The Multicultural Characteristics and Functional Analysis of Language Landscape in Multilingual Community

Xinyue Zhang, Junmei Wang, Jian Gao

Abstract: Given the globalization background of transnational population flow and multi-ethnic cultural integration, the multilingual landscape has become an important feature of international cities. With an increasing number of foreigners coming to China, a relatively concentrated living area has gradually formed. This is a constant circulation, relatively balanced and unique multilingual community lifestyle, that is reflected in the language landscape. In view of this, this paper will take the Korean living community in the Wangjing District of Beijing, China, as an example, and take the language landscape there as the survey object. Through a comprehensive observation of this area, detailed description, statistics, and analysis are provided. The results show that: (i) in terms of the use of language signs, the bilingual signs of Chinese & Korean are mainly used, and Chinese language codes are dominant. Most of them are unofficial signs, and most of them are “Chinese and Korean” signs. There are a few official signs, mainly Chinese monolingual signs, supplemented by English signs. (ii) multilingual signs reflect the diversity of languages, styles and characteristics of China and South Korea. (iii) multilingual signs have the following functions: prompt information, reflecting life needs and consumer psychology, increasing the Korean national language identity, integrating a multi-element business atmosphere, creating a comfortable living space, and maintaining the strong position of Chinese.

External IDs:dblp:conf/webi/ZhangWG24