DOI: 10.5176/2251-3566_L317.109
Authors: Jean François Noël Ghesquière
Abstract: There has been an increasing interest in Linguistic landscape (LL) over the recent years. In multicultural Singapore, where there are four official languages: Mandarin Chinese, English, Malay and Tamil, it has witnessed an increased use of foreign languages in advertisements, shop-signs as well as condominium names. In this paper, the author will display the LL of Telok Kurau district (a residential area located in the east of Singapore) and track its evolution up to 2016. Names of all condominiums in this area will be analysed to highlight the lexical creativity of the developers while respecting the legal requirements regarding the naming of private housing. Perception of autochthonous on this phenomenon will be presented. The gentrification of the Telok Kurau area has some impact on the LL, especially in the housing segment (surveyed in this paper) as more and more condominiums are erected. The trend and increasing use of European names at the expense of local languages will be presented.
Keywords: component; linguistic landscape; French; pseudo-French; condominium names; Telok Kurau, Singapore
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