The linguistic landscape in rural destinations: A case study of Hongcun Village in China

Abstract

The language on the linguistic signs in a tourist destination is an important window to observe the impact of tourism on the host community. This study employs questionnaire, in-depth interviews and image record to explore the linguistic landscape in Hongcun, a Chinese traditional village. From the perspective of linguistic landscape’s actors, this paper explores the presentation of linguistic landscape and the selection of languages in linguistic signs. First, it is found that Hongcun is becoming multilingual with tourism development. Standardized Chinese characters occupy a dominant position while traditional Chinese characters and English are prominent. Second, tourists have showed overall satisfaction with Hongcun’s linguistic signs. They believe these multilingual signs contribute to shaping the image of tourist destination. Third, official signs are standardized and private signs are more diversified. The construction of official signs is mainly affected by policies while that of private signs are mainly driven by commercial profit.