Multilingual Presence in Asian Food Places in Lausanne

Magdalena Camille Mena Pacheco, Dylan Ravussin

Introduction to Multilingualism in Society

June 2018

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the repartition of languages, namely official Swiss languages, English, and Asian languages in the context of Asian businesses in Lausanne. To do this linguistic landscaping, we visited Asian restaurants and markets to take pictures of the language signs we found in different sections of these businesses. We will try to illustrate the complexity of the relationships between these languages in those places. Indeed, although French is still often the primary language in the majority of Asian restaurants, probably in order to attract a broad customer base in these top-down institutions, the situation in Asian markets is different. English is often used as a lingua franca, but Asian languages are featured on many of the products’ labels, sometimes even exclusively, and French can thus lose its primary language status in some cases.

Introduction

The following research aims to examine the relationship between official languages in Switzerland (French, German, Italian), English, and Asian languages (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai)  in Asian food places in Lausanne. The data was collected first-hand by visiting several Asian food places in Lausanne and Renens and capturing the linguistic environment through photographs taken of the visible exteriors of those businesses as well as the interior public signs of product labels and price labels throughout the inside of those places. The results found fit into a field not yet explored in the world of linguistic landscape studies. Previous research in similar fields has not yet been specific enough to Asian food places in Lausanne, nor has it been bold enough to be as straight-forward regarding the relationship between minority Asian languages and the many official languages of Switzerland.

The paper will be organized as follows: firstly, this research will address the previous research made in similar fields of study relevant to the history of multilingualism in Lausanne regarding the prevalence of English in multilingual communities and the use of Chinese in commercialized contexts. Secondly, we will present the context of our research: where the Asian food places are located, who purchases the goods, and what we learned about the customer base from speaking to the shop owners. Thirdly, we will touch upon our methodology and experience in gathering the data, and lastly, we will present our results and discuss their position amongst previous research in similar fields of study.

Theoretical framework

Because this research is quite specific, finding previous studies that were relevant to our topic became a challenging task. The main idea behind finding literature related to the topic is to allow further contextualisation of the results found. Some key ideas in the explanation of this research are: public signs, multilingualism, top-down vs bottom up production, primary vs secondary languages, landscapes, and commodification of language. Public signs are those that are visible to the public; in this paper, we categorized public signs as the labels of products inside of stores and restaurants or the exterior signs visible to pedestrian passerbys. Multilingualism is defined as the use of more than one language; in this case, how more than one language is presented in those public signs in a written way. Top-down vs bottom-up are terms that we use to categorize our findings regarding the dominant language presented in a multilingual setting; the top-down approach is typically more common in large cities (official languages given priority over minority languages) and the opposite (bottom-up) is what peaked our interests in the context of Asian food places. The primary language is the language that is given priority or that is more easily visible to the public eye. The secondary language is what is also present, but might be in smaller font or put to the side instead of front-and-center. The use of the word landscapes, for the purpose of this research, is used to describe a physical area as well as a socio-linguistic environment that affects the commercialized institutions within it. Finally, the commodification of language is the use of language in a commercialized setting, often contributing or in the favor of businesses.

The use of language, particularly in this case: the use of Chinese, contributes highly to the profitability of the businesses in the type of institution we chose, food places (restaurants and markets). “Culture is used both to frame public space and to legitimate the appropriation of that space by private and commercial interests,” (Zukin 1998). According to Leeman and Modan (2009), while the use of the Chinese language can be used to provide access to those who speak the minority language, it is also used as an opportunity for businesses to appeal to outsiders. A similar theme in the writings of Zukin and Leeman and Modan is that of the advantageous nature of the use of minority languages such as Chinese in commercialized contexts.

While the official language in Lausanne is French, the common lingua franca in and outside of those Asian food places which we studied was English. This is primarily due to the use of English as an international language, not only in Asia, but in a global sense. According to Garcia and Otheguy (1989), English as a global language has facilitated political and cultural understanding across societies. However, others, like Phillipson (1992) and Phan (2008) take on the view that English has characteristics of linguistic imperialism: presenting itself as a superior language, and resulting in various negative consequences. All in all, the “superiority” of English or the ease of the use as an international language contribute to its use as a lingua franca in Asian communities and across their commercialized world. In the case of Sayer (2010), the use of English in his research proved to be more than just due to its presence as a lingua franca, but also to convey some type of message by the use of English itself by making the product or service it’s advertising seem more “cool”, fashionable, advanced, or sophisticated. For the case of this research, the use of English was more likely used as a common language, as well as key words bolded in English to attract attention to potential buyers.

The previous research done in similar fields, unfortunately does not touch specifically on the use of official languages as well as English in Asian food places. Although this topic is quite specific, more research could be very useful, not only to benefit linguistic researchers, but also to benefit ethnic businesses in terms of what is most effective in public language use.

Contextualization

We chose to focus on Asian businesses in Lausanne because we thought that it would constitute both an interesting and broad enough topic. We were particularly curious about the dominant Asian languages in those businesses in a primarily French-speaking area of Europe, which is particularly interesting in a city that is largely made up of foreign nationals.  Our original guess was that, with the progressive popularization of Asian culture in European society, we would have a considerable amount of places to choose from for our linguistic landscaping. A simple Google research proved us right: Asian businesses, especially markets and restaurants, are manifold in Lausanne. This could be explained by the aforementioned trend of Asian culture in Europe, but a more tangible reason is simply that Lausanne’s population is very diverse, especially compared with the other large Swiss cities. Indeed, it is amongst the four most cosmopolitan cities in Switzerland, along with Geneva, Lugano and Basel.

When looking into the demography of Lausanne, one can see that there is only one Asian nation (Sri Lanka) in the fifteen most common origins of the city’s inhabitants. This could lead to the assumption that the Asian customer base for the businesses we targeted was too limited. However, further investigation determined that Lausanne is home to people from over 160 countries around the world, so there is certainly a market for Asian businesses in town. Indeed, the interviews of two Asian shops owners led to the discovery that around half of their customer bases is made of Asians. Although we decided to limit our research to shops and restaurants, since they provided more than enough data for our paper, we did not set geographical boundaries for our landscaping. Asian businesses were selected from all over Lausanne and its surroundings, mainly because there is no “Asian neighbourhood” in the city, and the relevant locations for our study are thus spread out in the region.

In the case of Fleurs d’Asie most of the products are imported mainly from Thailand, China, and Vietnam as well as other Asian countries, which are purchased by a customer base consisting of about half Asians and the other half non-Asians. Some of those customers are bilingual, speaking French and another native language. The products the owner chooses to sell are popular in Asia and could potentially appeal to other customers. The primarily way the owner displays the products are with descriptive labels, which allow store goers to decide which products they would like to purchase or what best suits their cooking needs.

In contrast with Asian Flowers, Thao, which is located in a more neighborhood type of setting, the customers are more local (non-foreigners) and live near the area. It’s more of a specialized items market, so there are some customers that go out of their way to find those products. The store is aimed to attract those that are curious to buy certain Asian products as well as those who are familiar with the products and cannot find them elsewhere, like in COOP or Migros.

Methodology

The data was collected from various locations around Lausanne and Renens. Outside signs, menus, window signs, and product labels were photographed with the intention of capturing the linguistic environment of the Asian food places in these cities. The outside signs, street menus, and window signs are all visible from the exterior of these businesses, while the product labels are visible mainly to shopping customers. The window signs included opening hours and the names of the establishments, as well as local advertising for events in their communities. The outside signs include the name of the business in a primary language and visible secondary languages. The menus were on display either in framed boxes on the exterior of businesses or displayed on easels. The product labels that were photographed were mainly general information on the packaging and some price labels on the shelves.

