Multilingualism in ethnic businesses of downtown Lausanne

Posted on 15/01/2019 by leah.ehrenfreund@unil.ch

Multilingualism in ethnic businesses of downtown Lausanne

Abstract

This study focuses on the use of multilingual signs in ethnic businesses located in the center of Lausanne. To investigate the topic, we have selected three grocery shops in this area: S.M.T New Asian Shop, Uchitomi and Inside Africa. In each one of these shops, a different foreign language is visible and spoken. Lausanne is a French-speaking town where English is used as an international lingua franca, which makes it a city where at least two languages are used, and it corresponds to a form of multilingualism. Those specific shops, in which the owners speak many foreign languages in addition to the English lingua franca, are a valuable source for landscaping the use of foreign languages in the context of businesses. Moreover, these shops display multilingual signs that are also part of their own linguistic landscape. The comparison and analysis of the different uses of multilingualism in these shops constitute the base of our reflection. This investigation sheds a light in the use of multilingual signs in ethnic businesses as a way to reach the clientele from the same linguistic background and to attract the attention of any customer that might be interested in imported products.

Introduction

The integration of migrants in a host country suggests several difficulties such as adapting in the new culture while keeping links with their own. One important aspect in this matter is the access to products from their place of origin. Indeed, having ethnic grocery shops owned by migrants allows their fellow countrymen to buy products that are not found in mainstream shops. It enables the local population to discover and access those products and additional services and information proposed in these places. The center of Lausanne, unlike certain other neighborhoods, is not associated with a specific kind or wave of migration since it is a cultural crossing area for most citizens of the Vaud as it is where the train station, the administration and most of the shops are. Therefore, we decided to concentrate our research on the use of migrant languages on commercial signs and advertisement in shops. The sample of shops we selected as our database are owned by people from different origins: S.M.T New Asian shop is a Sri Lankan business, Uchitomi is a Japanese shop and Inside Africa is Ghanean-owned shop.

To contrast our work, we compared our observations to three articles that also focus on the use of multilingualism in ethnic businesses. The first study by Guowen Shang and Shouhui Zhao (2017) investigates multilingual shops’ names in Singapore. The second one, by Bernardino Tavares (2018), studies the multiple functions of ethnic businesses. He explains that these shops often correspond to a cultural and social meeting place for whom. The third article, by Sabaté i Dalmau (2013), presents locutorios, which are shops in Catalonia that provide access to information and communication technologies and social help for migrants in addition to their primary function as shops.

In order to collect our data, we went to those grocery shops, took pictures of the apparent traces of multilingualism and discussed with the owners or the workers to get additional information about the shops and the use of languages there. Our essay will be divided in six sections following this one. We will first present the previous research on the topic and link them to our specific research question. Then, we will contextualize our research in the frame of today’s situation regarding immigration in Lausanne. Our methodology will then be presented in more detail as well as our results that will be discussed in a section devoted to this purpose. Finally, we will conclude our study by synthesizing our main findings.

Theoretical framework

The topic of ethnic businesses has already been investigated in the field of multilingualism since they are places of cultural mixing. Guowen Shang and Shouhui Zhao (2017) focused on the choice of shop signs by grassroots individuals in order to manifest their personal inclinations regarding language use. This highlights the use of different languages in the multicultural society of Singapore (Shang & Zhao 2017: 8). Indeed, the owners of the shops usually choose names that reflect their own language and culture. The authors agreed that shop names signs can provide information about “language use patterns, language contact and linguistic creativity” (Shang & Zhao 2017: 8). Although Mandarin, Malay and Tamil are the three languages spoken by the ethnic groups in Singapore, English functions as a lingua franca and is used in different domains to make information accessible to all citizens. Even if English dominates the official sectors, one can observe a large diversity of languages in private shop signs. At first, the authors examined the distribution of English in shop names. They found out that over 96% of the stores have English names on their shop signs, 50.5% of these shop signs are bilingual and 2.2% multilingual. When choosing the language for the shop sign, the owner wants the information to be accessible to any client from the different ethnic groups. This shows a bottom-up multilingualism in the stores of Singapore in order to promote their business and culture.

A further relevant source for our research is a chapter from Bernardino Tavares’ thesis (2018). The author points out that Cape Verdean business places have different functions. On the one hand, they employ several family members and on the other, they endorse a social function that helps to keep transnational ties. Tavares presents the Epicerie Creole as an ethno-linguistic place. He underlines that this store is not only a place where customers can buy products but also find advertisements and information on posters and leaflets. The latter contains news about cultural events that take place in their community. Moreover, the atmosphere that can be found in the Epicerie Creole is meant to remind the clients of their homeland. The music and the odor diffused there refer to the culture of origin and seem familiar to the migrant customers. The fact that the employees of the shop are at least trilingual facilitates the communication with the customers.

The final piece of previous research we selected is Maria Sabaté i Dalmau’s article “Fighting Exclusion from the Margins: Locutorios as Sites of Social Agency and Resistance for Migrants” in which she presents the linguistic situation of migrants in Catalonia. Her research focuses on how the Spanish information and communication technologies (ICT) are made difficult to access for the poorest and undocumented migrants and also on how these migrants adapt to the situation through the use of locutorios as a bottom-up place of resistance, “alternative institutions for migrants” (Sabaté i Dalmau 2013: 249). Indeed, she explains that because of the particular linguistic landscape of Catalonia and because of the economic and political situation that does not easily welcome migrants, the ones who cannot afford ICT are marginalized by a top-down communicative system. Locutorios are shops developed by migrants that give the poorest access to ICT (e.g. computers, internet, phones) but also to social help (e.g. legal advice) and poor help (e.g. food distribution, showers). Those specific ethnic shops have adopted a central social role for those migrants as they are the most accessible network.

Contextualisation

Lausanne is a multicultural city and the fourth biggest of Switzerland. It is a multicultural town with important migrations from diverse countries. According to an official website “La ville de Lausanne”, in 1979, Lausanne’s total population was 128,808 inhabitants. The percentage of foreigners at that time was 23.06%. In 2017, figures show that the population increased by about 16,000 inhabitants but the demographic structure has changed. Now, the percentage of foreigners has reached 42.98%. Therefore, one can see that the number of foreigners has almost doubled in 38 years.

City of Lausanne – Total population by region of the world and nationality, since 1979

Foreign population of Lausanne, by statistical subsector, 2015

As mentioned earlier, we centered our study on the downtown area because it is where most intercultural encounters take place. Indeed, the map above demonstrates a concentration of foreign population in the center of the town, which is the area investigated. Regarding our ethnic businesses of African and Asian origin, it is relevant to mention that the African population in Lausanne has almost multiplied by six, and the Asian population by more than four (see the table above). This massive immigration can be explained by wars and political oppression in African and Asian countries. People come to Lausanne with the hope of a better life. These migrants create a new demand for foreign products that are imported and sold in ethnic business shops. Moreover, ethnic products are familiar also for the offspring of the migrants that have not lived in the foreign country but are used to them.

