A Diachronic Analysis of the Linguistic Landscape of Chinese Time-Honored Brands: The Case of Guangzhou

Abstract

Time-honored brands represent living cultural heritage and serve as a concentrated embodiment of commercial civilization’s historical development. This study investigates the diachronic evolution and influencing factors of the linguistic landscape of time-honored brands in Guangzhou. A total of 261 historical and contemporary signage samples from 39 Chinese time-honored brands were collected through archival research and field surveys. The analysis reveals that the signage of these brands has undergone a gradual transformation from monolingual Chinese displays to multilingual forms. In terms of layout, the signs consistently exhibit a “coexistence of horizontal and vertical orientations,” while the direction of text flow has shifted over time from the traditional “right-to-left” format to the modern “left-to-right” arrangement. The textual content of these signs is deeply embedded with cultural heritage and regional characteristics. A noticeable overlap of old and new signs, as well as messages from different periods, reflects both the impact of language policies on the linguistic landscape across different historical stages and the adaptive innovation of time-honored brands in response to policy shifts and social change. This study offers fresh insights into the dynamics of linguistic landscapes and provides valuable empirical references for the preservation and sustainable development of time-honored brands.