LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPE IN NGUYEN HUE

APARTMENT: INVESTIGATING ADVERTISING

Nguyen Phung Nhat Khoi, Nguyen Khoa Nguyen, Vu Duc Huy
Fulbright University Vietnam
The study investigates the linguistic landscape in a dynamic apartment in Ho Chi Minh
city through its commercial signs. To answer why that old building has become a
symbolic sight in the heart of Ho Chi Minh City, the research includes an analysis of
multilingualism and language usage on signs. The researchers conducted the study by
counting, categorizing and analyzing 160 pictures to determine the prevalence of English
and the decoration styles, or the “tone”, dominating the area. The SPEAKING framework
of Huebner was also applied to the process to examine some important and interesting
aspects of the linguistic landscapes. The results indicate the huge disparity between the
appearance of languages, styles of decoration and the attraction created by information
organization in advertisements, which can be considered as an adaptive movement in the
age of globalization and modernization.

Introduction

The beginning of the 21st century saw a rapid development of Ho Chi Minh City. Such
development goes along with the cosmopolitanization, leading to the emergence of
multilingualism and the diversity of languages used in public space. Such linguistic
phenomenon is accentuated in Nguyen Hue Apartment - “an old-apartment-building-
turned-shopping-centre” (Nguyen, 2007). The manifestation can be recognized through
the building’s shop signs’ designs and organization for advertising purposes.

Researches from current academic resources about Ho Chi Minh City rarely provide
information about this cosmopolitan city in terms of linguistic landscape. This is a new
field in Vietnam; therefore, in spite of the dramatic globalization in Vietnam since the Doi
Moi - the reforms of Vietnam economy in 1986, the changes of public space in Vietnam
in terms of language on signs has not been adequately paid attention to. Through this
empirical study, we focus on the linguistic landscape in Nguyen Hue apartment, or more
precisely, how advertising is conducted through shop signs in a crowded commercial
space in this area.

Investigating the topic empirically, the work will first give information about former
research on the field, including studies on the definitions of linguistic landscape,
multilingualism and the commercial functions of linguistic landscape. Then, a brief
description of Nguyen Hue Apartment, as well as the city in which the building is
located, will be provided. Subsequently, the research questions and methodology will be
presented. These sections are followed by the finding section, in which the scholars will

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give the data and its explanation as well as critical analysis using the framework
regarding the advertising aspect.

Previous research

In the last half-century, globalization has significantly impacted many aspects of our
lives, including the massive development of multilingualism (Dor, 2004; Liu, 2011;
Subhan, 2018), which is shown explicitly in linguistic landscape. Linguistic landscape
(LL) is “as old as writing” (Coulmas, 2009: 13), which was proven by a plethora of
historical evidence mentioned in Coulmas's research. However, the research on this
field recently emerged and has attracted increasing attention from scholars since the
“pioneering study” of Landry and Bourhis in 1997 (Coulmas, 2009).

Following such emergence, there were various studies in the realm of linguistics
landscape, investigating many of its aspects. While some researchers focused on
national identity (Tran, 2019; Manan, 2015), others paid attention to commercial
neighborhoods (Kasanga, 2012). Practical applications of LL were also explored; for
instance, Chen’s research (2014) concentrated on bilingual advertising in Melbourne’s
Chinatown or Liu (2011) published research on the utilization of English in LL to
increase Taiwanese students' interest in learning English. Moreover, LL was also
applied in the study of new-aged ideals like the idea about sexed signs (Milani, 2014).

Many distinct definitions of LL have been introduced. As Coulmas listed in his research,
there are various well-known definitions from Laundry and Bourhis (1997), Cenoz and
Gorter (2006) or Backhaus (2006) (Coulmas, 2009). ​In this research, we embrace the
notion of Landry and Bourhis (1997: 23) that cites how LL “refers to the visibility and
salience of language on public and commercial signs in a given territory or region” (as
cited in Tran, 2019: 4).

According to researchers, advertising is one of the social elements that have tight bonds
with LL. As stated by ​Dominick,​ “Advertising is defined as a form of persuasion that
functions to help companies sell their products to an identified group of customers” ​(as
cited in Chen, 2014: 390) . In society, there exists a variety of advertising forms, namely
commercial shop signs, billboards, flyers, advertisements displayed on the TV or even
oral advertisements, most of which appear in the form of LL.

