Chapter 10
Languages to buy and sell
Business names and linguistic diversity in a central
Peninsular community
This chapter is concerned with linguistic
diversity in business names across the Spanish town of Salamanca.
Going from the urban center to the periphery, it examines three
areas that are relatively differentiated according to average
household income and immigrant population rate, among other
indicators. The analysis shows that the use of English and other
European languages is characteristic of the highly
commercially-oriented town center, while the most peripheral area
shows the emergence of Arabic and dialectal features of Latin
American Spanish, in line with recent migratory flows. Business
names in the intermediate area sometimes combine Spanish and English
features. The results are qualitatively interpreted as being
indexical of three different metaphorical directions of language
choice, namely outward, upward and
inward.
Article outline
- Introduction: Multilingualism in Peninsular Spanish urban
landscapes
- The community and the three urban areas
- Methodology and data
- Names, descriptors, and additional materials
- The data and their coding
- The quantitative distribution of languages across the commercial
landscape
- The CS area: Outward diversity
- The LA area: Upward diversity
- The GG area: Inward diversity
- Conclusions
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Notes
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References