devote a section to each trend
and will finally draw some general conclusions. The main points to be discussed are as
follows: (1) word-formation processes present in the data, (2) multilingual noun phrases,
word elements and their rendering, (3) ambiguities at the lexical and syntactic levels, (4)
the use of the ampersand and possessive genitive, (5) the taxonomy of proper names,
and (6) English as a mark of prestige: fashion, “haute cuisine and couture”.
4.1. Word-formation processes in business names
Overall, there is a low incidence of word-formation processes: out of the 85 shop names
containing elements in English, 11.9% of the names have undergone some wordformation process, compounding being the most frequent (8.5%) followed by acronymy
(3.4%).
As far as compounding is concerned, a wide range of lexical patterns can be
pinpointed: first, there are combinations of English + English lexemes; some of them
are already recorded in the OED, such as neverland, whilst others are non-normative
neologisms (e.g., park-line, clubland); second, there is a considerably small number of
Spanish + Spanish lexical occurrences (e.g., marabierto) which go beyond the scope of
this paper and, therefore, will not be further discussed; and, third, there are compounds
comprising English and neutral lexemes that may be Spanish or altered English
morphemes (e.g. urba[n] in urbacoast) or even combining forms (e.g., cine- in cinebank
as in cinematography), which renders their linguistic explanation problematic.
Besides, it may be argued that some of these cases epitomise new blends (i.e. brunch
or motel-type words), but this explanation would signify that both lexical parts are in
the same language. This may be difficult to determine given the fact that most roots or
lexemes are cognates (e.g., cine-, mov- [(Eng.) moveable /(Sp.) movible] in movistar,
natur- [(Eng./French) nature /(Sp./Latin) natura] in “Natur house”, etc.). The question
of the precise types of word-formation processes involved in the commercial sector is
open and should be reassessed in future projects with a larger dataset.
Examining the linguistic landscape of Alicante (Spain)
5
Other compounds that contain both Spanish and English elements include some of
the following: cabogolf, movistar, mimadog and graphenano. The first three cases can
be analysed according to the pattern Spanish + English — although with the
aforementioned constraints if they are cognates — combining noun + noun (N+N) in
movistar (móvil + star), and cabogolf (cabo+golf), which can also be interpreted as an
instance of Spanish+Spanish lexemes if the etymological origin of golf is not taken into
account.
Mimadog can be classified as a compound noun of the type verb + noun, in which
the noun is the direct object of the verb, like the English word pickpocket (Bauer 1983).
However, it would not be far-fetched to say that it was created following the rules of the
Spanish compounding system, namely, the verb + noun compound — like matasano,
pararrayos or tocadiscos — with the peculiarity that the second element of the
compound is in English, and it is not pluralised.
Graphenano is a curious example of a noun + adjective (English + Spanish)
construction. The first element, graph, could be a dated clipping of “graphic formula”,
but, in fact, it is an innovative clipping of graphene (a material used to make
nanotechnology); and the second element, enano, is likely to be interpreted as the
Spanish adjective for “very small” in this context.
The origins of the word graph would not have been properly inferred by just looking
at the shop name, but the shop’s website provides an explanation of the type of shop it
is: it is an industrial Graphene manufacturer (see <www.graphenano.com/>). This shop
name would possibly strike Spanish and English speakers as unusual because by
reading the first lexeme (in English), one would expect the conventional, English
syntactic structure — adjective + noun phrase — to be employed rather than the
Spanish pattern of noun + adjective (NA) which is actually employed.
Delving deeper into the new words, regardless of the language in which they are
written, the analysis can go a step further and sub-classify compounds according to
whether or not they convey a coherent meaning since sometimes they are tautological,
nonsensical combinations of words (e.g. acarauto) as I will explain in Section 4.3. The
first and smallest group is composed of compounds whose linguistic meaningfulness
can be called into question, as they seem like two independent words written together
randomly; the referent is obscure, and in some cases, there is not even a more reasoned
motivation behind than the sonorous effect, as in the case of park-line, which refers to a
hairdresser’s. On the other hand, the largest second group encompasses words that, even
though they are non-standard, may make sense in their context from a semantic
viewpoint. This would be the case of cinebank (a sort of repository of films).
