Linguistic Landscape of Hawassa City Language Use in Shop Signs in Focus

Abstract

This study mainly aimed at describing the various types of language uses in the linguistic landscape of the studyareas focusing on shop signs and taking different socio-linguistic perspectives. The study was conducted onshop signs in five selected areas of the city. Data for the study were collected using photography and in-depthinterview. The results revealed that Amharic and English are the dominant languages that appear onmonolingual (Amharic only or English only) and bilingual (Amharic and English) shop signs. Amharic wasfound to be the most dominant language in the shop signs of the city, followed by English. Language choicewas found to be dominantly customer oriented. Amharic is chosen mostly because it is the language ofwider communication in Ethiopia, whereas English, an international language, is chosen mainly to targetforeigners and for the purpose of attracting business. The pattern of using languages on the bilingual shopsigns, including the font size differences, indicated that showing the power difference between the twolanguages was not the intention of shop owners; rather it was a haphazard choice. The Amharic at the top andEnglish at the bottom pattern in the bilingual signs seemed to have been copied from the public signs ongovernment buildings. As Sidama people holds the highest population size in the city, it would be fair toinclude Sidaamu Afoo in the city's shop signs.