The Linguistic Landscape of the City of San Fernando

Abstract

Language mirrors the soul of the society as it is responsible for the expression of thoughts of its members. It is an instrument of understanding which is the basis of identifying the linguistic landscape of a given society. Linguistic landscape refers to the visibility and salience of languages on public and commercial signs in a given territory or region (Landry and Bourhis 1997). Anent to this, the study analyzed the linguistic landscape of the City of San Fernando and the realities it reflected its citizens and to its tourists and its implication to education. The descriptive and exploratory methods were utilized in the study. The descriptive method illuminated the status quo in the LLs of the City of San Fernando with the aid of content analysis, photo-documentation, and discourse analysis while the exploratory method of analysis led to the discovery of interest relative to the LLs of the locale of the study. The nature of the linguistic landscape of the City of San Fernando as presented in the artifactsanalyzed adhered to top-down and bottom-up approaches using monolingualism, bilingualism, and multilingualism wherein English is mostly utilized language followed by Tagalog then Ilokano. The materials used in the artifacts included GI sheets, concrete, tarpaulins, laminated papers, plain papers including cardboards which suggested the producers’ economic and political status. The producers of the artifacts showed that they preferred texts in informing, restricting, regulating, persuading, and advertising.Meanwhile, stylistic devices included graphological deviation and phonological and syntactical over-regularity. The LLs further used a plethora of visual and linguistic deictic. Social, economic, and political issues were reflected in the LLs as discrimination against culture and tradition vs. public health safety, desecration of cultural icons vs. living museums, economic and educational disparity, gender-bias, and ageism vs. equal opportunities for everyone, were elicited from the LLs.The LLs of San Fernando City is a rich mélange of flows, instrumentalities, and codes which reflect the distinct character of its people. Moreover, the implicatures contained in the artifacts impact society and culture. Finally, LL artifacts are powerful tools for education.They can be used as springboards to discuss socioeconomic issues and current events, to teach concepts, to explain grammar rules, and to drive creative extension activities.