MeCavaddu. Fast food & Grill bar: il dialetto nel paesaggio linguistico catanese

In this paper the first results of a wider, ongoing study on the linguistic landscape of Catania will be presented. A very wide corpus of digital photos was collected from different areas of the city, but in this first stage of the research, only the ones containing elements of local dialect and belonging to the commercial domain of restaurants and bars will be examined. The qualitative analysis is based on some principles of the grammar of visual design and of geosemiotics, together with some categories drawn from Genette’s notion of paratext, since a formal and functional similarity has been detected between some paratextual elements and those present on shop front design. The main results can be summarized as follows: (i) among the various principles that structure the linguistic landscape, the presentation of self seems to prevail; (ii) the local dialect has undergone a functional specialization, as it is mostly used with symbolic and expressive values in bars and restaurants; (iii) signs in both the local dialect or English, often in co-occurrence, work also and mainly as semiotic signals, the former evoking tradition and local identity, the latter globalization and modernity.