LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPE: A CASE STUDY OF SHOP SIGNS IN PETTAH, SRI LANKA (original) (raw)

Introduction: Sign and Script in South Asia

Signs and Society, 2020

This essay introduces a collection of six articles that analyze the political economy of language and script in relation to the emergence and contestation of identities and publics in contemporary India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, and South Asian diasporas. Social media and the virtual forums that they enable have inspired new representational practices and discursive possibilities that are in dialogue with older ways of ordering difference. Rather than making a hard-and-fast distinction between new and old media, this issue draws on the rich visual tapestries of South Asia to examine implicit and explicit debates over codes, scripts, and sign language systems in relation to different forms of print and digital media, from street signs to social media posts. We demonstrate the centrality of visual semiotic systems in processes of political, economic, and sociocultural change in contemporary South Asia. A nthropologists and historians have long associated South Asia with multilingualism. Public spaces in this region are marked by street and traffic signs, advertisements, and other types of messages in different systems of code and script. Social media and the virtual forums that they enable have inspired new representational practices and discursive possibilities that are in dialogue with older ways of ordering difference. The articles in this special issue of Signs and Society analyze the political economy of language and script in relation to the affordances of newer and older media technologies in contemporary India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, and South Asian diasporas in Europe and North America. The six articles investigate implicit and explicit contestations over codes, scripts, and sign language systems across different settings,

Signboards and the Naming of Small Businesses: Personhood and Dissimulation in a Sri Lankan Market Town

This paper concerns the naming of stalls in Sri Lanka’s largest wholesale vegetable market. Each optimistically selected business name, advertised on every carefully designed signboard, I argue, speaks to material and moral economies as well as nuanced perceptions of personhood. Signboards and the names they bear tell stories about the past and the future, success and shame, separation and loss, violence and dissimulation. In the context of the small business, I suggest selecting the name of the small business marks a separation intimately interwoven into the life courses of business families. The more sinister side of naming draws attention to the navigation of identity markers that have assumed new significance throughout the war in Sri Lanka, notably ethnicity and religion; as well as other less frequently documented markers of identity on the island that have existed relatively uninterrupted through times of conflict, namely caste.

Linguistic Landscape of Outdoor Signs in Kuta Mandalika Lombok

2019

The aims of this study is to identify what types of outdoor signs and the language used that are found in Kuta Mandalika and their percentage based on their types. The focus of this paper is on the linguistic landscapes of Kuta Mandalika as an international tourism destination where the MotoGP 2021 will be held in Lombok. This study comprises a quantitative-qualitative analysis of linguistic landscape in Kuta Mandalika as the research location, particularly Jalan Raya Kuta, Jalan Pariwisata, Jalan Pariwisata Pantai Kuta, Jalan Sawe-Baturiti, Jalan Sengkol, Jalan Beach Walk, and Jalan Mandalika Resort Pantai Putri Nyale. The result shows that Kuta Mandalika as a tourist destination almost has a complete tourism support facilities where most facilities are the 364 hotel/ accommodation (51.27%). The study also found that there are six languages make up the linguistic landscape of Kuta mandalika, as following: 1) English, 2) Indonesian, 3) Sasaknese, 4) Italian, 5) Arabic, and 6) Japanese

SRI LANKAN ENGLISH FEATURES REVEALED IN MORPHOLOGICAL PROCESSES USED IN SRI LANKAN ENGLISH NEWS PAPER ARTICLES

University of Vocational Technology, 2019

Language is a diverse tool of communication which is ultra sensitive to the socio linguistic and cultural tendencies of the time and social body. The morphological processes used in the English language are a reflexive tool of those phenomena in a language. In fact the morphological processes used in Sri Lankan English News Paper Articles (press) are a unique expression of Sri Lankan socio linguistic and cultural identity and diversity. The survey attempts to identify the successful expression of those socio linguistic phenomena as a unique feature of the Sri Lankan identity through the analysis of morphological processes, used in mainstream Sri Lankan newspaper articles. The articles published in English medium local newspapers of “The Island”, and “The Daily News” during a period of three months (04th April to 30th June 2019) was reviewed. The direct and indirect influence of loan words taken from local languages, relativity to the socio-cultural context of in Sri Lanka, hybridization, narrowing of the root concept, sense of strong emphasis were identified as unique identical features of the morphological processes used by the Sri Lankan article writers published in the mainstream press.

