Ethnic Businesses in the Neighbourhoods of Tunnel and La Borde

Saara Jones and Susan Effamonh

Abstract

This study tries to understand the purpose of the different signs found on ethnic businesses’ window displays. The paper focuses on the neighbourhood of Tunnel and Borde which have a high percentage of the migrant population and show visible signs of multilingualism. We collected the data by taking pictures of the different grocery shops and by analysing the way in which different languages are being used and the possible intended audience and purpose of the signs. We found that while most signs are written in French or Lingua Franca English, some signs were only for a specific community in a non-official language, therefore intended to a specific migrant community.

1. Introduction

Prior to this research, we had noticed that in the neighbourhood of Tunnel and Borde in Lausanne, there was a diverse soundscape. We could hear different languages being spoken around, so this is why we chose to investigate further and see if there would be visual proofs of what we could hear, and we were not disappointed. We found plenty of ethnic businesses which displayed different degrees of multilingualism and a variety of languages. This paper will try to understand what the purpose of the signs of ethnic businesses’ window displays is, which languages are being used, why and to whom they are addressed. In previous research, Sabaté i Dalmau shows the importance of ethnic businesses in translating ads into migrant languages to advertise and give the opportunity to different migrant communities to access and understand offers that were at first only in Spanish (2013). Also, when studying the linguistic landscape, we will look into “uncovering the everyday communicative strategies of the people who actually use a particular space” (Mooney and Evans 2015:96). This paper will start by explaining more in detail previous research done on similar matter. Then, it will show why we chose the specific neighbourhoods, where they are located and statistical information about them.  We will explain which method we used, how we collected our data and why we selected it. Finally, we will discuss our results and conclude with possible further studies.

2. Theoretical framework

Linguistic Landscape, like Mooney and Evans explain, is “a testament to the languages actually being used in a place” (2015: 97) It is a visual proof of an invisible soundscape. They suggest that “some research (…) can provide insight into linguistic diversity not captures by official top down discourses or even by official audits (e.g. a census).” (2015: 97) This is what we will be looking at when analysing our photos. Signs can be top-down which usually means official government-made messages or bottom-up which are made by individuals or smaller groups (Mooney and Evans 2015: 87). Unlike Mooney and Evans who would consider signs produced by business owners as top-down, we think of them as bottom-up because of the smaller scale of ethnic businesses.

Also, Sabaté i Dalmau’s research aimed to study on how the Locutorios fill up the linguistic gap with their services to the undocumented migrants, because the ICT multinational companies in Catalonia and Spain do not deem it economically profitable to invest in their migrant languages. According to the official statistics and references in her article, Catalan as an autonomous community, on the north-eastern side of Spain has witnessed a great influx of migrants, notably from Europe, Africa and South America. Evidently, these migrants came along with their linguistic repertoires but unfortunately, the ICT multinational companies in Catalonia (Spain) do not want to incorporate these newly arrived languages into their linguistic advertising approach to customers because they think that they won’t make a significant profit from the languages of these migrants. So, the Locutorios business, which are ethnic businesses owned by migrants who are well established in Catalonia, offer not only access to the internet, computers, cabin calls, prepaid phone cards, top ups, photocopying, fax and money transfers, to these other (undocumented) migrants but these locutorios also provide the platform on which these undocumented migrants can communicate with the outside world, in a language in their repertoires. Through their workers, the locutorios also offer crucial services of: translation of text messages and promotion offers from Spanish into migrant languages like Urdu, and filling of administrative.

However, because it has not been previously done, our research focus will be on ethnic businesses and their linguistic landscapes, in Tunnel and La Borde neighbourhood, Lausanne in Switzerland. For the purpose of this study, we will refer to other languages that are not French language as non-official languages, French as the official language because it the local authorised language, spoken in this region of Switzerland and English language as the lingua franca because it is the “global language” (Pennycook 2003:516).

3. Contextualisation

Figure 1. Shop locations on Google maps

Figure 2. Percentage of foreigners in Lausanne

This paper focuses on the two main streets of the neighbourhoods of Tunnel and La Borde in Lausanne which were chosen because of previous soundscaping in the area. They are situated relatively close to the center of the city and Tunnel is part of the center district and La Borde of Borde/Bellevaux, but both situated next to each other. When we first went with the intention of taking pictures and collecting data, we were looking for any signs of multilingualism, but we discovered that they were mostly on the window display of ethnic shops. Therefore, we decided to focus on ethnic businesses. In Figure 1, the green dots represent the different shops we found although there were many more, but we decided to filter through the multitude of shops to a selection that best represent the multilingualism of the area. According to the official statistics of Lausanne, more than half of the inhabitants of these two areas are foreigners (2017). We can see in figure 2, the blue dots show where our two neighbourhoods are located and where we collected our data. They are both in dark red because more of half the inhabitants are immigrants which explains why we have found so many ethnic businesses around there. Tunnel/Riponne has 60,6% of foreigners and La Borde 59,8%. We could not find more details on the origins of the foreigners of  the neighbourhoods, but in the whole of Lausanne out of all the foreigners, there is a majority of European migrants (65,3% – Germans, Italians, French, …) but also a smaller but considerable proportion from Asia (7,7% – China, Sri Lanka, …), from South America (5,2% – Brazil, Chili, Ecuador, …) and from Turkey (1,5%). The neighbourhoods are quite vibrant with many restaurants, hairdressers, cafés and specialised shops, but according to the official statistics of Lausanne, the number of businesses in the area (and Lausanne in general) has decreased since 1995 and some of the shops we photographed seemed to have already closed down when we took photos of them.

4. Methodology

The data for our study was collected on the 5^th of November 2018, based on previous soundscaping. We started in the neighbourhood of Tunnel but continued up to the main street of La Borde. We took multiple photos of different ethnic shop window displays and signs because there were many businesses on the two main streets and most of them displayed non-official migrant languages. Therefore, since almost all our pictures were of shops, we decided to focus on ethnic businesses.

We selected ten photos of businesses for this study: ‘Akdeniz Voyages’ (travel agency), ‘The next cut’ (barber shop), ‘Au Bornéo’ (café), ‘Nice people’ (shop), ‘La Tienda de la Esquina’ (shop), ‘Thai délices’ (restaurant), ‘Créacion Del Tata’ (restaurant), ‘Chez Bui’ (shop), ‘Sam’s piercing and Tattoo’ (tattoo shop). All of them used language in a different way to advertise to locals or diverse migrant communities like the Spanish and Asian communities. Later, more data were collected from oral interviews that we conducted with the owners of ‘Chez Bui’, ‘Akdeniz Voyages’ and ‘Thai délices’ and we got oral permission from them to use our discussion with them in our data analysis.

Tunnel and La Borde neighbourhood have delivered our expectations of finding non-official languages there because of the dominant presence of ethnic businesses in it. Our research has proved that the soundscape is also visible in the linguistic landscape. It is rather an interesting project and we have learnt not to just walk into any shop without observing and mentally analysing the language signs that we find there.

5. Results

Fig. 3. Language distribution in signs

For this study, we had to choose ten pictures to focus on. Because there were too many different languages and language combinations, we divided them into three categories depending on the main language used: non-official, official & non-official and lingua franca. Three signs were fully written in non-official languages, three signs were in non-official languages but also in French and finally, four signs in Lingua Franca (English).

Image 1. Turkish travel agency

Image 2. Turkish ad

Image 1 is a picture we took on the window display of a Turkish traveling agency and the languages we found in it are in French, Turkish and English. It is a bottom-up advert and French language has a dominant presence because it is written in big font. According to the owner of the office, its targeted customers are French speaking travellers. However, there is a concert advert that is completely written in Turkish language (Image 2). This signifies that the physical space of the agency office is a medium of making relevant the Turkish language for Turkish people, in a French speaking neighbourhood. English language does not play a significant role in Image 1 because it is written in small font but is necessary because “it is the language of international communication in the vast majority of advertisement”(Piller 2001:164).

Image 3. Chinese and Thai ads

The presence of Asian languages is obvious in Image 3, and notably are Chinese and Thai languages. In the interview we had with the shop owner, his shop provides unique Asian products for the Asian communities living in this neighbourhood. On the window display, the price list and Thai massage advert, written in French is for locals who like Asian products. This shop also serves as adverts space for Chinese Buddhist religion, and a job proposal of 80%-100%. These adverts are written in Chinese and Thai, respectively and they are also bottom-up adverts. Image 3 is also a good example of non-official languages being used to target a specific language group.

Image 4. Tattoo and piercing ad

Image 4 is a typical example of English language as a global language, staking its presence in Tunnel and La Borde neighbourhoods, in Lausanne. As seen on the window display of this  shop, every word is written in English and mostly in big font, too. The use of English language indicates that its targeted customers are only English speakers. The featuring of the crown symbol which is popularly associated with the Queen of England, might be an indication that the owner of the shop is from the United Kingdom and therefore is staking a place for  English language in a French-locally spoken neighbourhood.

Image 5. Ads on a Spanish shop

Based on the linguistic signs in Image 5, we could say that it is a Latino shop. This means that even as  ‘Bienvenue’ is written boldly in French language,and ‘Open and Pull’ in English Language, the dominant language on the window display is Spanish language. As advertised in Spanish language, this shop sells food items (“productos latinos”) and Lebara top-up cards. It also buys euros and dollars, as well as provides fixing up services of perhaps broken car windows. Thus, it is a shop that provides information for different kinds of services. It targets the Latino community but is obviously open to locals through the welcome signs of (‘Bienvenue’, ‘Open and Pull’) written in French and English.

6. Discussion

Our results reveal the diversity of purposes and addressees. Most shops, of course, had signs in French or English to open the business to a majority of customers, but we noticed that some shops specifically intend some ads or messages for a specific community. A few signs were only written in a non-official language therefore solely focused on one immigrant language speaker group. They represent visible signs of migration as also revealed in the statistics that show the two neighbourhoods have some of the highest proportion of migrants in Lausanne. We could not study and interview the owners as much as Sabaté i Dalmau did, but we were able to find out that ‘Chez Bui’, for example, targets specific ads to the Chinese community or adverts jobs directly for Thai speakers. In his study, Blommaert describes the LL of Antwerp as mostly Turkish and Belgian being visible and audible but also found traces of Chinese migration through a sign written in Chinese advertising a flat to rent (2013: 45-46), which is also what we were able to find in Lausanne. The poster ad fully written in Turkish directly addresses the Turkish community, but we found out that the owner only speaks in French to his customers.

