Indexicality and Enregisterment

At the heart of our argument is Silverstein’s (Reference Silverstein2003) concept of indexical order, concerned with relating “the micro-social to the macro-social frames of analysis of any sociolinguistic phenomenon” (193) as well as Agha’s (Reference Agha2007, Reference Agha2011) theory of enregisterment, which accounts for social processes in which linguistic tokens accrue indexical value. Indexical order describes the uptake of linguistic features across tiers (n-th order, n + 1st order, and so on) measured in terms of “the degree of institutionalised engagement users manifest in respect of the n-th order indexical meaningfulness” (Silverstein Reference Silverstein2003, 194). Each additional indexical order is a meaning value further detached from the original context of the token, where “n-th and n + 1st order indexical values are, functionally, in dialectic competition one with another” (194). Indexicality is concerned with pointing accompanied by a linguistic sign, and more specifically “pointing at some physically co-present object along with the gaze of the eye, attracting and then directing another’s eye to that object” (Nakassis Reference Nakassis2018, 286). The pointing index “is a familiar ur-gesture” (287), a communicative form that suggests an aspirational proposition. The dialectic nature of the indexical order gives signs an indexical value where the n-th order, “presupposed” indexical value gives rise to the “creative,” n + 1st order indexical value (Silverstein Reference Silverstein2003, 266) due to ideological properties associated with the n-th order. Silverstein explains the theory of indexicality through the process of ritualization, where its effect is that of “indexical iconicity, by which a ritualized text appears to achieve self-grounding in the (relatively) cosmic absolute of value-conferring essences” (203). In his example of wine-talk, or oinoglossia, Silverstein makes clear that a “proper” consumption of wine “iconically” points to personal characteristics of one who is able to speak about wine in the “right way”: “As we consume the wine and properly (ritually) denote that consumption, we become, in performative realtime, the well-bred, characterologically interesting person iconically corresponding to the metaphorical ‘fashion of speaking’ of the perceived register’s figurations of the aesthetic object of connoisseurship, wine” (226). This draws attention to the dialectic nature of indexicality, where persons point to objects and thus construct their indexical value, and where objects point back to ascribe values about sign producers.

The power, productivity, and, arguably, universality of a theory of indexicality is inherent, as Nakassis (Reference Nakassis2018) posits, in its ambivalence that is both an “opportunity and invitation, a site for analytic and theoretical refinement.” Pointing is ambivalent to both language and thought: it “doesn’t just render the object present as an object; it serves it up to us as an image of itself, as something to be seen so that it can be more immediately and truly known, to the eyes if not the transcendental mind” (289). The vitality of indexicality “emerges from a foundational ambivalence within the category of indexicality: between, on the one hand, immediacy and presence and, on the other hand, mediation and representation” (281).

Taking up Nakassis’s challenge to problematize the ground on which indexicality sits, we consider a case where iconized indexical relationships are turned around as a marker of distinction (Bourdieu Reference Bourdieu1984), or as part of a process of “linguistic differentiation” (Irvine and Gal Reference Irvine2000). This is where conventionalized indexical links are playfully and subversively called upon to index opposing values precisely different from links that are stereotypically accepted as true. This dovetails with Silverstein’s criteria for an “illuminating indexical analysis,” one that takes into account the “dialectical plenitude of indexicality in microcontextual realtime” (Reference Silverstein2003, 227) and that “situate[s] itself with respect to the duplex quality of language use, always already both ‘pragmatic,’ i.e., presuppositionally/entailingly indexical, and metapragmatic, i.e., in particular, ideologically informed” (227).

