Exploring Linguistic Landscape of the Qianzhou Ancient Town in Xiangxi through Ecological Linguistics

Zhaohui Meng

School of Foreign Languages, Dalian Maritime University, Dalian, China

Email: cdmzhdx@163.com

Yang Gao

School of Foreign Studies, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China

Email: 1257009322@qq.com

[Abstract] With more than 4000 years of history, the Qianzhou Ancient Town in Xiangxi is a national heritage relic and a traditional linguistic landscape in China. With the review of the literature, we developed an analytical framework for studying linguistic landscape by combining tenets from both eco-translatology and cooperative principles in linguistics. Then, we explored the linguistic landscape of the Qianzhou Ancient Town in a mixedmethod design. Through the quantitative analysis, we reported the multilingual ensembles of the public signs, street or road signs, and business logos in terms of language sources and combinations. We also reported the issues in the linguistic landscape, including but not limited to typos, improper language use, and ambiguous translations. Through the qualitative analysis, we further explored how the multilingual ensembles in the Town generally represented features of typical ancient cities or towns with our analytical framework. We discussed our findings through linguistics and translation perspectives and offered insights for future studies.

[Keywords] ecological linguistics; cooperative principle; linguistic landscape; the Qianzhou Ancient Town

INTRODUCTION

The Qianzhou Ancient Town, located in Jishou, Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture of Xiangxi (the west of Hunan Province), has more than 4200 years history. In the ancient time, it was the material distribution center of the three provinces of Hunan, Guizhou, and Chongqing, and now it is a 4A level scenic area (the second highest level for the quality of scenic area in China), including many famous scenic spots such as URN City of Three Gates (three gates with three different directions of the Qianzhou Ancient Town), Qianzhou Confucius Temple. Located in ethnic areas, it also has abundant cultural heritage of ethnic minorities, such as Miao medicine, and Miao embroidery. In the recent years, China was committed to promoting its traditional culture and telling its own stories to the world. In 2022, China took significant efforts to development cultural tourism, as it continued to be recovered from the shock of Covid-19. In July, Jishou government implemented tourism support policies, including tourism marketing competition, Best Tour Award in Jishou, and the policy of lowering ticket price, which covering the Qianzhou Ancient Town, the Aizhai Bridge, and many other scenic areas in Jishou.

Linguistic landscape, with informative function and symbolic function being its primary two functions, is a medium to convey tourist information and show language status, power relations, and local identities, and help people deal with traveling and learning local linguistic characteristics and culture. However, there are few studies on linguistic landscapes in Xiangxi area. This paper, taking the four primary linguistic landscapes the Qianzhou Ancient Town as the subjects, analyzed the number and distribution of linguistic landscapes, the linguistic characteristics, the issues of linguistic landscapes, and the relationships between linguistic landscapes and linguistic and cultural environment which showed that how the multilingual ensembles in the Town generally represented features of typical ancient cities or towns. These four landscapes include Qiancheng Street, Hujiatang (the pond of Hu’s family) Street, the traveling road along Wanrong River, and the road where the Qianzhou Confucius Temple.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Definition of Linguistic Landscape

Studies on linguistic landscapes have been carried out over the decades across countries. The definition of linguistic landscape has been continuously researched and changed gradually. The first scholars of linguistic landscape studies, represented by Rosenbaum have conducted research on the signage and commercial vocabulary of the Jerusalem area, and founded that The Roman script was found to have a great attraction. Those scholars defined this attraction as “snob appeal”, which means “the attraction of power” (Gorter & Fang, 2020). Landry and Bourhis (1997) firstly proposed the definition of linguistic landscape that the languages of public road signs, advertising billboards, street names, place names, commercial shop signs, and public signs on government buildings combined to form the linguistic landscape of a given territory, region or urban agglomeration. Lately, other scholars also proposed the definition of linguistic landscape from other perspectives. Shohami and Waxman define it as “a vocabulary that appears and is displayed in an ever-changing public space” (Cui & Bai, 2020). Sebba (2007) proposed the definition of “the moving vocabulary”, which expanded the scope of linguistic landscape from fixed signs to irregular flyers, tickets, brochures, etc.