7. Conclusion

This study set out to understand the purposes and targeted audiences of the different signs found on window displays of ethnic businesses, in Tunnel and La Borde neighbourhoods, in Lausanne. Our findings confirm with the findings in Sabate i Dalmau (2013), namely that ethnic business provide various non-official languages services like: selling of top-ups phone cards, money transfers, and advert services. It would have been interesting to study linguistic services (e.g. to fill in administrative forms in French as the official and locally spoken language) provided to migrants in these neighbourhoods; however, this was not possible in the scope of this study but further research could be undertaken on it.

References

Blommaert, Jan. 2013. Ethnography, Superdiversity and Linguistic Landscapes: Chronicles of Complexity. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. pp. 45-6.

Mooney, A., B. Evans. 2015. Linguistic landscapes. In A. Mooney and B. Evans (eds.),Language,
 Society and Power: an Introduction. London: Routledge, pp. 86-107.

Pennycook, Alastair. 2003. Global Englishes, Rip Slyme, and performativity, Journal of Sociolinguistics 7/4, p. 516.

Piller, Ingrid. 2001. Identity constructions in multilingualism advertising, Language in Society 30, p. 164.

Sabaté i Dalmau, Maria. 2013. Fighting Exclusion from the Margins: Locutorios as Sites of Social Agency and Resistance for Migrants. Bristol: Mulilingual Matters.

Websites

Official statistics from the website of Lausanne. Available on https://www.lausanne.ch/en/officiel/statistique/quartiers/cartes-thematiques.html Accessed on the 04.12.18.

Appendix

Image 1.1 Nice People Shop

Image 1.2 The Next Cut Barber Shop

Image1.3 Thai Délices Restaurant

Image 1.4 Créacion Del Tata Restaurant

Image 1.5 Au Bornéo bar à café

Image 1. 6 Rapid Lunch Pastelaria

The Power Struggle of Two Discourses: An Analysis of the Linguistic Landscape in La Cité in Lausanne

by Lucie Mottet and Teodora Trujanovic

Abstract

This paper explores the power struggle between two cohabiting types of discourses, regulatory and transgressive, in one neighbourhood: La Cité. With both a quantitative and a qualitative analysis, it presents the old town of Lausanne under a new light. This research analyses how the delimitation of the named neighbourhood is determined by signs, presenting the dichotomy between the capitalistic and anti-capitalistic discourses, such as anarchist and anti-consumerist ones. The interactions between those two discourses illustrate the different constructions of space and shape the neighbourhood. The languages used in those signs also help to understand some tensions between the municipality of Lausanne and its inhabitants. Throughout the paper, the notion of delimitation emerges given that there exist inner boundaries between the spaces where each of the groups have their place to express themselves.

Introduction

“(Social) space is a (social) product” wrote Henri Lefebvre in his book The Construction of Space translated in English by Donaldson-Smith (26). Through this quote, Lefebvre expresses the fact that the delimitation of spaces corresponds to a social construction by ideologies, namely capitalism in our case, rather than to a natural phenomenon. As a consequence, those delimitations are not perceived similarly by every individual which can initiate conflict within spaces.

Among the neighbourhood of La Cité in Lausanne exists a contrast between two opposed discourses; a top-down discourse present in the regulatory signs, particularly in commercial and touristic ones, mainly displaying the strong influence of capitalism and, in opposition, bottom-up signs, namely graffiti and stickers, conveying an anti-capitalistic conception of the space. The power struggle between the two illustrates this notion of socially constructed spaces Lefebvre wrote about. Both discourses evolve in the same space and each one of them is transforming the old town of Lausanne by their interactions within the neighbourhood. These contradictory interactions reveal tensions between these two discourses in the same neighbourhood and multilingual practices tend to contribute and/or influence this conflicting dimension between discourses.

Analysing pictures taken within this neighbourhood will provide us an insight into the interactions between these discourses: how the regulatory and the transgressive discourses cohabit within this space visited by tourists throughout the year. We will start our paper with a contextualisation of both previous researches on the matter and of the neighbourhood. We will continue by presenting both a qualitative and a quantitative analysis of the way those discourses have created space for themselves within La Cité’sboundaries and how a transgression of those limits will generate an erasure of the opposing discourse.

Theoretical Framework

Observing the delimitation of space by looking at the linguistic landscape (LL) allows us to understand the eventual power struggle present in this region. Other studies have been made regarding neighbourhoods and how people cohabit within the space. As quoted before, Lefebvre considers the delimitation of spaces to be a social construction (26) rather than a natural conception, particularly in the context of capitalism in which we live because we are in a society that aims to achieve financial benefits.

Looking at the signs present in a socially constructed neighbourhood warrant us to grasp the power dynamic between the people living there. Trinch and Snajdr outline in their article that “as signs embody different language ideologies they come to shape political, social and economic contexts by conferring differential and competing symbolic and material values on the land” (66). According to them, signs are particularly interesting to look at for understanding the social organisation in a given space because of the different types there are. In this paper, we focus on the comparison between regulatory and transgressive signs. This binary distinction can also be found in terms such as top-down and bottom-up signs. The former defines signs that are on public institutions and announcements which we mostly found in regulatory signs. On the other hand, the latter, which was present in transgressive signs, reports what can be considered as produced by private individuals.

For this research, we will base ourselves on Screti’s round-up of Lefebvrian conception of space: “For Lefebvre, the city is constructed according to, and to reinforce, capitalism and is a space where capitalism is enacted, but also resisted” (2018: 22). We will try to shed light on this dichotomy between the capitalist ideologies represented by regulatory signs and the one resisting it, so transgressive signs.

Next to Lefebvre and its socially constructed space, Ben-Rafael et al. (2006) define the linguistic landscape as the shaping process “of the very scene—made of streets, corners, circuses, parks, buildings—where society’s public life takes place”. By looking at the LL of the city of Lausanne, it is possible to grasp the “sociosymbolic” dimension of the concerned city as well as of the studied neighbourhood, which becomes emblematic of that precise place (Ben-Rafael et al. 2006: 8).

In addition, Ben-Rafael et al. (2006) take into account the great number of actors engaged in this shaping process as public institutions, associations, firms, individuals and many more. The interesting point to focus on is the power struggle and dissensions found in this process between different actors “that do not necessarily act harmoniously” (8), which in our case we hypothesise to be reflected in the dichotomy between top-down regulatory and bottom-up transgressive signs. In order to analyse the space, one has to consider “the era of modernity, globalization and multiculturalism” characterising today’s world, which completely changes the nature, status and population of quarters, neighbourhoods and cities growing in diversity. In this newly contoured space, interactions between public authority and civil society, often characterized as a power struggle, evolve and shape in turn this same space (9). Indeed, power relations act as one of the “structuration principles” building the linguistic landscape (Ben-Rafael 2009, 45-6).

To stick to power relationships, Papen (2012) interprets the space as “one of the arenas where [debates are] taking place (61). The public space is socially constructed through interactions of individuals and authorities, displaying the mainstream ideology, as Lefebvre develops in his work (1991). This propriety of space enables individuals, despite the controlling of state’s authorities, to express their opinions and, as Papen claims, “to disseminate their views” (73). This point shows another facet of LL, “used primarily to shed light on aspects of multilingualism, [that] can be harnessed to seek insights into much broader issues relating to social change, urban renewal, gentrification and its concomitant class tensions” (Papen 2012, 58).

Contextualisation

Our paper focuses on the neighbourhood of La Cité in Lausanne, the capital of the French-speaking canton of Vaud. Our choice of this specific sector of the city is based on its touristic nature, as it represents the historical and cultural centre of the city, as well as on our expectations to encounter multilingual practices, in particular featuring English. La Cité is situated in the quarter of Lausanne named “the Centre”, figuring on the map as the number 01 (see appendix Image 11). We observe that its name corresponds well to its centralised localisation. Thanks to the collective Google Mapof the Multilingual Lausanne project, we are able to associate our localisation and boundaries of La Citéwith the one of the official website of the city, here below in Figure 1 and 2. According to statistics found on the official website of Lausanne, La Citécounts 737 inhabitants in 2017. However, this website does not give any information concerning statistics of spoken languages in the area.

While the beginnings of Lausanne were by the lac Léman (lake Geneva), the population moved during the 9^thcentury to the hills to what we call La Citétoday. With time, Lausanne was Christianised and started to spread beyond the small section of La Cité, all the way over the “Centre” mentioned previously. The cathedral was officially finished in 1275 and Lausanne became a place of pilgrimage which can be considered as the beginning of tourism in Lausanne. The city continued to grow to what we know today and La Citéremains the historical centre of Lausanne mainly because of its cathedral.

Figure 1:  Map of La Cité, found on the official website of the city of Lausanne.

Figure 2 : Our own map of La Cité, based on our linguistic landscaping and data in purple.

Methodology

Our choice of the neighbourhood of La Cité, as previously mentioned, is motivated by its touristic nature considering museums and the cathedral in this area, as well as by our expectations of multilingualism, especially English. Thus, our linguistic landscaping data collection began at the emblematic monument of Lausanne, the cathedral. Then, we stopped by the two museums located in front of the cathedral, the MUDAC (museum of contemporary design and applied arts) and the historical museum of Lausanne (Musée historique de Lausanne). After taking pictures around these touristic attractions, we have continued our search in smaller streets as Escalier du Marché and Rue Louis-Auguste Curtat away from the cultural and historical area. There we found a great presence of transgressive signs, as the map shows (i.e. skull symbols), in the official (according to Lausanne’s official website) border of the neighbourhood. In addition, we encountered many shops, bars and restaurants, considered as a meeting points for its inhabitants.

When dealing with this specific area, we decided to focus on three main aspects that interact with one another as they exist in the same space: signs in touristic places such as museums and the cathedral, commercial signs in activities such as bars and restaurants (places encompassed in capitalist ideologies) and transgressive signs most of which dialogue with top-down signs documented.

After having selected pictures representing each aspect aforementioned, we have evaluated them in reference to the global project of Multilingual Lausanne and therefore, looked for multilingual use in particular. For the purpose of this paper, we have selected pictures that are situated in the south of La Cité, where the two discourses cohabit closely and the power struggle between them is the most visible.