This project helped us understand a number of key aspects of the class, such as the notions of top-down and bottom-up, but it also brought us a lot of surprises. We expected to find a lot of restaurants with menus written in both French and an Asian language, which was not always the case, and we thought that a vast majority of the products commercialized in the stores would have French on their labels, which also turned out to be wrong in many cases.

Some unexpected difficulties were unveiled throughout the different steps of the research. The vast number of Asian businesses in Lausanne constituted both a blessing and a curse. After taking pictures of more than a dozen relevant places, we had to select which ones would provide the most interesting talking points for our paper. Also, while a lot of restaurants in Lausanne have an Asian name, a relatively significant amount of them are owned by people who do not speak any Asian language and only have French written on their doors and windows, which made them somewhat uninteresting for the purpose of this study.

The exact opposite of this created another obstacle: the owners of some Asian shops are sometimes not very fluent in French or English. For example, the interview of the owner of Thao was made very difficult by the language barrier. Moreover, some products showcased in the stores were challenging to identify because English and French are sometimes only the third or fourth language featured on the labels of the products, if featured at all. Most of the labels were written in a vast array of languages, because they are often destined to be commercialized not only in Switzerland, but all over Europe. Finally, another unexpected language sometimes interfered with our work: German, which is more used in Switzerland than French, resulting in its presence on many labels.

Results

As seen by the table below, the results of our data collection are varied. Most of the institutions are categorized with a top-down production, meaning they showed the official language, French, priority over minority Asian languages. The most common secondary or second primary languages are English and Chinese. We found that the type of institution with the most secondary languages were the markets. They often displayed multiple minority languages on their product packaging labels as well as their price labels on their shelves.

In the case of Asian Flowers, we categorized the market as a bottom-up, because while the most visible language from the exterior is French, seen by the outside sign below, the interior of the shop consisted of labels in multiple languages, not only in French. They even sold products from Brazil, which had labels in Portuguese.

Overall, the markets tended to have a wider variety and representation of multilingualism due to their business-like nature. The presence of those various languages not only appeals to different Asian and English-speaking communities, but also allows for people from other communities to have access to authentic cultural experiences.

The types of communication that we recorded were primarily those regarding a message of description, not necessarily that of persuasion. The common theme that we found was that French was given a priority, especially with restaurants, as they would appeal to Lausanne locals going out to eat with their friends and family. Those restaurants that displayed a primary language other than French were seemingly foreign-owned businesses, attracting mainly people familiar with the food.

The English language displayed in signs was sometimes in the exterior signs, but primarily in the labeling of products in Asian markets. It was used as the lingua franca for many Asian products from various origin countries. Although the products did not originate in countries that use English as a primary or official language, some products had most of the front side of the packaging in English and multiple Asian or Swiss official languages on the back, like the Korean BBQ sauce product labeling. This was particularly interesting seeing that although English had no official reason to be on the packaging, it was being used as a common language over French, German, or Italian.

The Dragon restaurant is an Asian food restaurant that has an exterior sign, equally representing French, English, and Chinese, although it is a Chinese, Japanese, and Thai food restaurant. This finding is particularly interesting because it not only gives priority to official language (French), but it also gives priority to English (lingua franca) and Chinese, the more dominant Asian language.

Asian Flowers market: outside sign in French

Asian Flowers market: product labeling in Thai, English, and French

Asian Flowers market: product labeling in Portuguese

Asian Flowers market: product labeling in English and Korean

Dragon Restaurant: exterior sign in French, English, and Chinese

Discussion

The data found is enlightening to say the least. The relationship between official languages in Switzerland (French, German, Italian), English, and Asian languages (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai)  in Asian food places in Lausanne is complicated and far from straight-forward. Many of the samples from the data show the the official language of French is given priority over other languages, in most of the cases. On the other hand, the lingua franca for many Asian food places, is English, especially for product labeling. No one conclusion can be made about the relationship between the languages in Asian food places particularly in Lausanne because of the diversity in culture, influence, and international nature of the city.

Because there is little research on related topics already existing, further research can be and should be made in the future in light of these findings. It would be very interesting to see if Asian food popularity has an influence on the multilingualism displayed in those businesses. Asian food is very popular in Lausanne and in the world in general, so it would be fascinating to see if there is truly a connection there.

A question that could not be answered in the time-constraint and capacity of this research paper is that of purpose. Based on the languages displayed, it would be a compelling research assignment to figure out who exactly the Asian food places are attempting to target as customers and if they are succeeding in doing so. The answer to that research would greatly benefit businesses in the Asian food industry and manufacturers for Asian food products alike.

Conclusion

Asian food places in Lausanne are primarily top-down institutions, giving priority to the official language of French over minority languages and the lingua franca. Because the relationship between languages and Asian food places in Lausanne is so complex, further research could provide clarification and clear conclusions on the subject. This particular research paper was very limited in its scope and time constraint. Had this project been longer and less limited, there might be some substantial conclusions made regarding the complex relationship between languages and commercialization in the communities of Lausanne. In brief, there are many factors regarding communication and language hierarchy that have contributed and will continue to contribute to the growing Asian food industry in Lausanne.

References

Deferred compensation. (2017) Portrait statistique 2017. Retrieved May 29 from https://www.lausanne.ch/officiel/statistique/portrait-statistique.html

Garcia, Ofelia, and Ricardo Otheguy. “English across cultures, cultures across English.” A Reader in Cross-cultural Communication. Berlin, New York. Contributions to the Sociology of Language 53 (1989).

Le Ha, Phan. Teaching English as an international language: Identity, resistance and negotiation. Multilingual Matters, 2008.

Leeman, Jennifer, and Gabriella Modan. “Commodified language in Chinatown: A contextualized approach to linguistic landscape.” Journal of Sociolinguistics 13.3 (2009): 332-362.

Phillipson, Robert. “ELT: the native speaker’s burden?.” ELT journal 46.1 (1992): 12-18.

Sayer, Peter. “Using the linguistic landscape as a pedagogical resource.” ELT journal 64.2 (2009): 143-154.

Zukin, Sharon. 1998. Urban lifestyles: Diversity and standardization in spaces of consumption. Urban Studies 35: 825–839.

<There’s also a pdf version attached because the photos are not good here

Construction of Asian food industry – edited!>

Construction of Asian food industry in Lausanne

Joanie Leung & Sojin Kim

Abstract

Asian markets are spreading all around the world in recent years, and so as in Lausanne. This paper aims for an insight to Asian food industries by looking deeper into the linguistic landscape of Lausanne. Using the theoretical framework of top-down / bottom up approach and main and secondary language, we set a hypothesis on our own. We thought that French would be presented as the main language, while Asian languages would rather be absent. Data of Linguistic Landscape was taken by taking photos while walking through Lausanne-flon and analyzing reviews from Google maps and trip advisor. The research paper had found that the results did not correspond to the hypothesis. Asian languages were easily found in all the stores we investigated, and some of them were even presented as main language.