Methodology

4.1 Data

The collection of the data for our research was done at two different times. First, we randomly walked in Lausanne, looking for grocery shops that had visible traces of multilingualism. We photographed the showcase and multilingual signs of those stores, but we lacked a specific angle of approach. In a second time, we returned to the stores to get additional information about how multilingualism is used on signs and advertisement there. We asked the workers and the owners the following questions:

Where do you come from?
In which language is the name of the store written and what does it mean?
Are the signs written in the foreign languages a translation of what is written in French/English or is it additional information?
What is the goal of writing part of the information in foreign language?
How did you choose the name of your shops and what impact did you expect?
Do the visible/featured languages have in influence on your customers? Which customers are targeted?
In what languages do you communicate with the customers?
Do you feel integrated in our town through exercising this activity?

Some of the shop workers refused to answer as they were busy or because they were distrustful to answer the questions, but the answers we did get helped us to narrow our focus. We decided to focus on the center of the town since it is where the biggest variety of multilingualism is found. We hesitated to choose one of the areas of the town that is associated with a certain immigration, but we thought it would be more interesting not to limit ourselves to a specific migration. We rather investigated how multilingualism is present in the most globalized area of the town and what the social functions of these shops are through multilingual signs.

4.2 Method

At first, we photographed ten shop windows of ethnic businesses in Lausanne. As we had not chosen a research topic, some pictures were not coherent, either because of their location (outside of Lausanne), or their monolingual signs. The second time, we interviewed the workers and their answers allowed us to narrow our reflection. We focused on three stores located in the center of Lausanne and took further pictures of their multilingual signs. We asked some specific questions to the store owners and workers about the languages on the shop windows and about their use of languages with customers. One difficulty we encountered was gaining the trust of store owners. At first, they were suspicious and thought we wanted to do an investigation on their shops. A further challenge was to understand the French or English pronunciation of our interlocutors.

Results

S.M.T New Asia Shop

Located underneath the train station is the S.M.T. New Asia Shop that according to the owner, provides about 250 products from Sri Lanka, India, Africa and China. The store owners named the shop in English because it seems more international and targets a larger part of the population. Indeed, a large part of their customers are Tamils but there are also many people who traveled to East Asia who come to the store to find typical ingredients. The choice of English for the name of the shop can also echo the East Asian colonial past. Indeed, since a big part of Asia was part of the British Empire, English was adopted as a national language in many countries and it had an impact on the culture. It confirms that English is perceived as international. On the shop window, just below the name of the shop is written in a smaller typography “Produits et saveurs du monde” in French. The use of French attracts the attention of the French-speaking clients and make the practical information accessible. Furthermore, the owner explained that most clients address him in English and Hindi since his French is not fluent. On the entrance door, a sticker of a Hindu divinity saying “welcome” shows trace of the religious and cultural background of the shop owners. Just above, legal information is written in the official French language to be accessible to everyone and probably because of legal considerations as French is the official language and this might be a regulatory sign required by the municipality.

Uchitomi

The second store that is located in the pedestrian area of downtown Lausanne is “Uchitomi”, a Japanese grocery shop selling Japanese and Korean products. In the other shops, most of the signs are written in the Roman alphabet, but here we found transliteration, which is literal translation from one alphabet to another. The scripts written on the left part of the sign are in Chinese (Kanji), and on the right in Japanese (Hiragana). These are two scripts used in the Japanese language, one being easier for foreigners. They correspond to the French translation just below and stands for “sushi, Japanese food”. French is still the biggest and more visible script. The owner of the shop explained that “Uchitomi” stands for the surname of her father. When one transcripts this in Kanji, “Uchi” means “home” and “tomi” means “wealth”. She told us that she communicates in Japanese with their countrymen customers that are the largest part of their clientele, even if there are many French and English-speaking customers. The owner explained that, nowadays, many people are interested in the Japanese culture and that it has increased the proportion of non-Japanese customers that enter her shop. One can observe a difference in terms of prestige of the stores. Indeed, Uchitomi is tidier and elegant than S.M.T. New Asia Shop. Even though the two stores sell groceries, Uchitomi sells more sophisticated and expensive products (e.g. sushi), not only alimentation but also crockery. S.M.T New Asia Shop sells wholesale products (e.g. bag of rice of 20 kg) therefore, the overall atmosphere is different.

Inside Africa

Inside Africa is a grocery shop and a hairdresser located next to the main entrance of the train station. The word “Akwaaba” is written on the front door of the shop. A saleswoman explained that the owner of the shop is Ghanan and that in Akan, “Akwaaba” means “welcome”. Inside Africa invites locals to take an interest and discover their products, as well as targeting a specific community that will understand the meaning of “Akwaaba”. Moreover, on the front door, one can notice that the products and services offered by the store are written in French (Artisanat, Souvenirs, Coiffure…) for efficiency and for a wider audience who will probably have competences in the official language. The name of the shop is written in English since it is one of the official languages of Ghana as it was part of the British Commonwealth. Language reis connected to the colonial history of the country as in the example XX above. Communication with customers is mainly done in English and French.

In order to summarize our observations, we made a quantitative analysis of the visible languages of the three ethnic businesses. Each square of the table shows how many times the languages are visible on the signs of the shop:

S.M.T New Asia Shop	Uchitomi	Inside Africa
English 4x	Japanese 1x	English 1x
French 5x	Chinese 1x	Akan 1x
	French 2x	French 6x

This table demonstrates that French is the most commonly used language. This can be explained by the fact that we are in a French-speaking region and the information must be accessible to all the population. A parallel can be established with Shang & Zhao’s findings. Indeed, French is the privileged language in Lausanne, similarly to the way English is described to be used in Singapore (Shang & Zhao 2017: 13).

Discussion

By examining different uses of multilingual signs in three ethnic businesses of downtown Lausanne and comparing different sources on the topic, we made observations and draw conclusions that were close to our expectations. Indeed, we found out that French and English are the most widely used languages. An important aspect we learned through those interviews is that no owner of those ethnic shops speaks only French. They all use foreign languages to communicate with their countrymen customers in addition to English, which is the international linga franca, and French which is the local official language.

In S.M.T. New Asia Shop, the use of English and French on the shop window is a good illustration of their use as lingua franca, similarly to the study of Shang and Zhao. The script “Phone card international” can be read vertically on the shop window, which means that the store offers supplementary services to allow its customers to call abroad and to keep transnational ties (Tavares 2018: 183). As described by Sabaté i Dalmau, these phone cards are an alternative bottom-up system that helps migrants to be integrated in the society and keep a link with their place of origin. In our context, the shops do not seem to have such an important integrative role as locutorios since the political and linguistic context is different. Still, one aspect that stays is the networking that takes place in those ethnic businesses. Indeed, poster and advertising in the grocery shops that are part of their linguistic landscape inform us about the multiple functions of this kind of space. If an owner accepts a poster, it means that it can interest a percentage of his customers. Similarly, ethnic grocery shops also have multiple functions since we can find information in other languages and community events which indexes their social function in addition to the commercial one. An example of this social function was found in S.M.T New Asian Shop, where a sign informed the costumers about a Chinese new year event accessible to those interested.

In Uchitomi, Japanese, Chinese and French are written on the signs. Posters of events related to Japanese culture and artists are exposed. It shows that these stores are also places where people targeted by the store’s culture come to inform themselves about events, activities and announcements that are offered in their community. This is also described by Tavares and Sabaté i Dalmau, when they talk about the cultural and social importance of these shops. The posters in Uchitomi are written in French to make the information accessible to all the customers even if they concern culturally marked events. Different kinds of activities are proposed such as a piano recital by a Japanese pianist, different Haiku workshops and a tour in the Japanese forest of the Arboretum. Another interesting proposal is to work in tandem in order to learn French or Japanese. This example illustrates the secondary functions of these multilingual shops.