Then, we have uploaded the different chosen pictures on the collective Google Map of the lesson, “Multilingual Lausanne Autumn 2018”. When uploading the pictures, we have categorised them according to these criteria: name, address, authors of the picture, date of collection, presence of multilingual or monolingual practices and considering which are main or secondary languages, the neighbourhood, the support/medium (of the text), activity domain and finally the type of sign (regulatory, transgressive…).

As noted before, we have chosen this specific neighbourhood because of its touristic dimension and the conviction to encounter multilingual practices and especially English as a lingua franca. We were very surprised to notice the negligible use of English compared to French, which is prevalent considering the French-speaking nature of the canton de Vaud of which Lausanne is the capital and its associated legislation policies. Furthermore, it was interesting to observe differently the space, namely as an interaction of signs as well as a construction of these contacts. We were not completely aware of the issues anchored in space when just passing by this area. To “read the space” correctly as Screti mentions in his article by quoting Lefebvre (Screti 2018, 2), we have to take into account “the histories of space and the social practices that occur within it”.

Results and discussion

To compare our different signs, we decided to analyse them on both a quantitative and qualitative analysis to examine and try to understand the coexistence and interaction between regulatory and transgressive signs.

A/ Quantitative analysis

In our selected corpus of 10 images in 9 locations, we count a small number of languages. French is predominantly present. It is found in both regulatory and transgressive signs, in standard and non-standard French respectively. We also found an occurrence of franglais (see Image 8 in the appendix).

While the presence of French was expected as it is the official language of the city, it is the absence of other languages that surprised us, particularly the lack of English. It was indeed mostly used in schedules for touristic attractions as English is considered as a lingua franca and in some transgressive signs, where individuals use English language to emphasize their comments.

We also encountered two other languages: Italian and Chinese. The former was present on the signs for a Pasta bar while the latter was indicating the availability of Chinese audio guides. Those were the only occurrences of those languages we noted during our data collection.

Finally, a number of signs, two in our corpus, were displaying illustrations instead of written texts. In one of our images, the pictures symbolize an assortment of rules to respect in green spaces. The other indicates the direction to take to reach the cathedral. Rather than using the word that might not be universally understood, a sign depicting the cathedral is far more efficient as semiotic signs convey meaning across speakers of different languages.

B/ Qualitative analysis

Throughout the neighbourhood of La Cité, different kind of signs were spotted. Among these, commercial and touristic ones can be considered as signs deriving from capitalist ideologies of Lausanne, since they are encouraging economic transactions and growth of their activities. Signs opposed to those ideologies figuring in the same space tend to be transgressive. These are consequently opposed to the first ones as transgressive additions try to regain control over the neighbourhood by transforming its construction and representation. 

Image 1: Pasta Bar Pomodoro della Nonna

As a first step, we concentrate on a commercial sign situated at the entry of the neighbourhood, named Pomodoro della Nonna (Image 1). The sign displayed on this pasta bar is mainly written in Italian. Considering the commercial nature of this sign, its aim is to attract a wider audience and to make the commercial activity thriving in the light of capitalist ideology. In order to fulfil this aim, the use of Italian does not suggest only the traditional and typical Italian food, it also affirms the authenticity of the kitchen through the stereotypical figure of the Italian cook, la nonna. This figure of la nonna, here a semiotic and written sign, can be interpreted as a brand for Italian culture and cooking regarding the definition of “branding” given by Sebba (2015): “process whereby a specific visual/graphical element of written language [such as an alphabetic character (see Screti 2018, 15)] becomes emblematic of a group of people”. In addition, Piller (2001, 170) observes that Italian is used in commercials “as the language of the good life, unambiguously connected to food”, which is considered as a “passion”. Moreover, the colour of the sign plays with a crucial ingredient of Italian food as it mirrors the colour of the tomato – figuring also on the sign and its title – that makes the sign generally visible in the entry of La Cité.

We then focussed on  transgressive addition on a direction sign (that used to indicate the direction of touristic attractions) (Image 2), which does not fit within the capitalist construction of the space anymore as it has been heavily tagged and consequently acquires a dialogic nature. Indeed, the sign was originally regulatory, therefore representative of the mainstream ideology and has become almost unreadable under the tags. Direction signs’ primary purpose intends to help individuals to reach specific places, as touristic ones and implicitly, corresponds to a capitalist construction of the space. By covering the direction signs with tags – that are difficult to read and thus, to understand – the capitalist ideology is “challenged” by other discourses, called transgressive in opposition to regulatory, capitalist signs (Lefebvre 1991, 23).

Image 2 : Transgressive additions on a direction sign

The sign’s situation is crucial in order to fully grasp the power struggle underlying this direction sign and in La Cité in general. The sign is situated on the official boundary (also accepted by the locals according to our knowledge of the neighbourhood) of the neighbourhood where a great presence of graffiti characterize the margins of La Cité. In addition, the direction sign figures next to a tunnel that is completely tagged (see some parts of it on the left in the picture and also Image 8 in the appendix). This point illustrates the correlation between the boundaries as well as the margins of the neighbourhood and the expression of minority’s voices, considered to be transgressive as they do not fit in the main ideology and official signs. For instance, one of these voices mentions by code-switching a xenophobic concern in the tunnel as the Image  8 shows. Thus, boundaries of La Cité appear as a place “providing marginalised people a voice” (Mooney and Evans 2015, 101) as well as for transgressive discourses opposed to the capitalist ideology (see Image 9 in the appendix denouncing animal cruelty for its use of fur).

Image 8 : Graffiti in the tunnel ” Fuck les Valaisent [misspelling of inhabitants of other canton] + Portugais (Portuguese)” (Steph)

In this case, there are multiple signs displayed in the picture. The first one being analysed is the one present on the left corresponding to schedules of Le Musée historique de Lausanne (Image 3) (the historical museum). Similarly to other touristic places in La Cité, it is written in both French and English but no other languages (see Images 5 and 6 in the appendix). This multilingual practice contributes to the attraction of a wider audience in this neighbourhood, particularly as this museum is situated in front of the cathedral. It is contributing to the commercial activity of the museum and which can be related to capitalist ideologies as it represents a way to be lucrative.       

Image 3 : Le Musée historique de Lausanne

On the right side of the picture, there are two different signs. One of which is solely in French and is the poster for the exhibition present in the museum that was also spread around the city. The other represents a promotion poster in Chinese. Although it is written in two different writing systems, traditional and simplified Chinese, the machine translation we used (Google Translate) translated the two lines as an indication of the availability of Chinese audio guide. It might suggest a frequency of Chinese speaking tourists and therefore, the museum’s advertisement is oriented to these specific consumers, so adapting its activity in relation to the multiculturalism we live in (Ben-Rafael et al. 2006, 9).

Image 4 : Direction signs leading to the cathedral

Finally, the last sign we are analysing is also an official, top-down one. Those direction signs (Image 4) are also present in the borders of La Cité, close to the tunnel and the transgressive sign (see Image 2 and appendix Image 8). However, those have not received transgressive dialogic additions. It can be linked both to the fact that it is situated in a busier street than the one near the tunnel. Another reason for its monologic nature is that it is situated high on the wall which can also protect the signs from graffiti.

These signs indicate the directions to access the main touristic attractions in La Cité. Those signs are mostly written in French. However, the sign indicating the direction of the cathedral on the left handside offers an alternative semiotic practice for a multilingual audience. It depicts the cathedral rather than have it translated in a different language. On the right of the picture, the highest sign indicates the cité cathédrale. Rather than translating it, a choice has been made to put an image. The use of illustration for directions applies to a wider audience. Illustrations allow a universal comprehension and avoid the need to present translations. A similar use of illustrations is also found in Image 7 (see appendix) where the rules and prohibited activities are represented with illustrations and act as a “structuration principle” in building the landscape (Ben-Rafael 2009, 45-6). It suggests an alternative way to describe the rules without having to translate it in different language and the need to choose which language to translate it in.

Conclusion

In this paper, we have intended to explore the cohabitation of two opposed discourses in the neighbourhood of La Cité, respectively a regulatory, top-down discourse and a bottom-up one, also qualified as transgressive. However, this cohabitation, as seen, does not necessarily imply harmony between discourses, mainly because of ideas conveyed within them that nourish a power struggle. Regulatory discourse is indeed vested in capitalist ideology and its shaping of space corresponds to and reinforces this mainstream influence, as observed in commercials and direction signs. On the contrary, transgressive signs acquire this designation as they do not fit in this ideology and tend to resist the capitalist conception of space by constructing their own, in our data by mainly using tags as form of expression.

The main limitation encountered in our paper is linked to the nature of a neighbourhood, namely its boundaries and margin zones. The delimitations of La Cité act also as delimitation for us in our research as we have to constrain to a specific space in which we have investigated the power struggle between top-down and bottom-up signs that actually might extend to a larger area.

Future research could focus on this specific neighbourhood during touristic periods, especially in summer and observe the measures, linguistic ones for instance, displayed in order to attract as well as to adapt their offers to tourists’ interests and on the other side, the bottom-up reaction to these measures. Another future direction might involve the soundscape of the same neighbourhood and to look at the existent languages and their representation in regulatory signs as well as in the bottom-up discourse, in other words an approach combining linguistic soundscape and landscape.

References

Ben-Rafael E., Shohamy E., Hasan A. M. and Trumper-Hecht N. 2006. Linguistic Landscape as Symbolic Construction of the Public Space: The Case of Israel. International Journal of Multilingualism 3:1, 7-30.

Ben-Rafael, E. 2009. A sociological approach to the study of linguistic landscapes. In Shohamy E. and Gorter D. (eds.) Linguistic Landscape: Expanding the Scenery. London: Routledge. 40–55.

Mooney, A., Evans, B.  2015. Language, Society and Power: An Introduction. Routledge. 4th edition. Chapter 5. 86-107.

Lefebvre, H. 1991. Plan of the Present Work, The Production of Space. Trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith. Oxford : Blackwell. 1-67.

Papen, U. 2012. Commercial discourses, gentrification, and citizen’s protest: The linguistic landscape of Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin. Journal of Sociolinguistics 16/1. 56–80.

Piller, I. 2001. Identity Constructions in Multilingual Advertisements. Language in Society 30 (2). 153-186.

Screti, F. 2018. Re-writing Galicia: Spelling and the Construction of Social Space. Journal of Sociolinguistics 22/5. 516–544.

