English in the linguistic landscape of Jordanian shopping malls: Sociolinguistic variation and translanguaging

Abstract

The spread of English is one of the notable aspects of the visual marketplace in modern Jordan. This paper investigates how English is negotiated and constructed inside Jordanian shopping malls in the linguistic landscape. It also examines the sociolinguistic roles played by English and other linguistic resources in those shopping malls. The study uses both quantitative and qualitative data. The research sites are two shopping malls in Amman and two in southern Jordan. A large corpus of 488 linguistic signs has been collected and coded according to three criteria: mall departments, exits and entrances, and language. The data was carefully and systematically ethnographically examined through repeatedly visiting the sites, and Jordanian mall shoppers were interviewed. The results indicate that it has become normal to use English as a valuable source of community translanguaging inside western Amman shopping malls. The less affluent malls in other areas display either impressionistic translanguaging or predominantly monolingual practices. It should be emphasised that there are also non-linguistic factors (e.g. demographics) that have a significant bearing on multilingual and monolingual landscaping.