Inside Africa confirms the thesis of Guowen Shang and Shouhui Zhao. In their study they assume that the use of English on shop name signs guarantees a large customer base from all language backgrounds. Inside Africa sells typically Ghanaian products that target the African customers of Lausanne (e.g. hair products for curly hair). These kinds of products do not really concern the local population who is not used to these products or simply does not know them. Standard products such as fruit and vegetables are mainly purchased by the local population. Inside the store, the African music made the atmosphere friendlier and recalled the culture of the country, as mentioned in Tavares’ research.

Overall, the foreign languages are always secondary since they cannot be understood by everyone and that the owners do not want to restrict their clientele. The role of using languages such as French, English, Akan, Chinese and Japanese is to put an emphasis on ethnicity and to attract the attention of the countrymen and also of the native people who want to discover exotic products or find products they tasted. It is nevertheless important to mention that, in the end, although foreign languages are used to display authenticity and attract people from a specific community, the importance of French as an official language or even English as a lingua franca is essential in ethnic businesses.

Conclusion

To conclude, the results of this research show that these three ethnic businesses present a diverse multilingual landscape. S.M.T. New Asian Shop, Uchitomi and Inside Africa have different languages written on their signs, which could attract both migrant and native customers of Lausanne. The use of French and English as linguas francas shows that the information must be accessible to everybody, in order to not limit the clientele. The store owners specifically target a part of the population that shares the same culture as them but also the local population that would like to discover their products. In order to be able to continue their activity, they must target a wide and diversified audience.

Looking at the shop windows, we could see that French is the predominant language, which is suitable since they are located in a francophone town. The cultural practiced and events that are visibilised and promoted through these shops is also of great importance. Posters and advertisements of events regarding their community are visible on their shop windows. These ethno-linguistic places are an anchor point for the migrant population, who finds in these stores a repair for their community and share activities related to their culture. On the other hand, it also attracts native people who would like to discover these cultural practices.

However, this very own research is restrained by the number of shops we investigated and the fact that we only concentrated on one specific location. It would be interesting to further investigate other social factors such as the socio-economic level of the different shops and its consequences on the use of multilingualism on the signs. An interesting future step would be to ask oneself if the different use of multilingual signs informs us about the respective culture of each of these shops or about the social integration of their owners.

References

Guowen, S. & Shouhui, Z. (2017). Bottom-up multilingualism in Singapore: Code choice on shop sign. English Today 131, Vol. 33, No. 3., pp. 8-14.

Sabaté i Dalmau, M. (2013). Fighting Exclusion from the Margins: Locutorios as Sites of Social Agency and Resistance for Migrants. In A. Duchêne, M. G. Moyer, C. Roberts, Language, Migrations and Inequality: A Critical Sociolinguistic Perspective on Institution and Work. Multilingual Matters, Editors: A. Duchêne, M. G. Moyer, C. Roberts. pp. 248-267.

Tavares, B. (2018). Cape Verdean migration trajectories into Luxembourg: A multisited sociolinguistic investigation. Unpublished PhD thesis: Université de Luxembourg, pp. 181-198.

Appendix

https://www.lausanne.ch/officiel/statistique/themes/01-population.html, (consulted 27/12/18).

Multilingualism in ethnic businesses of downtown Lausanne

Posted on 11/01/2019 by sarah.primus@unil.ch

Assignment 3_Léah_Sarah

Multilingualism in ethnic businesses of downtown Lausanne

Abstract

Introduction

Theoretical framework

Contextualisation

City of Lausanne – Total population by region of the world and nationality, since 1979

Foreign population of Lausanne, by statistical subsector, 2015

As mentioned earlier, we centered our study on the downtown area because it is where most intercultural encounters take place. Indeed, the map above demonstrates a concentration of foreign population in the center of the town, which is the area investigated. Regarding our ethnic businesses of African and Asian origin, it is relevant to mention that the African population in Lausanne has almost multiplied by six, and the Asian population by more than four (see the table above). This massive immigration can be explained by economic opportunities as well as wars and political oppression in African and Asian countries. People come to Lausanne with the hope of a better life. These migrants create a new demand for foreign products that are imported and sold in ethnic business shops. Moreover, ethnic products are familiar also for the offspring of the migrants that have not lived in the foreign country but are used to them.

Methodology

4.1 Data

Where do you come from?
In which language is the name of the store written and what does it mean?
Are the signs written in the foreign languages a translation of what is written in French/English or is it additional information?
What is the goal of writing part of the information in foreign language?
How did you choose the name of your shops and what impact did you expect?
Do the visible/featured languages have in influence on your customers? Which customers are targeted?
In what languages do you communicate with the customers?
Do you feel integrated in our town through exercising this activity?

4.2 Method

Results

S.M.T New Asia Shop

Uchitomi

The second store that is located in the pedestrian area of downtown Lausanne is “Uchitomi”, a Japanese grocery shop selling Japanese and Korean products. In the other shops, most of the signs are written in the Roman alphabet, but here we found transliteration, which is literal translation from one alphabet to another. The scripts written on the left part of the sign are in Chinese (Kanji), and on the right in Japanese (Hiragana). These are two scripts used in the Japanese language, one being easier for foreigners. They correspond to the French translation just below and stands for “sushi, Japanese food”. French is still the biggest and more visible script. The owner of the shop explained that “Uchitomi” stands for the surname of her father. When one writes this in Kanji, “Uchi” means “home” and “tomi” means “wealth”. She told us that she communicates in Japanese with their countrymen customers that are the largest part of their clientele, even if there are many French and English-speaking customers. The owner explained that, nowadays, many people are interested in the Japanese culture and that it has increased the proportion of non-Japanese customers that enter her shop. One can observe a difference in terms of prestige of the stores. Indeed, Uchitomi is tidier and elegant than S.M.T. New Asia Shop. Even though the two stores sell groceries, Uchitomi sells more sophisticated and expensive products (e.g. sushi), not only food but also crockery. S.M.T New Asia Shop sells wholesale products (e.g. bag of rice of 20 kg) therefore, the overall atmosphere is different.

Inside Africa

Inside Africa is a grocery shop and a hairdresser located next to the main entrance of the train station. The word “Akwaaba” is written on the front door of the shop. A saleswoman explained that the owner of the shop is Ghanaian and that in Akan, “Akwaaba” means “welcome”. Inside Africa invites locals to take an interest and discover their products, as well as targeting a specific community that will understand the meaning of “Akwaaba”. Moreover, on the front door, one can notice that the products and services offered by the store are written in French (Artisanat, Souvenirs, Coiffure…) for efficiency and for a wider audience who will probably have competences in the official language. The name of the shop is written in English since it is one of the official languages of Ghana as it was part of the British Commonwealth. Language reis connected to the colonial history of the country as in the example XX above. Communication with customers is mainly done in English and French.

