Linguistic landscapes as discursive frame Chinatown in Paris in the eyes of new Chinese migrants

Previous research on the Linguistic Landscapes of Chinatowns has highlighted the perceptions and experiences of long-term residents (Lou, 2009, 2016; Amos, 2016). To explore Chinatown in the eyes of newly arrived migrants, this paper presents a study of the Linguistic Landscape of the Triangle de Choisy, the Chinatown in Paris. Drawing upon Scollon and Scollon’s geosemiotic framework (2003) and Augé’s place theory (1995), it analyzes 130 photographs of the field and four interviews with newly arrived Chinese migrants. It is found that the Linguistic Landscape of the Chinatown constructs a coherent semiotic aggregate for the newcomers as an identifiable, relational, and historical transnational space that helps to orient them in a new country. Thus, this study illustrates how the Linguistic Landscape of Chinatown could serve as structured and structuring discursive frame (Coupland & Garrett, 2010) in the lives of new migrants.