1. Introduction

This paper was written to find out how the Asian food industry is constructed linguistically in the city center of Lausanne, a francophone city in Switzerland. We’ve been in Lausanne for a few months and realized that food from our home country really takes big part of our lives. So we decided to walk through the streets to see Asian food industries’ language use. Our hypothesis was that there wouldn’t be a lot of Asian languages used, since we had barely seen Asian languages while in Lausanne. In the theoretical framework, we’ll focus on top

down/bottom up and main language and secondary language. In the contextualization, we’ll explain why we chose Switzerland, and especially Lausanne flon. Then we’ll talk about methodology, which accompanied taking pictures while on the street, and Trip Advisors and Google reviews for analyzing the distribution of the customers. We described each photo in the result part and made discussion based on that.

2. Theoretical framework

It is important to have multilingualism in a country, as it can foster cultural exchange between people and is the main element of cultural diversity. (Lo Bianco, 2010) In order to analyze how multilingualism is incorporated into the city or country, Linguistics Landscape is a tool to do so. Linguistics Landscape, by definition given by Landry and Bourhis (1997), means:

the language of public road signs, advertising billboards, street names, place names, commercial shop signs, and public signs on government buildings combines to form the linguistic landscape of a given territory, region, or urban agglomeration.

Landry and Bourhis have further simplified their meaning of Linguistics Landscape in 2002 to the use of language written in different medium that is shown in the public place. In this research paper, we chose commercial shop signs and advertising billboards as our targets.

The followings are the concepts that we have used in writing this research paper: top-down, bottom-up, main language and secondary language.

Top-down vs Bottom-up

Signs could be interpreted as top-down or bottom-up depending on the producer. In this research, we follow the definition given by Ben-Rafael et al, (2006). They mentioned that ‘top down’ items are ‘issued by national and public bureaucracies’, and ‘bottom up’ items as ‘issued by individual social actors’, and those social actors include shop owners and companies.

Main Language and Secondary Language

Jasone Cenoz et al said in 2006 that ‘the linguistic landscape reflects the relative power and status of the different languages in a specific sociolinguistic context’. This relative power can be shown how languages are displayed. We analyzed the dominant language by dividing. it into two types: main language and secondary language. Main languages are those written first, bigger, coloured or with a bold while secondary language serves as an additional role to this, with a less significance.

3. Contextualisation

There is no doubt that Switzerland is a very globalized and multilingual country. They have four official languages (French, German, Italian, Romansh), and 24.6% of the permanent population is foreigners. Lausanne, located in a francophone region, is the fourth biggest in city in this country, following Zurich, Geneva, and Basel.

The figures prove how globalized Lausanne is. The City Statistics Portraits made by DFI in 2017 tells that among its 135,629 inhabitants, 42.9% of the people are permanent foreign residence population, and permanent foreign residence population from Non-EU countries accounts for 15.4% of the whole population. This is a high proportion considering the fact that permanent foreign residence population takes up 24.6% and Non-EU permanent residence accounts for only 8.3% of the whole Switzerland population.

Although Asia is not significant in figures when it comes to permanent residence, it takes up huge part in tourism. According to Swiss tourism figure 2015, out of 19,576,295 of overnight stays made by foreigners, 4,741,090 of them were from Asia, which was biggest in numbers in continental analysis. China (Hongkong included) accounted for 1,519,100, 4th biggest number in country analysis.

There are some factors that made Lausanne multinational and multilingual region. First, it is geographically located near France and Italy, especially France just being one lake away. Secondly, Lausanne is the Olympic capital of the world. It has the International Olympic Committee, and that led a lot of other international sport federations to move its headquarters to Lausanne. It also has a lot of higher educational institutions, such as EPFL, UNIL, Lausanne Hotel School and IMD. Furthermore, it has also been a tourist city since 18th century, attracting tourists with its Alps that has been recently discovered back then. Lausanne was therefore able to join an enlarged economic area without being much industrial center back then. However, the influx of the immigrants, Italians in a large number, started to increase with the economic development of Lausanne in 19th century. Therefore, even the big river that goes across the town, the flon, was covered to support the economic development by providing even more space. Like this, geographical, sociopolitical, educational, touristic and economical reasons all drew many foreigners to Lausanne making it multilingual and multinational city.

In this globalized city of Lausanne, we particularly focused on the district of the flon. As we mentioned just before, it has been a center of economic development accompanied by migrant culture that started in 19th century. Even now, it is the must-stop place for foreigners since it is only 10 minutes away from the Gare, where most of the foreigners would start their journey in Lausanne and has population office for foreigners.

Just like flon could be the representation of foreign cultures in Lausanne, it is where Asian culture in Lausanne is most dominant, too. When we searched Asian Restaurants in a Google map in a city of Lausanne, we got a result like this:

<Picture 1> Asian restaurants near Lausanne Flon

<Picture 2> Asian restaurants in whole Lausanne

Clearly, Asian culture is most clustered around Lausanne flon. We had the similar results for Asian supermarkets as well. Therefore, we decided to go to flon in search of the  Asian food industry.

4. Methodology

On 19^th April, 2018, we searched some Asian restaurant and markets before leaving for flon by using Google maps and set pathway according to that. We walked and took photos of multilingual signs along that way. We took photos of other foreign restaurants as well because we thought it would be interesting to compare them with Asian stores. For analyzing three different usage of Chinese restaurants, we used Google and Trip Advisor review as well.

Before we went on to data collection, we expected French would be dominant language even in an Asian food store because of these reasons. First, it is natural to have French in a French speaking region, and Asian markets are no exception. Also, we thought stores cannot survive if they only appeal to Asian customers since Asian is minority in numbers in Lausanne. They have to localize their service first to appeal to the residents here or add English as well to embrace the tourists as well. Finally, we thought that store owners would expect that Asians inhabiting in Lausanne would already know French. Therefore, we set a hypothesis that the Asian language wouldn’t be easily found.

However, this method had some drawbacks. This method was done in a superficial way, as it didn’t include real conversation with the people. Moreover, as there aren’t any official reviews or statistics of the restaurants, hence our analysis based on the reviews in google map on the restaurant may not be accurate. Furthermore, the lack of data could mean the comprehensiveness of the paper might not be enough.

5.Results

<Picture 3 Collective Google map> The yellow dots are data we used.

So, here’s the photo and explanations of the places we selected. We have six  restaurants, and two shops. We have three Chinese restaurants, all differing how they used their language, a Korean restaurant, Italian and Egyptian Restaurant. We have photos of two Asian market, Chinese and Japanese respectively. These stores were produced in a bottom-up way by the store or building owner and all had signs for commercial use. However, they all had communicative usage as well since they were used to give information about the store themselves and products they have. The detailed description of each places will follow with the pictures below

<Picture 4: Ningbo>

This is a picture of a Chinese restaurant named ‘Ningbo’, which uses Chinese as a main language. It is written bigger with a red color to emphasize it in the menu and the banner. French can be also found below the Chinese character of the menu, but just for explaining the menu.

<Picture 5: Restaurant Orchidée>

This is a Chinese restaurant called ‘Restaurant Orchidée’. The main language is French, and the secondary language is Chinese. This is because the name of the restaurant and the menu are mainly in French, with some Chinese as an explanation.

<Picture 6,7: Chinatown>

The two pictures above are from Chinese restaurant called ‘Chinatown’. Out of menu  written in French, Chinese, and English, French is main language since it is bolded and emphasized. Also, the opening hours are only written in French.