S.M.T New Asia Shop	Uchitomi	Inside Africa
English 4x	Japanese 1x	English 1x
French 5x	Chinese 1x	Akan 1x
	French 2x	French 6x

Discussion

In S.M.T. New Asia Shop, the use of English and French on the shop window is a good illustration of their use as lingua franca, similarly to the study of Shang and Zhao. The script “Phone card international” can be read vertically on the shop window, which means that the store offers supplementary services to allow its customers to call abroad and to keep transnational ties (Tavares 2018: 183). As described by Sabaté i Dalmau (2013), these phone cards are an alternative bottom-up system that helps migrants to be integrated in the society and keep a link with their place of origin. In our context, the shops do not seem to have such an important integrative role as locutorios since the political and linguistic context is different. Still, one aspect that stays is the networking that takes place in those ethnic businesses. Indeed, poster and advertising in the grocery shops that are part of their linguistic landscape inform us about the multiple functions of this kind of space. If an owner accepts a poster, it means that it can interest a percentage of his customers. Similarly, ethnic grocery shops also have multiple functions since we can find information in other languages and community events which indexes their social function in addition to the commercial one. An example of this social function was found in S.M.T New Asian Shop, where a sign informed the costumers about a Chinese new year event accessible to those interested.

In Uchitomi, Japanese, Chinese and French are written on the signs. Posters of events related to Japanese culture and artists are exposed. It shows that these stores are also places where people targeted by the store’s culture come to inform themselves about events, activities and announcements that are offered in their community. This is also described by Tavares and Sabaté i Dalmau, when they talk about the cultural and social importance of these shops. The posters in Uchitomi are written in French to make the information accessible to all the customers even if they concern culturally marked events. Different kinds of activities are proposed such as a piano recital by a Japanese pianist, different Haiku workshops and a tour in the Japanese forest of the Arboretum. Another interesting proposal is to work in tandem in order to learn French or Japanese. This example illustrates the secondary functions of these multilingual shops.

Conclusion

Looking at the shop windows, we could see that French is the predominant language, which is suitable since they are located in a francophone town. The cultural practices and events that are visibilised and promoted through these shops is also of great importance. Posters and advertisements of events regarding their community are visible on their shop windows. These ethno-linguistic places are an anchor point for the migrant population, who finds in these stores a repair for their community and share activities related to their culture. On the other hand, it also attracts native people who would like to discover these cultural practices.

References

Guowen, S. & Shouhui, Z. (2017). Bottom-up multilingualism in Singapore: Code choice on shop sign. English Today 131, Vol. 33, No. 3., pp. 8-14.

Tavares, B. (2018). Cape Verdean migration trajectories into Luxembourg: A multisited sociolinguistic investigation. Unpublished PhD thesis: Université de Luxembourg, pp. 181-198.

Appendix

https://www.lausanne.ch/officiel/statistique/themes/01-population.html, (consulted 27/12/18).

The Linguistic Landscape of Ouchy: The Role of English

Posted on 14/07/2018 by camille.jaquinet@unil.ch

Abstract

This paper investigates the role of English in Ouchy, one of the most touristic areas of Lausanne. This neighborhood is prized amongst locals and tourists alike, making it an interesting location to conduct a linguistic landscape research. Our study tries to answer the following research questions, 1) is English used more in signs intended for locals or for tourists?, and 2) how does English interact with French in multilingual signs? We found that English occupies a dominant position alongside French in signs targeted at both locals and tourists, sometimes in a complementary manner with French and sometimes as a translation of French. English was also used as a way of conveying style and modernity, as a branding factor and as a link between content and the language.

1. Introduction

Lausanne was named the Olympic Capital in 1994, and ever since then the city has marketed itself strongly with that name. As the home of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), over fifty international federations and international sports-related organizations, and the Olympic Museum, more than 1,200,000 tourists visit Lausanne each year (Lausanne tourism 2016). With this international appeal, we wanted to look at the use of English in signs located in Ouchy, one of the most touristic areas in Lausanne and where the Olympic Museum is located. English is commonly referred to as a global language and a lingua franca, especially within areas of business and tourism, as it is used as the language of communication between people of different mother tongues (Crystal 2003: 12). By means of linguistic landscaping, observing linguistic objects in the public space (Ben-Rafael, Shohamy and Barni 2010: xiv), we therefore want to see how the English language interacted with the official language, French, in various types of signs found in the touristic area of Switzerland’s fourth largest city. This paper will thus try to answer the following research questions: is English used in signs only intended for tourists, or is it used more in signs intended for the locals? And how is English used specifically in multilingual signs together with French? This paper will first introduce the concept of linguistic landscaping with special regards to the use of English in non-English speaking regions through previous research on the subject. In the following sections, we will provide information on our chosen area and detail our method for linguistic landscaping. Lastly, we will present our results and discuss them in connection to previous studies before offering a conclusion to our paper.

2. Theoretical framework

As put forth by Ross: “no one would disagree that English plays a major international role in the world today.” (1997: 29) Indeed, the presence of English in non-English speaking regions is far from being unusual, especially in big, multicultural cities and touristic areas. Linguistic landscaping, which is an emerging field of study, is an interesting way to observe the practice of multilingualism, the power relationship between languages or, as in this particular study, the use of English, as the choices of language are neither random or arbitrary (Bogatto and Hélot 2010: 275). The linguistic landscape is “the scene where the public space is symbolically constructed” (Ben-Rafael, Shohamy and Barni 2010: xi); it refers to the “linguistic objects that mark the public space (…) includ[ing] any written sign found outside private homes, from road signs to names of streets, shops and schools” (2010: xiv). But what is exactly the public space? It includes every space in the community or society that is exposed to the public eye (2010: xiv). Moreover, as highlighted by Bruyèl-Olmedo and Jean-Garau (2009: 386), the “public spaces in mass tourism destinations frequently turn into language melting pots.” This statement encouraged us to conduct our study in Ouchy, which is perhaps not a mass tourism destination, but which is definitely the most touristic area of Lausanne.
When conducting a linguistic landscape research of a city, it is important to keep in mind that, contrary to natural landscapes, it is entirely man-made. The signs can therefore deliver either top-down messages, which are “produced by the government, local councils or the owner of a building or site” (Mooney and Evans 2015: 87), or they can deliver bottom-up messages, which are produced by individuals or small groups (Mooney and Evans 2015: 87). For the purpose of our research, we adopted Mooney and Evans’ view, and considered the signs displayed by businesses to be top-down, assuming that the person who made the signs was the owner of the site, whereas other researchers, such as Ben-Rafael, Shohamy and Barni (2010) would consider those as bottom-up, being created by “individual, associative or corporative actors who enjoy autonomy of action within legal limits” (388).

Various studies (Selvi 2016; Bogatto and Hélot 2010; Bruyèl-Olmedo and Jean-Garau 2009) have observed the predominance of English in the linguistic landscapes of non-English countries, as “it enjoys a privileged position when it comes to addressing a multilingual, heterogeneous readership, becoming the de facto lingua franca” (Bruyèl-Olmedo and Jean-Garau 2009: 386). For the specific context of Switzerland, an officially multilingual country, English serves three functions: it can be a lingua franca between the different language groups, it can be a global international language of communication within the domestic business domain and it can be a hip and cool language within the private domain, especially amongst young people (Cheshire and Moser 1994: 435-436). Therefore, we were interested in investigating the use of English in Ouchy, where the three functions of English can be witness: it is a touristic area prized by both Swiss and foreigners, with various types of businesses, while also being a popular location amongst the residents of Lausanne.