Studies on Linguistic Landscape

Foreign research focused on issues such as the concept of linguistic landscape, the relationship between linguistic landscape and language policy, and the research methods of linguistic landscape. Domestic linguistic landscape research was divided into two levels: macro level and micro level. At the macro level, scholars mainly study the research trends in this field; at the micro level, researchers mainly conduct specific case studies to analyze the linguistic characteristics of a particular linguistic landscape or find the problems of the linguistic landscape.

Cenoz and Gorter (2006) made a survey of linguistic landscape in Frisia and Bacchus and drew a conclusion that linguistic landscape has closed connection with local linguistic policy. Ben-Rafed, Shoamy (2006) analyzed the concept of linguistic landscape from the perspectives of public domain. Backhaus (2007) put forward the view that studies on linguistic landscape are mainly about three problems: By whom are the linguistic landscape designed? Who is going to read it? What social situation are reflected by linguistic landscape? In terms of research methods, Coluzzi (2009) introduced the quantitative distribution method to the study of linguistic landscape. Leeman and Modan (2010) broke the single quantitative study of linguistic landscapes and added the spatial dimension method of public language and linguistics.

Domestic linguistic landscape research began in 1997, including the research on the development trends and case analysis about the usage of language, linguistic characteristics, linguistic landscape translation and other topics in China. In terms of development trends, Kong (2018) analyzed the development trends of internationalized linguistic landscapes and predicted the future trends of linguistic landscape research in a scientific way. In terms of case analysis, Sun (2020) systematically studied the linguistic landscape of the Premier League for the 2019-2020 season and concluded that technological progress, economic globalization, and the development of the Chinese economy are important factors influencing the linguistic landscape of the Premier League. Chen (2019) explored the ways of linguistic landscape translation, taking the brief introduction of Dacien Temple in Xi’an and its English translation as case study, finding that linguistic landscape translation of scenic spots often takes “deletion, editing, increment and modification”as the means to reconstruct the translation.

Besides, the research on the linguistic landscape in minority ethnic areas is increasing. Nie and Munai Reha (2017) made a survey about the present situation of the different usage of linguistic landscape of Yi language in the old town and business district and the understanding of different groups on this phenomenon, carrying out the conclusion that Yi language has different advantages in different regions and exploded the problem of discrepancy between government’s language planning and local public recognition. Zhang (2020) constructed vocabulary network on the linguistic landscape of various cities in Ningxia and explored local attitudes towards the power of Chinese and English as well as their economic and cultural identity through big data. Besides, the research on the linguistic landscape in minority ethnic areas is increasing. Cui and Bai (2020) carried out the research on linguistic landscape in Lhasa, finding out that the symbolic function of linguistic landscape in Lhasa is greater than informative function. At present, there are few studies on the linguistic landscapes of ethnic minorities, especially in Xiangxi areas.

THEORICAL FRAMEWORK

Norwegian linguist Haugen (1972) firstly introduced“language ecology”to explain the relationship between language and ecology and defined it as“the interrelationship between language and its surroundings.” Like biological environment of nature, languages are also context specific. Therefore, the linguistic landscape of each region also has a specific environment, including natural and social environment.

Besides ecological linguistics, this paper also implemented the cooperative principle of conversation introduced by Grice (1975). In everyday conversation, both parties should follow certain principles to ensure the smooth running of the conversation. The principle of conversation includes the maxim of quality, quantity, relation, manner. The maxim of quality requests to convey the information accurately; The maxim of quantity requests to convey the information clearly and simply; the maxim of relation requests that the information should include some proper metaphors that can evoke associations; the maxim of manner requests that the way to convey information be interesting and artful.

Based on these two theories, Wang and Gao (2021) developed an analytical framework to study linguistic landscapes on campus and explored how linguistic landscape in a maritime university met with cooperative principles in its languages and symbols and then how these linguistic or semiotic symbols conveyed implicit and explicit information of the context or environment through an ecolinguistic perspective. This paper adapted the framework (see Figure 1) and explored the linguistic landscapes in the Qianzhou Ancient Town.

