An evolving mainstream: A linguistic landscapes analysis of migration and assimilation in Cary, NC

Abstract

In this paper, I will juxtapose how two migrant groups, the South Asian and the Hispanic communities, establish their presence in Cary, North Carolina by means of this public signage. Initially conceptualized by Landry and Bourhis (1997) as the examination of language on public signs for purposes of measuring ethnolinguistic vitality, early studies of linguistic landscapes were primarily concerned with quantifying the codes of languages on signs. However, for this study, I draw on an ethnographic methodology for analyzing the linguistic landscapes (Blommaert, 2013). While still taking the signs in space as my starting point, I use sociohistorical information, interview data, and ethnographic observations to analyze more deeply how the signage indexes and symbolizes sociocultural relationships, much of which is not visible from the language code on the signs alone. Based on this, I will demonstrate that the linguistic landscape in Cary reveals the differential levels of sociocultural assimilation that these two communities have achieved in time, a difference tied to history, class, and geography. My analysis reveals that, although the two communities have a nearly equal historical presence in the town in terms of size, the South Asian community has created its own celebrated identity in town and become “mainstream” in Cary society, while the Hispanic community remains peripheral, both in terms of their visibility in the LL and in sociocultural status.