3. Contextualization

Ouchy is a neighborhood in Lausanne, the main city of the canton of Vaud. Even though Lausanne is situated on the shore of Lake Geneva, it is only in Ouchy that you can actually find yourself on the lakeside. It makes it a very prized area, and according to the Office d’appui économique et statistique, Ouchy is one of the densest areas of Lausanne, with 8% of the total population living there: out of the 143,561 inhabitants of Lausanne, 10,499 people reside in this neighborhood. Moreover, 61,6% of the habitants are of Swiss nationality – which is more than in the rest of Lausanne, which counts 57% as Swiss. Finally, Ouchy is a well-off, upper-class neighborhood: the incomes of the inhabitants are higher than the average of Lausanne.
In the 19th century, Ouchy was only a small fishing-village around the castle. From 1857 to 1993, numerous improvements were made, such as the construction of the promenade, the inauguration of the Beau-Rivage Palace, highly prized by wealthy tourists, the creation of the first metro line, the construction of the docks as you can see them today, and finally the construction of la Place de la Navigation, the center of the neighborhood. Ouchy is a very touristic location in Lausanne, thanks to its beautiful scenery, the various cultural and sportive activities offered, and the many restaurants, bars and cafés. You can rent a pédalo, or visit the Olympic Museum, jog next to the lake or just lay in one of the parks, with an impressive view on the lake and the mountains. Ouchy also has a port, from where you can take a boat to France or just navigate on the beautiful lake. All of those elements create an area that is very popular amongst tourists, but also amongst the locals of every age. The place is family friendly, but also offers a great spot for young people. We were thus interesting in seeing how English enters the landscape of Ouchy, a place that is very attractive for tourists to visit but also popular amongst locals.

4. Methodology

On April 14 2018, Anna went to Ouchy to collect photos of the signs that were going to be used for this linguistic landscaping project. A total of 39 photos were taken of signs (all to some extent multilingual or monolingual in another language than the official French) seen along Avenue d’Ouchy, the main road leading down from the train station to the port, and of signs in close proximity to the lakeside and to the port itself. After this first collection, we together decided to focus on signs which included English to some degree, and thus we ended up with eighteen signs. However, due to the time and length constraints on this project, only ten signs were selected for a closer analysis. These ten signs were chosen due to their presentation of a variety of uses of English, from complete monolingualism to minimal use. Because of this, they show the interplay between English and the official language French, as well as other official and non-official languages in the area.
Before going out to collect the data, Anna had already spend quite some time in Ouchy and had already noticed a variety of languages in the area, which is why we chose this area for the project. In addition to the signs she had already noticed, she also expected to find even more multilingual signs once she started to actively look for them. She enjoyed the experience enormously, it was a very fun way to collect data while also being able to see and explore the neighborhood in a different way. She had no difficulties finding signs to photograph, the problem was rather related to choosing which signs to use in the end as we wish we could have used all of them.

5. Results

In order to conduct our linguistic landscape, we took a total of ten pictures in the area of Ouchy, represented by the purple pins (Illustration 1). Out of the ten observed signs, all of them contained English to some degree: four were monolingual English, three were bilingual English and French, two were multilingual English, French and German, while one sign was multilingual English, Thai and French (graph 1). Furthermore, the signs varied also in type: seven were commercial signs, two were infrastructural and one was regulatory (graph 2). All of the signs were however monologic, ie created by a singular producer, and were produced top-down from either the business-owners themselves or from the government and institutions.

Illustration 1. Map of Ouchy, with the purple pins locating our ten signs.

Graph 1. Distribution of languages in signs.

Chart 2. Distribution of sign types.

A breakdown of the largest group, the monolingual signs in English, shows that three of them were commercial and one was infrastructural. Furthermore, out of the four monolingual English signs, two of them were business names (“Blue Flowers” and “SPG Intercity,” see Appendix for photos) displayed at the storefront of these enterprises. The other two monolingual signs present English in a different way: Picture 1 has more content compared to the other ones, and the monument on Picture 2 appears as monolingual, but on the other side of it, the same information presented can also be found in French. Moreover, the information given on the monument in English does not require extensive knowledge of the language as other symbols, like the pictographs, the Olympic rings and the huge numbers, also help convey the message. On the other hand, in the sign about Lord Byron (picture 1), the language used is clearly linked to the content of the sign: it gives information about an English poet that wrote a book in this building, that is now the “Hotel d’Angleterre.” In addition, the information given in English by the sign markets the hotel as authentic, with high-standard and as having a significant cultural history.

Picture 1. Sign on the façade of Hotel d’Angleterre

Picutre 2. Monument at Place de la Navigation

When looking at the bilingual signs, different situations can be observed. On Picture 3, French and English give the exact same information about the opening hours of the museum, except for the name of the museum which is only presented in French. The French text is placed first in a slightly bigger and thicker font, followed by the English translation. French is highlighted because the sign is located in an officially French-speaking area, thus showing its important and dominant status. Moreover, the name of the museum is presented only in French, but since it is accompanied by the Olympic symbol, which has a meaning stronger that words, the name does not require a translation. This sign clearly targets tourists from all around the world which is why English is used as a lingua franca to communicate with all possible visitors.

In comparison, Pictures 4 and 5 display English and French without a translation and the languages complement each other to create the message. In these two cases, the use of English appears random: it could be assumed it was used for practical reasons such as the lack of space (Picture 4) or letters (Picture 5). It can also be seen as an indication of openness and of knowledge of English among the employees of the restaurant, which could appeal to non-Francophone tourists.

Picture 4. Regulatory sign at the restaurant/bar White Horse.

Picture 3. Sign outside the Olympic Museum.

Picture 5. Sign outside the restaurant Le Lacustre.

One of the multilingual signs displayed a mix between French, English and Thai. Neither English nor Thai are official languages in this area, but in the case of Thai it shows a clear connection between the language and the content of the sign. The Thai restaurant has a French name Saveurs d’Ailleurs which is displayed in a large font at the top, followed by information in a smaller font given in French, English and Thai. The English word takeaway can be used in written French, but not as much in spoken discourse, and it could signal the restaurant’s coolness factor. The written Thai however, which translates to “Thai cuisine,” functions instead as a social identity marker for the Thai speaking community: the Thai language, the script and the meaning of the message might be directed towards the Thai community, to show that the restaurant serves authentic Thai food. For those outside the Thai community, the visibility of Thai also indicates authenticity of the restaurant and the food, even thought they might not understand the meaning of the text written in Thai script.

Picture 6. Window text of a Thai restaurant

In one of the two French-English-German signs (picture 7), the three languages are used in a confusing manner. The sign can be separated in two parts, which do not make the same use of the languages. On the left, French and English give information on the location of the self-service tickets machine. Whereas, on the right, the information is given in French, English and German to indicate the direction of the waiting room. However, the use of the three languages is not consistent on the right-hand side: porte is translated only into English, when salle d’attente is translated in both languages. One reason for the lack of translation of automate may be that the German word is very similar (Automat) and they decided to save space. This sign however shows a clear dominance of French, as it is always the top language and in a bigger font, even if the sign includes other languages. In comparison, similar signs from the main train station of Lausanne almost exclusively use French monolingually (see Appendix). The port of Ouchy, which displays three languages, highlights itself as more oriented towards tourists.