Yet as the n + 1st order formula does not take into account the sociolinguistic contexts in which the reanalysis appears, a theory of enregisterment is required in order to account for how linguistic tokens accrue indexical value. Agha (Reference Agha2007) defines enregisterment as “processes and practices whereby performable signs become recognized (and regrouped) as belonging to distinct, differentially valorized semiotic registers by a population” (81), where registers are “cultural models of action that link diverse behavioural signs to enactable effects, including images of persona, interpersonal relationship, and type of conduct” (145). In other words, registers refer to particular moments of formulation as part of the process of becoming metadiscursively stabilized, or enregistered. While on one hand there exists “stereotypic indexical values to performable signs” (81), the “same form can be enregistered in different ways to different individuals, at different times” (Johnstone Reference Johnstone2016, 638), suggesting what Agha (Reference Agha2011) calls indexical selectivity. As part of the formulation of lifestyles, brands formulate expressions that allow them to reach their target audience through a process of personification. With the shift from single-product advertising to lifestyle advertising, “a new type of indexical selectivity emerges in advertising discourse, where a psychographic conception of consumer types is presupposed from marketing theory, and the performative value project of lifestyle advertising seeks to incorporate more and more elements of social life into commodity-mediated registers of social conduct” (Agha Reference Agha2011, 38).

As other work connecting forms of language with linguistic value have demonstrated (Stroud and Mpendukana Reference Stroud2009), different forms of marketing talk can be formulated resulting in a socioeconomically stratified indexical selectivity. One strategy that “elite” places of consumption use to differentiate themselves from their competitors is their employment of the vernacular in language objects emplaced in these establishments as a symbolic language. This is an authentication strategy (Bucholtz Reference Bucholtz2003) that Mapes (Reference Mapes2018) notes as one of the rhetorical strategies of elite authenticities. In particular, she describes the strategy of historicity, defined as “a focus on origin, longevity and continuity, tradition” (26). Mapes writes that “nostalgia-producing narratives of origin and continuity serve as examples of the problematic ways in which producers and consumers construct authenticity” (33). The cultural omnivore achieves eliteness through their disavowal of privilege by hiding “behind the guise of anti-snobbery” (4) and thus not appearing explicitly elite. The disavowal of privilege is not a coincidence, but a performance that is “carefully—omnivorously—orchestrated” (159).

Linguistic Ecologies and Landscapes of Hong Kong and Singapore

Our argument does not seek to suggest larger trends in the linguistic landscape of the two cities, and neither are our examples meant to describe particular cities. Yet it is precisely sociohistorical conditions that allow the readings we suggest, and as such a discussion of the linguistic ecologies in Hong Kong and Singapore are necessary. Both places have in common complex multilingual situations while bearing several key differences in their linguistic ecologies. The coexistence of Singapore’s four official languages—English, Malay, Tamil, and Mandarin—is complicated by the rise of a colloquial English variety known as Singlish. The prestige of English as compared to so-called mother tongue languages has been well explored in, for example, a study by Xu et al. (Reference Xu1998) that investigated Chinese Singaporean attitudes to English and Mandarin Chinese. The study found that English was valued for its power and prestige, while Mandarin Chinese was valued more for its solidarity functions. Kwan-Terry’s (Reference Kwan-Terry2000) study found that English-speaking families are associated with higher socioeconomic backgrounds, and Alsagoff’s work on English in Singapore (Reference Alsagoff2007, Reference Alsagoff2010) suggests that the English language is associated with cultural capital, where the use of Standard English among Singaporeans is correlated with a personal desire to succeed in the global marketplace. More recently, English has further risen in dominance: comparing 2015 with 2020 government census data, the percentage of households who speak English as the most common language at home had risen from 36.9 percent to 48.3 percent. Singapore’s education system has been solely English medium since 1987 (Dixon Reference Dixon2005, 28), and English the primary medium of communication in the city. As part of its language planning policy, the Singapore government assigned separate functions for English and the Asian official languages: English was promoted as a neutral, working language, necessary for communication between different racial groups and with the outside world, while the other languages were meant to serve as carriers of culture and values (Wee Reference Wee2003, 214). Correspondingly, the percentage of households who spoke predominantly Mandarin fell from 34.9 percent to 29.9 percent between 2015 and 2020. The instrumentalism of Chinese in Singapore (Wee Reference Wee2003) has taken on a commodified dimension (Tupas Reference Tupas2015). Here the prevailing ideology of pragmatism in Singapore has resulted in Mandarin functioning not only as cultural ballast for Chinese Singaporeans but also as a means to facilitate trade with a fast-rising China. The complex relationship between Chinese and the other languages in Singapore is documented and discussed by Ng and Cavallaro (Reference Ng2021), who suggest that the promotion of Mandarin in place of Chinese dialects in the postindependence period has lent an increasing ambivalence to the status of Mandarin, especially as more (Chinese) Singaporeans adopt English as their first language.

