A great amount of LL research has explored and employed two levels of analysis offered by Barni and Bagna (as cited in Finzel, 2012) to gain adequate information and to make correct interpretations in analyzing a LL.
Semiotic analysis examines the function of a sign through its relation to time and space.
Macro-linguistic analysis deals with the sign’s internal function including its spatial organization, the dichotomy between authorship and readership and signs’ communicative functions.
Micro-linguistic analysis deals with the qualitative evaluation of the texts displayed.
Hence, to examine and to conduct a more thoughtful analysis of the LL in Binondo, Manila’s Chinatown, the present study employs these two levels of analysis using Ben-Rafael…show more content… Following Landry and Bourhis’ (1997) definition, Ben-Rafael et al. (2006) defined bottom-up signs as ‘’those utilized by an individual, associative or corporative actors who enjoy the autonomy of action within legal limits’’ (p.10). They explained that the main difference between the two broad categories lies in the fact that top-down signs are ‘’expected to reflect a general commitment to the dominant culture’’(p.10) while bottom-up signs are ‘’designed much more freely according to individual strategies’’ (p.10). Accordingly, the choice of language/s in top-down signs would indicate that the culture of the majority group is taken into consideration while the preferential use of language in bottom-up signs would reflect the attitude of the actor or the maker of sign towards the language in question. Similarly, Cenoz and Gorter (2006) claim that the language of the majority in a specific territory is more likely to be seen in place names or government signs and in this case, top-down signs while the minority language will not be common in the LL. The study of LL could also provide information between the official language policy as reflected in top-down signs and the impact of the policy as reflected in bottom-up signs. In other words, authorities’ language preference is…show more content… Among them are by Akindele, (2011), Backhaus (2007), Burdick, (2012), Cenoz and Gorter (2006), Dégi (2012), De Los Reyes (2014), Yavari (2012). This indicates that categorizing authorship of signs is relevant in the study of LL since the sign maker plays an important role in understanding how public signs are constructed.
Cenoz and Gorter (2006) used the top-down and bottom-up categorization in their analysis of the LL in two multilingual settings in Friesland. The results indicate that the strong language policy has an effect on both top-down and bottom-up signs where Basque is greatly visible. Shohamy’s, (2006) categorization of top-down and bottom-up in the LL of Jewish areas showed that the official language, Arabic, is mostly present on top-down signs but hardly present on bottom-up signs. Dégi (2012) used the term official and nonofficial signs to refer to top-down for the former and bottom-up for the latter.
(DISCUSS OTHER RL