Unstitching the Linguistic Cityscape of Tiaret Speech Community.

Abstract

The present study attempted to investigate the linguistic landscape of shop signs in Tiaret speech community; particularly it focused on analysing the linguistic cityscape scenario. Therefore, this study examined the nature, shop keepers‟ motives and readers‟ attitudes towards language varieties/ foreign language (s) used on shop signs. Thus, this study adopted a mixed-method approach that included qualitative and quantitative methods. Three data collection methods were used: the content analysis of 679 photographs of monolingual, bilingual and multilingual shop signs, a semi-guided interview with 27 shop keepers and 80 questionnaires administered to potential readers. The findings showed that the linguistic cityscape of Tiaret speech community is of monolingual nature. The results also indicated that the main motives for formulating shop signs were; „Presentation of self‟ and „Good reasons‟. Unsurprisingly, readers attitudes towards the linguistic codes used on shop signs were different since each one of them has his/ her views toward the display of codes on shop signs. However, their attractiveness to Modern Standard Arabic was strongly highlighted.