АКТУЕЛНИ ЈЕЗИЧКИ ПЕЈЗАЖ ГРАДА СОМБОРА: ЕМПИРИЈСКО-ТЕРЕНСКА СТУДИЈА
THE PRESENT-TIME LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPE OF THE CITY OF SOMBOR: AN EMPIRICAL FIELD STUDY

Summary/Abstract: The paper describes and analyzes language changes observed in the public space of the city of Sombor from 2021 to the present day, that have arisen both as a result of the continuous linguistic angloglobalization processes in the past few decades, and, more specifically, of the ongoing migrant crisis in Europe over the last several years. Since one of the twelve reception centres established by the Serbian Commissariat for Refugees and Migration is located in Sombor, thousands of migrants, mostly from the Middle East, have been temporarily residing in the city, seeking to ultimately reach Western and Northern European countries. Initially relatively slowly, and more recently increasingly apparently, the continuous presence of this population is beginning to impact the lin-guistic landscape of Sombor, which has always been a multiethnic and multicultural environment and was thus previously also characterized by multilingualism in its public space, but in a somewhat different way. The hypothesis in this research is that the prolonged presence of migrants in Sombor, along with the above-mentioned ubiquitous ongoing processes of linguistic angloglobalization, has led to noticeable changes in its linguistic landscape, primarily reflected in adapted signs in shop windows, names of restaurants, menu items, especially in those parts of the town where migrants spend their free time outside the Reception Centre, where they meet and eat. Following the introductory remarks on the topic, the main hypothesis, aims and methodology of this research, more information is given on the notion and study of ʽlinguistic landscapeʼ. As a relatively new but already highly relevant sociolinguistic discipline, the study of linguistic landscape refers to the description and analysis of linguistic signs in the public space of a settlement or territory, and can reveal a great deal about language use, language policy, linguistic contact, cultural identity issues or local attitudes towards certain languages and ethnic groups. When it comes to Sombor and its linguistic landscape, the long-established practice of writing public language signs in, primarily, Serbian (with its two scripts – Cyrillic and Latin), and, also, Hungarian, with a certain degree of more recent use of English as the global means of communication, has now been supplemented or replaced in these central parts of the city by signs in English and/or a Serbian-English hybrid, known as Angloserbian, always in the Latin script. Another new component in the city’s linguistic landscape is the use of certain culture-specific words and expressions originating from the Middle East. The central section of the paper focuses on describing, analyzing and classifying examples of the above-described recent language practice in Sombor. Upon conducting field research in the city’s central streets and collecting samples of such practice, the changes observed are presented at multiple levels of linguistic analysis – lexical-semantic, grammatical and orthographic, by means of applying the methodology of qualitative analysis. Furthermore, as mentioned, certain culture-specific words, primarily a few West-Asian toponyms with a strong identity-related associative and symbolic force, as well as lexemes labelling oriental food and dishes, appear to be in use increasingly often in the streets of Sombor, also bearing witness to the presence of a new population in the city. The concluding remarks summarize the findings and corroborate the hypothesis concerning the recent changes in the city’s linguistic landscape both owing to the allpervasive continuous processes of linguistic angloglobalization and the constant presence of a new non-native population. Such conclusions may serve as a starting point for further research of this kind in towns and cities along the so-called Balkan migrant route.

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