Translation and the Construction of Spatial Identity in Guangzhou’s Linguistic Landscape

Abstract

A city’s spatial identity is not a static inheritance but a dynamic process continuously constructed through the accumulation and reinterpretation of historical layers over time. As a major port on the ancient Maritime Silk Road, a treaty port, and a core city of the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area, Guangzhou has developed multiple spatial identities across successive historical periods, which are symbolically (re)constructed through the linguistic landscape (LL) of its public spaces. Drawing on a corpus of 527 signs collected from three areas representing different historical strata, together with a reader-response survey and follow-up interviews, this paper examines how translation strategies transform historical and place-based resources into distinct spatial meanings and how these signs are interpreted by readers with different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Across the three areas, code preference and code salience correspond closely with local historical positioning, projecting a multidimensional spatial identity that carries historical memory into contemporary urban space. Translation plays a central role in the (re)production of cultural symbols. Heritage meanings are reinterpreted through translation and incorporated into market-oriented discourses, through which the past is transformed into communicable and commercially valuable symbols that reshape spatial identity in contemporary urban environments. Reception patterns indicate that readers assess multilingual signage according to both communicative accessibility and its alignment with the identity of a place.