Due to the impact of globalization, the subject of advertising in Ho Chi Minh is not
limited by its national, cultural, or ethnic identities, but is rather being globally expanded.
As a result, the concepts of multilingualism and multiculturalism have become
well-known. Therefore, when studying advertising, analyzing LL is not only about
"visibility and salience of public languages and commercial signs in a given territory or
region" and based on "two basic functions: an informational function and a symbolic
function" (as cited in Leung & Wu, 2012: 116); it also has to pay attention to the material
components to accurately understand advertising.

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 Advertising in Nguyen Hue Apartment

In the age of modernization, advertising strategies have certain influences on LL of a

certain area. The increasing use of English, especially in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam,
has significantly changed language usage in the region. This city, having developed
since the early 20th century, was once considered as the “Pearl of the Orient” of
Southeast Asia. Ho Chi Minh is now the economic center of Vietnam, which explains the
widespread existence of multilingualism in the public sphere. Its multilingual LL is a
unique feature, distinguishing it from other Vietnamese cities, such as Hanoi. Even
though Ho Chi Minh City is impacted by globalization, it still embraces its own cultural
identity by adapting advertisements of multinational companies, such as fashion brands,
to a Vietnamese context. The interaction between globalization and Vietnamese culture,
therefore, creates diversity in advertising in Ho Chi Minh City. Such diversity
encourages us to investigate LL in advertising in Ho Chi Minh City.

This research primary focus is on the LL of store advertisements in the 42 Nguyen Hue
apartment. This old building, located in the city center, is where many economic,
cultural, and social activities take place, with the participation of local residents,
domestic tourists and foreigners. The diversity of LL in advertising not only led to “a
favorable psychological effect upon targeted audience” but also made this apartment
more “modern” and “cosmopolitan”, and geared towards the successful middle-class (as
cited in Chen, 2014: 390).

Research questions

Looking at the cluster of shop signs within the apartment, it is interesting to see how
shop owners use this medium to convey their ideas. The study focuses on how the
persuasive factors were presented in the small areas of the shop signs, in the context of
a competitive and crowded commercial environment.

During the process of investigating the signs, we answered the following questions:

(1) How are languages used on signs regarding multilingualism?

(2) Are the categories of style (rhapsodic, no-frills and minimalist ads) in Huebner’s
study applied in Nguyen Hue apartment?
(3) What are the qualities of shop signs that are the most salient?

Setting

Located in the south of Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City - also known as Saigon - is the
biggest business and financial hub of the country. The city is always crowded and
energized by the diversity of people from all the areas of Vietnam, as well as the world.
Having a long historical background filled with many huge events, the city has a notable
number of historical buildings as well as heritage sites (e.g. Notre-Dame Cathedral,

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 Nguyen Phung Nhat Khoi, Nguyen Khoa Nguyen, Vu Duc Huy

Reunification Palace, Nha Rong Harbor). One of the most dominant and popular of
those is Nguyen Hue Apartment.

According to AsiaLIFE (2017), the apartment was built in the 1960s at 42 Nguyen Hue
before playing a prominent role in Saigon’s history. During the age of the State of
Vietnam, it was home for high-ranking American military officers and members of Ngo's
government. After the war, due to the State of Vietnam’s fall, some of the apartments
were given to workers in Ba Son shipyard. Therefore, the change of residents from the
high class to middle-class affected this building, and after a period of time, Nguyen Hue
Apartment was abandoned. However, there has been a development and
modernization of Saigon, as well as the transformation of Nguyen Hue street into the
first walking street of Vietnam in 2015. As a result, Nguyen Hue Apartment has been
changed to make way for commercial purposes. Even though the rent of the buildings’
flats for profit is illegal, residents have done it for many years, and it is unlikely to stop.
Nonetheless, it is undeniable that such illegal rent led to the vast rise in tourism and the
economy. Additionally, due to the hasty change, the building embraces both grimy,
vintage characteristics of poverty and the modern traits of the area’s prosperity.

Figure 1​ - Nguyen Hue Apartment

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Methodology

The 3 stated questions require the study to be conducted both quantitatively and
qualitatively. Some statistics were performed for a systematic look into multilingualism
and its influence on the community in the apartment. At the same time, the process of
distinguishing and clustering data into specific groups is essential to explicitly scrutinize
the series of storefronts.

