A Study Of Multilingual Landscape In Beijing Commercial Streets

Linguistic landscape(LL)is a heated field of linguistic research in recent years.The study of LL takes the language in the public space as the object of study,but the focus is not only the text content on the sign,but the social language reality reflected by the use of the sign language.With the attention of more and more scholars,LL research has achieved rich results,but domestic research on LL is still insufficient.With the development of globalization,multilingual landscape has become an important feature of cities,especially international metropolises.Under this background,this paper takes Wangfujing Commercial Street,Xidan commercial street and Sanlitun Taiguli commercial street as representatives,based on Ben Rafael’s structuration principles of LL,this paper attempts to explore how the LL in the public space of Beijing Commercial Street is constructed,what characteristics it has in terms of language selection,and what kind of official policies and planning it embodies.This paper also collects the data of LL in Times Square of New York through Google Street View,trying to analyze and explore the similarities and differences of the impact of globalization on Beijing Sanlitun Taiguli and New York Times Square.The results are as follows.1.Generally speaking,Chinese is the dominant language in the LL of Beijing Commercial Street.Chinese-English bilingual landscape is the mainstream and the multilingual phenomenon is not obvious,forming a pattern that Chinese takes precedence over English and English takes precedence over other foreign languages.Secondly,the main differences between official signs and private signs lie in the language types and dominant languages,and English is more advantageous in private signs;2.On the one hand,the official language policy reflects the will and power of the country,on the other hand,it also highlights the trend of globalization.Official signs strictly comply with the requirements of national policies and regulations.But a few private signs are not consistent with the official language policy driven by interests,reflecting the difference between the actual application of language and the official policy;3.The construction of multilingual landscape of Beijing Commercial Street is closely related to economic globalization,especially in private signs with a certain degree of freedom.Under the background of economic globalization,English has been widely used.Private signs display themselves through language selection and sign design to pursue maximum commercial value;4.Compared with the Times Square,the service function of the LL of Sanlitun Taiguli needs to be strengthened.At the same time,the LL of Times Square fully displays the principles of "presentation-of-self" and "good-reasons",which is more open,integrated and innovative.However,the similarities between them in the display of supra-national symbols brought about by globalization also show their high degree of internationalization.The COVID-19 that has swept the world has also brought about changes in the LL of both languages,which further illustrates the social attribute of LL.