engleski

The influence of tourism on spoken and written language practices in the public space of Zadar, Croatia

In its more than two millennia of urban continuity, Zadar has gone through numerous societal changes, especially in terms of population and government. However, the town has always been multilingual, with various forms and to various degrees of multilingualism. The contemporary urban multilingualism of Zadar is also changing and it is greatly influenced by tourism as the main driving force behind most linguistic changes. This contribution will present the findings of the analysis of the ways in which contemporary tourism in Zadar influences written and spoken language practices in the public space. The written language practices will be analysed through the linguistic landscape analysis (Backhaus, 2007 ; Blommaert & Maly, 2016 ; Gorter, 2006) of Zadar in which we will identify the languages used for public communication. The linguistic landscape analysis will encompass all the texts present in the public space of Zadar Peninsula, the administrative, religious, tourist, judicial and educational centre of Zadar, where most citizens and numerous tourists commute regularly. The spoken language practices will be analysed through semi-structured interviews with informants who reside in Zadar. The informants will be divided into two groups. One group will comprise randomly selected passers-by who perceive the written language used in the linguistic landscape and make everyday choices of using specific languages or varieties in their spoken language practices. The other group will consist of entrepreneurs, shop and bar owners and managers, and decision makers from the local government and institutions, who regularly decide on using specific languages or varieties, either for direct spoken communication with their customers, or in written communication and advertising, usually through posters and notifications in their shop windows. The analysis of those two sets of data will give us a detailed picture of how contemporary tourism in Zadar influences the spoken and written language practices in the public space.

language practices, tourism, linguistic landscape, Zadar, language in the public space

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