The analysis followed the SPEAKING framework, which was introduced by Thom
Huebner in 2009. The reason for this choice is that, as Hymes (1972: 31) argued, it
“encompass[es] the multiple relations between linguistic means and social meaning” (as
cited in Huebner, 2009: 71). The framework guides our study to focus on 8 aspects of
an artifact in LL: setting, participants, purposes, act sequence, key, instrumentalities,
norms and regulations, and genres. This does not only help to analyze the data clearly
but also encourage the research to investigate more in aspects related to advertising.

To best develop the research, 160 pictures were taken two times. Those images include
posters, storefronts, wall drawings and shop signs; most of which were taken outside
the stores and a few others inside a coffee shop. The researchers decided to
investigate signs in two main aspects: Language use and Huebner’s SPEAKING
elements (i.e., Key and Act Sequences). Provided that the pictures taken are in different
places, the research can easily show the marketing strategies that different shops may
have. This does not mean that nearby shops used similar images, styles, fonts or
colors. In other words, there were still some significant differences between their display
methods that can be taken into consideration. However, most of these elements and
statistics are useful for improving the research.

Concerning about the language identification for the word appear on shop signs,
especially the brand name, we would argue that its identity should go with its original
language. For example, ‘Grab’ would be considered as an English term. However,
‘sushi’ - a Japanese cuisine - could be categorized into English too, due to two reasons:
firstly, it uses Latin characters instead of Japanese ones; and secondly, because this
term appears in English dictionary, English speakers can understand that, i.e., it
belongs to English language. The appearance of ‘sushi’, therefore, convey a English
sense to the audience.

Findings

Monolingualism, bilingualism and multilingualism

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 Nguyen Phung Nhat Khoi, Nguyen Khoa Nguyen, Vu Duc Huy

Figure 1​ - Language use on shop signs

C​hart 1 illustrates the different proportions of languages or sets of languages used

among signs in Nguyen Hue Apartment​. ​By quantifying the number of languages used
on signs, we found three varieties of language usage: monolingualism, bilingualism, and
multilingualism​. ​Monolingual signs dominate the LL, as it accounts for 62% of shop
signs​. The rate of bilingual signs (37%) is considerably lower than that of the
single-language signs, and the tiniest amount comes from multilingual signs (1%). The
dominance of monolingualism here can reveal that the majority of the shops have
already chosen their target audience. This means that as most commercial signs are
monolingual, it can be inferred that the shops aim at customers who can read and
understand particular languages.

Whereas the pie chart demonstrates the proportion of languages used on shop signs,
Table 1 gives us a closer look into the appearance of various languages on the LLs at
the apartment. It is interesting to notice that, among monolingual signs, English is used
much more often than the others (86.9%). Following that, just 12.1% of signs is
presented in Vietnamese. These two languages form a pair that is prevalent among the
bilingual signs (89.8%). Other languages like Japanese, Chinese and French also
appear marginally in the dataset. Generally speaking, throughout all of the categories in
terms of the number of languages used, English always dominates the highest
percentage, far more than Vietnamese.

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Monolingual N % Bilingual N % Multilingual N %

Vietnamese 12 12.1 Vietnamese 53 89.8 Vietnamese - 1 50

- English English -
French

English 86 86.9 Vietnamese 2 3.4 Vietnamese - 1 50

- French Japanese -
English

French 1 0.01 Vietnamese 3 5.7

- Japanese

English - 1 1.9
Chinese

Total 99 100 Total 59 100 Total 2 100

Table 1​ - The appearance of languages on signs

As argued by Lawrence (2012), the use of languages on the LL reflects the assumption
of the agent - i.e. the creator(s) of the signs - about the language knowledge of the
audience. We embrace this argument as an approach to deduce from the visible LLs to
the mindset of the shop owners. ​Observing the most significant feature of shop signs -
the dominant use of English over Vietnamese, we can infer how shop owners here
target many customers that are literate in English, which expresses the informative
function of LL.​ Moreover, since English is the international code as well as the symbol of
globalization (Lawrence, 2012), the use of English here can be interpreted as the
symbolic function of LL. In other words, customers who are not literate in English are
still able to feel a sense of globalization and modernization. Moreover, since people
nowadays tend to prefer international places, shop owners also use English to provoke
such feelings of cosmopolitanism among consumers as a marketing strategy.Therefore,
we can see both the informative and symbolic functions conveyed by the signs here.

