Social Structuring of Languages on Commercial Advertising Signs at the Railways in South Africa

The main aim of this paper was to explore the social structuring of languages on commercial
advertising signs at the railways across four provinces in South Africa. An ethnographic approach was
used for the collection of data. Data were analysed using a mixed-methods approach, comprising
descriptive statistics, supplemented with a multimodal analysis of signs. The findings revealed that the
proliferation of foreign languages on signs, such as Juba, Urdu, Spanish and Portuguese could be
attributed to translocal and transnational mobility of speakers of these languages in a post-apartheid
South African context. These languages were used alongside English texts on signs for symbolic
purposes, as opposed to solely instrumental-communicative purposes. Most of the official languages
of South Africa were excluded from signs and Afrikaans has been systematically removed over time.
The uneven spread of English across urban spaces contradicts the normative expectation that these
centres would display more signs in English. Thus, the paper concludes that the social structuring of
languages on signs at the railways could be attributed to various developments in legislation and to
the migration of people to South Africa since the end of apartheid. A recommendation of this paper is
that railway authorities should encourage advertisers to comply with the relevant language policies as
outlined in the South African Constitution (RSA, 1996), as far as it is practical to do so. Essentially,
this would entail promoting multilingualism in the messages displayed on signs at the railways. In this
way, the multicultural, multilingual nature of commuters, especially those who speak languages other
than English, could be accommodated and acknowledged in the social structuring of languages at the
railways throughout South Africa.