By Liisa, Topi, Eevaleena
The goal for our project was to examine the use of English in different stores at the Valkea shopping center in Oulu. We visited six different businesses: Suomalainen Kirjakauppa (a bookstore), Clas Ohlson (an electronics and home improvement store), Intersport (a sporting goods store), Makia (a clothing store), Granit (an interior design store), XS Lelut (a toy store), and S-Pankki (a bank).
The first three of the stores are owned by Finnish companies (Suomalainen Kirjakauppa, Makia, and S-pankki) and the rest by international companies (Clas Ohlson, Intersport, Granit, and XS Lelut). Whether or not a Finnish company would be less likely to use English in their store was one of the questions that interested us.
Urban and multilingual contexts have often been sites for research in linguistic landscapes. In commercial settings, language use can give us insight into identities of local and international companies. Use of English demonstrates the value of globalization and internationality, while using the native language constructs a local cultural identity. The decision on which language to use will not only affect the company’s image but also the kinds of customers their business attracts. Keeping these in mind, it is interesting to make observations on how and when companies choose to use English in Finnish businesses.
We noticed some patterns in the different ways English was used in the stores and divided our findings based on them. The four categories in which most of our data could be divided in are: English only, English used to grab attention, Finnish and English mixed together, and Same information in Finnish and English.
There were surprisingly many cases of signs that were written completely in English. The signs in Makia consisted almost exclusively of signs of this category. There were also notably many signs advertising international brands and products that were written in English, presumably because they were most likely provided with the products themselves. Another interesting category was English used to grab attention. Signs of this type were usually advertising products. For example, there was a sign in Intersport with the text “LAST CHANCE edulliset poistohinnat MIEHET” in which the English phrase written at the top in a large font is clearly used to grab the customer’s attention. We found numerous signs in which Finnish and English were mixed together. These were often related to products with English names, although there were also different uses of English such as loanwords. The last category, Same information in Finnish and English, was the one that appeared the least often. These were mostly informational signs, which mainly appeared in S-Pankki.
The role of English in general continues to increase in the linguistic landscapes of Finland, and advertising is no exception to this. The different ways in which English is used in the signs of Valkea do reflect the store’s owners to an extent, and in this our predictions were more or less accurate. We were, however, surprised by the amount of English being used by Finnish companies such as Suomalainen Kirjakauppa and Makia. While the stores owned by international companies did use English liberally, it was often used in conjunction with Finnish rather than entirely replacing it. Predicting which store is likely to use English in signs cannot be entirely reduced to ‘International owners likely advertise in English’ or ‘Finnish owners likely advertise in Finnish.
The different ways in which English is used appear to be a part of a larger trend of internationalization. In an effort to attract non-Finnish speaking shoppers, English messaging has reached greater prominence, whether these shoppers actually speak English or not.
References:
Barni, M. & Bagna, C. (2010). Linguistic Landscape and Language Vitality. In E. Shohamy, E. Ben-Rafael & M. Barni (Eds.), Linguistic landscape in the city (pp. 3–18). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Edelman, L. & Gorter, D. (2010). Linguistic Landscapes and the Market. In H. Kelly-Holmes & G. Mautner (Eds.), Language and the market (pp. 96–108). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Gorter, D. (2013). Linguistic landscape. The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics. Cambridge: Blackwell.
Valkea Shopping Centre. Retireved from: Valkea Shopping Centre: A shopping centre full of experiences – Valkea on ainutlaatuinen kahdesta korttelista ja niitä yhdistävästä katetusta Kesäkadusta muodostuva yli 60 liikkeen kokonaisuus Oulun sydämessä. (kauppakeskusvalkea.fi)
English in Finland 