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Linguistic hybridity
(2022)
This volume deals with different linguistic phenomena representing grammaticalization and lexicalization processes and combines different approaches of contact linguistics and variational linguistics. It contains papers on clitic placement in Angolan Portuguese, on the use of subject pronouns in French, Brazilian Portuguese and Caribbean Spanish, on evidential marking in Paraguayan Spanish, on Paraguayan Guaraní, on evidentiality in different varieties of Spanish, on discourse markers in Latin America, on modal particles in Italian and their translation into German, on bilingual communities in Southern Brazil, on Spanish-German-Russian language contact and on Romance aspectual periphrases in contact with English progressives.
Especially for the last twenty years, the studies of Linguistic Landscapes (LLs) have been gaining the status as an autonomous linguistic discipline. The LL of a (mostly) geographically limited area – which consists of e.g. billboards, posters, shop signs, material for election campaigns, etc. – gives deep insights into the presence or absence of languages in that particular area. Thus, LL not only allows to conclude from the presence of a language to its dominance, but also from its absence to the oppression of minorities, above all in areas where minority languages should – demographically seen – be visible. The LLs of big cities are fruitful research areas due to the mass of linguistic data. The first part of this paper deals with the theoretical and practical research that has been conducted in LL studies so far. A summary of the theory, methodologies and different approaches is given. In the second part I apply the theoretical basis to my own case study. For this, the LLs of two shopping streets in different areas of Hong Kong were examined in 2010. It seems likely that the linguistic competence of English must be rather high in Hong Kong, due to the long-lasting influence of British culture and mentality and the official status of the language. The case study's results are based on empirical data showing the objectively visible presence of English in both examined areas, as well as on two surveys. Those were conducted both openly and anonymously. The surveys are a reinsurance measuring the level of linguistic competence of English in Hong Kong. That level was defined before by an analysis of the LL. Hence, this case study is a new approach to LL analysis which does not end with the description of its material composition (as have done most studies before), but which rather includes its creators by asking in what way people's actual linguistic competence is reflected in Hong Kong's LL.