<Picture 8: Restaurant Coreen>

This is a flyer of the Korean barbecue restaurant in flon. They used different kinds of language, including Korean, Chinese, and French. However, the interesting thing is that even though it’s a Korean restaurant, they are not using Korean properly. It says it’s ‘한국어 바베큐’, which means ‘Korean language barbecue’, a complete nonsense. You can get this translation when you type in ‘Korean Barbecue’ in the google translator. Therefore, we can infer that this store owner was trying to gain authenticity by using Korean, but that attempt didn’t work out well because of the lack of proper translation.

<Picture 9: Prince d’Egypt>

This is an Egyptian restaurant called ‘Prince d’Egypte’. The main language used is French, since the menu and the name of the restaurant is illustrated mostly in French. The only word that is in other language other than French is ‘since’. We were surprised that they didn’t have any Arabic in it, neither in the menu nor the sign of the restaurant, even though it’s an Egyptian restaurant.

<Picture 10: Le Theatre Restaurant>

This restaurant doesn’t have a lot of explanations in foreign language other then Frehch. The main language here is French and English plays a secondary role explaining the menus. This restaurant had all the other signs only in English.

<Picture 11: Uchitomi>

In ‘Uchitomi’, a Japanese market, Japanese and French are used as a main language. The store banner, price tag and the leaflet are written in Japanese with a French translation below everywhere. The shopkeeper spoke French to non Japanese, and Japanese to Japanese.

<Picture 12: Mika>

This is an Asian supermarket named ‘Mika Alimentation Asiatique’, the main language is French, as all the price tag are only written in French. Chinese was seen as a secondary language in the banner of the store and decorations. The shopkeeper spoke French to non-Chinese and spoke Chinese to Chinese.

6. Discussion

All of the stores that we analyzed produced signs in a bottom up way. This could be why all of the stores had Asian languages in the store. Since they don’t have to be tied with national ideologies, they can use the language they want to because there were no official languages designated for their use. So, they were accompanying Asian languages because they thought it’s their best strategy.

However, as it can be shown from the three Chinese restaurants above, how they used the language differed from the store to store. First, ‘Ningbo’ was using Chinese as a main language. Second, Restaurant Orchidee was using French as a main language, and Chinese as a second. Third restaurant, Chinatown was using French as a main language accompanied by English and Chinese below.

We thought that this difference in language use would bring difference in customers, too. We analyzed people who left google reviews to these restaurants.

<Table 1: Analysis of Google reviews>

Even though this google review can’t be full representation of the customer distribution, it showed that how you use your language affects the store’s customer diversity, and probably the owner of the store knew this as well, too. So we thought that this arrangement of languages had relationship with the store’s owner’s intention as well. If he wanted to appeal to the Chinese people living or travelling in Lausanne, he would make Chinese more dominant. These Chinese centered signs would make them feel friendly and give them a signal that the personnel in the store would be Chinese or fluent in Chinese. Therefore, you can get more Chinese customers. However, if the store owner plans to appeal to the locals here, you should have French as a main language since it is a francophone region. That was the case with Restaurant Orchidee, and the percentage of the Asian shows that it is more localized restaurant compared to Ningbo.

However, if the store owner wants to have tourists as the main customer, it is best if he has English menu as well to appeal more to the foreigners, since English acts as a lingua franca in this region. This was also proved by Trip Advisor review, too. Trip Advisor, a website that is usually used by tourists as the name says, is a site which has restaurant reviews for and by the tourists. While Ningbo had only 51 one reviews, Restaurant Orchidee had 75, and Chinatown had 85. It shows that this restaurant, with English menu, attracted most tourists.

<Table 2: Number of Trip Advisor Review>

We expected that the main language used would be French, while English would be used as a secondary language to aid the non-french speakers. However, unlike our expectation, we found that this is not the case with Asian food industries. Asian languages were, even though some differed in extent, spotted in all the Asian food industries, in the menu, price tag and name banner etc. In some cases like the Chinese restaurant ‘Ningbo’ and the Japanese supermarket ‘Uchitomi’, Asian language are even used as the main language, having more importance than French. Role of French was marginalized to supporting or practical purpose, to indicate location of the restaurant for instance.

Surprised with this result, we came up with a few reasons to explain frequent presence of Asian language in this francophone region.

First reason was for marketing. Presenting the home language of the shop can make the shop become more unique and appealing, thus arousing attention of the visitors and broaden the variety of the customers. Furthermore, it can clearly show which country has the shop originated from, and hence prove the authenticity of it. You may doubt its authenticity of an Asian shop that only uses French. However, when you see the shop using its assumed own Asian language, the authenticity of the shop will be stronger. Hence, the attractiveness to the customers will greatly elevate.

Also, it lowers the language barrier of Asians. In Asian countries such as China, Korea, and Japan, it’s not common to encounter French in every day lives. So, they need their own language to help them understand what it is. Also, it’s not easy for them to just guess what the language just by looking at it since they are not linguistically similar. If you see the chart about linguistic distance below, Korean and Japanese has the furthest distance with French. So it is very likely that people from Asia would face difficulty in Lausanne, and therefore the translation in their own language is provided by the store owners who wants them as a customer.

<Table 3:  Closest and Furthest Languages>

Furthermore, they could be using their own language to preserve their own identity. By using their own language in a foreign context, they might be trying to remind themselves and show who they are.

However, we were surprised to find out that not all foreign restaurants were accompanying their home language just as the Asian restaurants did. For instance, in the Egyptian restaurant and the Italian restaurant above, there were no sign of Arabic or Italian. We thought that they had different reasons for that. First of all, we thought that Arabic language wouldn’t have much marketing power in Lausanne since not a lot of people from Arabic speaking country live in Lausanne or Switzerland. The report from Federal Statistical Office says that the Iraq has a largest number of the people from Arabic speaking nation in Switzerland, with the number of 8598. Since only the countries with considerable amount of people were mentioned specifically, we could infer that people from Egypt, or other Arabic speaking nations would have much more smaller population than this. This is comparatively small number compared to Asians, which is 154,023.

Also, in the Italian restaurant, they wouldn’t need Italian because of their cultural similarities with Switzerland. Italian is the second closest language to French, and the article from Italian Insider written by Corrison H. in 2016 says that typically learn French as their second foreign language, so it is easier for Italians to understand French without the aid. For some menus like Risotto, they are even spelt same in Italian. Rather, the menu was translated in English, aiming for the travelers. Even though there were no Italians, English could act as a lingua franca and make Italian people understand it. Therefore, there’s no practical reason to put Italian in the Italian restaurant.

7. Conclusion

In this research paper, we looked into the construction of Asian food industry in Lausanne.  It was found that Asian food industries usually accompany Asian languages, whether it is main or secondary language. The reasons could be attributed to the way it was produced (bottom up), marketing strategy such as gaining authenticity or lowering the language barrier, and presentation of identity.

Though, there were several limitations in this research as well. It might be a being superficial and inaccurate. The study might be difficult to be generalized to whole flon area since there were only 8 stores analyzed. Though, all in all, it is interesting to find out that how Asian food industries were constructed and find out the reasons for that.

References

Lo Bianco, J. (2010). The importance of language policies and multilingualism for cultural diversity. International Social Science Journal, 61(199), 37-67. doi

Ben-Rafael, E., Shohamy, E., Hasan Amara, M., & 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.

