The Linguistic Landscape of the Valencian CommunityA Comparative Analysis of Bilingual and Multilingual Signs in Three Different Areas

Abstract

During the last decades, the promotion of multilingualism has been key when designinglinguistic policies in Europe. Previous research studies have focused on how languages are employedin fields such as education, media, and urban sites, among others. Bearing all this in mind, the aimof this paper is to analyse the linguistic landscapes of three municipalities located in a bilingualregion in Spain, that of the Valencian Community. Thus, issues such as language contact, languagedominance, and the languages used by a number of institutions on private and public signs wereexamined. As for the method, over 140 pictures of language signs were taken in order to examinelanguage contact, language dominance, and the influence of official and foreign languages on privateand public signs. The results suggest that the presence of languages may vary depending on thepopulation living in these settings, the citizens’ mother tongue, and the policy regarding the minoritylanguage. The findings also indicate that the power of the two co-official languages is reinforced bypublic signs, whereas rich linguistic diversity is shown in private signs. All in all, it can be stated thatthe linguistic policy in the Valencian Community is not homogeneous throughout the region.