Language Aspect of Form in Samosir's Tourism Public Signs: A Linguistic Landscape Study

https://www.ijrrjournal.com/IJRR\_Vol.5\_Issue.12\_Dec2018/Abstract\_IJRR0013.html, 2018

The paper explores the forms of language being used in the public signs around the tourist objects in Samosir regency, North Sumatera. Investigating forms of language in public sphere is a relatively new approach in applied linguistic and the branch of linguistics studying such forms is called Landscape Linguistic (or sometimes called Linguistic Landscape). The paper is both quantitative and qualitative. The first method identifies and calculates numbers of types of verbal and nonverbal languages and groups them into tables of percentage. In other words, the method also focuses on macro linguistic phenomenon. The second explores micro language forms involving morphology as content analysis strategy. The paper aims to investigate and answer the following two questions: what are the linguistic forms of language in public signs? and what are the nonlinguistic forms of language in public signs? The findings are: i) most of morphological forms are dominated by the forms of words followed by phrases, clauses and sentences respectively, ii) linguistic type forms show the outstanding numbers of translation forms, multilingual, mono-/bi-lingual, speech act and politeness strategy with less number of acronym, iii) visual design proves the forms of fonts size and type, colours, LL material, salience, and framing, and iv) spatial design indicates that media of LL is designed with more empty space. Few LL is seen fully loaded with information.

Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Sri Lanka

Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Sri Lanka, 2024

The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Sri Lanka offers a comprehensive survey of issues facing the island country and an overview delineating some key moments in the country’s contemporary polity, economy, and sociality. This book outlines aspects and influences foundational to understanding a country defined by its economic and political turmoil, and rift with public distrust in today’s shifting geopolitics. Chapters by various established scholars highlight this book’s pivotal contribution in situating Sri Lanka’s turmoil and deprivation in this current conjuncture. The handbook is structured in seven parts: Nations and Nationalism Politics, State and Institutions Economy and Political Economy Work and Life Environment and Environmental Politics Society, Social Systems, and Culture Moment of Flux, Looking Ahead Each part includes on average six chapters covering the social sciences and humanities to survey emerging and cutting-edge areas of the study of Sri Lanka. Multi-disciplinary in focus, the book also includes an introductory section and concluding section, which creates the space and platform for senior, mid-ranking, and junior academics to engage in dynamic conversation with each other about contemporary Sri Lanka. Including scholarship from Sri Lankan experts, the handbook creates academic output, which chimes with broader calls in academia on decolonising the academic landscape. An important reference work, this handbook will be of interest to scholars and students from wideranging academic disciplines and a focus on Sri Lanka, Asian and South Asian studies, sociology, environmental politics, development, labour, management, political economy and anthropology.

CULTURAL TRANSFORMATION IN SRI LANKA AND ITS IMPACT ON THE REGIONAL CULTURAL LANDSCAPE Social Affairs: A Journal for the Social Sciences

2015

The process of cultural transformation in South Asia has witnessed many phases both in terms of political power and religion. Presently the Islamic faith seems to be forming the newest phase of cultural transformation in South Asia whereby followers of Islam in the region are increasing rapidly. This paper analyses the conditions which have prompted this trend and their implications for the South Asian region with a focus on Sri Lanka. It maps the social, economic, political, and cultural means by which the Islamic faith is spreading in the country and region, and argues-drawing from previous studies-that Islamization can have an adverse impact on the political stability of South Asia.

Sri Lanka's Ahikuntika and Kuravar Communities: Language and Culture

Asian Ethnology, 2022

Sri Lanka's small native population of "Ahikuntika" and "Kuravar" itinerant communities continues to be a very visible part of Sri Lankan society, with snake-charmers and monkey dancers a common sight in Sri Lanka's tourist areas. Sri Lanka's Ahikuntikas and Kuravars speak a highly idiosyncratic dialect of Telugu which has never been fully documented.