Finally, there are four acronyms: the first two acronyms, PC (Personal Computer) in
“PC Coste” and laser, are so common that are almost unnoticeable, whereas the other
two are more innovative: BMC stands for “Body Mind Connection” — as clarified on
the very shop sign —, and the popular Vodafone, which stands for “Voice Data Fone”,
the latter element being adapted (phone > fone).
4.2. Multilingual noun phrases, word elements and their rendering
Shop names composed of multiple elements with a multilingual (generally, bilingual)
nature can be classified according to some of the following trends:
(1) English nouns (or gerunds — as in the case of fishing — which functionally
occupy the same place as a noun) premodified by Spanish nouns: “Los Pelos Park”,
“Cabo fishing” or “Canela food”, to name a few.
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Amanda Roig-Marín
(2) Noun phrases in English following the determiner + adjective + noun structure
(henceforth, DAN) or reduced versions, sometimes coordinated by an ampersand:
“American Accent – English School”, “Films & Market Co.”, “Main Avenue”, “Top
Queens”, “The Place”, “Personal Look”, “Outlet zone”, “The Beer Abbey”, etc.
(3) Translations present on some shop signs: “Peluquería – hairdresser’s Nacha”,
“Magdalena Moreno: inmobiliaria – real estate”, “Cherries – Cerezas: moda infantil”,
etc.
(4) Shop names that include a gloss to ‘clarify’ what kind of products or services are
offered. Unlike the instances of literal translations, they provide more elaborate
information: “Stefi nail’s [sic]: uñas de gel y porcelana”, “Personal look: productos
de peluquería y estética” and “Cabo copy: centro de impresión digital” are some
examples. The last but not least example found, “Mimadog: peluquería canina, dog
groom, toilettage canin” (See Figure 2), is particularly creative as it provides glosses
in three different languages, namely French, Spanish and English.
Figure 2. An example of a truly multilingual shop sign
(5) English lexemes graphically adapted to match the phonemic reading of the
words: “Peluquería canina Snupy”, “Cafetería Charli II” or “Citiwagen España”.
This alteration, however, may be intentional — in order to avoid mispronounciations
of English or to create eye-catching effects — or unintentional if the shop owner has
not checked how these words are written in the original language.
(6) Combinations of English and Spanish words such as “Alba oro direct” “Urban:
proyectos e interiorismo” “Boutique infantil: fashion children collection”,“Salón de
juegos Relax”, “Cervecería Max”, “La Tiendita Cactus: Tex mex food, take away”.
Some of these require further attention.
Within the last group, words such as relax could be regarded as occurrences of already
recorded false Anglicisms (Rodríguez & Lillo 1997). Furiassi (2010) explains that relax
is a false anglicism created out of a clipping in which the suffix has been eliminated (i.e.,
relaxation (n) > relax (n)). However, relax has already made its way into Spanish as a
noun (see the DRAE), although it is de facto a verb in English.
The use of false Anglicisms in European languages is a complex phenomenon
because, among other reasons, the same words may display variation in their treatment,
depending on the recipient language considered (cf. Furiassi, Pulcini & Rodríguez
2012). Thus, additional research would be needed to describe the presence and
evolution of false Anglicisms in the Spanish linguistic landscape.
In “La Loggia - Shop” the accompanying word, shop, suggests that loggia —
although it is also recorded in English dictionaries — is treated as Italian and, therefore,
its meaning needs clarification. The word loggia is fairly general in its prototypical
sense and does not refer to a shop, but rather it is “a gallery or arcade having one or
Examining the linguistic landscape of Alicante (Spain)
7
more of its sides open to the air” (OED). From this perspective, this shop name could be
regarded as either bilingual or trilingual: it is composed of the Spanish or Italian definite
article la, the English word shop and the Italian loggia.
As observed, the ad hoc classifying criteria can be applied with limitations when
loanwords are discussed: Loggia (is it Italian/English?), boutique, Internet, golf, etc.
(are they French/English/Spanish/other languages?). However, if the words are adapted
to a particular language, it signifies that they have been assimilated into the recipient
language. For instance, in “TG láser” láser proves to have been modified and integrated
into the Spanish lexical repertoire. Moreover, it also illustrates the unusual preservation
of the stress in initial position, in opposition to those Anglicisms that are pronounced
following the majoritarian, final-stressed syllable pattern of Spanish (e.g. Internet or
email).
