Comments on: Multilingual prohibitions

By: Greg P

Greg P — Mon, 02 Mar 2020 23:07:55 +0000

Give us a break.

“While these signs include Chinese and Japanese readers as potential recipients of the message, they exclude them from “polite society” by singling them out as likely offenders.”

Well, yes. Possibly because people speaking those languages were the main offenders. It costs time and money to put out bilingual signage. The signs were probably there because cleaning staff went to a room the nth time to find that Chinese guests had been smoking, or railway staff had to remind x number of Japanese passengers that they shouldn’t smoke on the train. This is not subliminal discrimination; it is signage which bespeaks frustration with the failure of people from those cultures to observe rules on smoking.

By: Loy Lising

Loy Lising — Sun, 16 May 2010 08:10:19 +0000

By the time I am making this comment, Ingrid has already posted “Banal Nationalism” which I will also comment on in a minute. So, apologies for this delayed participation but I made a similar observation while holidaying in Hamilton island recently. I saw a couple of ‘multilingual’ signages which got me really excited and hopeful about one place in the country that was being socially inclusive. Signs about “No parking” and “One way” were in English, Chinese and Japanese. While I thought that such information can be easily deduced by simple observation of everyone else’s action, I welcomed and celebrated the promise of being in a place that was socially inclusive especially of tourists who paid good dollars to get there. Alas! my excitement was short-lived when I got to the reception only to queue for a very long time simply because the staff could not find a way to explain to a couple of Korean guests why a safety deposit of $700 was needed to be taken from them. In their halted English they explained sincerely that they had no intention of making any extra purchases while in the island. I stood there thinking, “if only an interpreter is available, and don’t they deserve one?” Once we got to our room, I was even more disappointed to see an elaborate instruction in English on what to do in case of emergency, but none in any other language. I realised that all I saw initially was a case of token multilingualism!

By: Jenny Zhang

Jenny Zhang — Thu, 06 May 2010 02:53:29 +0000

The bilingual flier which Ingrid found in a hotel room in Sydney reminded me of a warning sign saying “请保持安静 (Please keep quiet)” in Cathedral of Notre Dame, Paris which also targeted only at Chinese visitors. This monolingual sign kicked off a heated debate over national image and uncivilized behavior of Chinese tourists across China before the Beijing 2008 Olympiad. It is very interesting to read between the lines of prohibition signs, in terms of language choice, context of use and underlying ideologies.

There also can be seen quite a few literally translated Chinglish signs in mainland China. Of these English signs, one warning sign found in a public lavatory (http://www.flickr.com/photos/pomphorhynchus/353734324/) which reads: Carefully Slip & Fall Down, really made my day.

Another interesting thing is that bi/multilingual prohibition or warning signs in mainland China are predominantly in two dominant languages: Mandarin (the sole official language of Mainland China) and English (the so-called global language). Compared to European countries where multilingualism has been more socially recognized and applied to practice, bi/multilingual signs in foreign languages other than English are seldom seen in mainland China (excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan). I don’t know if this is another form of monolingualism.

BTW: The monolingual non-smoking sign in a New Zealand train can be read in both Japanese (Kanji) and Mandarin (traditional character). Am I right, Kimie?

By: xiaoxiao

xiaoxiao — Tue, 04 May 2010 14:45:36 +0000

Thanks! Before I read this post, it has never occurred to me that there is so much hidden behind the language choices of signage. I wonder if this can be taken as a manifestation of ideology, for the choice of some language over another apparently indicates how certain group of people are viewed and this view may well be prejudiced.

By: Kimie Takahashi

Kimie Takahashi — Mon, 03 May 2010 05:02:13 +0000

An interesting point! In addition to the prohibition signs, I find the same kind of trends in donation signs at churches – I don’t want to be too cynical, but when it comes to money-making opportunities, we see less language boundaries;-)

Btw, I like the fact that there is no translation for “To stop train in emergency press button” – that to me is more important to be understood than smoking…