Linguistic Landscapes and Language Contact

The popularity of linguistic landscapes as a field of inquiry in applied linguistics, multilingualism, and sociolinguistics is of very recent origin. This chapter sets out to survey the international frontline of research on the topic of linguistic landscapes, and complements this theoretical discussion with a case study from contemporary Hong Kong. The chapter serves to highlight the importance of language contact in linguistic landscape research, not only through the critical review of linguistic landscape literature presented here, but also through a detailed case study of the linguistic landscape of a Hong Kong society, conflicted by both political and linguistic loyalties. The Hong Kong Lennon Walls present an incongruously-familiar disruption to an architecture of public spaces that relies on the usual modernist configuration of urban concrete and steel girders.