Picture 7. Infrastructural sign at the port of Ouchy

6. Discussion

As previous research has shown (Selvi 2016; Bogatto and Hélot 2010; Ross 1997; Bruyèl-Olmedo and Jean-Garau 2009), English is widely used in areas that are not English-speaking, and this was true for Ouchy as well. English was used in signs intended for both locals and foreigners, which answers the first part of our research question. The commercial signs, more specifically those with a business name in English, could be said to target more of the local crowd, as we believe that tourists do not usually buy real estate or flowers when on vacation. As put forth by Ross, “English is today seen as an attractive and fashionable language. An English name lends an aura of chic prestige to a business, suggesting that it is part of the international scene, following the latest trends, up-to-date with the newest ideas” (Ross 1997: 31), which could be the reason for why these local enterprises have chosen an English business name.

For the second part of our research question regarding multilingual signs, English was shown to be used in two different ways: either as a translation of the corresponding French text, or as a complement to the French text. Concerning the multilingual signs that used English to a lesser degree, English could add some style and coolness to the message. Furthermore, the multilingual signs that had an English translation of the French text seems to be more targeted towards tourists as they might not speak French, while the multilingual sign that mixed the languages could be more targeted towards locals. In the signs that were multilingual in French and English, or together with another third language, French was always the main language, except in the Chambers of Commerce-sign (see appendix), where German, English and French were presented equally. English was then always the second most visible language compared to the third language in our signs (German or Thai). This is interesting considering that German is an official language of Switzerland, whereas English is not. It shows that infrastructural signs, which give directions and information, are directed towards international tourists more than intra-national ones, who are however probably able to understand them.
The use of Thai, which is not an official language of the country, can be explain as a way of conveying a “sense of compatibility between the product they are selling and the language” (Selvi 2003: 34). The restaurant, which serves Thai-food, uses the language as a marker of authenticity to attract customers. Finally, as put forth by Bruyèl-Olmedo and Jean-Garau (2009), “English is used not because there is a predominance of English-speaking tourist, but because it is the language that most visitors share” (409), which is why English was the dominant foreign language in Ouchy, even more dominant that other official languages (for example Italian which was not observed) of Switzerland.

7. Conclusion

This study has several limitations, the major one being its small scale. Ten photos are not representative of the whole neighborhood, and as we consciously decided to focus on the English language either in monolingual signs or in multilingual signs, we ignored the French-only signs and those containing other languages. It could therefore had been interesting to know at what percentage English was used in signs compared to all other signs in the area, including the French ones. Furthermore, we only looked at signs that were produced top-down, as no bottom-down or transgressive signs were included in this study. It could thus be of interest for future research to see if and how English was used in Ouchy in those types of signs as well. Nonetheless, our study showed that English was used in a variety of different sign types, from infrastructural to commercial and regulatory, targeted towards tourists and locals alike. As put forth by Chesire and Moser, “it has been claimed that English belongs to any country that uses it. If this is so, we would expect the different countries that use English as a cultural symbol to exploit the linguistic resources in their own special ways, in order to meet their own individual requirements” (1994: 453), which is truly visible in Ouchy where the English language has infiltrated the public space in a variety of ways. While some of our multilingual signs used English to translate the French message, using English as a lingua franca, other signs incorporated English seamlessly into the message. Thus, even in our small-scale study we could nonetheless observe the multi-functionality of the English language in this otherwise Francophone neighborhood.

Bibliography

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Websites

Official website of the city of Lausanne. Available on: http://www.lausanne.ch/thematiques/nature-parcs-et-domaines/espaces-verts/parcs-et-promenades/les-sites-de-loisirs/ouchy.html . Accessed on the 11.05.18.

Official statistics of Ouchy, on the official website of Lausanne. Available on : https://www.lausanne.ch/officiel/statistique/quartiers/presentation-des-quartiers/06-sous-gare-ouchy.html . Accessed on the 14.05.18.

Lausanne tourism, rapport annuel 2016. Statistics on tourism in Lausanne. Available on: https://static.mycity.travel/manage/uploads/6/30/43463/42c2060ca07968eba50641670ec333fd760903ce.pdf Accessed on the 18.05.18.

Appendix

1. Pictures of the remaining three signs not discussed in detail in this paper.

1.1 Name of a flower shop.

1.2. Name of a real-estate agency.

1.3. Sign on the Chamber of Commerce-building.

2. Pictures of signs taken at the train station in Lausanne, in comparison to our picture taken at the port of Ouchy.

2.1 Sign on a platform in Lausanne train station

2.2 Sign at the train station

2.3. Sign on the wall of the train station

By Anna Ivarson and Camille Jaquinet

Linguistic Landscape of the main station of Lausanne

Posted on 03/07/2018 by aida.jonuzi@unil.ch

ABSTRACT

This study examines the use of language at the main station of Lausanne in order to see if it coincides with the city’s international status. The analysis of multiple signs demonstrated that the main station essentially uses its national language, French, which is directed to its population but also uses it to presents itself.

INTRODUCTION

The significant presence of bilingualism and multilingualism promoted in more and more societies influences the way language is represented in public places. This is the particular subject of Linguistic Landscape (LL), that attempts to analyze how language is represented in public places, through the way it is used in written signs. More precisely, it seeks to study what and how language(s) is(are) represented, in order to learn more about what message it sends, and how it informs us about the language use in a certain place. In this study, I will examine the city of Lausanne, in Switzerland, referred as the ‘‘Olympic City’’. I will specifically focus on the railway station of the city, and demonstrate how it partially embodies its international reputation, through the prominent use of its national language, French, in infrastructural and commercial signs. Overall, linguistic studies about Switzerland discuss the issue of the country’s multilingualism, and how it is dealt in the Swiss Confederation as well as among the local population. Instead, my main focus will be on how the use as well as the presentation of language(s) in the main station of Lausanne do or do not represent the city’s Olympic status. Following this introduction, I will, first, introduce the main notions about LL, then a contextualization of the city of Lausanne as well as the railway station as well as the city of Lausanne, and finally, I will proceed to my data and its analysis.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

According to Annabelle Mooney and Betsy Evans (2015), many sorts of linguistic and semiotic material are found in public places, enabling people to situate themselves. They are various, and are not necessarily noticed, since many people know their surroundings, and, thus, do not require them. They constitute the studies of Linguistics Landscapes (LL) and Semiotic Landscapes (SL), that observe how language and objects/materials contribute to the ‘‘construction of space’’ (Mooney and Evans, 2015: 87). Jennifer Leeman and Gabriella Modan (Leeman and Modan, 2009) argue that LL studies, first, focused on taking into account every representation of languages and comparing their numbers between each of them in relation to the landscape in which they were situated, without considering the meaning of it. The different types of LL essentially depend on which language is represented, who produced them, and who is targeted. On the one hand, we find officials signs, generally produced by the government for instance, and non-official signs. On the other hand, we find bottom-up signs, which are produced by people, and can be identified from the message they convey and the materiality of the sign, and top-down signs, typically from the government. For instance, we immediately recognize the significance of a message if it is produced on a hard material, rather than if it is poorly written on a piece of paper. However, it is not always easy to identify either of these two. In that case, we can identify signs on individual shops as bottom up, since they chose personally choose the display of their shops.The materiality of the sign can help too, as stated previously. There are different kinds of signs (Mooney and Evans, 2015: 92): regulatory discourses (traffic signs, indicating official/legal prohibitions), infrastructural discourses (‘‘directed to those maintaining the infrastructure or to label things for the public’’), commercial discourses (ads), and transgressive discourses (‘‘any sign in the ‘wrong space’’’, generally graffiti, which gives marginalized people a voice).

