The study of the linguistic landscape has seen a growing interest in recent years, focusing on written information publicly available in a given territory, city or area (Landry & Bourhis 1997). English is widely present in the linguistic landscape worldwide (e.g. Shohamy & Gorter 2009; Shohamy, Ben-Rafael & Barni 2010, Cenoz & Gorter 2006, 2008), often in its lingua franca role (Bruyèl-Olmedo & Juan-Garau 2009), and Italy appears to be no exception (Gorter 2007; Griffin 2004; Ross 1997; Schlick 2003; Coluzzi 2009). This paper investigates examples of lexical inventiveness involving English in a set of data gathered in the linguistic landscape of some cities and towns in Veneto (Northern Italy), each with different though complementary contextual characteristics. Signs containing English, either monolingually or in combination with Italian, were selected and analysed as to lexical creativity, as well as semantic shifts/extensions. The data shows that English is often employed both in monolingual or in hybrid/bilingual processes at several linguistic levels, from orthography to word-formation (Huebner 2006), testifying to its pervasive presence in expanding circle contexts, either as a (globalized) symbol of modernity or asappropriation of linguistic practices.
English and lexical inventiveness in the Italian linguistic landscape
VETTOREL, Paola;Franceschi, Valeria
2013-01-01
Abstract
The study of the linguistic landscape has seen a growing interest in recent years, focusing on written information publicly available in a given territory, city or area (Landry & Bourhis 1997). English is widely present in the linguistic landscape worldwide (e.g. Shohamy & Gorter 2009; Shohamy, Ben-Rafael & Barni 2010, Cenoz & Gorter 2006, 2008), often in its lingua franca role (Bruyèl-Olmedo & Juan-Garau 2009), and Italy appears to be no exception (Gorter 2007; Griffin 2004; Ross 1997; Schlick 2003; Coluzzi 2009). This paper investigates examples of lexical inventiveness involving English in a set of data gathered in the linguistic landscape of some cities and towns in Veneto (Northern Italy), each with different though complementary contextual characteristics. Signs containing English, either monolingually or in combination with Italian, were selected and analysed as to lexical creativity, as well as semantic shifts/extensions. The data shows that English is often employed both in monolingual or in hybrid/bilingual processes at several linguistic levels, from orthography to word-formation (Huebner 2006), testifying to its pervasive presence in expanding circle contexts, either as a (globalized) symbol of modernity or asappropriation of linguistic practices.
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