Linguistic landscape of the “zona velha” of the city of Funchal: Historical and Sociolinguistic considerations

• Autor(a) principal: Pereira, Bruna
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.21814/diacritica.693
• topic: Paisagem Linguística; Zona Velha-Funchal; Ocupação britânica; Linguistic Landscape; Zona Velha-Funchal; British Occupation

The Linguistic Landscape (LL) has been a theme extensively studied in recent years, however many European cities and countries have not enjoyed yet relevant studies in their socio-cultural environment. This investigation intends to analyze the linguistic spectrum of Funchal's “Zona Velha”, the capital of Madeira Island and the first town to be inhabited. The British occupation of Madeira Island from the century XIX, as well as the strong tourist influx in the low areas by the sea, has made the city of Funchal a point of cultural and linguistic diversity. The impact of the English language is manifested especially through commercial linguistic signs, catering and is also a reflection of the relationship previously established during the mentioned occupation. Based on this principle, this work will focus on the effects of that reality through the registration and analysis of 216 linguistic signs located in one of the most emblematic areas of the city, “Zona Velha” in the parish of Santa Maria Maior, presenting the differences between public and governmental signals and private and industrial signals. The methodology of this work is based on the top down and bottom up approach of Ben-Rafael et al. (2006) in which the presence of top down linguistic signs demonstrates the British influence and occupation in the socio-political, cultural and economic spheres, and the bottom up linguistic signs demonstrate the tourist phenomenon.