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Article published In:
Language Problems and Language Planning
Vol. 48:1 (2024) ► pp.75–102

Legalities of language use in linguistic landscaping

Examining English linguistic imperialism in the Philippines

ORCID logo | University of the Philippines Diliman,
ORCID logo | Lyceum of the Philippines University Manila,
Linguistic landscapes, according to Backhaus (2009: 170), are “consciously shaped and controlled by official rules and regulations.” However, the current body of Philippine linguistic landscape research – under-studied as it already is – lacks a close examination of Philippine national laws governing the (re)production of public signage. This paper therefore investigates the linguistic and ideological underpinnings of select […] national sign laws by situating these not only within the context of their legal precedents, mandates, and history but also through an examination of 600 public signs collected from six diverse region centers in the Philippines. It examines how national laws prefer English in public signs over local and Indigenous languages, thereby perpetuating what Phillipson (1992) calls “English linguistic imperialism” and exacerbating the unequal power dynamics between those who speak English and those who do not in the Philippines.
Keywords: linguistic landscape, Philippines, rules and regulations, language problems, language politics, legal studies
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Philippine linguistic landscape studies
  • 3.Laws, signs, and linguistic landscapes
  • 4.Linguistic imperialism in the (Philippine) linguistic landscape
  • 5.Data and methodology
  • 6.Analysis and discussion
    • 6.1The language situation in Philippine Laws
    • 6.2A case study of the National Building code of the Philippines
      • 6.2.1The National Building code of the Philippines (NBCP)
      • 6.2.2The 2005 implementing rules and regulations of the NBCP
      • 6.2.3The 2007 additional rules and regulations on signs or signboard structures of the NBCP
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
  • Philippine laws, codes, and cases
Published online: 5 July 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lplp.24006.man
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2024. Language politics and prestige in The Walled City: an exploratory study of the linguistic landscape of Intramuros, Manila. Multimodal Communication 0:0 DOI logo

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