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By Tiago Nunes Ribeiro & Valentin Richoz

Abstract

In the following, we will focus on three ethnic shops in Lausanne, a very multicultural city. All the three shops use the migrants’ language (in our selection of shops: Russian, Spanish and Portuguese), as well as French and English. We will try to determine the reasons of the use of two or three languages. Some owners use language to reach a specific, migrant clientele and then propose foreign products to respond to its needs. Foreign languages on signs flag authenticity for migrants but also for locals or members of other communities. The staff is itself bilingual. They can then respond to the migrant clientele’s needs but also to those of the local clientele. Indeed, those shops also propose usual products, not necessarily culturally marked, to respond to the basics needs of the district on which the shops are inserted inhabitants who comes from many different countries. Furthermore, the authenticity of ethnicity conducted by language on signs can attract both migrant and native customers attracted by the foreign. We also noticed a particular use of French and English as linguas francas on regulatory signs. Finally, if it is recognised that the owners use their first language or mother tongue for advertising purposes, oriented both towards migrant and native customers, some admit that “it works that way”, it was not their purpose when putting the signs.

Introduction

Many migrants open shops in their host country, proposing products linked to their cultures and imported from their countries of origin. Our main research question in this project regards the use of migrant languages on those shops’ signs, especially in three ethnic shops located in the centre of Lausanne: Doushka, a Russian shop in Maupas Street, La Tienda de la Esquina, a Latino and Casa Graça, a Portuguese shop, both in the Riponne/Tunnel district. Lausanne is indeed a very multicultural city, where about 43% of the population do not have the Swiss nationality, according to the Contrôle des habitants[1]. We suggest that some owners use language to reach a specific, migrant clientele and then propose foreign products to respond to its needs. According to our questioning of the staff, they seem to be bilingual (in French and their mother tongue) in all the participating establishments, thus being able to better respond not only to the migrant clientele’s needs but also, to those of the local clients. Yet, foreign languages on the signs are used for commercial purposes. They flag authenticity for both migrant and native customers, thus attracting them both.

Our research follows the research that Maria Sabaté i Dalmau did on locutorios in Catalonia, Bernardino Tavares did on Cape Verdean shops and restaurants in Luxembourg, and Michael Parzer, Franz Astleithner, and Irene Rieder did on native Austrians’ use of immigrants’ groceries.

We first took pictures of the multilingual signs on the exterior of the shops and then interviewed the owners or some staff members about their use of multilingual signs. In the paper, we will present and discuss both the pictures and the interviews, after having introduced more precisely the three studies presented above and some linguistic concepts used, as given some contextual and methodological information.

Theoretical Framework

In her article Maria Sabaté i Dalmau suggests that, in the domain of mobile phones in Spain, ethnic mobile operators and multinationals that can propose formulas that specifically aim at a migrant clientele only use their languages as a marketing tool. Migrants’ languages are used in advertisements, but the workers do not necessarily speak the language of the migrants at whom they aim through the advertisements. Those ones are sometimes translated via generic automatic translations, usually providing an incorrect translation. Only locutorios (call-shops) provide a satisfying response to migrants’ needs, by proposing services in the migrants’ languages. They are “ethnic businesses run by and for migrants in urban localities”. Their huge success can be explained by the social infrastructure they provide, that usually goes beyond the only needs for accessing technology. Thus, they can overcome and subvert the linguistic and legal regimes imposed by the state to observe and restrict immigration. That subversive dimension should be less observed in the Swiss context because no law forbids the use of non-Swiss languages in advertisements. Thus, we may expect that Lausanne’s ethnic shops are not only used by migrants but also by natives.

In “The point of arrival: Cape Verdean spaces in Luxembourg”, Bernardino Tavares also remarked that migrant shops and restaurants are not only a way to earn money. The migrants’ enterprises he studied are also a way to maintain transnational ties. In Luxembourg, the Épicerie Créole, a Cape Verdean shop, even gained the status of an informal embassy because they propose different services such as promoting cultural events, engaging in some solidarity campaigns, or advertising some jobs. For many Cape Verdeans, the shop is closer than the official embassy and the relationship with the staff is less formal than with the embassy’s workers. Obviously, the shop’s staff is trilingual. Creole and Portuguese are spoken in Cape Verde and are then the migrants’ languages. French is finally used as a lingua franca with other customers. In theory, the Luxembourgish context is closer to the Swiss one, even if we would not dare to call Lausanne’s shops “informal embassies”, though the idea to maintain transnational ties is still very present as our research may show.

Finally, Michael Parzer, Franz Astleithner, and Irene Rieder brought another interesting perspective in “Deliciously Exotic? Immigrant Grocery Shops and Their Non-Migrant Clientele”. They studied the native Austrians’ use of immigrant groceries. They propose two different modes of shopping, usually represented by two types of customers. The “consuming for convenience” mode is often motivated by reasons of practicability (e.g. closeness) and linked with the “Nevertheless-consumer”. They use migrants’ shops routinely, “in spite of the migrant background”, what risks to lead to xenophobia, at least according to the authors and their observations. We find their position too radical on that point. The “Nevertheless-consumer” could be totally delighted by an immigrant grocery, even if its frequentation is mainly motivated by reasons of practicability. The second mode is “consuming for exceptionality” and is linked to the “Because-consumers”. These ones are attracted by the “foreign”, and thus choose ethnic shops because of ethnicity. In contrast, they risk engaging and reproducing ethnic stereotypes. The authors also argue that their findings challenge some previously believed statements where arguments pointed towards natives shopping routines in immigrant stores become increasingly ordinary.

There are still some important notions that will occur in our own body of work that have to be defined previously. The difference between monologic (monolingual regimes) and dialogic regimes (multiple regimes in one place) regarding space (Blommaert, Collins and Slembrouck, 2005). Also, the deictic nature of the signs, explaining how they take a major part of their meaning from how and where they are placed is considered within this theme. The production of signs is analysed through the notions of top-down and bottom-up: the first one is produced by the government, local councils or the owner of a site, thus mainly displayed in official languages, and the latter is produced by individuals or small groups, consequently in non-official language. Furthermore, different types of signs will be discussed and these are divided into four types: regulatory discourses (traffic signs or other signs indicating official/legal prohibitions), infrastructural discourses (directed to those who maintain the infrastructure or to label things for the public), commercial discourses (advertising and related signage) and transgressive discourses (a sign that intentionally or accidentally violates the conventional semiotics at that place such as the discarded snack food wrapper or graffiti, any sign in the “wrong place” (Mooney and Evans, 2015: 92).

Contextualisation

We focus on three ethnic businesses, but there are many more in Lausanne. Indeed, that city, which is the fourth biggest of the country, is a very multicultural city. For an increase of less than 20 thousand people residing in Lausanne since 1981, the foreign population has almost doubled, reaching 42.98% in 2017, according to the Contrôle des habitants. Such a proportion of foreigners logically encourages the opening of ethnic businesses. In Lausanne, 15.52% of the foreigners are Portuguese (6.67% of Lausanne’s population), 8.16% are Spanish (3.51% of Lausanne’s population), and finally 0.93% are Russian (0.40% of Lausanne’s population). Portuguese and Spanish people are respectively the second and third foreign population, after French. Furthermore, there is no ghetto, Chinatown, or similar type of districts that would enclose reunite foreigners only in some areas. Every district is multicultural, though the repartition of Swiss and foreign people is not totally uniform, as the following map shows.

The three shops we analyse dwell in Maupas Street (Dousika), at the Tunnel place (La Tienda de la Esquina) and close to the Riponne place (Casa Graça). There are 45.35% of foreigners in Maupas District, including 1.16% who come from Eastern Europe (0.53% of Maupas’ population). In the Tunnel/Riponne District, there are 60.66 %? of foreigners, including 47.50% of people coming from South Europe and 11.08% from Central or South America. It is the second district in terms of proportion of people coming from those regions. Unfortunately, the Contrôle des habitants does not divide in countries, but in regions. It is hard to know the proportion of Portuguese among people coming from South Europe, for example. Those numbers are then difficult to use but give an idea of the proportions.