Sebba, M. 2015. Iconicity, attribution and branding in orthography. Written Language and Literacy 18: 208–227.  

Trich S., Snajdr E. 2016. What the signs say: Gentrification and the disappearance of capitalism without distinction in Brooklyn.  Journal of Sociolinguistics 21/1. 64-89.

Websites

Historical information on La Cité found on the official website of Lausanne tourism https://www.lausanne-tourisme.ch/en/Z5657/history, consulted on the 08.12.18.

Image 11, on the official website of the city of Lausanne: https://www.lausanne.ch/officiel/statistique/quartiers/presentation-des-quartiers.html, consulted on the 6.12.2018.

Statistic on La Cité, on the official site of the city of Lausanne on “population selon la nationalité” category: https://www.lausanne.ch/officiel/statistique/quartiers/tableaux-donnees.html, consulted on the 6.12.2018.

Appendix

Image 5 : MUDAC museum’s schedules

Image 6 : Cathedral’s schedules

Image 7 : Green spaces rules of Lausanne

Image 8 : Graffities in the tunnel ” Fuck les Valaisent [misspelling of inhabitants of other canton] + Portugais (Portuguese) (Steph)”

Image 9 : Transgressive sign “Sur cette promenade” [On this promenade], above the green space rules (see Image 7).

Zoom on the sticker denouncing animal cruelty

Image 10 : Anarchist graffiti that has been erased. However, it remains readable: “Abattre le capitalisme, construire la solidarité” [Bring down the capitalism, build solidarity) completed by the anarchist symbol.

Image 11 : Different quarters of Lausanne, the Centre under number 1. Map found on the official website of the city of Lausanne.

Rey Camille and Berger Iman

17.01.2019

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               In this research paper, we will continue investigating multilingualism, focusing on the restaurants and cafés in the center of Lausanne. The goal of this study is to analyze how multilingualism is used as a business strategy in those establishments.  In order to carry out this investigation, we went to this neighborhood to take pictures of visible written marks of multilingualism. After this first step, we had to analyze our pictures and understand how and for which reasons several languages were used in these places. We then came with different categories: using multilingualism in order to convey authenticity, or adopting multilingualism in a trendy way to appeal the customers by employing English. This inquiry allowed us to become aware of the predominance of multilingualism nowadays and that this phenomenon is often used for specific purposes by the commercial establishments. Our results show that multilingualism is both used either to express the authenticity of the restaurant/café, or, by using English, to appeal customers in a trendy way since English became very popular and is increasingly used.

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Introduction

The academic interest in the urban linguistic landscape has grown over the past few years. Effectively, linguists have investigated multilingualism in order to have a better understanding on how and why cities use different languages nowadays. Indeed, cities such as Lausanne are interesting places to investigate due to the great concentration of people in them and to the contact of languages resulting from it. In this way, language appear as an indicator of global processes on the ground. By choosing a city in Switzerland which is a multilingual country by nature because of its different national languages (French, German, Italian and Romansch) we thought that it was interesting to investigate how the businesses use different languages and for which reasons. The aim of this research is to analyze multilingualism in public areas in the center of the city of Lausanne. More specifically, what is the purpose for businesses to use different languages? Would it be either a manner to express authenticity or rather a way to follow the trend by using English? Therefore, we will analyze the use of different languages and to which strategy it corresponds.  In addition, a theoretical framework will be provided in order to introduce the main aspects and shed light on our own concepts. Indeed, previous studies as Piller’s (2001) have investigated the use of multilingualism in advertising. Her analysis focused on advertising mixing German and English and revealed that English was more and more used in the twentieth century. Moreover, another study on restaurants’ strategies to use several languages to keep the authenticity of the restaurant offer diverse interesting points that have been also raised in our research. In addition to these previous studies, we have also collected information from Jasone Cenoz and Ulrike Jessner’s article on the spread of English in the world because “English as a lingua franca” is one of the main point of this analysis, since it consists of one of the reason many establishments use multilingualism. In order to collect our data, we first went to the center of Lausanne around the “Place de la Louve” and “Place Pépinet” to observe the written language used in this place and to collect pictures of several restaurants and cafés’ windows displays and their respective advertisements where multilingualism would appear. Then, an analysis was conducted in order to analyze which restaurant use and expose different languages in their menu, panels, window displays and especially why they would do this. To answer our research question, a quantitative and qualitative analysis will be done on the basis of our selected pictures, followed by a discussion, a conclusion and potential opening on this research.

Theoretical framework

Firstly, we have taken an interest on Piller’s study made in 1999 which is about multilingualism in advertising and thus give an overall analysis on how English is used. She based her analysis especially on the German advertisements and interrogated the role of media on the expansion of the use of bilingualism (German and English). She thus noticed a “concomitants shift from monolingual practices to multilingual and English-dominant ones.” (Piller 2001: 153) In her article, she explores one linguistic discourse within the discourse of advertising which is the use of multilingualism. She notices that “contemporary cultural identities are hybrid, complex, and often contradictory, and the media play a crucial role in their configuration.” (2001: 155) She also agrees with other linguists on the fact that advertising is now continuing to integrate the creation of consumer identities, which have “become global and transnational” (2001: 155). In relation to our research, we can observe that eighteen years after her article, her conclusion was coherent with our results; and that nowadays, in advertisement and also in the street (cafés and restaurant) multilingualism has largely spread.

Alana Anne Colton, Amy Brenndorfer, Olivia Katie Colvin and Lucy Hannah Cook’s research  outlines similarities regarding our specific focus on cafés and restaurants. Despite having investigated deeper in this subject, they have also looked at the different restaurants’ strategies set up to keep authenticity, regarding the language used within the institution. Their first main aim was to look if and how language is used as marketing strategy in the Italian Restaurant “P”, centered in Manchester. In addition to this, they also examined if the language used by the staff affects or not the customer’s dining experience. By focusing their analysis on this notion of authenticity, which is one of our key point, they give an adequate definition of this term, which is “something that is made or done in the traditional or original way or in a way that faithfully resembles to the original.’’ (Colton, Brenndorfer, Colvin Cook 2014: 2). Having carried different quantitative and qualitative methods such as questionnaires, interviews and observation, they realized that the language used in the restaurant, Italian, does definitely help to create an authentic atmosphere for the customers. In fact, almost 94% of the staff use both English and Italian to speak with the clients. Colton, Brenndorfer, Colvin and Cook’s conclusion is that the use of Italian is a strategy to keep identity and the restaurant’s authenticity.

Finally, in order to collect information about the spread of English and its expansion over time, we chose to read Jason Cenoz and Ulrike Jessner’s article (2000). In this article, we learned that the growing and expansion of multilingualism is a reaction to “people who need to be bilingual or multilingual in their daily communicative functions or who consider that they, or their children, have a potential need for it.” (2000: 3).  English has, in fact, spread due to colonialism but has maintained for other reasons. Other languages have spread with colonialism, like Spanish and French. However, they differ in the “speed and extent of its growth also in mainly monolingual countries in the Middle and Far East, and in many parts in Europe.” (2000: 5). English has quickly become a “lingua franca used in several activities like trade, tourism, air travel, popular media, sport, science, technology and many other fields of importance in contemporary life.” (Cenoz and Jessner 2000: 5). It is important to discern their observation made in 2000 from ours made in 2018. Cities, in almost 20 years have developed, and Lausanne has also become an important city with more and more international communities. They, however, already observed that “English had become visible throughout Europe and beyond a large number of domains such as commerce (…) and tourism.” (2000:10). They also noticed that it had become the “dominant language of advertising, especially for consumer goods” (2000:10) which support our observations made in this paper.

Contextualization

To answer our research question on the linguistic landscape, we have chosen to focus mainly on a certain type of establishments which is the restaurants, cafés and food businesses in the center of the city of Lausanne. Indeed, by walking around the center of Lausanne, we have noticed that several of those establishments were using different languages in their brand names, menus, slogans, etc. Obviously, due to their geographical position in the center of the city, those restaurants and cafés are more visible and thus might attract and ‘’welcome’’ a larger customer type with different nationalities, for example.

In fact, Lausanne is in full development, regarding the economy, urban planning, public transport and mobility which are sectors in continual change. As a popular tourist destination, this capital also contains a larger number of different international companies. By hosting the International Olympic Committee and other international agencies, Lausanne is an important city. In fact, this city is really involved in supporting its inhabitants and has thus set up several political programmes to help integration. On the strength of this support policy, the city has also engaged an integration policy for foreign populations. Regarding its demography and ethnolinguistic groups, Lausanne is a city in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, which is also the capital and the biggest city of the Canton de Vaud. Nevertheless, although this city includes a total of 145’892 inhabitants (October 2018), 62’631 of them have not the Swiss nationality, which is nearly the half of the total. In 2017, 40’648 of the non-Swiss people were originated from the European countries. However, from the 1980 and nowadays, the number of Asians and North Americans has significantly grew. Despite the fact that the nationality does not necessarily reflect the linguistic repertoires, it still gives an idea on the diversity in Lausanne.

Nowadays, this centered district (fig.1) became more and more popular through time with its many restaurants, cafés and also shops and commerce. Undoubtedly, this district might be known and attended by mostly everyone from different countries and nationalities.

Figure 1: map of our research district from Google maps

 Methodology  

By walking around in the central neighborhood of Lausanne, we were surprised to see how many cafés and restaurants use multilingual signs. We decided to go in the center, since it would be surely in this specific area that we would find more interesting ‘’examples’’ of multilingualism than in another neighborhood which is less used.  We initially started to analyze the commercial discourse and signs of both shops and restaurants/cafés, by looking at the brands, the window displays, the signs and notice boards in front of the establishment. Nonetheless, realizing that our data would be too broad, we decided to focus only on the different establishments which provide food and drink. Since those businesses have to attract people in order to get customers and to run their business, they have to use different strategies regarding their written public discourse, on the window displays for example. Indeed, using multilingual signs could either be a strategy to attract the eye of the potential customer, or to reflect the nationality of their product and to maintain their authenticity. Therefore, we started first to take pictures from the street, mainly of the window displays, the brand names and also of some notice boards promoting a specific product. Then, in order to complete our analysis, we decided to collect more data by going inside the institutions, taking pictures of the menus and even asking extra information by talking to the waiters/sellers. In this manner, we decided to look at which languages the establishment use, how those languages are presented (hierarchy, size, colors, …)  and for what purpose. Our data is thus made up of eight different institutions in the center of Lausanne, divided in restaurants, cafés or shops that sell food or drinks as ‘’take-away’’.

