Template: Linguistics Landscape Profile Name: Photo file name: Photo- Date and venue of photo: Date: 30 Sept, 2019 Venue: Hong Kong Polytechnic University Text in the sign: Description: At the invitation of, President Prof. Poon Chung-Kwong, Premier Wen Jiabao, has kindly contributed a message “”, in his own handwriting to congratulate PolyU on its 70th anniversary. The message means “Propagate the truth and develop your potential; Learn for the past and strive for innovation.” Wen’s letter to Poon: Dear Principal Chung Kwong, The letter on 24th August this year was well-received. I am so sorry for my late reply. I sincerely show my bless and good wish to all teaching staff and student in Polyu for the 70th anniversary. Education is the pillar of the society in Hong Kong. Only by nurturing our group of well-education young people, the bright future of Hong Kong can be built. I love Hong Kong. I wish Hong Kong a top and world-class educational system. I believe the future of Hong Kong will be as bright as she can be. I sent a calligraphy work I made as I promised along with this letter. Best, Wen. Languages used in sign(s): Maker of the sign(s): Chinese and English The Hong University Note: Topic of the sign(s): 明道理器 與古為新 Kong Polytechnic Tags (for searching and retrieving purposes): Wen Jiabao, PolyU, Poon Chung-Kwong, education, school, calligraphy Brief description: This sign is describing a Memorial Stone stood at the center of Hong Kong PolyU. The Stone is calligraphed with eight Chinese words – “明道理器 與古為新”, which is the words our former Premier Wen Jiabao gave to the students in Hong Kong PolyU. The sign even attaches the letter of Wen replying the form PolyU principal Poon, about the words and his wishes to PolyU and even the whole Hong Kong. Analysis: (Write about one or two of the following: The social meanings of the images and words, the relationships between the different languages, how different audiences might interpret this, whether it is part of the official or unofficial linguistic landscape, the historical layers and global networks) There are THREE types of language in this sign. They are English, Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese. However, only English and Traditional Chinese appear in the main content. Simplified Chinese actually appear as a role of something like an image or an attachment for extra-reading. No mean content is written in Simplified Chinese. English and Traditional Chinese work for the main duty, which is describing the memorial stone. Such as, answering questions like ‘Where did it come from?’, ‘Who wrote the words on the stone?’, ‘What does the words mean to the audience as a student in PolyU?’. The content in English and Traditional Chinese well explained the meaning and the historical background of the memorial stone. The main possible audiences of this sign are PolyU Students, Teaching staff. The main description is written in Traditional Chinese is because it is the official and even mother Language of Hong Kongers. Local audiences can undoubtedly read and understand the content well in Traditional Chinese. The sign’s content has its English Version because University has many international or non-local students or overseas teaching staff who cannot read and understand Traditional Chinese well. English is the most popular language in the world. People who are able to be studying or teaching in a University should be very familiar with reading it. Due to it is an official linguistic landscape, published by an institution which is the Hong Kong Polytechic University. It also reflects the language policy of the University. All Universities in Hong Kong use English as their main teaching language as to improve the local students English level and be friendly to non-local overseas students. In contrast, most signs in Hong Kong made by the government put Traditional Chinese or even Simplified Chinese as their main or first language. English always appears to be a sub-language or a translated version transited from Chinese. But in this sign in PolyU, we can see that English appears as a primary and first language by its position, as we always read from left to right and top to bottom in modern world. What we can observe through this is, there is a difference in University’s language policy and the Hong Kong Government’s. In the right side of the sign, the green words are written in Simplified Chinese. The main reason is because the words in green are fully quoted from the letter written by the Form Premier Wen Jiabao. The original form of the words in the letter written by Premier Wen is in Simplified Chinese, because Wen is from Mainland China and Simplified Chinese is the official language of Mainland China. Some may ask, why they did not translate the words in green into English or Simplified Chinese to display, for more reader-friendly to the audiences in the University. The reason is the nature of this sign, is made for describing the memorial stone which is a historical treasure of the PolyU. Displaying the letter related to the background of the stone with its original language and even the original handwriting style of the writer, can clearly a much more impressive way to express the historical meaning and background of the memorial stone. What is well done? The student engages class content by discussing issues such as official linguistic landscape and describes what this means accurately. Furthermore, the student is able to not only analyze the literal meaning of the words, but more importantly to analyze how the different languages are functioning as signs (for instance how the green text in simplified Chinese is functioning as an index of the original message from Mainland China). The student also demonstrates a good understanding of the data through their ability to describe the purpose, location, social, historical and institutional context of the sign. The whole template was filled out in a thorough way and complete way and turned in on time. What could be improved: Careful reading for typos, more explicit definitions of theories from course, explanation of why the sign would be meaningful to PolyU as an institution, or what the sign is contributing to the official linguistic landscape.