Methodology

We first looked for shops using multilingual signs on their shop windows and took some pictures of them. Then, we analysed the way they use the different languages. For some only the name is in the migrant’s language, while others use French or English as lingua franca. Finally, we interviewed the owners or some employees to get some information about the reason of using different languages and about the kind of clientele they have.

What we learnt thanks to these interviews is that some owners chose to use their mother tongue as a cultural distinction, but without any real commercial purpose. It is once the shop opened, that language works as advertisement, though involuntarily.

Results

To discuss our findings, we firstly looked at our pictures and described them from a linguistic point of view. Firstly, the majority of the signs placed are top down; within this category we find signs giving the name of the place as well as their slogan or other precisions such as the kind of service provided. Bottom-up signs are visible in the Latino and Portuguese shops as a manner to provide punctual information (such as a concert) or some legal information, as it can be seen in the Portuguese’s shop window.

Regarding the type of presented signs, they are mainly of the commercial discourse type, although in the Portuguese shop vitrine, we can find regulatory signs addressing purchase and consumption of alcoholic beverages. To address language itself, we have separated the different occurrences of each language to provide a more visual aspect to the numbers, or in other words, a quantitative analysis, so we can get an idea of what language(s) rule(s) the other(s):

Language                                No of occurrences                             %

English                                               3                                             12.5

French                                                11                                           45.8

German                                              1                                             4.16

Portuguese                                         1                                             4.16

Russian                                               1                                             4.16

Spanish                                               7                                             29.1

A qualitative analysis seems to establish a certain hierarchy of the different languages in contact where French seems to be on top. This is due to address not only a native audience, but also people of a foreign heritage that may not master the language and is mostly present on Doushka’s window. In La tienda’s case, only the welcome sign is in French (along with events posters), which reinforces our idea that it serves as a way to tie a bond with native customers.

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Also, English appears on 12.5% of the signs but mainly as a language of trade and a certain prestige as it can be seen in the shop window of the Portuguese shop, where the language informs people that the business is protected by a security company but is meaningless in a business point of view as it is not directed to customers.

Discussion

We can say that we have found what we expected, even though the articles we read to prepare this work not always pointed towards this direction. We initially thought that these commercial places were not only targeting an immigrant community but also the native community because they provide services found in any other kiosk or commercial surface in addition to the foreign products, thus all people around these places would turn to them in case of need. The fact that these places are situated on places that, according to official statistics, have a high foreign community also contributed to our opinion that these places are frequented by people of all national backgrounds. According to the interviews we made, this is the case: although a majority of clients share, as to be expected, the same national background and represent a majority of all three shops visitors, owners witness the surfacing of a minority constituted of native customers and from various other ethnic backgrounds. That is suggested in Parzer, Astleithner, and Rieder’s article and confirmed by the presence of certain clients on the store at the time of the interviews.

As expected, French takes a major place in the disposition of the different signs as we are in an area where it is its main/official language, so, in order to attract such clients, business owners must also address them, and this is common to all of the three shops. The business less in contact with its roots is Doushka as its native language, Russian, only appears once in the bottom of their vitrine. This is, once again, to show how much importance they give to the natives but also, partly because the Russian population in Lausanne is rather limited as shown with the Ville de Lausanne’s statistics. In comparison, Casa Graça and Tienda de la Esquina face a larger immigrant audience (Portuguese and Spanish-speaking) and as such, the presence of foreign languages with business purposes are far more popular with French being, once again, a means of appealing to native clients. Additionally, in both cases, publicity to events appealing to all communities appear (such as a circus, some concerts) thus showing a will of integration in the local culture. Events proper to their communities also appear, thus joining the point made by Tavares’ research where these places are a place of gathering for people of the same ethnic and/or linguistic background.

Lastly, the use of French as a lingua franca (as suggested by the proportion of French in the shop’s windows) is noted. By using this language, the window becomes appealing and understandable to all in the surroundings, thus making these businesses truly remarkable by the variety of the clientele. To be noted, is the word Epicerie, in French although the rest of La tienda’s vitrine is in Spanish once again highlighting the importance of the “Nevertheless-consumer”.

As previously stated, English is seen in one instance, as a publicity to a security company. Although it could be interesting to add English to this already big bouquet of languages, in this particular case, it is irrelevant to our research. Indeed, the security company uses it as a lingua franca but it is required to visibly mark their intervention zones. The sign is in no way directed towards the clientele (or at least the honest one); the presence of this sticker has a dissuasive role on potential robbers.

There is a last important element for our research which was revealed thanks to the interviews. The shop tenants are unable to explain their choice regarding what is displayed in the windows, and more specifically, the languages (except, in our case, to the Russian business which specifically wanted a simple vitrine that reflected their affiliation). Although they willingly make publicity to some events in the nearby area. It comes across as accepting to be a kind of relay for these kind of events, thus highlighting and affirming the business’ culture and specificity. The commercial character of the multilingualism found in these businesses would be, then, unintentional. The tenants do not make a clear effort to maintain transnational ties beyond the strict foreign products they sell in their shops.

Conclusion

We finally discovered that shop owners do not necessarily mean to use migrant languages, namely Spanish, Russian and Portuguese, for commercial purposes, though it involuntarily and indubitably gains a commercial issue, as advertisement. The owners propose both cultural products and generic products to attract any close inhabitant. Thus, French is used as a lingua franca not only by the staff who needs to answer in both languages (French and their mother tongue), but also on the signs to attract and prove to natives or migrants from other places that the shop is also designed to respond to their needs. If owners want to propose to the migrants some products that will help them to keep a transnational tie with their origins, their purpose seems to be mainly motivated by the only wish to open a shop, and the association to their origins seems to occur very naturally.

Finally, such a research must be more exhaustive by enlarging its panel of shops analysed. Not only improvement in number can be done, but also some gatherings in districts or regarding the origins of the owners and staffs. Indeed, we could make comparisons between the way Spanish, Portuguese, and other migrants use languages. Maybe the tendencies change according to the origins or to the place where the shops are located.

References

Blommaert, Jan & Collins, James & Slembrouck, Stef. (2005). Spaces of Multilingualism. Language & Communication. 25. 197-216.

Mooney, A., & Evans, B. (2015). Language, society and power. New York: Routledge.

Parzer, Michael, Astleithner, Franz, and Rieder Irene (2016). Deliciously Exotic? Immigrant Grocery Shops and Their Non-Migrant Clientele. International Review of Social Research, 6(1). 26-34.

Sabaté i Dalmau, Maria (2013). Fighting Exclusion from the Margins: Locutorios as Sites of Social Agency and Resistance for Migrants. In A. Duchêne, M. G. Moyer, C. Roberts.  (Eds.), Language, Migration and Inequality: A Critical Sociolinguistic Perspective on Institutions and Work. Multilingual Matters. 248-271.

