Journal 1_Linguistic landscaping in Abu Dhabi (LL): Hopkyns & Hoven (2020)

 

1. Title: 

Linguistic diversity and inclusion in Abu Dhabi’s linguistic landscape during the COVID-19 period

2. Authors:

 Sarah Hopkyns & Melanie van den Hoven 

3. Aims: 

• Investigate COVID-19 signage in two live-work contexts in Abu Dhabi where Arabic is the official language and English is the lingua franca: A beachside community and an industrial site.
• Take an ethnographic approach* to study a corpus of 326 top-down (text dispersed from an official source) and bottom-up (created by shop owners, private businesses, etc.) signs on language use, spacing, prominence and location, target audience, and sociolinguistic implications. In other words, in addition to analyzing the languages used on signs, they also examined the size, spacing, language order, and symbols used. Also, they analyzed the social context surrounding the signs, such as who may have created the signs and who the intended and actual audience may be. 

4. Questions to be investigated: 

• How are languages and semiotic resources used in COVID-19  warning signs?
• How do COVID-19 signs reflect the United Arab Emirates (UAE) goal of tolerance and inclusion?  

Another question popped up: Do appropriate COVID-19 signs in a neighborhood mean fewer people are infected there?

5. Data collection:

• Chose two small zones within the respective contexts and completed circular journeys in each zone. 
• Photographed every sign, including permanent signs and COVID-19 signs. 
• Divided signs into three categories: Permanent signs unrelated to COVID-19, Top-down COVID-19 safety warnings, and Bottom-up COVID-19 safety warnings. 
• A corpus of 198 digital images of public signs was collected along the beach community walk, with 40 of these being COVID-19 related (28 top-down COVID-19 safety warnings written in Arabic and English and 12 Bottom-up COVID-19 safety warnings written in English).  
• A corpus of 128 digital images of public signs was collected along the industrial site walk, with 66 being COVID-19 related (26 top-down COVID-19 safety warnings written in English mainly and 40 Bottom-up COVID-19 safety warnings written in English mainly).  

6. Findings:

• The exploration of the beachside community: Bilingual (English and Arabic) and monolingual (only English) signages dominated in this community and excluded others who were not proficient in English. Top-down COVID-19 safety warnings were prevalent. 
• The exploration of the industrial site: Monolingual (English mainly) signages dominated in this site, and bottom-up COVID-19 safety warnings were prevalent. Bilingual and trilingual signs seldom appeared; only Korean was used as a third language on the bottom-up signs. 
• Bottom-up handmade COVID-19 signage was mainly monolingual (English only), and top-down COVID-19 signage was predominately bilingual (Arabic and English). 
• Only one-third language (Korean) appeared on COVID-19 signage in the industrial setting, and only token words from third languages (German and Italian) in the beach community setting. 
• The more socially-isolated and security-controlled industrial site relied more fully on signage to communicate safety warnings, to the extent that over 50% of the signs were COVID-19 related.
• Lack of linguistic inclusion on COVID-19 public signage. 

7. Citation: 

Hopkyns, S. & van den Hoven, M. (2022). Linguistic diversity and inclusion in Abu Dhabi’s linguistic landscape during the COVID-19 period. Multilingua, 41(2), 201-232. https://doi.org/10.1515/multi-2020-0187

 

* An ethnographic approach is qualitative research that involves immersing yourself in a particular community or organization to observe their behavior and interactions up close.