4.3.Ambiguities at the lexical and syntactic levels
In this section, as well as in the section devoted to proper names, I bring up some
conflicting issues when classifying shop names according to their language. I flesh out
some of the difficulties that have arisen — such as the silent e — and discuss the role of
syntax or clarifying phrases in discerning what is Spanish and/or English in some of the
examples selected.
As already mentioned, there are a great number of cognates used in shop names. The
tendency to select “neutral” roots that could belong to multiple Indo-European
languages is a way of internationalising the shop name and, possibly, expanding the
amount of prospective customers. Within this group of words sharing their etymological
origin, the degree of variability concerning the inclusion of the silent e in shop names is
particularly significant.
The silent e is the equivalent to the mute or obscure French e. Whereas in French it is
frequently used (proverbe, personne, etc.), in present-day English it is not so common;
this silent vowel is only employed to lengthen a preceding vowel or soften a previous
consonant. The silent nature of the vowel may be the main cause for the (un)intentional
“misspelling” of words such as natur [in “Natur House”] or suprem [in “Café Suprem”].
Nonetheless, if those truncated bases and expanded, they can be interpreted to belong to
several languages (French, English, Spanish, etc.), which is why they could be analysed
as intentional clippings. In other shop names, its irregular use may be due to other
reasons. For instance, when examining the shop name “PC Coste”, whose initial
element is in English, one would expect cost instead of coste (n.). This word, existing in
Spanish, may also be regarded as an English modified word to match its Spanish
counterpart. The same can be applied to the shop name “Chocolat – New York”, where
the second noun phrase is in English, but the first French-origin element could have
been modified deliberately. In these contexts, the reader’s knowledge of foreign
languages plays a crucial role in the linguistic interpretation of these elements.
Another ambiguity encountered in shop names is “Super Europa”, which can be
examined from multiple viewpoints: the nucleus of this noun phrase, Europa, might be
the Spanish rendering of Europe but also — albeit more remotely — the mythological
Greek princess Europa in English; and super could be (1) a prefix separated from a
lexeme, (2) a Spanish adjective in which an acute accent is missing (súper*), or (3) a
Spanish clipping standing for supermarket (supermercado>súper*). Nevertheless, it is
more likely to be (4) an adjective in English since one of its senses (in reference to a
manufactured product) is “superfine”. The two more plausible interpretations
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Amanda Roig-Marín
concerning “Super Europa” are either that it is a case of hybrid use of English and
Spanish or that it is phrase in Spanish containing a typo (i.e., *super).
A remarkably ambiguous compound is acarauto: it contains what seems to be a
prefix (i.e. a-) —which does not provide any pertinent information —, a lexeme (car),
and the third element, auto, which can be interpreted in the following ways: (1) as a
combining form abnormally used in postnominal position, or (2) as a clipping of a
cognate (English automobile or Spanish automóvil). Whatever the case may be it is
certain that this lexical reduplication is repetitive and seems unmotivated on purely
linguistic grounds.
All in all, “neutral” words allow multiple and open interpretations, which might be
intentionally designed to suit the owner’s purpose. The inference of their significance
largely relies on the reader’s knowledge of languages, especially, when there are
symbols such as the ampersand. This is also the case of “Images & Perceptions”, a
subtitle of a book about Zheng He discussed by Edelman (2009:148):
Due to the ampersand, this title may be interpreted either as English (“Images and
Perceptions”) or as French (“Images et Perceptions”). The interpretation depends on which
language(s) the indexer knows. Entrepreneurs sometimes play with these double
interpretations.
In addition, at the syntactic level, there is a certain amount of variation in constructions
in which such “neutral” words as café are involved. Judging from the word order, I have
established a provisional systematisation: in noun phrases the prototypical English
structure is DAN, as already noted. Thus, I classify “Continental café” as English,
whereas “Café O’clock” and “Café Suprem [sic]” are Spanish constructions with an
element in English 1. There are also instances of attributive nouns in noun phrases that
could be in English or Spanish (“sushi bar”), but whose syntactic order determines that
they were meant to be in English.
4.4.The use of the ampersand and possessive construction
The tendency to create hybrid and/or ambiguous shop names is also present in two
widespread trends, namely the use of the ampersand (the sign &) and of the possessive
inflection. I will first examine the use of the possessive construction.