Figure 1. Theorical framework of analysis

Figure 2. Statistics of the language usage of linguistic landscape

SURVEY ON LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPES OF THE QIANZHOU ANCIENT TOWN

Data Collection

Linguistic landscapes of the Qianzhou Ancient Town are distributed in the four main streets. They are Qiancheng Street, the traveling road along Wanrong River, Hujiatang (the Pond of Hu’s Family), and the road where the Qianzhou Confucius Temple is located. the functions of the four streets are as follows: Qiancheng Street is the main business district, concentrating many shops, restaurants, and hotels. The road along Wanrong River and the road of the Qianzhou Confucius Temple is the main tourist area. Wanrong River, Xinnv Bridge (Xinnyu Bridge), Academy Wharf and many other scenic spots exist in this area. The area of the road of Hujiatang (Pond of Hu’s Family) has functions of sightseeing and residence. Besides the scenic spots, there are also residential dwellers and police stations, health centers and other infrastructures.

Data of Survey

In this survey, 84 signs, sign boards, and other kinds of linguistic landscapes were collected. 33 of them were in the Qiancheng Street. 11of them were distributed in the Hujiatang (the Pond of Hu’s Family) 30 of them were in the traveling road along Wanrong River. 10 of them were distributed in the road where the Qianzhou Confucius Temple is located.

After collecting Corpus, these linguistic landscapes were divided into official and unofficial linguistic landscapes according to the different founders. “Official linguistic landscapes are established by official institutions to communicate national ideology and language policy, such as public signs, placards, etc. Unofficial linguistic landscapes are those set up by private individuals for the purpose of obtaining personal gain, such as store signs and billboards.” (Cui & Bai, 2020)

ANALYSIS

Quantitative Analysis

Language usage

The language usage of the linguistic landscape of the main streets where the core scenic spots of the Qianzhou Ancient Town are located is shown in the following chart. In this chart, C refers to Chinese. E refers to English. K refers to Korean. CP refers to Chinese Pinyin. N refers to number.

The language of official linguistic landscape is mainly monolingual Chinese and trilingual “Chinese + English + Korean”. Therefore, it is not difficult to see that local dominant language is Chinese, and the local dominant foreign language is English due to its own international status, the developing trilingual education in ethnic groups: Chinese, English, and minority languages, and the growing number of foreign tourists. In addition, Korean is set to the official linguistic landscape. This is influenced by the increase of the number of Korean tourists in Zhangjiajie. According to statistics in 2018, Zhangjiajie received 518,400 overseas tourists and 272,000 tourists were South Korean tourists, accounting for about 47%. To a certain extent, this has also led to the increase of South Korean tourists in surrounding areas and the development of linguistic landscape in other scenic spots in Xiangxi.

The language of unofficial linguistic landscape in the Qianzhou Ancient Town is mainly monolingual Chinese and bilingual “Chinese + number”. Among them, the shop name is written in Chinese, and the number is used to indicate the contact of the owner. In addition, compared with the official linguistic landscape, English is less used in the unofficial linguistic landscape. From this point of view, even if English is officially included in the linguistic landscape, the proportion of non-governmental foreign tourists is still small, and the penetration of English is relatively low.

Distribution of linguistic landscapes

The distribution of the linguistic landscape of the Qianzhou Ancient Town is roughly consistent with the functions of the streets in the town. In Qiancheng Street, there are about 40 private shop signs retaining the dominant. Along the river many warning signs are used to remined people of the deep water. There are also propagate billboards established by community in the Hujiatang (Pond of Hu’s Family). The linguistic landscape of the main blocks is basically the same as the function of every part of the Qianzhou Ancient Town, which can meet the basic needs of tourists and residents.

What’s more, publishers of official linguistic landscape in the Qianzhou Ancient Town are diversified. There are a large number of official linguistic landscapes in the Qianzhou Ancient Town, among which the official linguistic landscape established by the scenic area itself has a unified system. However, there are also other official institutions to build the linguistic landscape here, such as Qianzhou Street, the Qianzhou Ancient Town Community, the Qianzhou Ancient Town tourist company and so on. The Qianzhou Ancient Town is a comprehensive social ecological system with tourism functions as the center, multi-party management and diverse functions.