Tavares, Bernardino (2018). Cape Verdean migration trajectories into Luxembourg: A multisited sociolinguistic investigation.Unpublished PhD thesis: Université de Luxembourg

Appendix

[1] https://www.lausanne.ch/officiel/statistique/quartiers/cartes-thematiques.html, last consulted on 03.07.2018

An insight into the relationship between language and religion in Lausanne  Shaina Gormley and Jade Symons

Abstract

This analysis seeks to understand the connection between language and religion in Lausanne, Switzerland. The research focuses on images of signs advertising various religious centres and religious activities in the city of Lausanne. These images reveal the importance of language used in religious centres and its impact on the surrounding community. In order to find the religious centres, the researchers used a map of Lausanne and personal experience (walking past a religious centre daily or attending a religious centre). A diversity of religions are represented in this project in order to understand the diversity of languages used in religious centres. The researchers seek to answer “to what extent are the religious centres of Lausanne, Switzerland accommodating to speakers of non-national languages?”

1. Introduction

Religion is inherently a diverse element of society with its plethora of different faiths and practices. However, religious practices within a culturally diverse country that has four national languages, makes it an ever more complex topic. This research aims at gaining a deeper knowledge of the relationship between language and religion in the city of Lausanne, Vaud. The overarching question we endeavour to reveal is to what extent are the religious centres of Lausanne accommodating to speakers of non-national languages? This is a niche area of interest and therefore the religious centre of Lausanne in relation to language has not been studied before. However, a wider look at this relationship within Switzerland has been analysed by some authors before such as a 1993 publication by the Swiss Federal Office of Statistics (Bureau fédéral de statistique, 1993). However, to respond to this question, our study analyses five religious spaces of Lausanne we selected looking at a map of Lausanne. We decided to pick a variety of different spaces that were located within the township of Lausanne. This paper will proceed first discussing the theoretical framework where we use the work of Blommaert and Marly and Mooney and Evans to define and conceptualise our study. Then a brief insight into the contextual background of the religious centres and religion within Lausanne. Further, this paper discusses the methodological approach for addressing this question, followed by final findings and a discussion of the results.

2. Theoretical framework

According to Blommaert and Maly, linguistic landscaping refers to research documenting the visible signs of language in an urban setting. For example, billboards, road signs, restaurant signs, advertisements, etc., are all signs in a public space that demonstrate the language(s) used in an area. A public space in an urban setting is a place that is open to the public and part of a city. For our purposes, the public space is a religious centre and the urban setting is Lausanne, Vaud Switzerland. In addition, the city of Lausanne is defined by the city limits one would see on a map of the area. All religious centres included in this project included addresses that are within the city of Lausanne.

A religious centre is defined as a place where religious ceremonies, worship, and prayer services take place. However, religion does not need to be the primary activity at this place. For example, a community centre that also hosts religious events would be considered a religious centre for our purposes. In addition, the kind of signs discussed throughout this blog are difficult to define. Some signs resemble a commercial sign (advertisements), but do not fully adhere to what one might expect from a commercial sign. The signs throughout this project are found on or near religious centres which are informative to the public, not to designed to sell a product. Therefore, the signs will be referred to as commercial or left undefined due to the unique nature of the project.

Mooney and Evans define top-down signs as those produced by an official group, usually in an official language (2013). For example, signs created by the government or owners of a building or other sites are considered top-down. However bottom-up signs are produced on a local level by individuals or unofficial groups and often in languages other than the official language. An example of this would be a handwritten sign on an apartment door that says “Do Not Disturb.” This project will utilise both terms in order to accurately describe the origins of the signs. In addition, the type of sign reveals much to the reader. A bottom-up sign may be written in a creole language or language that is spoken by immigrants in the area. Although the sign is not written in an official language, the bottom-up sign may reveal the preferred language of the community, or show a minority language.

In Kouega and Emaleu’s research on church services in Anglophone Cameroon, specific terms such as “religious material” (hymns, catechism, and portions of scripture) are defined in order to analyse aspects of the church service or Catholic mass (2013). An analysis of the role of language throughout a religious service in Lausanne would be interesting in further research. However, for the purposes of this project, only signs outside of the religious centre will be used.

The following link provides an interactive map of the Lausannois religious centres in our study. It includes photographs and descriptions relevant to our research question.

https://uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/325db83ef3d9ecf13912240224dd6bfb/multilingualism-in-religious-centres/index.html

3. Contextualisation

Our area of research is perhaps a little more unconventional than some of the other studies within our class. Collectively, we decided rather than researching the linguistic landscape and multilingual nature of one particular neighbourhood of Lausanne, that we would study the religious centres of the area and research into what they reveal about Lausanne and multilingualism. This was a simple choice as religion is a point of interest in both of our lives however, perhaps a more relevant motivation was that as exchange students, studying religious centres would lead to a deeper insight into the cultures, the communities, buildings and a better overall understanding of our host city. There is a plethora of other religious centres that would be relevant to this study however, we have limited our analysis of these spaces down to five. We selected these particular religious centres as they stem from a variety of different religions, denominations and languages within the city of Lausanne.

Therefore, the religious centres that we decided to analyse as part of our study are:

•         Saint Gerasim Orthodox Church, Avenue de Florimont 2, Lausanne
•         Synagogue of Lausanne, Avenue de Georgette 3, Lausanne
•         Scottish Kirks Church (Church of Scotland), Avenue de Rumine 26, Lausanne
•         Notre Dame Cathedral, Rue de Valentin 3, Lausanne
•         Paroisse Saint-Jean, Chemin des Mouettes 4, Lausanne

Notre Dame Cathedral offers services in mainly French yet have Italian and Portuguese also. It is the most visited place of worship for the 11 000 practicing Catholics of Lausanne (Eglise Catholique dans le canton de Vaud, 2018). The second Christian centre, the Scottish Kirk’s Church, was established in 1876 in the area and has a very international community. The most recent census recorded 23 nationalities within their community (Scots Kirk Lausanne, 2018). Their services are exclusively in English. Furthermore, the Synagogue of Lausanne is a relatively recent addition to the religious landscape of Lausanne; being established in 1909. It has an extensive list of services and events for the Jewish community such as a restaurant, Kosher shop, educational facilities in addition to housing the Jewish Young Centre of Lausanne. The main languages used in the synagogue are Hebrew and French. What’s more, the main language used at the Paroisse Saint-Jean is French and Saint Gerasim Orthodox Church services in Greek. The Church of Saint-Jean’s parish was founded in 1915 and took inspiration from the Romanesque style of architecture.

4. Methodology

Before collecting data we looked at a digital map of Lausanne, highlighting religious centres. We noted religious centres we saw in daily life, centres we have attended, and centres we were not aware of before finding them on a map. The search on the map revealed no shortage of religious centres in the city. We narrowed the choices by aiming to represent the diversity of religious centres as well as possible. In the end, the images chosen represent four different types of Christian churches and one Jewish synagogue. We chose signs that clearly represented the type of religious centre. It was important for us to find signs that were advertised not only for the general public, but in places where a current member of that religious centre would go to find information. A sign created solely for the public may only be in French primary official language of Lausanne), while a sign designed for members of the religious centre would likely be in the main language of communication in that religious centre.

It was surprising to find religious centres that represent such diverse languages and traditions. Protestantism and Catholicism are the most well-represented religions in Switzerland. However, it was surprising to see how easy it was to access these types of churches in languages other than French. We expected many Catholic churches in particular to be in French, with perhaps one English church. However, it was easy to find English church services of all denominations. In addition, it was surprising to find the Greek Orthodox Church with information almost entirely in Greek. We would not have been surprised to find church services in English or Spanish due to the more global nature of the languages, but Greek was surprising. In addition, it was interesting that we were unable to find religious centres in German or Swiss German. This indicates, perhaps, that religious centres in Lausanne represent religions on an international scale more thoroughly than Switzerland itself. In Lausanne preserving one’s culture and language are visible through religious centres and community.

