Sarhan, N. (2023). A Tale of a City: The Linguistic Landscape of Cairo Streets. CDELT Occasional Papers in the Development of English Education, 83(1), 109-140. doi: 10.21608/opde.2023.325329
Nihal N. Sarhan. "A Tale of a City: The Linguistic Landscape of Cairo Streets". CDELT Occasional Papers in the Development of English Education, 83, 1, 2023, 109-140. doi: 10.21608/opde.2023.325329
Sarhan, N. (2023). 'A Tale of a City: The Linguistic Landscape of Cairo Streets', CDELT Occasional Papers in the Development of English Education, 83(1), pp. 109-140. doi: 10.21608/opde.2023.325329
Sarhan, N. A Tale of a City: The Linguistic Landscape of Cairo Streets. CDELT Occasional Papers in the Development of English Education, 2023; 83(1): 109-140. doi: 10.21608/opde.2023.325329
A Tale of a City: The Linguistic Landscape of Cairo Streets
This study investigates the linguistic landscape of Cairo. Setting off from the premise that language practices reflect and shape identities, the researcher examines different categories of signage: street signs, warning notices, informative signs, building names, and advertising signs. Languages and varieties on these signs are identified to document which ones dominate the linguistic landscape. Drawing on Myers-Scotton Matrix Language (2001), the researcher identifies the matrix and embedded language in bi-lingual and diglossic signs. Findings show that, although modern standard Arabic (MSA) features exclusively on official signs, Egyptian colloquial Arabic (ECA) and English are more prevalent, in terms of presence, size, and influence. This prevalence is interpreted using Pennycook (2010) framework, where code choice unveils the motives, and ideologies of a speech community and indexes a linguistic shift. Results demonstrate that two competing forces ‘own the public space’: the official institution, which is in ‘power’, yet owns a small, uninfluential and hardly discernable scale in MSA. The second is that of advertising companies , who appear to outweigh the official force and are capable of designing, changing, and dominating the linguistic landscape. ECA is quintessentially used to address a larger public, and English is used symbolically to segment audience as per their socio-economic class. Findings of the study highlights the salience of this ‘invisible’ tool of language shift. Implications could inform language planning and policy on consistency in the linguistic landscape. It could simultaneously trigger interest in initiating a project for emphasizing the linguistic identity of Cairo, and further Egyptian cities.
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