Problems of linguistic landscapes

• Maxim of Quality

The maxim of quality requests to convey the information accurately. Linguistic landscapes which are consistent with the maxim of quality will express correct messages that can help people learn the information of scenic spots.

Some stores added foreign characters on their signboards to imitate foreign styles to attract tourists. However, after a survey, many people did not know the meaning of these foreign characters. What’s more, some translation mistakes and language misuse also made foreign tourists confused. For example, Britain tourists do not understand the meaning of English words under the Korean. Because the words on the sign are the Roman forms of Korean. Such error made the symbolic function of the linguistic landscape more than the informative function，which created difficulties to convey information accurately, and creates a false perception of local language power and language status.

• Maxim of Quantity

The maxim of requests to convey the information clearly and simply. In the Qianzhou Ancient Town, it was a problem that linguistic landscapes are inconsistent with the maxim of quantity, caused by the imbalanced language usage and linguistic landscape distribution.

Korean tourists in Zhangjiajie have made Korean included in the local linguistic landscape and affected surrounding areas. However, the Qianzhou Ancient Town is still dominated by domestic tourists, and the number of Korean-speaking tourists is relatively small. Therefore, Korean took up a lot of space, but lacks relevant audience, thus, made Korean cannot convey information to tourists effectively. Another reason is the imbalanced distribution of linguistic landscapes.

Linguistic landscapes in some places are miscellaneous. In the road of Wangrong River, 15 of them are warning signs, accounting 50% , which reminds people of the danger of water depth. They have also been set up in shallow water areas where there is no danger. Besides, those linguistic landscapes are not only established by the Qianzhou Ancient Town itself, but also established by other institutions such as Qianzhou Street Community. The same kind of linguistic landscape takes up a lot of public space. But in other places of the Qianzhou Ancient Town, the linguistic landscapes are too few. The Qianzhou Ancient Town is a comprehensive social ecosystem with tourism as the center, multi management and multi functions. The linguistic landscape of the Qianzhou Ancient Town was concentrated on the tourist areas. Residential areas where banks, supermarkets, express delivery points, police stations and other infrastructure located are lack of relevant signs. Both the overused Korean and imbalanced distribution breached the maxim of quality, which cannot express the information clearly and simply, because lacking relative audience and management, and thus took up a lot of resources.

• Maxim of Relation

The maxim of relation requests that the information should include some proper metaphors that can evoke associations. These associations are often influenced by geographic, historical, ethnic, and other factors. For example, due to the border with Russia, the linguistic landscape of Harbin’s commercial streets will include Russian, and the Old Town of Lijiang also used Dongba Language to strengthen its ethnic characteristic. The Qianzhou Ancient Town is located in the Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture of Xiangxi in which the Tujia and Miao ethnic minorities account for 77.2% of the total population. However, the rate of the usage of Tujia and Miao ethnic characters is zero.

Firstly, the internal system of language is complex with many types and different development situations. The Miao language has three types: Xiangxi Miao language, Sichuan-Yunnan-Guizhou Miao language and Eastern Guizhou Miao language. In Xiangxi area, where the Qianzhou Ancient Town is located, according to the method of Comparison of Eastern Miao Dialects in 2004, the western Hunan Miao language is divided into Eastern sub-dialect and Western sub-dialect, and each sub-dialect is also divided into six local subsidiary languages, so it is difficult to make a unified record.

Secondly, the Miao language and the Tujia language are becoming more and more endangered. Among the three types of Miao language, the number of people speaking Xiangxi Miao language is about 1 million, which is the least among the three kinds of the Miao language. Among them, the fourth and sixth local languages in Xiangxi Miao language have become endangered and highly endangered language. Tujia language is also in imminent danger. In the 21st century, Bizi language，a common language of Tujia ethnic minority，is dying out rapidly. The proportion of Tujia people who speak Bizi language has decreased from 1.78 percent to 0.48 percent in 2000. Mengzi language, a branch of Tujia language, has a much smaller population because of its closed villages.For scenic spots, the symbolic function of linguistic landscape cannot be embodied, and the function of cultural communication is weakened. For Miao minority languages, it is not included in linguistic landscape, and people know a little about it, which is bad for the protection of minority languages.