Considering Lausanne as a city that contains a lot of migrants, we were not so surprised to find many different types of signs in different languages. Including people from different nationalities, this seems natural that the establishments address the customers in many languages in the menus or the written signs. Moreover, as English has become an international language, we were not surprised by the numerous English brand names which, most of the time, outline a way to follow a trend.

Results and Discussion

We realized that Multilingualism was used for two different purposes. Thus, we grouped the different restaurants and cafés into three distinct categories: first, the ones which use another language in order to keep their authenticity; second, the ones that use multilingual signs mostly in English (L2) as a marketing strategy to attract customers by following the trend; and finally, the ones who appear to mix both of these two strategies. As presented in the graph below (fig.2), the idea of maintaining authenticity is slightly above the use of English as a lingua franca. Having delimited three categories, we will now proceed to the analysis and discussion of those results.

          Figure 2: Graph on the different strategies by using multilingual written signs

Maintaining authenticity

Firstly, focusing on the notion of authenticity, we have selected the restaurant “Le Central 5” which has a neon light on its front wall where it is written: “Central Park”. This neon actually comes from the original name of the restaurant opened in the 1970s, “period in which the American culture was trendy”, as affirmed the waiter of the restaurant. What is more, they do not only maintain the authenticity of the previous restaurant, but also the authenticity in their menu. Indeed, they keep the original name of the food they serve: “chicken” in English (fig.3), and “carne de porco alentejana” in Portuguese.

Figure 3: Central 5’s menu

Another commerce that uses language in order to convey it authenticity is the “Pida Bar”. In this case, it is not English that is used, but Italian. Italian is here used in order to reflect the origin of the products they sold. The term ‘’Pida’’ is a romagnol dialect which is also intriguing. We also noticed that besides using Italian local products, they also transmitted their origin in the front window, by using the colors of the Italian flag. Nevertheless, we can still notice that there is a mark of English (‘’take away’’) which reflects this trend of ‘’fastness’’ that appears nowadays in our society.

Figure 4: The Pida Bar – window display

The last café we classed in this category is actually an international brand, “Starbucks Café”. Because it is an international chain which initiated in America (Seattle), we can observe that they will always keep the same strategy in all their cafés: the names of their articles (coffee, food, tea, objects) are in English, thus intensifying their origin. What is more, they sell American type products (cinnamon rolls, bagels, muffins, donuts, …). Nevertheless, the slogans directly addressed to the customers will be adapted to the native language of the city the Starbucks is based, which is in the case of Lausanne, French.

Figure 5 and 6: Starbucks’ sign in the street + menu in the café

English as a lingua franca

The second category regroups institutions using English, because it is an international language, as a tendency that has spread these past few years. For example, the case of the restaurant “Luncheonette” which uses English, not only on the window display, but also in its menu. First of all, as they mix a large number of meals from different nationalities in their menu (“Wraps grillés”: “Quesadilla”, “Jimmy le Grec”, “La Créole”, …), the strategy “maintaining authenticity” is abandonned due to the fact that they do not focus on a specific nationality.  Therefore, English is in this case used to follow a sort of trend, because this international language is nowadays understood by most people in this region of the world.

Figure 7: Luncheonette – window display

Another café that uses English as a lingua franca is “Tekoe”. This Swiss brand of coffee shop uses English to describe the characters of the products on the packaging as this language is international. What is more, because Switzerland is composed of four national languages (German, French, Italian and Romansh), they had to make a selection of the languages that appear on their products label. Consequently, due to aesthetic and marketing design reasons, they favored the English language. Indeed, as the manager of the shop told us, English language is definitely more direct and easy to use than any other language. Moreover, their expansion in Spain and the online selling of their products influenced their choice of using English as an international language. As she said: “Internet sales does not have boundaries and therefore needs an international language that everybody can understand.”

Using both strategies

Finally, some of the establishments we visited use both of these strategies. It is the case of “Mexicana” which uses some Spanish words in order to convey their authenticity. In fact, the Mexican authenticity is expressed through colors and drawings on the wall (see fig.8). However, it is French that is used in the menu since it is the native language in the city. On the other hand, we have noticed that English is used in the slogan “Taco Tuesday”, which refers to a special offer they have that day of the week. The use of English rather than French is probably due to the alliteration that the ‘t’ produces.

Figure 8: Mexicana – writings on the wall

Another example of the use of multilingualism as both strategies is the Chinese restaurant “Chinatown”. The most striking use of multilingualism are the Chinese signs, not only in the front of the restaurants, but also on the menu. There is so a clear claiming for their authenticity as a Chinese restaurant. In addition, they also use French (the most spoken language in Lausanne) and, German; in order to refer to the two main languages used in Switzerland. Thus, it shows their will to reach a large amount of people. Interestingly, despite the fact that there are already three strong languages presented in their menu, English still appears due to its status as lingua franca.

Figure 9: Chinatown – menu

The last café we visited was the “Black Bird Café” which also uses English in its name (like Chinatown). This café actually uses English language in order to reflect the authenticity of their English breakfast and other meals from the American/ English culture: pancakes, milkshakes, bacon, peanut butter, …. However, something that surprised us was the manner they ‘’code-switch’’ between English and French in the menu.  In fact, for example, the titles of the menu are in English, but the description are in French. In this way, the use of English seems to be used in order to catch the attention of the customer, in a trendy way.

Figure 10: Black Bird Café’s menu

Having analyzed and categorized all our data, we came up with the main and general observation that multilingualism is mostly present everywhere and that most of the time it occurs between English and another language L2. In addition, as we can observe through the graph (fig.2), multilingualism is rather used as a strategy to express authenticity. Nevertheless, it is important to be conscious that the results found are subtly different (3 vs. 2: which is a very small difference), due to the limited sample of data, and thus our results have to be taken carefully.

Conclusion

Keeping in mind that we have mainly focused on the restaurants and cafés in the center of Lausanne, we tried to understand how and why multilingualism was used in those establishments. Throughout the analysis of our data, we came to the realization that multilingualism was used conforming to specific strategies.  Actually, multilingualism is either a way to reflect the authenticity of the establishment, or a manner to follow the tendency of using English. In fact, we have observed that English was one of the most present language due to its important position as a lingua franca nowadays. Nonetheless, due to our selective choice of data, we obviously cannot make an overall conclusion as there are so many other restaurants and cafés centered in this district. In order to enlarge our research, as our analysis is only external and based on our own observation, we could eventually go back in the selected institutions, get interviews with the staff or the customers, observe the customers’ linguistic repertoires for example, in order to confirm our results or not. Nevertheless, now that we have produced this research, we realized how omnipresent multilingualism is all around us, on each street corner, and that it could be interestingly used as different strategies for commerce.

References  

Cenoz, J. & Jessner, U., 2000. English in Europe: The Acquisition of a third Language: The Spread of English. Clevedon, Buffalo, Toronto, Sydney: Multilingual Matters,

Colton A., Brenndorfer A., Colvin O. K. & Cook L. H., 2014. An analysis of multilingualism in two Manchester branches of Restaurant P. Multilingual Manchester,1-14. Available at: Google Books, http://mlm.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/An-Analysis-of-multilingualism-in-two-Manchester-branches-of-restaurant-P.pdf (26.12.18).

Piller, I. 2001., “Identity construction in multilingual advertising”, Language in Society, volume. 153- 186

Short history of Lausanne, available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lausanne Accessed on: 05.12.2018.

Ville de Lausanne, “Contrôle des habitants” Available at: http://www.lausanne.ch/lausanne-officielle/administration/securite-et-economie/controle-des-habitants/statistiques/evolution-mensuelle-nombre-habitants-en-2018.html Accessed on: 05.12.18.

Ville de Lausanne,  “Etat et structure de la population totale” Available at:  https://www.lausanne.ch/officiel/statistique/themes/01-population.html Accessed on: 05.12.2018.

By M. Florencia Cuadra and Eva Bouhana

Abstract

This study investigates the linguistic landscape of the area of La Riponne in the city of Lausanne, Switzerland. Through the collection of pictures of multilingual signs in the area, we observe how the confluence of a variety of social groups affects the linguistic landscape. We identify several social processes influencing the diversity of the linguistic environment, namely tourism, gentrification and migration, and notice how languages convey different values within the same space, depending on their producers and visibility. Additionally, multilingual signs present in the area index an opposition between official, prestigious languages and migrant languages, as well as between official, top-down discourses and alternative voices in transgressive signs.

1. Introduction

As part of our linguistic landscaping research, we chose to study the Riponne area, which is located right in the Lausanne city centre. From local residents to international tourists and migrants, from students to drug addicts (24 Heures 2016), the Riponne area offers an extraordinary cultural and social mix in different spaces, all in close proximity. Based on a corpus of multilingual signs photographed in this area, we were interested in observing how the confluence of people from very diverse social backgrounds shapes the linguistic landscape of the area, with alternative signs emerging alongside the official signs. This research will specifically analyse what languages official and alternative discourses use and what values are associated with these languages in both types of discourse. Firstly, we will go over various theoretical concepts relevant to our analysis. Secondly, we will give some statistics about the Riponne area in order to contextualize our research. Thirdly, we will analyse the results of our research and highlight how tourism, migration and gentrification shape the linguistic landscape. Lastly, we will make some concluding remarks and provide future research directions.

2. Theoretical framework

The study of linguistic landscapes (LL henceforth) has been used as a tool to analyse the social diversity present in a given time and place. As a departing point, LLs have been defined as the set of written signs within public space (Backhaus 2007), such as posters, noticeboards and graffiti, among others, which may be part of both official and informal discourse (Landry & Bourhis 1997). Mooney and Evans (2015) further categorise these signs as either “top-down” when produced by an official government agency or the owner of a building or shop, or “bottom-up” when produced by individuals or groups. The authors also make the distinction between four types of discourse, these being regulatory (used to portray official indications or prohibitions), infrastructural (used to refer to a city’s infrastructure), commercial (used in marketing), and transgressive (used intentionally or accidentally to violate the semantics of a place). Additionally, Lefebvre (1991) highlights the set of relationships that occur within a place and how both social interactions and space shape the configuration of each other. One way these set of relationships can be studied is through what Coulmas (2018) calls city language profiles, which proposes a consideration of the language diversity within a specific area, assessing how social and linguistic variables interact.

