Linguistic Landscape of Kurdish Language in the West Part of Iran

The present study aims to investigate linguistic landscape among Kurdish speakers in the west part of Iran. A total of 812 signs were photographed (772 photos were selected) and were later categorized according to the top-down (governmental) versus bottom-up (private sector) distinction in Kermanshah, Sanandaj, and Ilam. Out of these 772 photos, 578 photos were related to bottom-up and 194 photos were related to top-down signs. The results of linguistic landscape analysis showed that among bilingual signs, Persian-Kurdish signs has the highest frequency in Sanandaj, while Persian-English signs are more prevalent in Kermanshah and Ilam. In all of the cities, Persian-Arabic signs have the lowest frequency among bilingual signs. Sanandaj was the only city in which Kurdish was dominant in Persian-Kurdish signs
Introduction
Linguistic landscape is a relatively new area of research that has attracted many researchers in recent years. In their seminal work, "Linguistic Landscape and Ethnolinguistic Vitality," Landry and Bourhis (1997) state that the linguistic landscape is: “The language of public road signs, advertising billboards, street names, place names, commercial shop signs, and public signs on government buildings combines to form the linguistic landscape of a given territory, region, or urban agglomeration" (p. 25). Since Landry and Bourhis utilized the concept of Linguistic Landscape (LL) as the "visibility and salience of languages on public and commercial signs in a given territory or region" (p. 23), researchers in the fields of sociolinguistics, sociology, language policy, social psychology, geography, media studies, and cultural studies have been interested in uncovering the nuances and disparities in the languages used in the public space.
Materials and Methods
To find out which languages are present in the linguistic landscape and how these languages are represented, linguistic and semiotic properties of the signs were investigated. The codification of the signs relies on that developed by Ben-Rafael et al. (2006) and Cenoz and Gorter (2006), such as the languages used on the signs, languages of signs (monolingual, bilingual, multilingual), order of languages on a sign, and the types of signs (top-down and bottom-up signage). Using Excel, the signs were coded according to the following variables: 1. Language of signs: for every sign, the type was coded. The categories include: monolingual, bilingual, and multilingual signs. 2. Number of languages: the number of languages present on the signs was counted. The appearance of a language may consist of an entire text or of only one word. The main languages counted in all sites were: Persian, Kurdish, Arabic, and English. 3. Order of languages: by the order of languages, we mean in bilingual or multilingual signs which language is more dominant. In doing so, the languages written in larger fonts were considered dominant. 4. Types of signs: both top-down (governmental) and bottom-up (private sector) are regarded in this study.
Findings
A total of 772 signs were photographed and later categorized according to the top-down (governmental) versus bottom-up (private sector) distinction in Kermanshah, Sanandaj, and Ilam. Out of these 772 photos, 578 were related to bottom-up and 194 were related to top-down signs. The results showed that among bilingual signs, Persian-Kurdish has the highest frequency in Sanandaj, while Persian-English signs are more prevalent in Kermanshah and Ilam. In all of the cities, Persian-Arabic signs have the lowest frequency among bilingual signs. Sanandaj was the only city in which Kurdish was dominant in Persian-Kurdish signs.
Discussion and Conclusions
Observing the signs and signs in the respective streets of the studied cities led to interesting results. From the display of languages displayed (used) in the public space, one can realize the possibility of identifying their performance, credibility, position, and expansion. The distribution of minority languages in the city limits can be considered an indicator of the language status in an urban area. Linguistic perspective also expresses the existing political and cultural views and approaches to the position of national languages in multilingual societies. Another important finding of this research is the spread of the Persian language and also the presence of some signs in English, which shows the importance and influence of the English language as a global language. This study shows that the linguistic landscape has both communicative and symbolic functions. A linguistic perspective can be used as a tool to legitimize national identity. Although the language policy of the country insists that all languages should not be given equal rights, the Kurdish language is given attention in these cities, especially in Sanandaj, but this attention is very insignificant compared to the dominant language (Persian), and it is not good news for Kurdish speakers