Paul Gruba: Could you briefly define linguistic landscape and perhaps tell us what first motivated your interest in the area?
Xiaofang Yao: Linguistic landscapes refer to signs on the streets. What fascinates me about these signs is their diversity and creativity. I’d like to share an excerpt from my book that discusses my initial inspirations and motivations for this research:
“My interest in the linguistic landscape was sparked nine years ago when I first set foot in Melbourne, Australia, in 2015. Although it was not my first overseas experience, I became deeply fascinated by the multilingual and multicultural nature of this vibrant city. While I lived mostly in the City of Melbourne and enjoyed the diversity of cultures and languages, I constantly felt a sense of ‘foreignness’. This feeling of foreignness, however, was less about being the only Chinese person among local Australians and more about seeing Chinese-looking people and realizing that I could not simply identify with this Chinese group.
During my leisure trips to the Chinese suburb of Box Hill, I noticed a variety of languages on shopfronts, billboards, advertisements, and even dustbins, including but not limited to Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. More intriguingly, simplified Chinese characters often coexisted with traditional ones. I began to wonder if these Chinese languages I observed were used in the same way as in my everyday interactions, and if I shared beliefs, values, and social practices with these Chinese communities abroad.” (p. vi)
For me, the linguistic landscape is what inspired me to explore the hidden diversities under the umbrella term of Chinese.
Paul Gruba: Your book is titled Power, Affect, and Identity in the Linguistic Landscape. In the next series of questions, I would like to further explore the three central themes of your work. Let us start with power. You write that linguistic landscape studies ‘offer a unique lens to examine the relationship between language and power’ (p. 77). Again, could you define the term briefly, and then provide us with a local example of power in the linguistic landscape? You focus on tourism as an area to illustrate concepts, but more broadly, is power constantly at play across the linguistic landscape?
Xiaofang Yao: In the context of linguistic landscape studies, power refers to the regulatory force of language policy that governs what languages can appear in the public and in what order. In the absence of formal language policy, societal norms and expectations function as the regulatory force. The semiotics of power is thus a matter of visible presence in relative terms. This means languages put in prominent positions relative to other languages will be considered as the preferred code or more powerful in their political, sociocultural, or economic status.
In my study, I explored how the history of the Chinese community in Australia has been commodified as a packaged experience. This top-down decision was not met with resistance but rather with cooperation from the Chinese community. So instead of victimising the object of tourism commodification, I argue for the power of the Chinese community since they get to decide how the Chinese heritage is shared among residents, at least to a certain extent.
A local example of power in the linguistic landscape can be seen in the order of languages on warning signs found in public spaces here in Hong Kong. For example, Guinto (2019, p. 10) mentioned that Chinese, English, and Tagalog are used precisely in this order due to the power relations among them. The presence of Tagalog on an official sign challenges the norm of its usual absence in this city. Those of you who are familiar with this context would know very well that behind this evident language hierarchy is the bilingual language policy and the reality that domestic workers from Southeast Asia tend to gather in gardens and other communal spaces on weekends. The warning signs are intended to regulate hawking or littering, and the use of Tagalog targets at the Filipino minority, likely the domestic helpers. They assume that this section of the population might commit prohibited behaviours.
Paul Gruba: Affect is often a component of “emotionally charged political discourse.” (p. 51) You discuss this concept through the analyses of two Chinese restaurants in Australia. One is in a rural setting; the other is located in an urban space. Both restaurants are located in a Western country, Australia. Would you say that much of your analyses of affect can also be applied to restaurants here in Hong Kong? How might parts of your analysis differ, if at all?
Xiaofang Yao:I began Chapter 3 by examining how affect has been framed in current studies, and I found that a major theme is its circulation in political discourse. For example, in Chapter 3 (p. 51), I wrote that “hope and hate that are semiotically distributed and made visible by injurious signs in protests …” (Borba, 2019). These signs and other material objects, structure our space in ways that enact, stimulate, and regulate the emotions of participants. Lionel Wee (2016) terms this as ‘affective regimes’, highlighting the capability of material configurations to shape and govern affective responses.