Among the many language choices in LLs, two types can be highlighted in relation to our study: the use of English and the use of migrant languages within different types of signs. On the one hand, Piller (2001) argues that English in advertising is not only vested “with the meaning of authority, authenticity and truth” (p. 160) but also linked to internationality, the future, success, sophistication, and fun (p. 163). On the other hand, the use of migrant languages within ethnic businesses is a topic explored by Sabaté i Dalmau in her article about locutorios, i.e. migrant-tailored call shops, in Spain (Sabaté i Dalmau 2013). In order to bypass the legal, economic, and language barriers, these highly multilingual sites run by and for immigrants, provide various services in the language of their customers.

Going back to the topic of interactions between space and language, Blommaert, Collins and Slembrouck (2005) introduce the concept of interactional regimes, understood as the range of behavioural expectations, including language. Each space may have its own type of regime: either an ‘old’ one challenged by ethnolinguistic diversity (e.g. official institutions such as museums that use official languages prominently but have to accommodate to other languages too), or a ‘new’ one springing locally from contact, usually not supported by governmental institutions. When referring to the types of spaces created by the two regimes, the authors talk about monologic and dialogic places, wherein the former impose single regimes and are often monolingual, and the latter allow for multiple regimes to be present in one space, often translating into multilingualism.

The relationship between space and language becomes evident in the phenomenon of gentrification, which is bound to cause a modification on the LL. However, as cited by Papen (2012) referring to Ben-Rafael et al. (2006), the LL not only maps the population shift, but also allows for this shift to happen, attracting more businesses that can appreciate the modernity of the city. At the same time, however, other voices can emerge in protest of such phenomena, which is also reflected on the LL. Overall, considering past research on language landscaping will be useful in analysing our own corpus of data and in discovering the way social interactions and language choices influence one another in our chosen area of study.

3. Contextualisation

Located between the immigrant neighbourhood of Tunnel and the touristy pedestrian streets of the city centre, the Place de la Riponne is a social, cultural, commercial and transportation hub at the heart of the city of Lausanne, in the area called “Centre”. The Centre area accounts for 38% of jobs in Lausanne and for 9% of the population, while the sub-area of Riponne-Tunnel alone has a population of 1102 inhabitants, out of which 853 are between 20 and 64 years old (Ville de Lausanne 2018). The area delimited on the map below will be the focus of our study (the fuchsia icons indicate the sites where the pictures were taken).

Map 1: Map of the present linguistic landscape study

Map 2: Map of Lausanne, highlighting the position of the Riponne area

The square is bordered by the Palais de Rumine (which hosts four museums and a university library) on the western side; by the municipal administration and the local police station on the northern side; by the cultural venue Espace Arlaud, a post office and a labour union branch office (UNIA) on the southern side; and by a commercial street called Rue du Tunnel (close to the immigrant neighbourhood of Tunnel) on the eastern side. Additionally, the Riponne Square contains one of the largest covered parking lots in Lausanne (with a capacity of 1190 places), as well as a metro station just two stops away from the Lausanne railway station.

A major place of transit, attracting a varied population of local residents, international tourists and students due to its transportation and cultural options, the Riponne square hosts a popular marketplace on Wednesday and Saturday mornings, as well as regular flea markets and festivals. It also gives access to touristy pedestrian streets and squares (including Rue Haldimand, Place de la Pallud, Rue Neuve, Rue de l’Ale) of the city centre, with their many shops, restaurants and cafés. Another popular hang-out place is the bar called “The Great Escape” (which overlooks the square), always crowded on Saturday evenings. In the summer, a trendy bar also occupies the northern side of the Place de la Riponne, in the area called La Grenette.

Finally, we should also note that the Riponne square has had a bad reputation in Lausanne and is known for being a hub for homelessness and drug abuse. There have been regular complaints regarding insecurity in the area, which is why the presence of the police has been reinforced (24 Heures 2016).

4. Methodology

As part of this research, we found the Riponne area to be an interesting place to investigate since it presents a rich mix of populations and linguistic variety, being central to commerce and tourism. From the graffitied wall of La Grenette to the steps of the official Palais de Rumine, we wanted our corpus to reflect the multiple facets of the Place de la Riponne, which is why we took pictures of multilingual signs in different locations in and around the square, including in the parking lot, next to the subway entrance, inside the Palais de Rumine, and in the adjacent commercial streets. To see the specific locations, please refer to our collective Google Map, where all pictures have been classified according to specific criteria such as the main and secondary languages used, the type of discourse used, the type of medium and the related activity domain. Our pictures are marked by fuchsia icons (as on the map above).

In total, we selected twelve pictures for analysis, which were meant to reflect various social processes at work in la Riponne such as:

• the gentrification of the square, especially towards the south of the square, with shops trying to attract a well-off, international clientele
• the influence of tourism, especially in official institutions like the Palais de Rumine and in advertisements
• the role of migration, visible on the shopfronts of ethnic businesses, but also in bottom-up messages in the form of private ads or subversive posters against authorities
• the surfacing of alternative voices within the area, seen in the graffitied walls

Our objective was to show how various written messages and voices (with varying degrees of visibility) intersect, overlap or clash in a single neighbourhood, sometimes even on a single board, thus revealing the tensions and transformations this area is undergoing.

Even though we both knew the Riponne area from our own experiences, this research was an interesting process as we started paying attention to signs we had never seen before and looking at familiar places with fresh eyes. Besides, we also had the opportunity to discuss with the shop clerks of one of the ethnic businesses we photographed, as we could not identify the language on the window front (which was in fact Amharic). The research raised our awareness about the complex “profile” of this neighbourhood due to the confluence, over just a few thousand square meters, of people from many social and cultural backgrounds, and their written signs evoking different ideologies. As these people cross paths or live alongside one another, sometimes without even realizing it, the signs around them bear traces of their presence, revealing a cohabitation of sorts between the most diverse populations.

5. Results and discussion

All twelve photographs depict multilingual signs that feature messages in two to five languages. French (as the official language of Vaud) is used in all twelve pictures, while English (mostly used as a lingua franca) is present in all but one. The other languages represented on the pictures are German (another official language of Switzerland, but not of the Canton of Vaud); Amharic, Spanish, Portuguese (all three as migrant languages), Chinese (in a poster promoting the exhibition of a Chinese artist’s work) and finally Vietnamese (language of a travel destination).

In order to analyse our data, we decided to regroup it by types of signs (shopfronts, institutions, advertisements and transgressive signs) to identify similarities and differences so as to see how alternative bottom-up voices emerge alongside official, top-down discourses.

5.1. Shopfronts

The two pictures below illustrate the contrast between the commercial strategies of two types of businesses located on the Rue du Tunnel, which borders the Riponne square. Picture A shows an ethnic grocery shop where Spanish is the predominant language, while Picture B shows a Swiss bag store.

Picture A, La Tienda de La Esquina store front

Picture B, Qwstion store front

We found it interesting to set these two pictures in opposition to illustrate two co-occurring social processes taking place in La Riponne: the impact of migration versus the gentrification of the area. While ethnic businesses promote the language of their community (here Spanish), targeting a specific clientele of migrants speaking their language, Swiss shops build on the prestige of the “Swiss-made” label and mix signs in French and English in order to target an international, well-off clientele. Connecting this with Piller’s research on the values of English in advertising (Piller 2001), we can deduce that the latter type of business uses English as a way to construct an ideal customer, that is a young, future- and success-oriented, sophisticated and fun. This also transpires in the message written on the shopfront, which puts an emphasis on quality, contemporary designs and the use of sustainable materials. The idea of English as the language of modernisation and progress is very clear in this bag store, even when French is the de facto primary social language in the Riponne area, as well as in the rest of the city of Lausanne. The depiction of such values on shopfronts attracts new businesses that can see the global identity of the city, while fuelling the process of gentrification (Papen 2012). On the other hand, the use of migrant languages on the ethnic businesses’ shopfront is an example of an alternative voice coexisting alongside the use of the official Vaud language and English as a lingua franca, thus indexing locality and globality in the same space.

Interesting to note is that ethnic businesses using migrant languages are more present towards the northern side of the Rue du Tunnel, going towards the Tunnel area, which is an immigrant neighbourhood (Ville de Lausanne 2018) while shops like the Qwstion store, using multilingual messages in French and English, are rather located on the southern side of the Riponne area, close to the more tourist city centre.

5.2 Official institution

We took two pictures inside the Palais de Rumine depicting multilingual signs that reflect the multifunctionality of the building, which hosts four museums and a university library. Picture C below features the entrance steps of the museum, with an official, top-down message designed to entice people to continue their visit. This sign reflects the official language policy of the museum, which uses French as the official language of the canton in larger characters, then German as the most widely spoken official language in Switzerland and then English as lingua franca for the rest of the visitors who speak neither of these languages. We should also note that Italian, the third official language of Switzerland is not present at all, which may indicate that the Italian-speaking linguistic community is a minority in Switzerland and not considered big enough to add a translation into Italian.

Picture C, entrance steps of the Palais de Rumine

Picture D was taken in the same building, just up the stairs from picture C, in the outer room leading to the entrance of the university library. As opposed to the latter picture, here the personal ads left on the board by private individuals are clearly bottom-up and reflect the whole range of languages spoken in Lausanne. French, the official local language, is the most visible language on the wall, in terms of size and prominence, but other languages are also represented, including German (another official language of Switzerland) and migrant languages such as Spanish, Portuguese and English. Looking at our analysed space from Blommaert et al.’s perspective (2005), it is interesting to see how a single building can mix various interactional regimes: the official top-down language policy of the museum designed for tourists, and alternative, bottom-up messages posted by and/or targeted at people frequenting the building, reflecting the impact of migration in Lausanne. The various linguistic signs index the dialogic practices in place in the Palais de Rumine, due to the touristic, academic and social function of the museum, where lots of visitors from both within and outside Switzerland (tourists, local residents, Swiss and international students, etc.) converge for various purposes.

