ABSTRACT

This article presents a linguistic landscape analysis of pictures taken in Eritrea’s capital Asmara between 2001 and 2018, stemming from the respective periods of Italian, British, Ethiopian and Eritrean rule. The analysis illustrates how these semiotic signs, fossilized as well as contemporary, bear witness of the ways in which language and state ideologies of the country’s respective rulers were symbolically implemented and enshrined in visible language. Next to Italian, Amharic, Tigrinya and Arabic, attention is given to English, the international language that was introduced during the British Protectorate period and managed to maintain and strengthen its position in Asmara in recent years in relation to the inhabitants’ connection to the internet as a means to virtually escape from the city. Central in the analysis is the notion of public space as a multilayered socially constructed phenomenon showing the imprints of societal happenings. Such traces of history in Asmara contribute to changing concrete places into spaces and as such help memorizing and handing over the narratives connected to them as reflections of historical and contemporary language policies that over the years have co-constructed and given meaning to Asmara’s public space.

摘要

本文对意大利，英国，埃塞俄比亚和厄立特里亚统治时期的2001年至2018年期间在厄立特里亚首都阿斯马拉（Amara）拍摄的照片进行了语言学景观分析。分析表明，这些符号化的标志和化石标志以及当代标志，如何象征性地体现了该国各个统治者的语言和国家意识形态，并以可见语言象征性地体现了这些思想符号。除了意大利语，阿姆哈拉语，提格里尼亚语和阿拉伯语，人们还关注英语，英语是英国保护主义时期引入的国际语言，近年来，由于居民与互联网的连接，该语言设法维持并加强了其在阿斯马拉的地位作为逃离城市的一种手段。分析的核心是公共空间的概念，它是显示社会事件烙印的多层社会建构现象。阿斯马拉的这种历史痕迹有助于将具体的地方变成空间，因此有助于记忆和移交与它们相关的叙述，反映了多年来共同构建并赋予阿斯马拉公共空间意义的历史和当代语言政策。