Bilingual Winks and Bilingual Wordplay in Montreal's Linguistic Landscape

In Quebec, provincial legislation regulates the language of public and commercial signage. As intended, this has transformed the linguistic landscape (LL) of Montreal to look more French than it did just three decades ago. But the author points out that if we stop looking and actually listen to the city's soundscape, what is clear is that Montreal is a much more bilingual and multilingual city with a population increasingly able to read signs both in English and in French. She notes that in the Montreal LL can be found a number of commercial signs that are nothing less than wry "bilingual winks" that circumvent legislation, sometimes with quite wicked skill, and play with the French and English language. These bilingual winks, the author maintains, are clearly intended for a population with the language skills to catch the wink and can be interpreted as manifestations of the increasing number of complex language repertoires, but also of a bilingual aesthetic that revels in disrupting and claiming space. It would also seem, she concludes, that while a certain amount of covert bilingual creativity has been inspired by the legal constraints imposed by the Quebec government, bilingual wordplay has simply found ways of creeping into the LL, despite the politics of language and legislation.

International Journal of the Sociology of Language

Vol. 2014

no. 228

131-151

June 2014

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