Abstract

This paper provides an integral cognitive and language and cultural study of linguistic landscape diversity which is of a particular interest from the viewpoint of multilingualism expansion. The research aims to outline and analyze peculiarities of English influence on the modern urban space of Russian cities. This paper puts forward and confirms the hypothesis that English influence on linguistic landscape of the three modern Russian cities is a regular process in commercial place naming, that it is realized in various ways in different types of ergonyms to meet the demands of customers. Local city space is seen as a complex system from the point of view of language and cultural studies. Local urban naming is analyzed on the material of about 1,000 partially or completely anglicized names of language centers, tourist agencies and book shops of Yekaterinburg, Saint-Petersburg and Chelyabinsk retrieved from official websites. The data analysis has shown the existence of both general tendencies in forming urban commercial place names and realization of regional consciousness in naming. The findings prove that nomination processes in urban naming combine local and global tendencies. One of the main universal tendencies of naming is urban globalization realized in the English influence on the modern linguistic landscape in general and on the urban place names in particular. It is shown that English influence (Anglicization) is realized in glocalization, the coexistence of English and local characteristics of Russian urban place names. Anglicization tendencies and mechanisms include language fashion and creativity. The study reveals patterns of borrowing, codeswitching and language interplay. It is illustrated that blending, transliteration from English into Russian, usage of hybrid words and expressions are characteristic of the analyzed minor place names.

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