In addition to the way language is represented, the message of a sign can also depend on its position. Geosemiotics, specifically, emphasizes the importance to take into account not only language, that plays a part in the understanding in linguistic signs, but all the semiotic signs, such as the placement of the material or the colors. Indeed, the placement of a sign tells us about ‘‘its meaning and the intentions of the sign maker’’, that is to say it needs to be well-placed, or else the population targeted will probably not understand, making us question the agency of people. According to Mautner, ‘‘physical signs can function as ‘boundary markers’ … playing an important part in carving up space into public and private areas, and into zones where it is permissible to enact some social roles (e.g., cyclist or angler), but not others (e.g., busker or dog-walker)’’ (Mooney and Evans, 2015: 91). Overall, multilingualism in LL can tell us a lot about the official language of a place, in relation to the actual use of the population, which does not necessarily represent the official language of the place.

There does not exist a lot of linguistic work that deals with linguistic landscape about railways station, especially in Switzerland. The work of Wareesiri Singhasiri (Singhasiri, 2013), is the most relevant article for the purposes of this project. It focuses on the Thai context, and demonstrate the influence of internalisation/globalisation through LL in the railway station of Thailand. Specifically, the author attempted to observe the rising use of English in infrastructural and commercial signs, because of the place’s visitors, mostly communicating in English. They differentiated their data collection by LL items created by the State Railway of Thailand, and by the companies and local shops. They also delimited language in terms of monolingual and bilingual. In the first category, Thai was mostly used in infrastructural signs, and the use of English was only found in warning signs, to be careful of hustlers who would mislead tourists in their destination / where they ought to go. Therefore, the State Railway seems to be conscious of the use of languages, by addressing specifically local people and visitors. Moreover, the companies, because their target was only visitors, used English, whereas local shops (food, books) used Thai and English, since their target was everyone. Overall, they observed that more and more signs were bilingual, both in Thai and in English. The fact that local shops used English too suggests that they are aware of the significance of that language, and the status/power it gives them access to.

Jennifer Leeman and Gabriella Modan’s study (Leeman and Modan, 2009), is also a great example of a more complete qualitative LL analysis. In their work, they attempted to demonstrate how Chinatown, in Washington DC, changed from a neighborhood shaping the identity of Chinese people, to a ‘marketing commodity’ (Leeman and Modan, 2009: 333). To do so, they did a historical contextualization, discovering that the settlement of the neighborhood proceeded in a few phases, during which LL changed accordingly. Therefore, their method concentrated on a micro-level, that is a subjective representation according to them, something that is constructed according to what is displayed in the public sphere, and with the languages used. The study of historical contextualization and the analysis of LL enabled them to demonstrate the evolution of Chinatown that shaped the neighborhood to what it is today. Particularly, the settlement of the city to add more Chinese symbols, as well as the rising of more and more large-scale commerce reversed the place to an ‘exotic’ neighborhood, especially for non-Chinese speaking people. In other words, the aim of the rising use of Chinese was not to favor the use of a language, or to give a minority access to information to a community, but it was used as an aesthetic element favoring economic profits. That is how LL can help us understand unfolding social processes.

CONTEXTUALISATION

The city of Lausanne is the fourth largest city of Switzerland, situated in the French-speaking part, with more than 140,000 people domiciled or that have permanently stayed there. It is generally described as the ‘‘Olympic city’’, implying an international aspect, and is very touristic. It finds itself in a particular place linguistically speaking. Generally speaking, Switzerland was formed by multiple heterogeneous groups that wanted to merge together as a homogenous nation (Mayer, 1951: 157). Despite the ‘cultural heterogeneity’ of Switzerland, Kurt Mayer states that a national equilibrium is settled in order to avoid tensions within the country (Mayer, 1951: 157). Switzerland’s national languages are German, French, Italian and Romansch. They have been represented equally as the national languages in the Confederation politically, since the creation of the Swiss Constitution in 1848 (Schwab, 2014: 3). The federal laws are published in the three official languages they are all equally authoritative, but most of the official documents are only written in German and French. Indeed, according to Swiss statistics, German is spoken by 62.8% of the population, French by 22.9% of the population, Italian by 8.2%, and Romansch by 0.5%. Moreover, although the three official languages are equally acknowledged by the Federal Constitution, they are unequal in terms of importance.

Image 1 – Distribution / proportion of national languages in Switzerland: the yellow part represents the German speaking proportion, the blue part represents the French speaking proportion, the green part represents the Italian speaking proportion, and the red part represents the Romansch proportion.

Their linguistic boundaries are clearly defined by territorial areas; however they are not so clear between French (Western part) and German speaking zones (Central and Eastern part), and the Italian speaking zone (Southern part) is separated from the rest of the country because of the Alps. Overall, the number of German-speaking people is more significant than French-, Italian-, and Romansch-speaking people. This linguistic pattern through the population has been quite constant, similar since the 17th century (1800), when data started to be collected. Mayer also noted that the second generation of Swiss used the official language in which reside, instead of speaking their parents’ language. Moreover, Switzerland inhabitants has an average of 2.0 languages spoken, representing the third multilingual European country (Schwab, 2011: 8). Overall, this demographic equilibrium is maintained by the political measures settled by the Confederation, to avoid conflicts. Significantly, the official languages are all used in the official documents, and the proportion of the representatives working for the Confederation has to be equal to the three most important national languages (German, French, and Italian) (Kobelt, 2011: 54). The research of Georges Lüdi, Katharine Höchle and Patchareerat Yanaprasaart (Lüdi et al., 2010), attempted to see the use of language(s) and cross-speeches in a professional environment in Basel, a bilingual city of Switzerland. They observed that English is the most used language after German in Basel, just like it is the case in a lot of cities of the world, however, the linguistic landscape is not representative of a population’s language distribution. Generally, the national language is still used because it plays an important role in identity. According to them, the history of Switzerland’s languages favored the construction of ‘‘a culture of communication’’ (Lüdi et al., 2010: 77) that made acceptable the plurilingualism of the country (education that favored the learning of a second national language).

Lausanne is situated in the Romandie, the French part of Switzerland. Lausanne became the Olympic Capital, the headquarters of the International Olympic Committee since 1915, and was named the Olympic Capital in 1993. It therefore has an administrative role in that domain, heading many international federations. It became economically strong after the economic crisis of the 1990s, currently having many research institutions settled there, like the Federal Institute of Technology, and the University of Lausanne.

Generally speaking, Switzerland is the country of Europe that uses the most its railways, counting a complex network, as seen in the Image 2 (Swiss railways statistics). Significantly, the Image 2 demonstrates the number of trains used in many European countries’ trains system.

Image 2 – Use of the railway networks in Europe according to the official main station of Switzerland’s statistics.

Image 2 – The location of the main station of Lausanne in the city.

Moreover, as seen in Image 3, the main station of Lausanne is situated between the lake, and the center of the city, that are highly visited / busy places. The particularity of the main railway station of Lausanne is that, in addition to connecting Lausanne to other cities of Switzerland, it connects Switzerland, more globally, with direct trains to other towns in Europe, such as Milano and Venezia in Italy, and Paris in France. According to the main station’s statistics, there are around 110,000 passengers every day. The main station of Lausanne is quite frequented, mostly by Swiss passengers.

