Linguistic Landscape of Howrah: A Comparative Study of Two Regions in a Multilingual City

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University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics
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Kole, Tanya
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This paper aims to study the linguistic landscape of multilingual Howrah, comparing two regions specifically, in order to analyse the variations between areas speaking different languages. The two regions have been chosen such that one is occupied by speakers of the majority language Bangla, while the other is inhabited by non-Bangla communities. These minorities exist in the face of extreme linguistic nationalism by the majority Bengali community. For the linguistic landscape study, all posters, billboards, advertisements, shop names, graffiti on walls, official signboards, traffic signs, address plates, building names, and all other static text were considered, regardless of size. It was assumed that Bangla and English would be the most frequently sighted languages in both the areas, with lower presence of Bangla in the non-Bangla region. The study confirmed this idea, wherein Bangla, English, Hindi, Urdu, and Sanskrit were found in the study areas, with the predominance of English and Bangla. The non-Bangla area had an overwhelmingly high number of English signs, which also points towards the significance of English in contemporary Indian society.

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2023-01-01
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