The framing of the linguistic landscapes of Persian shop signs in Sydney

Abstract

This study provides an interpretive perspective on the linguistic landscape (LL) of ethnic Persian shops in the city of Sydney, Australia. Photographic data and ethnographic observations demonstrate how linguistic and cultural displays on ethnic Persian shops are organized in different frames which are driven by local symbolic markets. These frames are investigated through an analysis of linguistic and semiotic resources drawn on these ethnic premises. The study also illustrates that the trajectory of the Persian language and its semiotic resources as mediational tools frame the collective identity of the sign producers (social actors) and symbolic and cultural means that are activated in the LL of such ethnic shops. These framing devices promote minority languages, Persian in specific, as valuable resources and commodities in the multicultural context of Sydney, and point to the possible impact of those resources on the local political economy of language. In addition, the findings reinforce the view that patterns of multilingualism are not static and are influenced by a number of factors such as cultural, economic and linguistic resources which individuals and officials use in the public space.

A Panorama of Linguistic Landscape Studies

“…Several other researchers have made only a passing reference to Reh's model, among others, Ding et al (2020), Izadi and Parvaresh (2016), Lanza and Woldemariam (2014b) and Rasinger (2014). For them, the typology was probably a source of inspiration in their analysis, but they do not provide details of how they have applied the typology.…”

Multilingualism in Australia: A Case Study of the Linguistic Landscape of Springvale, Melbourne

“…The linguistic landscape can also reflect the language policy in an area and its role in promoting the status of the local minority languages (Cenoz & Gorter, 2006). Although a linguistic landscape study could shed light on the vitality of minority languages in society and their contact with official and international languages in multicultural and multilingual contexts (Izadi & Parvaresh, 2016), they do not always reflect the actual linguistic repertoires used in an area (Ben-Rafael et al, 2006;Edelman, 2014). For example, the language choice on private signs could be affected by how shop owners perceive their desired customers (Huebner, 2009).…”

Persian Pride and Prejudice: Identity Maintenance and Interest Calculations among Iranians in the United Arab Emirates

“…This shared process of identity maintenance differs in a fundamental way from the preservation of cultural and linguistic heritage among settled Iranian migrant communities that has been documented in the 'traditional' countries of Iranian migration, such as Australia, Canada, and the United States (Mostofi, 2003). The existing literature on Iranians abroad skews toward examinations of the diaspora in the United States (Mobasher, 2012) and Australia (Asghari-Fard and Zakia-Hossain, 2017) and focuses on issues such as language retention (Modarresi, 2001;Megerdoomian, 2012), sensory worlds (Dennis and Warin, 2007), signage (Izadi and Parvaresh, 2016), and the negotiation of identities, given Iran's contentious politics (Mobasher, 2006). As this article shows, these factors notably different from the process of identity maintenance we encountered in the UAE.…”