How language makes profit: linguistic landscape of different industries in a commercial pedestrian street in central China

This paper analyses the use of foreign languages in the linguistic landscape of various industries of Jianghan Road, an old monolingual neighbourhood and a modern commercial pedestrian street in central China. From the perspective of Language Economics and brand linguistics, the use of various linguistic codes and how they make profit are discussed through an analysis of 1,098 commercial signs and interviews with 20 shop assistants and 300 customers from different industries. It has been found that English is the most frequently used foreign language in all industries, but Chinese remains the dominant language. While catering industry uses the widest range of foreign languages, clothing and beauty industries feature a more prevalent and flexible use of English to demonstrate modernity than grocery & daily necessities industry that focuses more on economical use of language. It is suggested that foreign languages in commercial signs generate profit mainly through two trajectories. One involves meeting the cultural dissemination and practical needs of merchants and the other is leading customers to construct modern, global and new identity in monolingual areas. This study hopes to shed light on the interpretation and research of multilingual landscapes in similar contexts.