The Role of English in Aruba’s Linguistic Landscape: Representation of Aruba’s four dominant languages in written form in the public sphere

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the presence of English in Aruban society nowadays, and more specifically, to gauge the position of the other dominant languages in a climate in which English, an unofficial language, seems to be on the rise. Recent developments and growing internationalisation appear to have an impact on Aruba’s multilingual community. By means of linguistic landscaping, the written language in the public sphere in Aruba will be examined, as linguistic landscaping can help expose the underlying status of languages and linguistic communities (Ben-Rafael et al., 2006). The present study does this by examining photos of signs in three different areas of the island. Results show that on the whole, English is used most often in written language in the public sphere. Results also indicate that English appears to be the language that is preferred in the tourist sector, whereas Papiamento is truly the language of the locals. Dutch and Spanish are used less. Of these, Dutch is mainly used in top-down communication, whereas Spanish is almost exclusively used in bottom-up communication. The present study strongly suggests further research regarding multilingual signs.