On the other hand, Hong Kong’s linguistic landscape is characterized by its Cantonese dominance and colonial past. According to a Hong Kong government survey conducted in 2018,Footnote ¹ 87.6 percent of residents considered their Cantonese proficiency “good” or “very good,” while only 29 percent of residents rated their English proficiency as such. The same survey also found that while 90–95 percent of Hong Kongers use Cantonese for day-to-day communication, only 11.0–23.7 percent, depending on age group, used English for a similar purpose. In light of a rising China, Cantonese has intensified in its function as a key marker of Hong Kong identity, with Leung and Lee (Reference Leung2006, 43) suggesting that “the predominance of Cantonese in Hong Kong is not a consequence of external threat to indigenous language but a cultural choice of the inhabitants.” At the same time, Lai writes that “English has been successfully promoted as an instrument for upward and outward mobility” (Reference Lai2011, 261) and English-medium schools are commonly considered elite institutions relative to Chinese-medium ones. The relatively high status of English in Hong Kong can be attributed to the city’s history as a British colony until 1997, and the Basic Law of Hong Kong holds that both English and Chinese are official languages. However, due to the predominance of Chinese in both spoken and written forms, the use of English is certainly a marked choice in the present-day context. The linguistic landscape today is also affected by the political climate in Hong Kong, which has been changing in the wake of the 2014 Umbrella Movement and subsequent events that evolved into a broader sociopolitical movement in the city. One effect of these movements has been the resurgence of an aggressive assertion of a “localist” identity (Moody Reference Moody2020), expressed in part through a recentering of Cantonese (or traditional Chinese, in the written form) as a key and unique component of the Hong Konger identity. Hansen Edwards (Reference Hansen Edwards2020) investigated the linguistic identity of Hong Kongers following the 2019 unrest and found that participants constructed an identity of the self in contrast to the national language identity of mainland China.

Case Examples and Analysis

Our four field sites are trendy, middle to upmarket food places frequented by a younger clientele. Two of them are located in Hong Kong. Our first example is Ping Pong 129 (fig. 1), a gin bar housed in a former ping pong parlor located in the Sai Ying Pun area, a once quiet district at the western end of Hong Kong Island that has become increasingly gentrified since the opening of a metro station in 2015. Our second example is that of the Second Draft gastropub (figs. 4 and 5) in Tai Hang, Hong Kong, housed in the Little Tai Hang complex, which was completed in 2017 and is close to an important Chinese (Tin Hau) temple as well as other historic sites.

Figure 1.

Ping Pong 129. Photo courtesy of Samantha Ko @kokosamantha.

The other two examples are located in Singapore: Chye Seng Huat Hardware (fig. 2), an artisanal coffee shop located in a shophouse (a traditional building for both residential and commercial use) in Jalan Besar, a former industrial area known for its many hardware shops. Finally, we discuss the Marina One outlet of Waa Cow! (fig. 3), a home-grown Japanese beef and rice bowl (donburi) restaurant targeted at the white-collar lunch crowd in Singapore’s Central Business District.

Figure 2.

Chye Seng Huat Hardware. Photo courtesy of Aidan Poh.

Figure 3.

Waa Cow!

The four places all feature the use of Chinese script within their spaces. The Ping Pong 129 bar retained the original signage of the ping pong bar written in Chinese: 乒乓城 ‘ping pong city’ (fig. 1). However, upon entering, one finds something completely unexpected: a gin bar with a large neon sign that reads 鍛鍊身體 ‘train (one’s) body’, once again alluding to the place’s former use as a ping pong parlor. The Chinese script of the neon sign can be thought of as the co-option of vernacular practices in the styling of elite places. Writing in the context of Hong Kong, Hutton describes vernacular spaces as “those in which the non-standard is spoken, or which are framed by the vernacular, or which impart the affect of the vernacular” (Reference Hutton2011, 166). The vernacular landscape of Hong Kong is typically characterized by Chinese script, as compared to English signage found at higher-end places. Hutton writes about this contrast as follows: “the visual ‘noise’ of the text-rich streetscape dominated by signage contrasts with the low-key text-poor interiors of the elite malls, with their shiny smooth interiors, minimalist window displays … in the most modern and expensive shopping malls, there is scarcely a Chinese character to be seen in the commercial signage” (Reference Hutton2011, 179). The use of Chinese script, together with the neon medium, in upmarket bars can be interpreted as an ironic play on the conventional indexical relations associated with Chinese. Through the juxtaposition of contrasting minimalist design elements and Chinese characters, the conventional indexical associations of Chinese are subverted, creating a transgressive semiotic that imbues Chinese signs with an exotic value.