As for understanding the rare appearance​ of other languages like French and
Japanese, we can recognize that there are also visitors using these languages, but it is
not considerable. The use of bilingualism and multilingualism also hint about the target
range of the signs. From the cultural dimension, it can be seen that Nguyen Hue
apartment, as​ ​well​ ​as​ ​District​ ​1, yet multiethnic areas although there have been many

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 Nguyen Phung Nhat Khoi, Nguyen Khoa Nguyen, Vu Duc Huy

foreign visitors. As a result, there are very few multilingual signs displayed in the
apartment. Overall, English still accounts the majority of signs in Nguyen Hue
apartment, which shows the efforts of shop owners to attract cosmopolitan customers.

Tones

As mentioned earlier, advertising in Nguyen Hue Apartment features not only the
diversity of languages used but also in the decoration of shops. The display of shop
signs, banners, or brand names at the very first sight impresses customers about the
style of shops. Toolan (1997) (as cited in Huebner, 2009) used “key” elements to divide
the style of shops into 3 main categories: rhapsodic, no-frills and minimalist ads. These
three main categories show the change from colorful to minimalistic design style, from
mainly using images and graffiti to focus on written form. To be specific,

[r]hapsodic ads display an abundance of adjectives, use of alliteration, repetition

of keywords, and exotic vocabulary. No-frills ads are those without the
characteristics of rhapsodic ads. Finally, minimalist ads contain the barest
amount of written text. (Toolan, 1997: 58-62) (as cited in Huebner, 2009: 79)

At Nguyen Hue Apartment, stores with the same kind of products have different design
styles, which means they have different purposes when accessing the target customer.
For example, Thinker & Dreamer and The Letter, which are both coffee shops, have
different visual styles. The former follows minimalist while the latter follows no-frills, i.e.,
The Letter applies a variety of fonts, font sizes, frames and images on the front banner,
but it is not as prolix and colorful as rhapsodic ads have.

Figure 2​ - Signs of coffee shops in Nguyen Hue Apartment

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 Advertising in Nguyen Hue Apartment

Out of 47 shops, almost half of them have minimalist ads while rhapsodic style account
for less than a fifth and no-frills have a little more than a quarter percent. Another point
is that there are 6 shops (i.e. more than a tenth) don't have their certain mono-style -
they are in between minimalistic and no-frills categories.

Figure 3​ - The keys utilized by the shops

In minimalist ads’ component, all of 21 shops use English brand names (or written in
Latin form). The fact is that they use some words with no more than three colors in the
brand name make the customer feel their luxury, exquisiteness or elegance. Two
menus, i.e., one from Thinker and Dreamer coffee and others from Orien Tea - both
shop working at F&B field - has different design style. The elegant and simplified in
advertising in Thinker & Dreamer is influenced by European style while Orien Tea using
Chinese ones.

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 Nguyen Phung Nhat Khoi, Nguyen Khoa Nguyen, Vu Duc Huy

Figure 4​ - Menu of Thinker & Dreamer coffee shop

Figure 5​ - Wall menu in Orien Tea

Meanwhile, no-frills and rhapsodic express modernity, dynamic and active feelings. For
instance, advertising of F&B shops at Nguyen Hue Apartment, which use many
eye-catching pictures for illustration, affects the interaction between customers and
products. Even though their menus don't include pictures, they still intentionally

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 Advertising in Nguyen Hue Apartment

decorate with a lot of big pictures hanging on the wall. Therefore, most restaurants, milk
tea shops, and boutiques use no-frills or rhapsodic to attract their target market.

Generally, different shops use different styles to engage certain types of customers
regarding their needs. The tones are not only used in targeting the specific range of
consumer but also expressing the orientation of brand styles. Moreover, different tones
also show the trendy properties, which answer for the reason why minimalist became an
interesting phenomenon of advertising in the world, as well as in Nguyen Hue
apartment. (Schenker, 2018)

Figure 6​ - Shop advertisements and menus in Nguyen Hue Apartment

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 Nguyen Phung Nhat Khoi, Nguyen Khoa Nguyen, Vu Duc Huy

Act sequences

As defined by Huebner (2006), ‘act sequences’ contain ‘spatial organization’ and ‘act
sets’. Because the shops in Nguyen Hue apartment are commercially-oriented, they
apply these psychologic rules quite well. While the ​key​ element makes customers focus
on shops' styles, ​act sets​ make them focus on one or some identified purposes (e.g.,
introducing a new product or event). For instance, in the newest advertising billboard in
the ground, The Letter act sets used almost exactly the same structure as that of
Huebner. The headline, which is usually used to demonstrate the messages that a shop
want to spread, are placed in the middle. The body copy (images of lanterns and food)
is placed on both the top and the bottom of the advertisement. Although this structure
has a slight difference compared to Huebner's structure, it is still useful in drawing
customers' attention and make them curious about their food and the atmosphere
inside. The signature line is placed cleverly above the headline and uses the same italic
font, which helps people approach it easily. Standing details shape a triangle around the
headline for adding additional information that people may want to know.

