Linguistic Landscape in Najran: A Sociolinguistic Approach

This study attempts to investigate the linguistic landscape (LL) of the city of Najran, a city located in the southern region of Saudi Arabia. To achieve this objective, a sample of more than 450 signs is examined. The study focuses on the shop signs which are usually known as bottom-up signs (Ben-Rafael et al., 2006; Ben-Rafael, 2009). The analysis reveals that Najran’s LL is more multilingual than expected. In addition to Arabic and English, it displays some foreign expatriate languages such as Malayalam, Bengali, Tamil, and Hindi. Arabic appears to be the most dominant language followed by English, with the former having both informational and symbolic (cultural) roles while the latter has a commercial and advertising function through which shop owners want to appear more fashionable and more prestigious. The use of the expatriate languages of the Indian subcontinent serves mainly as a psychological tendency to compensate for the feeling of being homesick, and partially performs an informational function directed to the expatriate group.  