Picture D, noticeboard in the library

5.3. Advertisement

Both pictures below are advertisements that portray the authoritative voice, i.e. the message that catches the eye (Piller 2001), in a foreign language rather than in French. In Picture E, located inside the Riponne parking lot, the English text “Events” dominates the panel, even though the subtitle “À ne pas manquer” (“not to be missed”) is in French and the events descriptions of the 4 Vallées ski resort are in both languages. In Picture F, from the Swiss airline Edelweiss and located at the metro entrance, a centrally aligned text in Vietnamese occupies most of the ad, with only the practical information in French. Two different commercial strategies can be identified here through the use of multilingual messages: on Picture F, the foreign language (written with a foreign script and unlikely to be understood by the local population) is meant to evoke exoticism and entice customers to travel to Vietnam to experience a change of scenery, while on Picture E, the use of English, the international lingua franca, is there to be understood by and attract an international clientele, building on the prestige and fun associated with the English language (Piller 2001).

 Picture E, 4 Vallées advertisement

 Picture F, Edelweiss advertisement

The two commercial strategies are shown through the use of multilingualism. However different, both ads promote a specific product and construct the identity of their targeted clientele. While Edelweiss is a Swiss company that targets a local clientele (all practical information is in the official local language), the 4 Vallées resort ad uses a mix of French and English in order to target a larger clientele, both local and international. Both ads reflect the impact of mobility in La Riponne, since they are strategically located in places of great transit, and of tourism since both ads entice customers to travel, whether inside or outside of Switzerland.

5.4. Transgressive signs

The two pictures below are of transgressive, bottom-up signs that use public, top-down urban facilities as a medium of support to express their opposition. Picture G shows a poster against the police on a wall in a bordering street and Picture H shows a graffitied wall located on the Riponne square. Both signs use French as their primary language and some English as secondary language. On picture G, the translation into English as lingua franca, could be a method to make the anti-authority message accessible for more people. Although the poster is not signed, we can arguably assume that it was produced by members of social movements in favour of migrant rights, following the recent death of a Nigerian migrant in police custody in Lausanne (20 Minutes 2018). In this context, the use of English on the anti-police poster could be understood as part of a wider global discourse of protest against the police that has been spreading around the world, especially on social media, following widespread scandals about police brutality (e.g. in the USA).

Picture G, anti-police poster

The values associated with English on the graffitied wall in Picture H are different. Here, most graffiti, whether in French or in English, reveal an idealistic vision of society (e.g. “peace and love” or the crosswords in French including verbs like “love”, “believe” or “dream”). Thus, English is arguably used to reproduce the words of the hippie movement of the 1960s, and therefore indexes an alternative global discourse about society, advocating for a lifestyle outside of the mainstream consumer society and probably opposing the gentrification of the area. The fact that there are almost no orthographic mistakes in these messages makes us think that they were produced by people with a certain level of education; however, the area hosts such a mix of populations that it would be difficult to locate the authors.

Picture H, graffitied wall in La Grenette

In these transgressive signs, English is used to express the voices of less visible communities, still pointing to a larger international community of alter-globalist social movements. The proximity of these transgressive signs to the local police station and to public facilities adds to their subversive effect and indexes the tensions in the area. Alternative voices do not have any medium of their own to convey their messages, so they just juxtapose their message over existing official buildings or advertisements made by others. For example, on Picture I, promoting the Liu Bolin art exhibition in the Elysee Museum, the transgressive ACAB acronym in non-standard English (meaning “All Cops Are Bastards”) has been drawn as coming from the Chinese artist’s mouth. In this way, the artist is used as a “spokesperson” for the anti-police movement, showing that this discourse transcends borders. Transgressive signs, therefore, add to the diversity of the LL and offer a medium for alternative voices to be heard within the community.

Picture I, Liu Bolin exhibition poster

7. Conclusion

This qualitative study on the Riponne area helped shed light at how the inhabitants of the area influence their linguistic space. The convergence of various social groups is evident in the environment’s linguistic landscape, which gives a more detailed view of the diversity of its inhabitants, including Swiss-born residents, migrants, students, tourists and drug addicts. The languages employed by official top-down and alternative bottom-up messages are not necessarily intrinsic to one kind of message, as we saw in our corpus of data. English was used in both types of signs, as well as French. The values associated to English in particular seem to overlap, as both official institution signs and transgressive posters link it to progress, education and internationality, among other such values. The configuration of the Riponne area has allowed for alternative official and unofficial voices to emerge, as visible on the ethnic grocery shop front and the anti-police posters. This not only reflects the impact of migration and globalisation (as seen for example in the fact that the current global discourse of anti-police brutality can find a voice in a local area).  It also reflects the varied identities and profiles of the people inhabiting the space, even if they may only be transitory residents (such as students and tourists).

Our sample of pictures aimed at reflecting the many varied practices at work in La Riponne, such as advertisement, business and the emergence of alternative voices. However, we are aware that our data is not necessarily representative of the real linguistic landscape. In future research, special attention should be put on gathering a more representative sample of the area as a whole so that the linguistic landscape can accurately show the frequency of the usage of certain languages, of the types of discourse and signage present, and of the different processes at play.

References

20 Minutes. (2018, September 18). Policiers accusés d’homicide intentionnel. Retrieved December 27, 2018, from: https://www.20min.ch/ro/news/vaud/story/Mike-serait-mort-des-suites-de-son-arrestation-23974624

24 Heures. (2016, September 29). La police va montrer les muscles à la Riponne. Retrieved December 27, 2018, from: https://www.24heures.ch/vaud-regions/police-s-apprete-montrer-muscles-riponne/story/27368614

Backhaus, P. (2007). Linguistic Landscapes: A Comparative Study of Urban Multilingualism in Tokyo. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Ltd.

Blommaert, J., Collins, J., & Slembrouck, S. (2005). Polycentricity and interactional regimes in ‘global neighborhoods’. Ethnography 6/2, 205-235.

Coulmas, F. (2018). An Introduction to Multilingualism: Language in a Changing World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Gorter, D. (2007). The Linguistic Landscape in Rome: Aspects of Multilingualism and Diversity. Working Paper, Instituto Psicoanalitico Per Le Recerche Sociale, Roma.

Landry, R., & Bourhis, R. (1997). Linguistic Landscape and Ethnolinguistic Vitality: An Empirical Study. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 16/1, 23-49.

Lefebvre, H. (1991). The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Mooney, A., & Evans, B. (2015). Language, Society and Power: An Introduction. London and New York: Routledge.

Papen, U. (2012). Commercial discourses, gentrification and citizens’ protest. The linguistic landscape of Prenzlauer Breg, Berlin. Journal of Sociolinguistics 16/1, 56-80.

Piller, I. (2001). Identity constructions in multilingual advertising. Language in Society 30/2, 153-186.

Sabaté i Dalmau, M. (2013). Fighting Exclusion from the Margins: Locutorios as Sites of Social Agency and Resistance for Migrants. In A. Duchêne, M. Moyer and C. Roberts (eds.) Language, migration and social inequalities: A critical sociolinguistic perspective on institutions and work (248-271). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

Ville de Lausanne. (2018). 01 – Centre. Retrieved December 15, 2018, from Commune de Lausanne: https://www.lausanne.ch/officiel/statistique/quartiers/presentation-des-quartiers/01-centre.html

Ville de Lausanne. (2018). Cartes thématiques. Retrieved December 15, 2018, from Commune de Lausanne: https://www.lausanne.ch/officiel/statistique/quartiers/cartes-thematiques.html

Commercial use of English in Downtown Lausanne

Carolyn Miller & Gentianne Graham

Abstract

This blog entry focalises on the commercial use of English in top-down banners, posters, and signs throughout the Lausanne city centre. In total eight pictures were studied during this research of which two were restaurants, a yoga studio, a wax bar, swatch, a bank add, and a few clothing stores. It was found that the linguistic landscape was influenced by the commodification of English in the city centre of Lausanne. Throughout this paper this research question will be explored through the results found and will be elaborated on in the discussion portion of this blog entry.

Introduction

This blog entry will be covering the way in which English is used in downtown Lausanne for commercial purposes. We will be focusing our attention on the linguistic landscape of English in downtown Lausanne and how this influences a given consumer. When we were walking around downtown Lausanne we notice the evident use of English on banners, posters, and signs of commercial businesses. It was noticed that many of these businesses used English in bigger and broader fonts compared to the main language of use in Lausanne, French. The question is, has English become commodified in downtown Lausanne?To further this research question we will be looking at multiple research papers as well as our own observations to come to a relative conclusion. Throughout this research paper many examples from the Lausanne city centre will be explored to understand what kind of public is attracted to the to this multilingual destination where English is used by businesses. Do people notice the linguistic landscape as they walk around downtown Lausanne or has this become something that is ambiguous to people? In the article Linguistic Landscapes in a Multilingual World by Durk Gorter he explains that the:

linguistic landscape was already multilingual in some places, but today, due to globalization, a pure monolingual linguistic landscape is a rarity, if only because of the spread of English And non-English-speaking countries and the spread of foreign brand names, shop names, and slogans in monolingual English-speaking countries. (2013, p.191)

What Gorter is saying is that to find an urban area that does not use English for commercial use is a rarity due to globalization. Therefore a place such as downtown Lausanne with such a prominent use of English is not unusual as there is a diverse community of people that reside in Lausanne. In this blog entry we will explore all of these aspect through a theoretical framework, contextualisation, methodology, results and a discussion of our findings. In the theoretical framework we will discuss linguistic landscapes, the commodification of language, top-up productions versus bottom-down productions, the construction of space, and commercial discourse. In the contextualisation an overview of the history and social political background of Lausanne will be presented. In the methodology section the results from our findings will be expressed and a reflection of our research process will be given. Lastly we will discuss our observations and results in the discussion portion of this blog entry as well as discuss our research question.

Theoretical Framework

In this blog entry we will be focusing on a few specific terms in order to answer our research question. The commodification of language is a subject that is present in downtown Lausanne, it is defined as “the expression we use to describe how a specific object or process is rendered available for conventional exchange in the market.” as Heller, Pujolar & Duchêne (2014, p.545-546) in the Oxford Dictionary (2010). The commodification of English will be touched on throughout this research paper as we explore the linguistic landscape in the city centre of Lausanne. A Linguistic landscape as defined by Landry and Bourhis is the “visibility and salience of languages as on public and commercial signs” (1997, p.23). When walking around in downtown Lausanne there are many different types of visible signs, posters, and banners that are multilingual as they incorporate English along with French or another language. The production that we explored consisted mainly of top-down design and not bottom-up design. Dr. Maria Rosa differentiates top-down as being something that is produced by the government, local councils, or the owner of a building or site in which official languages and strategic multilingualism is used. As compared to bottom-up production that is produced by individuals or small groups that fabricate productions in a non-official manner and would for example use migrant languages (Rosa, 2018). The construction of space is “the emergence of new relations, be they economic, social or linguistic, tends to cause the emergence of new communicative and interactional spaces in a context of visible multilingualism.” (Rosa, 2018).  Language constructs urban areas and it seems as though in downtown Lausanne, English is an important factor in doing so as it is used on many signs, banners and posters. For the purpose of this research we concentrated on commercial discourses which is characterized as “advertising and related signage” (Rosa,2018) instead of the different types of signs such as; Regulatory discourses, infrastructural discourses and transgressive discourses.