Figure 7​ - The Letter’s advertising billboard

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 Advertising in Nguyen Hue Apartment

Concerning the spatial organization, the common pattern which is often seen in Nguyen
Hue apartment is the vertical structure, i.e., there is no left-to-right relationship among
them. Following the top-down order, the majority of signs go from the ‘ideal’ (the
demand of the customer or the promise of the shop about their product or service) to
the ‘real’ (information about what the shops offer in reality). For example, Figure 6
illustrates how Grab’s advertising board puts the ideal commitment of the business at
the top (“Siêu tốc - 30 PHÚT GIAO NGAY”: delivering quickly in 30 minutes). At the
bottom, stands the real service information, i.e., how to activate the sale for the first 10
deals. Whereas, the delighted picture of the shipper and the customer is dominant in the
center of the printing. Obviously, this top-down flow is much more simplified than the full
structure Given vs New - Ideal vs Real (Huebner, 2009), and beneficial when making
the board more eye-catching.

Figure 8​ - Grab advertisement at a hall.

The vertical-only structure can be seen vastly in the apartment, which means they are
simplified considerably in order to quickly catch the attention of the visitors in this area.

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 Nguyen Phung Nhat Khoi, Nguyen Khoa Nguyen, Vu Duc Huy

Also, the main information is always in the middle of the sign, which follows the rules
cited in Huebner (2009). The following photos can be helpful too justify that notion.

Figure 9​ - Examples for simplified vertical structure

To summarize, along with the vast use of minimal style for tones (mentioned in the
previous section), the simplification is widely utilized in terms of the signs’ structures.
The common pattern is vertical, which is suitable for the standees (the thin standing
signs) to quickly convey the ideas and spirits to the audience. It is a crucial criteria that
a sign in this era of consumerism and fast-paced life should have.

Conclusion

From the data collected, shop signs in Nguyen Hue apartment were investigated in 3
aspects: number of languages used, tones and act sequences.

Firstly, looking into the frequency of the languages or sets of languages appearing on
shop signs, one can see an overwhelming dominance of English over Vietnamese and
other languages. This reveals the commercial strategy of shop owners, with the aim to
attract customers with all regional backgrounds who can understand English.
Additionally, it can also be inferred from the data that Nguyen Hue Apartment is situated

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 Advertising in Nguyen Hue Apartment

in a rapidly modernizing as well as economically developing area due to the prevalence

of English among shop signs. Moreover, the statistics indicate that the level of ethnic
diversity in the area is quite low.

Secondly, the use of tones in shop signs, banners, posters, etc. not only showed the
target customer in specifically different sales and marketing strategies but also
emphasized the distinct style and brand awareness of agencies. Therefore, tone is one
of the most important elements contributing to the success of the advertisement
campaign and brand identity. Moreover, almost all shops in Nguyen Hue Apartment are
high-street shops, so attracting customers, especially foreigners, at first sight, is
necessary in the age of consumerism.

Thirdly, as the researchers use the structure of the signs on the “Kress and Van
Leeuwen’s triptych representing the dimensions of visual space” (as cited in Huebner,
2009) to analyze information organization on signs, some differences can be
discovered. Most signs tend to contain different simplified versions of the structure to
present their information (i.e., the left-to-right also the given-to-new relationship). Such
noticeable simplification can be considered as an amazing adaptation in decoration to
the visual tastes of customers.

For further research, it would be fruitful to study on other crowded and dynamic areas
like Nguyen Hue apartment; and also explore other interesting elements in SPEAKING
framework of Huebner. Furthermore, the researchers are raising a question why
Nguyen Hue apartment, despite not having a modern atmosphere like other malls, is
still a great attraction to tourists regarding LL.

References

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Appendix

Currently, the dataset (including 160 collected photos) is being stored in this link
http://bit.ly/2L3pxWH​. It is open for everyone for further investigation into the topic. All
the uses of the dataset without permission from the authors are illegal. For any further
information, please contact us via ​khoi.nguyen.190037@student.fulbright.edu.vn

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