In my study, I analysed the affective regimes in two Chinese restaurants in Australia. In the rural restaurant, I found that the affect of nostalgia (longing for the past or homeland) was made visible through a range of decorations, including its shopfront, interior (plastic flowers, paintings, cross-stitch), menu, and food. In the urban restaurant, Chinese semiotic artifacts (dragon, Sichuan opera, string instruments, panda) were infused with a flair of coolness as part of the pop culture genre, aiming to foster the affect of conviviality (amiable fusion of cultures). It’s interesting to note that in this context, an Australian Chinese restaurant serving mainly a local clientele can be very different from a ‘Chinese’ Chinese restaurant catering to more sophisticated tastes through regional cuisines.
As for applying my analyses to Hong Kong restaurants, I would say the concept of affective regimes can certainly be applied, as it directs us to the signs and materials that evoke desired affective responses. The foodscape in Hong Kong, from my limited observation, is quite complex. For example, Hong Kong-style restaurants are very different from expat restaurants. Nostalgia might be a common theme in these spaces, as seen in the neon signs and the types of food often found in cha chaan teng (local tea restaurants). Expat restaurants may similarly use national flags and national symbols to create a nostalgic ambiance. There are also elements in the city space that may be part of the nostalgic regime, such as Hong Kong movies, ‘Ding Ding’ trams, dense buildings, and flyovers.
As for conviviality, I discussed it in the context of cultural fusion in the Australian setting. However, this type of merging of cultures is quite mundane and normative in Hong Kong, given its colonial history. Therefore, analysing the visual semiotics for clues of conviviality in Hong Kong restaurants might be less revealing, as the blending of cultures is already deeply embedded in the city’s fabric, such as French toast (西多士).
Paul Gruba: Issues of identity are often intertwined through research in sociolinguistics. To illustrate it in your work, you explore the role of identity in online spaces. I was fascinated by your analysis of a WeChat Moment to illustrate a series of concepts. With the rise of AI, particularly as it assists with replies for example, how do you think personal identity will change? Do we each simply become variations of the output from a Large Language Model? Will the online Linguistic Landscape become more boring?
Xiaofang Yao: In my study, I explored the self-presentation of a group of new Chinese migrants in the online space, focusing on their negotiations of identity. This included roles such as being Chinese ambassadors in the face of discrimination and managing peer policing when misunderstandings about their identity arise. What I noticed was that their Chineseness was often neutralised unless conflicts emerged. They were less eager to associate with traditional Chinese culture or customs compared to descendants of Chinese miners, who had lost their linguistic heritage and clung to their cultural memory.
As for the potential changes in personal identity with AI-assisted replies, it’s helpful to consider the nature of the space we are discussing. In linguistic landscape studies, we distinguish between private, semi-private, and public spaces. It is true that online linguistic landscapes, particularly in social media spaces, are filled with generated content. However, when we look at semi-private spaces like WeChat Moments or Facebook Stories, and even private spaces like WhatsApp chats, we can still observe interactions that are more humanistic. Even with AI-assisted replies on publicly viewable platforms, the key issue is who is behind the AI and directing its use for specific branding purposes.
I’d also like to clarify the idea of online linguistic landscapes (OLL). While it might be intuitive to equate this with online digital space in general, my take on OLL has always focused on the online-offline interface. For instance, how do material objects in offline spaces become re-semiotised and recreated online, and thus adopting different meanings? How do online memes recirculate back to offline spaces and become concrete through various mediums and materials? These are the questions I’m keen to explore when studying OLL.
Paul Gruba: Finally, give us some idea of areas to explore the linguistic landscape further. What are some of your future projects in the area?
Xiaofang Yao: One area I’m keen to explore further is the temporal dimension of the linguistic landscape. My book primarily focused on the spatial dimension, examining different ethnic Chinese spaces. However, it would be fascinating to investigate how power, affect, and identity change from moment to moment. I’m particularly inspired by works like ‘Tempo of Space’ (Greg Niedt, 2020) and ‘Language Assemblages’ (Alastair Pennycook, 2024).
For example, the linguistic landscapes of community festive events are often ephemeral and transient. In such cases, the power, affect, and identity of Chinese communities may only be temporarily emphasised or accentuated through assemblages of people, rituals, and installations. On the other hand, there are more permanent and enduring linguistic landscapes, such as Chinese cemeteries in Victoria, which were erected to commemorate early Chinese migrants on the goldfields. Unlike cultural festivals, these cemeteries are not well maintained or regularly regenerated. I’m very interested in how a more diachronic approach could help reveal the contrast between temporary and permanent linguistic landscapes, as well as the sociocultural status and history of Chinese migrants in Australia.
Chapter 2 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at https://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license. Click here to read online or download.
CaMP Anthropology 