Contextualisation

For our blog entry we chose to research the linguistic landscape in downtown Lausanne, with close to 130 000 inhabitants, Lausanne is the fourth largest city in Switzerland (Hello Switzerland, 2018). This district was chosen because of the large amounts and varieties of commercial businesses. The city centre includes the featured areas of Rue de Bourg, place and Church Saint-François, Palud Square, Palais de Rumine, Bel-Air Tower and Salle Métropole, Tour de l’Ale, and Lausanne-Flon. Between all of these locations many clothing shops, beautician shops, high end name brands, bakeries, and restaurants can be found. We wanted to analyse the linguistic landscape of this lively area of Lausanne. The main ethnolinguistic group of the city centre is french as it is in the French Canton of Vaud. There is a large variety of migrants in Lausanne which include; “people of French origin, 8% of the total population, are the largest group of residents of foreign origin, of which they account for 18%, followed by the Portuguese (17%), the Italians (11%), and, in equal place, the Spanish and citizens from countries of the former Yugoslavia (8%).”(Lausanne Tourisme, n.d.) This makes it evident that downtown Lausanne is a very international and multilingual area.

The first signs of activity in the Lausanne area were found through 8,000 years old traces of carved flint, some weapons, and hearths that were found where the cathedral is now located. In the 12th century the heart of commercial activity of lausanne was dominated by the port of Ouchy which was protected by a castle. By the 13th century lausanne had about 9,000 French-speaking inhabitants. In the 18th century, Lausanne was booming economically as there was tanners, textile specialists, clockmakers, stone-cutters, printers, and even some bankers were doing trade with Savoy and Geneva, as well as Europe and overseas. The 19th century was characterized by a boom in population of 20,000 people and was politically dominated by conservatives and liberals. The Flon river which used to cut through downtown was covered to allow for more economic development. The 20th century was when the urban development took a dramatic turn and the vineyards were retreated for the installment of roads. Lausanne became the cantonal capital in 1803 after the Canton of Vaud was created as an entity of the Swiss confederation. Since 1874, Lausanne has been home to the main headquarters of the Federal Supreme Court and of the International Olympic Committee since 1915. In 1993 thenternational Olympic Committee awarded it the privileged status of Olympic Capital.

Figure 1: Map of Lausanne, the area of relevance are between the numbers 101 to 110 under the district (centre).

Methodology

After this assignment was given to us we debated on where the data collection should happen. It was finally decided that it would take place in downtown Lausanne which is a very central place in Lausanne Switzerland. This area is known for its great shopping, amazing restaurants and fun night clubs. It is a very commercialized area and therefore it was the perfect location to answer our research question.

Once our location was chosen we decided to head downtown and start looking around the area. Our experience consisted of two separate visits to the the area in order to get the jist of it. The first time we visited, we simply walked around to see how present English really was.

Our initial expectations were that it would be quite difficult to find multiple examples of English being used in a commercial way in downtown Lausanne. Having both gone there multiple times and never noticed a strong English influence we expected this to be a little bit challenging. However, once we arrived with a fresh mindset and a clear objective it was very surprising to see how often English was used in commercial ways to promote a business. No pictures were taken during our first visit, this first excusion was just to get an idea of our surroundings and to get a first glimpse of the English influence. During our second trip we walked around and took twenty pictures of English being used to sell. We made sure our pictures represented different aspects of life but were still somehow all used in a commercial way.

Once our pictures were taken we gave ourselves a few days to look at them and think of the ones that would best fit in the purpose of this experience. We got together two days later to choose our top eight pictures based the following criterias; the description, if it was multilingual or Monolingual, the main language, the secondary language, the neighbourhood in which it was located, the medium/support, the activity domain, the type of sign, the production (top-down vs bottom up) and further observations. We analyzed all twenty pictures based on the criterias before choosing the top eight. The decision was quite difficult due to the amount of material we were able to collect and this is not something that we were anticipating. Once the final pictures were chosen we posted them on the shared google maps with our classmates. The main difficulty that we encountered was trying to narrow down the twenty pictures to eight since there was a lot of material that could have been used for this assignment. We gained a lot of knowledge on the amount that English is currently being used in downtown Lausanne.

Results

A breakdown of the results found after the analyses done on all eight of our final pictures following the criteria in our methodology.

Picture 1:

A multilingual poster for yoga classes that used both French and English as main languages. This was a commercial sign for a Health and well-being activity domain that used the top-down production. The name of the company is in English, however, the courses available were listed in French.

Picture 2:

A multilingual French BCV (Banque Cantonale Vaudoise) commercial sign uses the catchphrase “win back” in English by using a Top-down production. In this picture the main language is French and the secondary language is English

Picture 3:

A Multilingual top down window display on a cafe window with the word sandwich which is known as a English word, however was also a French term used in the 19th century. It is a Commercial sign used in a gastronomy domain.

Picture 4:

A Multilingual commercial top down sign for an outlet shop called Mouton with the main language as French and the secondary language as English. The first words you read are in French, however the line right underneath is in English. This is the only example that used French is such a big way to attract the buyers.

Picture 5:

This was a monolingual English poster used for commercial purposes to promote Swatch watches, also known as Swiss watches. This poster was completely in English and situated in downtown Lausanne. It was a top-down production.

Picture 6:

This sign was for a waxing bar in downtown Lausanne. It was a multilingual banner used in a healthcare domain for commercial reasons. It was a top down sign with English as the main language and French as the secondary language since English was the language used to attract the customers.

Picture 7:

A sign for a restaurant called “eat me” that was monolingual English.This poster was a top down production used for gastronomy commercial purposes.

Picture 8:

A multilingual poster for a hairdresser salon with French as the main language and

English as the secondary one. It was a top down production used to promote a beauty salon. The whole poster was in French, however, under the main title the word Hair and Colour are found in English.

After getting all the raw data we analysed all of our results. All 8 of our pictures were used for commercial purposes and were being used in a means to sell a product of attract an audience. Since all the signs were professionally made by the owners they are all considered top-down productions. Out of the 8 pictures 6 were multilingual and 2 were monolingual English usually being the main language being used to attract the buyers.

Discussion

The purpose of this blog entry was to analyse the linguistic landscape of top-down signs, banners, and posters in the city centre of Lausanne. What caught our attention was the fact that the construction of the space was dominated by English. Lausanne’s main ethnolinguistic group is French and has been know to be this way since the 13th century.  It can also be noted that the most prominent migrants within the city of lausanne are French, Italian, Spanish, and Yugoslavia. None of these migrants come from monolingual English speaking countries yet English dominates in the construction of space of downtown lausanne. This thus spiked our interest, as we asked ourselves is English being commodified within downtown Lausanne? We chose to select eight pictures of different businesses which included a yoga studio, a wax bar, swatch, a couple restaurants, a bank add, and few clothing stores. For the most part all of these top-down identities were multilingual in French and English yet the English seemed to be the attracting component. The English could be characterized as the attracting component to the consumers because it was either in a different font, in a larger font, in a different color, or surrounded by a different color compared to the French. There was one outlier which was a clothing store called “le mouton” which had French as the main language followed by English. We were interested in the influence that English holds on the consumers and why it is such a popular technique of attraction in all kinds of commercial enterprises. In The Commodification of Languageby Monica Heller she indicates that:

Among the earliest critiques of globalization are those about the use of English by  British and American corporations to open up markets and create consumers, indeed, to eliminate competition and impose the tastes and habits of the English-speaking world on the rest of the planet in ways that, not coincidentally, leave control of products and their circulation squarely in the hands of British and American English-speaking citizens; this process is often referred to as “McDonaldization” (2010, p.105)

What Monica Heller is saying is that the English language has in a way weaned itself into the world of marketing and has almost taken control over non-English speaking communities, such a downtown Lausanne, because of its massive globalization. As Mikko Laitinen also mentions the omnipresence use of English in public spaces is dominated throughout the world and is widely documented. Another interesting research remark made by Ingrid Piller was that “the use of English tends to be associated with modernity, success, fun,and international orientation.” (2003) This is perhaps also another reason why businesses tend to add English into their top-down productions even in non-English speaking communities as it gives a care free affect. Lausanne is a town with a large student population; therefore when the businesses use English they are trying to target the younger consumers.

One of our other theories as to why English is such a present language in downtown Lausanne is that Lausanne is the olympic capital of the world, which is mainly held in English, this perhaps is another reason why English has a large role in the linguistic landscape of Lausanne even though it is not one of the official languages. The Olympics is a world renown event that occurs mostly in English. Therefore, the Olympics is usually associate with the English Language. Lausanne being the Olympic capital it is reasonable to find many English posters throughout the downtown. There are most likely many more factors as to why English is so often being used in the commercial setting. It would be interesting in future research to collect more data to reduce error. Another component that would be important for this topic would be to investigate how English is used in rural areas as well as urban areas. Perhaps urban areas have a more diverse linguistic landscape compared to rural areas because of the people’s diversity?

Conclusion

Ultimately, English has been identified in the linguistic landscape of downtown Lausanne on top-down productions as yet another tactic to sell to consumers. Throughout this paper the research question on the commodity of English in the Lausanne city centre has been explored through many lenses. It was found that English is used mainly along side French to enhance and to indicate “modernity, success, fun, and international orientation.” (Laitinen, M., 2003). Our research was limited to studying eight pictures of different commercial businesses that incorporated English into their top-down productions, the research question could have been more explored if there was a larger sample of pictures to study. Businesses are always changing their poster, banners, and signs as the seasons and trends change, perhaps more English is incorporated into their sales tactics in summer as there are more tourists during this season.  For further research it would also be interesting to observe how the commodification of English is in rural areas since we only analysed an urban area.

References

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