METHODOLOGY

As this study is part of a collective project of the University of Lausanne, each student of the course ‘‘Introduction to Multilingualism’’ was required to take pictures involving material representing language(s) from what they wanted to examine, and upload them on Google Map Drive. This project was inspired by a Spanish project, ‘‘Lenguas pa’ la Citi’’, demonstrating in what way Madrid can be considered as a multilingual city. During this project, I initially had trouble finding a clear subject, causing my data collection to be insufficient. As I narrowed my subject to the national representation of the main station of Lausanne, more data was collected specifically on infrastructural and commercial signs. Also, because it is a place that is familiar to me, and which is very crowded most of the time, it was difficult to observe all the signs that are present. I decided to collect data at night, so that I was able to take time, and observe the totality of the place. The data collection counted around thirty pictures, in which I could immediately see the importance of French, the national languages of Switzerland, and of English. Since I concentrate on the type of signs that are infrastructural and commercial, following Singhasiri (2013), I decided to follow a similar structure, that is to use monolingual / bilingualism (multilingualism in my case) categories, and infrastructural as well as commercial categories. Overall, my data collection was essentially top-down and official signs.

RESULTS

Figure 1 – Front of the main station of Lausanne.

Figure 2 – Left front of the main station of Lausanne, next to the ‘Lausanne Capitale Olympique’ sign.

Figure 3 – Custom service situated in the halls of the main station.

Figure 4 – Tickets machine of the main station.

Figure 5 – Infrastructural signs, indicating the opposite directions of the city and the lake.

Figure 6 – Infrastructural sign indicating the destinations of the time in Germany and French.

Figure 7 – Shop situated at the front entrance of the main station

Figure 8 – Advertisement sign situated at the front entrance of the main station.

A) Quantitative analysis:

Figures 1 to 6 represent the first category of infrastructural signs, and all fall in the type top-down, since they are official signs from the Swiss railways, except for the shop sign in Figure 7, and for the advertisement in Figure 8, since they are commercial signs. Figures 1 and 2 represent the front of the main station of Lausanne. Only French is used in the first figure, describing its Olympic status. The second one shows the official sign of the Swiss railways, ‘‘SBB CFF FFS’’, in German, French, and Italian, the three of the national languages of the country in order of significance. They found themselves on each side of the Olympic title. Figure 3 is the official customs of the Swiss Confederation, in which written declarations are found, destined to tourists of Europe. We notice that the three national languages are represented, in the same order of significance as in Figure 1. However, Figure 3 is the only exception, changing the order of German-French-Italian we tend to have, in other figures; indeed, the order of that sign is the same except for the title of the sign, which begins with French and then follows with German, Italian and English. There is the presence of English too, following the three languages, in the titles, and explanations. It is interesting to note that the title of the Swiss Confederation, at the left top of the sign, represents the three national languages as well as Romansch. Moreover, the indication of what the sign is, is presented in French, largely at the bottom. Moreover, it is situated at the side of the hallway, not always visible when there is a lot of passengers. Figure 4 is the official train ticket of the main station, as the sign of the Swiss railways ‘‘SBB CFF FFS’’ are presented. The indication of its purpose is presented with the word ‘‘ticket’’, at the side of the machine, and is translated in the three significant languages, as well as English. There is also a publicity at the side, from the railway station, and a map of the Vaud canton, both written in French. Figure 5 and 6 demonstrate transportation indications. In figure 5, English is used to show where to find the city, while French designates the lake’s location. In figure 5, French and German are used to represent cities from the French or the German part of Switzerland. Overall, French is the language the most represented, followed by indications in the national languages of German and Italian, and finally English.

The category of commercial signs, portrayed by Figures 7 and 8, are top-down as well. The difference between both of them is that French is predominant in the display, in Figure 7, whereas English only is used in Figure 8. An English map of the hotel’s location is also provided at the bottom of the sign. Contrary to infrastructural signs, languages do not seem to be mixed together.

B) Qualitative analysis:

We remark that there is a predominance of the national language, suggesting a national system of the Swiss railways. First, Figure 1 demonstrates the way Lausanne wants to be presented to people, especially foreigners: the identity is concentrated in its Olympic status, implying an international reputation. However, it is not conveyed in English but in French, implying that Lausanne’s identity is linked to its national language, therefore using French symbolically. It is also emphasized by the fact that the official signs of Switzerland railways are positioned at the side of the Olympic title, suggesting its secondary place in Lausanne’s identity. Yet, the three most significant Swiss languages were represented in the customs’ declarations, and the ticket machine, facilitating accessibility to all Swiss people, but prioritizing French speaking people (Figures 3 and 4). English was also used, directly addressing foreign people, as it is the case at figure 8, which is also situated at the main entrance of the station. However, destinations were not indicated in English, but according to the location of a particular place. Indeed, places that were situated in the German part of Switzerland, or in parts that are bilingual, are represented in the specific language, in two languages in the latter case. Significantly, in Figure 6, we notice Murten/Morat, and Fribourg/Freiburg. The order of the language chosen in these two bilingual cities demonstrate the significance of the most used language, German in the first one, and French in the second one. It is, therefore, addressed to Swiss people of these places, but also translated in order to be understood to other speaking Swiss people.

DISCUSSION

Overall, my results demonstrate a clear link between the use of national language, and the construction of Lausanne’s identity. Indeed, by presenting itself as the Olympic Capital in French, it contradicts it international title, and claims its national identity first. This follows Jennifer Leeman and Gabriella Modan’s reasoning, in the sense that French is used symbolically to strengthen Lausanne’s identity within the Francophone part of Switzerland (Romandie). The same pattern could be seen with cities situated in the German part of Switzerland. We could imagine a comparable analysis to railway stations of these cities. Similar to Singhasiri’s work, the use of different languages indicates that the Swiss railway station of Lausanne is aware that the railway networks is mostly composed of Swiss passengers. Besides, the use of English is directly addressed to European foreigners, enabled by the direct access connections to European cities from the main station. Although Lausanne is quite a touristic place, there is note a lot of English use. When it is the case, they are clearly addressed to visitors, in customs services and hotel ads. However, the signs indicating the directions to the lake and to the city seems to be directed to foreigners.

Finally, the fact that the collection data is essentially composed of top-down as well as official signs, inform us about the languages policies of the main station, and more globally of Lausanne. Overall, the main station of Lausanne uses languages according to whom it convey information: French is essentially used in order to inform its population; the other national languages (German and Italian) are also used when directing to the more global population of Switzerland; and finally, English is only used towards foreigners, through advertisements or custom policies.

CONCLUSION

This linguistic project, concentrated on the main station of Lausanne, allowed me to contradict the city’s international status. Instead, I could demonstrate, through its systematic use of French, that the main station of Lausanne follows a national and cantonal policy, which could be the case in the rest of Switzerland. What is more, that clearer knowledge on Lausanne’s language policy, informs us about the construction of the place, strongly linked to its national and Romande identity. Overall, the main station of Lausanne is a place for its national passengers, of all Switzerland, and slightly takes into account its touristic significance. As it is a small university project, I could not study the entirety of the Lausanne’s station. A brief historical contextualization could have been provided, as it could have been interesting to study its evolution, especially since it is currently being rebuilt, drastically modernizing it.

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http://ddc.arte.tv/uploads/program_slideshow/image/caption/2142802.jpg (last consulted 01.06.2018)

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http://ddc.arte.tv/uploads/program_slideshow/image/caption/2142802.jpg (last consulted 10.06.2018)