5. Results

The trends and major findings, both quantitative and qualitative, will be assessed in this section of the paper. This includes an analysis of the taxonomy regarding the signs and elements of the languages used in the religious centres such as the hierarchical relationship between the languages, the role of English in the signs (if any), the relationship of a specific language to the content of the signs and finally, an analysis of the conditions of production, if applicable. Further, this section contains results that are general to the study.

Quantitative Analysis

The table below discusses the proportion of signs that use the different languages. Note: The percentages do not equal 100% as some signs use more than one language.

Taxonomy of Messages

Many of the signs of this research did not categorise well into the types of signs that we have studied (regulatory, infrastructural, commercial and transgressive). The Scots Kirk’s signs can be considered as infrastructural as it indicates what the building is however, the other religious spaces are difficult to categorise. Other considerations might reveal that they can be considered commercial as they are selling or advertising a service however, this is also not a clear-cut way to define religious signs of Lausanne.

Qualitative Analysis

Saint Gerasim Orthodox Church

Conditions of production under certain linguistic policies and norms.

• In this instance we can see that linguistic norms are being followed; that Greek is expected to be used because the church follows Orthodox practices.
• This signage can be considered top-down.

Synagogue of Lausanne

Hierarchical Relationship between languages in Contact 

• Here we can see that French is used on the upper tier of the building which is a physical representation of the relationship between the two. However, French is also used to explain a memorial stone (top-image image). French is used as a functional language and represented more than Hebrew.

Conditions of Production under certain linguistic policies and linguistic norms

• Linguistic policies are followed as this sign is a top-down produced sign by officials however it follows linguistic norms as the presence of Hebrew shows.

Scottish Kirks Church

Hierarchical Relationship between languages in Contact

• English is the central language used, with a small use of French to describe that the space is an “Eglise Ecossaise”.

The role of English in Signs

• English is used to inform, signpost and describe in this sign however, the it is expected that English is the main language as the language of the denomination is English.

Conditions of Production under certain linguistic policies and linguistic norms

• This signage is both top-down and bottom-up. The left-hand image shows classified ads and information regarding the church which has been produced on a more micro level. It is in English which is the preferred language of the community.

Paroisse Saint-Jean

Role of English

• As it evident, English has no place in this sign. It shows that the language does is not relied on, nor a tongue used by the local community of the church.

Conditions of Production under certain linguistic policies and linguistic norms

• This is sign is Vaudois produced, as indicated in the top left-hand corner. Therefore we can categorise this sign as top-down and see that it falls within linguistic policies through the use of an official language (French) of the canton.

Basilique Notre Dame

Hierarchical Relationship between languages in Contact

• Here we can see that French is used for both the place name, historical information and for a functional means; the timetable is in French. It is the primary language on the sign.s

The role of English in Signs

• English plays a very small role and is only represented to describe what type of religious space this is. It has no larger role than any other language in the space.

General Findings

The most apparent finding from the analysis of these religious signs is that English does not play such a central role as it does in an educational or professional sense in Switzerland (Ludi, 2013). The globalisation of English and its subsequent permeation is not clear from this analysis. A smaller percentage of the religious centres have English on their signs and often used in a purely functional manner. From this, one can suggest that English is not a homogeneous language of the religious landscape of Lausanne.

6. Discussion

In light of the research presented above, it is clear that religious centres in Lausanne are accommodating to speakers of non-national languages. The signs outside religious centres indicate that a variety of languages and religions are represented in the city of Lausanne. The majority of the signs utilized French in some way. For example, the Jewish Synagogue included text memorialising the Holocaust in French primarily, with some Hebrew at the top of the sign. While others used French only to perhaps inform the French speakers of the area what type of religious centre it is (Eglise Ecosaisse-Scots Kirk Church), while primarily using English to display information.

It is clear that speakers of many languages and religions can attend the type of religious centre they prefer in Lausanne. While this project only includes a sample of the religious centres in the city, many others are available for speakers of non-national languages. In particular, a speaker of English will likely have little trouble finding a religious centre. About half the signs included English in some way. However, other languages such as Greek were also represented. While there is not research available on a similar linguistic landscaping project, Kouega and Emaleu’s research on church services in Anglophone Cameroon present an interesting comparison. The researchers found code-switching in informal parts of the church services (attendees talking with one another). It would be interesting to research if the signs outside the religious centres represent the languages spoken within. For example, does the Jewish Synagogue utilize Hebrew and French equally throughout a religious event? Or, are there other languages used as a lingua franca, such as English (common language between speakers who do not have the same mother tongue)? The linguistic landscape of religious centres in Lausanne provides an introduction into the multilingualism of the city. However, it is clear from this sample that religious centres do represent the diversity of Lausanne.

7. Conclusion

From this analysis of the religious spaces within Lausanne, it can be commented that they are highly accommodating to speakers of non-national languages. The key findings of this study show that the categories of signs are not well suited for defining religious signage within Lausanne. Secondly, French is the primary language used by a multitude of faiths for both practical and religious purposes. Further, as previously indicated, this study reveals how English is not as central to life in Switzerland as some scholars such as Ludi may suggest (Ludi, 2013). It was French that prevailed the most, for both practical needs and as part of the religious communications. Here, one can suggest that French is the central language and the other languages act on a more localised level. However, this study included seven different languages which is indicative of the multicultural and diversity present within Lausanne. This highlights that a clear social transformation has taken place in Lausanne. Currently, it is one of the most culturally diverse cities in Switzerland, with residents from over 160 different countries and more than 40% of the city’s population is made up of foreigners (Suisse Office federal de la statistiques, 2018). The modern day religious landscape of Lausanne reveals hundreds of religious spaces from a plethora of different faiths. From viewing the religious centres of Lausanne, the social development and increasing multilingual nature of the city can be seen. These changes can be linked to the growth in migration to the area and religious toleration and accommodation of the city of Lausanne.

The analysis of language carries inherent limitations unless you can understand all the languages within your study. This was a clear limitation of our study. Foremost, as Anglophones who have a working knowledge of French, our comprehension of most of these signs was limited or non-existent. This made it difficult to compare the languages used within one space and analyse their hierarchical relationship, the use of the languages (whether they were used for functional or other use), in addition to understanding the relationship between content and language. To combat this issue, we used Google Translate when the script was the same as the English script however, translating Greek and Hebrew were particularly trying. A second limitation that we faced in our research was the classifications of signs. These religious signs did not fall squarely into the categories; commercial, infrastructural, transgressive or regulatory and thus, this made it difficult to understand how the religious centres in focus fit into the existing linguistic landscape discourse.

If this study was to be conducted again, there are a few areas that could be reconsidered or expanded on. Lausanne is a very multicultural and religiously diverse city. Evidently, this study was only a microanalysis of the role of languages within religious spaces of Lausanne. In the future it would be interesting and beneficial to conduct a more macro approach, that analyses language and religion extensively within Lausanne. This would include a larger sample of both the spaces and draw from a wider pool of faiths. What’s more, this research project included religious spaces only within the city of Lausanne, which again has a limiting effect. If this study were to be conducted again, the greater Lausanne areas such as Ecublens, Morges and south to Vevey could be considered.

In summation, this study has revealed how the religious spaces of Lausanne are accommodating to speakers of non-national languages. Multilingualism and religious diversity are embedded in the culture of Lausanne city.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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