A Diachronic Approach to the Linguistic Landscape of Shenzhen

In this chapter, we adopt a diachronic approach to explore the linguistic landscape of Shenzhen, investigating the changes of the linguistic landscape over the 40 years since reform and opening up, and the significance of the linguistic landscape to the city's image, language service, linguistic ecological vitality and cultural markers. The research indicates that the evolving linguistic landscape in Shenzhen reflects the impact of urbanization and globalization. At the early stage of its development, Chinese monolingual signs dominated. Then, with the progress of its development, Chinese-English bilingual signs have become increasingly common. The release of official Chinese-English translation guidelines, together with the replacement of the blue-and-white signage with black-and-white signage, has helped shape the image of an international metropolis and provides better language services. City development shapes the urban linguistic landscape, and the traces of urban linguistic landscape play an important role in constructing the city's image. Therefore, the linguistic landscape of a city can serve as a micro reflection and an important index of a city’s cultural openness, social modernization and internationalization.