Qualitive Analysis

This part，applying the analytical framework of this study, analyzed the selected individual cases of each type of linguistic landscape to better learn whether patterns, Chinese characters or foreign words in the linguistic landscapes satisfied the maxim of quality, quantity, relation and manner, and discussed the relationship between the linguistic landscapes and the environment.

Road sign

From the perspective of language ontology, the name of scenic spot was written in Chinese, which convey the basic information clearly and accurately. About the English translation, the word “Qiancheng Street” is consistent with the principle of translation. However, the URN of Three Gate refers to the three gates with three different directions of the Qianzhou Ancient Town. The means of word “URN” was ambiguous. It cannot be found that “URN” is a propre noun or an abbreviation of some word, which can lead a misunderstand. Therefore, the ambiguous translation violated the maxim of quality and quantity.

In terms of the relationship between the language and the environment. The written directional markers on linguistic landscape showed the names and directions of the attractions of the Qianzhou Ancient Town, providing great convenience for people. Linguistic landscape was black, which means purity and happy in Miao ethnic groups. The pattern on the top of the linguistic landscape was local Miao embroidery, highlighting the ethnic characteristic. With these factors, this linguistic landscape not only increased the cultural function of the linguistic landscape, but also strengthen the sense of local ethnic identity.

Plaque

From the perspective of language ontology, In the middle of the plaque, the word "Ming Tang" is written in Chinese. The word "Ming" means tea, so this plaque clearly explains the purpose of this place, which complies with the principle of quality and quantity. It is a store where people can taste a cup of tea and have a rest. What’s more, the word “Ming” refers to aroma and famous tea, meaning that the local tea specialties are widely known and famous for its high quality. The year when the tea house was founded was recorded through the Chinese stem and branch chronology, highlighting the traditional Chinese cultural characteristics. All the factors were a good case of the maxim of relation and manner and strengthen the traditional Chinese cultural characteristics.

In terms of the relationship between the language and the environment, it clearly expressed the tourist information. From a meso-perspective, Guzhang Mao Jian, Xiangxi Golden Tea is known throughout the country as a precious tea species. There are many such teahouses in Xiangxi, not only for the promotion of specialties in Xiangxi, but also as a symbol of local people’s identification with tea culture. From a macro perspective, Chinese people have had the habit of drinking tea since the ancient time. With 5000 years cultural background, it is elegant thing to drink tea in Chinese people’s view. The quaint teahouse and plaque added a quint of charm to the Qianzhou Ancient Town, and enhanced the tourist experience for visitors, which is good for increasing visitors’ identity of local tea specialties and culture.

Store sign

From the perspective of language ontology, the name of the store “Yi Pan Huo Zhi” ,which means a plate of roast, was written on the sign in Chinese, indicating the type of store and the range of services. The usage of Chinese language is in line with the maxim of quality and quantity. In addition to Chinese, Korean and its Roman expression was added to emphasize the Korean style. As mentioned above, the Korean language lacks a relevant audience and cannot be understood locally. The romanization of Korean is not only difficult for locals to understand, but also for foreign visitors to discern. There is a discrepancy on the maxim of quality for not conveying the information clearly. In terms of the maxim of relation and manner, the Chinese word “Huo” means fire and “Zhi” means grill, which are related to barbeque and roast. The pattern on the left side of the picture is a cartoon of a pig and a cow, which can also immediately remind people of beef and pork. After traveling, it attracts people to have a roast. This store sign is evocative and full of artistry.

In terms of the relationship between the language and the environment. The Chinese language of the linguistic landscape conveys the store’s message well, while the foreign language is still deficient. Due to the type and nature of the stores, the linguistic landscape does not need to show much of its ethnicity. As a restaurant in the scenic areas which meets people’s basic needs, the linguistic landscape conveyed the information clearly, and with an exquisite pattern, absorbing foreign elements, it can be approves by visitors, especially loved by young people.

