Similarly, some other scholars recognized the top-‐down and bottom-‐up flows of elements of linguistic landscape (Ben-‐Rafael et al., 2006) or official and non-‐
official division (Backhaus, 2007). These classifications are all based on the awareness of showing the source, or the displayer of a signs as one participant, and the receiver of the message on the signs is the other participant, either
“official vs. non-‐official”, or “top vs. down”.
However, the seemingly clear division hides the complex facts from us in many cases. As Landry and Bourhis (1997) mentioned,
It is through its language policy for government signs that the state can exert its most systematic impact on the linguistic landscape of the territory under its jurisdiction. In contrast, the state may exert less control over the language of private signs. This is the case
because both the content and the language of private signs are often seen by the courts as being part of an individual’s freedom of speech, whereas government signs are rarely considered as a constituent part of individual freedom of expression (pp. 26-‐27).
This notion explains the actual complexity in the display of a variety of signs in different forms and designs that are often found in non-‐official signs. One example of “individual freedom” in the display of signs is from the pervasive influence of globalization that brought a trend to put foreign elements into linguistic landscape, especially, the wide use of English for shop names, and other foreign languages, pictures, and decorations on the show window. Thus, globalization’s actual power is more influential on language choice than the government in some cases, as indicated by Huebner (2009). As also shown at the beginning of this section, the policies at national, regional and municipal levels give tacit consent to the use of foreign languages, so in this sense, it made it difficult to analyze whether a sign indeed is official or not. Moreover, Huebner (2009) noted that the form and design of a sign varied greatly in a linguistic
landscape. For example, a monolingual (usually national language) nameplate on a state-‐owned company and a bilingual (usually national language and English) inscription on the wall of a foreign enterprise with a unique logo; a big foot billboard with large size characters and attracting pictures and a small handwritten notice that informs that a shop is “Closed” today. Therefore, the agency and how it affects the real formation of linguistic landscape become implicit if the signs are all simply grouped as government (official or top-‐down) or private (non-‐official or bottom-‐up) signs.
Given the current situation, it is a wise choice to restrict the research area and specify the participants in a given linguistic landscape. This study on campus provides a platform to identify and clarify the participants in this special site, which can also be applied to linguistic landscape of other places. From my point of view, three participants are involved in linguistic landscape: sign displayer, sign reader, and bystander. I will investigate the three parties in campus
linguistic landscape respectively. First, speaking of the sign displayer or agent for a specific sign, it cannot be simply assumed that all the signs on campus got approval from the administrative manager of the university or of that city, except for some common nouns or proper nouns that have been widely spread. Thus the identity of sign displayer is complex, which could be understood from the different functional districts (context) identified in the previous section. The agent could be a shopkeeper who opens a bookshop and put a nameplate for his shop on campus, a waitress who displays today’s menu in the cafeteria, a
professor who put a poster for a debate on the bulletin board, a statue builder who places the statue at the open plaza with inscriptions on his body and the like.
All the people who are involved in the campus life and activities could be
possible agents of the campus linguistic landscape as long as their behavior is related to the formation of the linguistic landscape of campus.
Second, the sign reader or audience is the one who steps into the “context”
and faces the “dialogue” started by the agent. “Each token in a LL embodies the characteristics that are perceived by the agent to be responsible for its presence as either reflective of or required of its audience” (Huebner, 2009, p. 74). For instance, a student goes into the cafeteria and looks at the menu displayed. At this moment the sign on the menu has both an agent and audience. In practice, anyone on campus is the intended audience, but the one who comes into the cafeteria and sees the sign becomes the real audience. After the order, the student gets her meal and leaves the cafeteria. Later, another student come into the cafeteria, gets her ordered meal and finds a seat to eat. Hanging from the table is a notice that reads, “Do not occupy an extra seat with your bag.” The intended and real audience becomes the second student who eats inside the cafeteria rather than the first who left. So as the “context” changes the “dialogue”
confronts a changing audience. As Hymes (1972, p. 61) also indicated,
“Sometimes rules for participants are internal to a genre and independent of the participants in the embedding event.” Among those who are in the setting of the cafeteria, the reminding notice exert real influence just on the ones with bags and realize its function, rather those who do not intend to take extra seat.
Third, the bystander is the flexible participant in the campus linguistic landscape. It has been mentioned that audience are those who responded to the sign displayer’s (agent’s) behavior. If the agent’s behavior is ignored or cannot exert power or influence on others, then “others” become the bystanders, because they are also active elements of the campus linguistic landscape.
Moreover, they are a potential audience at any time and any place on campus.
For example, situating himself in the large linguistic landscape of campus,
without looking at any signs on campus, a student is the bystander; once he steps into a “dialogue” started by the sign displayer, he becomes the real audience;
further, the student himself can also become an agent by creating a sign by himself and displaying it on campus. Therefore, there is a role transformation among some participants.
The three types of participants interact together and influence the construction of the campus linguistic landscape. Huebner (2006) held that the form that language takes in the linguistic landscape was influenced in part by the agent’s perceptions of the intended audience. In the case of Ito Campus, four languages are adopted for the menu plate on the wall of the cafeteria, which demonstrates that the agent recognized the existence of overseas students, who impact the formation of the campus linguistic landscape. Similarly, some
Japanese-‐only signs, especially some restricting or warning notices, either deliberately or unintentionally excludes the audience who cannot read or understand Japanese. The Japanese-‐English bilingual signs limit accessibility of the information to some students who can read Japanese or English, while they seem to be an “ideal” way to cater for all the people on campus, as most of the students, staff or visitors can read (some) Japanese, and for those who cannot read Japanese (especially overseas students and foreign visitors), English translation can help, although there are difference in their English competence.
However, it is impossible and impractical to put all the languages on the signboards, so the use of English becomes a solution to satisfy the need of the minority groups on campus. In the case of Ito Campus, Japanese-‐English bilingual