Studying Languages in the Linguistic Landscape of Lijiang Old Town

Abstract

As one of the new developments in the field of applied linguistics, linguistic landscape research has attracted many international scholars’ attention in recent years. The research examined the types of language use and their distributions, especially the use of the bilingual and multilingual signs, and the attitudes of local governmental officials, shop owners or employees, domestic and international tourists towards the use of Chinese, Dongba scripts, and English. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were employed to explore the research subjects. To be specific, digital camera was used for data collection of quantitative analysis, and questionnaires and interviews were also adopted for qualitative analysis. The analyses of research results showed that the linguistic landscapes of Fuhui Street and Xinhua Street indicated significant difference.