As it is widely known, English uses both a possessive inflection (’s) and a
prepositional construction introduced by of. This poses difficulties for Spanish-speaking
people since Spanish only allows a prepositional phrase (e.g., de mi hermana ‘of my
sister’). Odlin (1989:75) succinctly explains this distinction:
The possessive constructions in English and Spanish differ somewhat in their
morphosyntactic characteristics. Thus, the Spanish phrase los héroes de la nación can
translate into English either as the heroes of the nation or the nation’s heroes. A contrastive
description of Spanish and English grammar in this area would posit a morphosyntactic but
not a semantic difference.
Semantically, both constructions are the same, but the complexity for some Spaniards
lies pricesely in the rendering of Spanish prepositional constructions, which can also be
translated into English by using an attributive noun. For instance, fábrica de coches
1
Phonologically, suprem seems to be closer to English than to Spanish and thus, even though it
is misspelt, it is grouped into English words.
Examining the linguistic landscape of Alicante (Spain)
9
translates as ‘car factory’. This is even more complex if the non-native speaker
encounters attributive plural nouns (e.g. sports car), which, although they are few, they
are frequent words in English.
This uncertainty in the choice of a possessive construction creates a number of
problems and tentative solutions: (1) the possessive is sometimes not included when
needed, as in the case of the aforementioned phrase “fashion children collection”, where
the apostrophe is missing; in other cases, (2) the apostrophe is wrongly used when it is
not needed (e.g. “Kebab’s Fontana”), or (3) the shop name’s coiners do not know how
to inflect nouns in English and pluralise them with an apostrophe (as in “Stefi Nail’s” or
“Ina Style Nail’s”). These “odd” constructions are characterised by the inclusion of a
proper name, and, thus, it seems as if a possessive relation were also intended. Finally, a
third alternative is found in “El pub de Jack”, which exemplifies a solution to avoid any
possible mistakes by combining English content words (pub and Jack) and the Spanish
function words el and de (English ‘the’ and ‘of’).
The inaccurate constructions previously discussed have been disseminated around
the area surveyed, but, hopefully, new shop owners will be linguistically assesorated
and will amend their shop names.
As for the use of the ampersand, its pervasiveness in the Spanish linguistic landscape
is not recent. Its visual character and brevity favours its presence over the orthodox and
not only in international business names — e.g., Barnes & Nobles, M&M’s, Johnson &
Johnson — but also in Spanish franchises such as “Pans & Company” and the fashion
firms “Devota & Lomba” or “Victorio & Lucchino”. The ampersand usually
coordinates proper names or initials, as it is also attested by the shop names analysed
(e.g., Fanny & Sandra, J&B Peluquerías), although it may also be a choice between
noun phrases in English (“Films & Market Co”, “Inmolux: real estate & Construction”)
and in Spanish-English shop names (“Nanos & the papas”).
4.5.Problematising the taxonomy of proper names
Shop names such as “Blanca”, “Juan”, or “Belén” are not problematic for Spanish
speakers because they constitute a part of the repertoire of Hispanic names. However,
what happens with “international” names? In our globalised world, it is difficult to trace
the origins of certain names, especially if they are transliterated or adapted to the
spelling and pronunciation of other languages. Names are sometimes “neutral” and
could belong to many languages, which contributes to the impersonal character of the
linguistic landscape.
To illustrate this complex phenomenon, I have selected some shop names whose
classification depends on the indexer’s command of languages: “Dyana Home” “Alisa
España”, “Ina Style Nail’s” or “Desi Shoes”. In those instances, extended linguistic
background could assist in the arduous task of identifying their linguistic origin.
Korzilius, van Meurs & Hermans (2006:174) establish a classification of proper names
based on the “given/matter of choice” dichotomy:
“. . . in the case of names there is usually no choice between a Dutch and an English variant,
since the name of a person o[r] an organization is usually ‘a given’. However, if the name of
an organization or a department contained meaningful English words, these were counted as
English words, since in these cases the use of English is a matter of choice.”
Notwithstanding, this taxonomy seems rather subjective and difficult to apply since
there may be underlying motivations behind the choice of names or surnames that are
completely different from the owners’. Companies, medium-sized businesses, or even
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Amanda Roig-Marín
local enterprises may have gained certain popularity with originally given surnames and
have never changed them in order not to lose customers. A very well-known example of
this is the world’s largest chain of fast food restaurants McDonald’s.
Consequently, shop names containing proper names have been classified according
to the language of the rest of the elements (when there were more than one) or
otherwise have been sorted into the “other languages” category (only if there was just a
single word in English (e.g., the word Spain) and the identification was not plausible).
