Negotiating Power through Bilingual Signs: English and Filipino in the Linguistic Landscape of Divisoria

Abstract

Public signs function as semiotic resources through which multilingual communities organize communication and negotiate linguistic authority. Although Philippine linguistic landscape research has documented language distribution and code preference, less attention has been paid to how bilingual signs allocate communicative and symbolic functions across languages. This study examined power relations in 42 bilingual signs photographed along Ylaya Street, Divisoria, Manila. It identified the language combinations represented, determined preferred codes, and classified multilingual information using Ben-Rafael et al.'s (2006) distinction between top-down and bottom-up signs, Scollon and Scollon's (2003) geosemiotics, and Reh's (2004) typology of multilingual writing. English Filipino signs comprised 98% of the corpus, and bottom-up signs accounted for 36 of the 42 items. Although English appeared in every sign, Filipino was visually preferred in 62% of cases. Fragmentary multilingual information represented 95% of the corpus. Qualitative analysis showed that English indexed promotion, commercial legitimacy, standardized business practices, and institutional authority, whereas Filipino supported product identification, interpersonal engagement, and public regulation. The findings indicate that bilingual signage in Divisoria does not reproduce a simple hierarchy in which one language consistently dominates. Instead, sign producers distribute languages strategically to balance local accessibility with commercial and institutional authority. The study extends Philippine linguistic landscape scholarship by showing how functional specialization, visual salience, and sign provenance jointly construct power in a multilingual marketplace.