MEASURES TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPES

Rational Planning of Language Usage

Due to the complex status of the linguistic landscape and local minority languages, it is difficult to directly remove Korean or add minority languages. Therefore, some countermures that include multiple steps or even require a long-term process should be taken.

The language of linguistic landscape of the Qianzhou Ancient Town are Chinese, English and Korean. As mentioned earlier, the Korean language is widely included in the linguistic landscape but lacks corresponding audience. So the choice of Korean language in the linguistic landscape cannot be generalized. Currently, the relevant authorities lack a specific tourism analysis of the Qianzhou Ancient Town. In this regard, the relevant agencies should first conduct annual statistics on visitors to the Qianzhou Ancient Town and calculate the approximate number and proportion of different visitors to this scenic area. Then the choice of linguistic landscape language should be made according to the corresponding tourism situation. In addition to this, there are some minor problems with the English translation of the Qianzhou Ancient Town. Some translations are ambiguous and unclear, and it is also difficult to judge whether they are correct or not. Therefore, the English translation of the linguistic landscape should also be improved to make the meanings more precise and clearer.

About minority languages, firstly, Tujia and Miao are not the dominant local languages, which are coupled with the complex internal language systems and extremely high endangerment levels. Therefore, the current linguistic landscape of the Qianzhou Ancient Town cannot directly incorporate local minority languages, like Lhasa and Lijiang. Therefore, the unofficial linguistic landscapes can now be encouraged to add appropriate minority language to highlight the local ethnic characteristics. In a long term, local research institutions should conduct statistical studies on the minority populations and languages in the area to get an accurate picture of the use of minority languages. At the same time, the government should strengthen minority language education in primary and secondary schools to promote the popularity of local minority languages and save endangered languages. After improving the use of local minority languages, minority languages will be gradually incorporated into the linguistic landscape.

Improvement of Linguistic Landscape System Construction

The construction of the linguistic landscape system should be based on the whole town, rather than developing some specific cases. Besides, linguistic landscapes should also serve the development of economy and culture, through combining with local economy, customs, history, etc.

In terms of linguistic landscape distribution, local government, and the Qianzhou Ancient Town itself should make a rational plan and allocate linguistic landscapes. In the tourist areas, the redundant signs should be deleted to save more public space. Roads that are not recorded in the ancient town should be inventoried and named. In addition, linguistic landscapes should be established on unnamed roads to enhance road management and avoid unethical behaviors such as ticket evasion, thus increasing tourism revenue and protecting the safety of residents and visitors. Signage should also be installed in the areas where the infrastructure is located to show the way to tourists and residents to meet their basic needs in a fast pace.

In terms of cultural construction of the linguistic landscape, there are fewer contents that can highlight the characteristics of ethnic minorities in the Qianzhou Ancient Town, and the cultural function of the linguistic landscape is not outstanding. The cultural factors of ethnic minorities in the Qianzhou Ancient Town, such as historical and cultural heritage, folklore, customs should be recorded. As for the translation of linguistic landscape, it is found that the translation of linguistic landscape is often made by the means of “deleting, editing, addition and modification”(Chen, 2019), which can provide experience for linguistic landscape translation. When selecting the content displayed in the linguistic landscape, delete jumbled part in the huge and rich literature, and select the essence, and then rewrite the framework to get the display content of the linguistic landscape. After studying the Chinese content on the linguistic landscape, translators can reorganize the content by using amplification, omission, inversion, and other translation methods to translate it.

CONCLUSION

Based on the cooperative principle and ecological linguistics, this paper conducted quantitative and qualitive analysis of linguistic landscapes of the Qianzhou Ancient Town, and found the linguistic characteristics, the problems of linguistic landscapes. According to above findings, several measures were proposed to promote the improvement of the quality of linguistic landscapes in Xiangxi and the protection of minority languages and the transmission of ethnic culture. Meanwhile, it also provided some experience to the research on linguistic landscape in ethnic areas or other scenic areas.

The present study still has some limitations about the study of minority languages. As mentioned above, minority language is a large and complex language system, and this paper has not done enough research in this area. In the future, the study of the linguistic landscape in Xiangxi can be more integrated with the study of minority languages.