This is another provisional endeavour to classify proper names, but these attempts are
still subject to debate and revision.
4.6.English as a sign of prestige
The longstanding prestige and influence of French in the realm of fashion has been
recently contested by Anglo-Saxon culture, which is profoundly affecting European
languages. Anglicisms are an everyday reality which reflect the need to categorise new
concepts. However, loan words are not always used for linguistic reasons. Snobbery or
pomposity are also some fundamental reasons for using English words instead of their
Spanish counterparts (on this topic, see Rodríguez 1996). As Odlin (1989:278) states in
relation to Spanish, “the language of almost every aspect of urban, sophisticated life
reveals borrowing from English, but the language of the media, fashion, business,
science and sport are particularly affected.”
In the shop names analysed, there is, in fact, a predilection for English to display
elitism. Many of the clothes names compiled include elements in English that tend
towards the abstract and imprecise (e.g. “Top 29”), whereas others employ evocative
names (e.g. “Top Queens”), which do not necessarly convey a meaningful message.
MacGregor (2003:21) points out a very interesting, similar phenomenon in Tokyo:
“[t]he meaning is being communicated in Japanese, and the English (or other foreign
language) is a status-enhancing embellishment, since English is equated with the West,
which is equated with all kinds of positive images: high quality, high status, high society.”
The specific vocabulary related to shops intended for women include the recurrent
adjective top, the noun style and the label new concept, all of which use English as a
means of reinforcing the exclusiveness of the services offered.
5. Conclusions
In line with LL research, the present study evidences the important role of English in
the Spanish streets and the commercial sector, particularly in the shop names of a
rapidly populated area over the past ten years: “Playa de San Juan”, Alicante. Out of a
total of 258 shop names, 58% of the shop names are only in Spanish, 16% in Spanish
and English, 15% only in English, 6% in other languages, 3% in Spanish and other
languages, and 2% in English and other languages. In this regard, my results differ
considerably from those of the studies carried out in, for instance, Beijing (Jingjing
2013), Rome (Griffin 2004), or Tokyo (MacGregor 2003), as far as the presence of
English is concerned, which is more prominent in the data that I have analysed.
Moreover, unlike previous research on the same topic, which has put a greater
emphasis on quantitative analysis concerning the presence of English in monolingual
and multilingual contexts, I have attempted to offer a panorama of the underlying
linguistic and social implications in the choice of shop names. In the previous sections, I
Examining the linguistic landscape of Alicante (Spain)
11
have described the main trends, pinpointing both self-evident occurrences — the use of
the ampersand or the (mis)use of the possessive construction — and more complex
linguistic phenomena such as the use of cognates.
I have also tackled issues such as the taxonomy of proper names and ambivalent
shop names at the lexical and syntactic level. After having established a tentative
classification following criteria such as the type of elements that were in English
(namely, prefixes, suffixes, phrases or multiple word elements) and the languages
employed, I had to reassess the data in light of new possible interpretations. In this task,
lexicographical sources such as the DRAE or the OED have played a very important
role.
Some of the cases examined also unveil a surprising innovation on the shop owners’
side: there are hybrid shop names — which combine elements from different languages
in a very creative way —, glosses, translations, adapted words (e.g. “Snupy”, “Charli”),
and cross-linguistic instances of word-formation processes. In this respect, it is worth
noting the large number of compounds that, although they do not function both
grammatically and semantically as units, they are valuable epitomes of linguistic
creativity.
All of this would have gone unnoticed if it had not been studied carefully for the
present paper, which has also served to explore the linguistic and non-linguistic reasons
for English lexical loans in Spanish. Whereas some Anglicisms are used to convey new
concepts (e.g., Internet or laser), others reflect elitism.
Thus, even though this comprehensive study has approached the topic of shop names
from a formal linguistic perspective, it has also drawn on concepts from sociolinguistics
like “impersonal multilingualism” and, undoubtedly, “linguistic landscape”. In this way,
I have endeavoured to embrace the knowledge of different disciplines to give insights
into the complexity of what an apparently seems to be a simple phenomenon.
The application of the trends depicted is limited to this geographical location, as
the compilation of shop names was restricted to a particular area in Alicante, but even
so, it may provide guidelines for future linguistic research into the field of linguistic
landscape.
Amanda Roig-Marín
University of Alicante, Spain
[email protected]
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