The image of Ping Pong 129 in figure 1 shows that it is located next to a neighborhood street food stall, whose “text-rich” signage is comparable to those in Brooklyn’s “Old School Vernacular” style (Trinch and Snajdr Reference Trinch2017, 69), signs with such features as large typeface, nonstandard English forms, names bearing lengthy descriptions of the type of business and products offered, and non-English languages, as well as “sincere references to religion, ethnicity, national origin, race and class” (71). The street food stall immediately adjacent to the gin bar and visible in figure 1 is nearly completely covered in Chinese text, “sincerely” and exactly describing all the offerings of the shop and explicitly identifying it as a food stall. Some of the menu items pasted on the façade of the shop also align with other typical street food stalls in Hong Kong, including the top-to-bottom layout of the Chinese text, pictures of the food items, as well as advertisements for local beer. The much narrower façade of Ping Pong 129 however stands directly in contrast to the food stall, featuring only the original Chinese text of the ping pong parlor, with no indication of it being a bar or any suggestion of the drinks offered. Such use of “cryptic names” as are found in Brooklyn’s “distinction-making signs” (75) stand in opposition to the “sincere” signage of its neighbors. The bar borrows from, or perhaps even appropriates the gentrifying character of the street resulting in and allowing for the alternative reading of the ping pong parlor signage. As such, it is because of what the bar stands in contrast to that allows it to combine seemingly similar resources as its neighbor, based around the Chinese script, with features of the globally mobile gentrifying semiotic, leading to alternative readings of otherwise similar linguistic registers.

A similar case can be found in Singapore’s Chye Seng Huat Hardware, whose signage combines English text with Chinese characters, where the Chinese characters for the shop’s name 再成發 literally translate to “fortune many times over” (fig. 2). The choice of “hardware” in its name shows that it is no longer necessary to describe the nature of the business in its naming; instead, the role of the name becomes symbolic as it references the hardware stores that were once commonplace in the area. The use of Chinese here can be easily thought of as a marked choice given that most signage in Singapore, especially in high-end places, is in English. The use of retro styling can be attributed to both local and global factors. On one hand, it reflects a broader seeking of nostalgia in Singapore, where there is widespread, state-sanctioned use of nostalgia as a nation-building strategy (Tan Reference Tan2016). This was evident, for example, in the 2015 “SG50” (the golden jubilee of Singapore’s independence) celebrations, when government funding was made available for heritage-related projects as a means of depoliticizing the past. Such state-approved means of commodifying heritage have been appropriated by private enterprises, as is evident in this example. Chye Seng Huat Hardware is located in an area increasingly populated with hip cafes and bars. Around the area, including directly opposite the coffee shop, can still be found numerous hardware or building construction supply companies. These stores feature signage visually similar to that of Chye Seng Huat: one adjacent company, Hwa Hong Machinery Co. Pte. Ltd., has the company’s name first written in Chinese, above its English name, lending the (arguably original) Chinese name prominence vis-à-vis the English translation. While Hwa Hong is likely a composite of the owner’s name or family name, Chye Seng Huat merely borrows the form of this typical naming practice, replacing it with the relatively generic reference to fortune that can also be thought of standing in opposition to the more traditional names of neighboring companies. By adopting the Chinese form of the other shops as well as the semiotic practice of inscribing its name in both Chinese and Latin script, the coffee shop plays on the styling features of signage used by its neighbors.

The case of Waa Cow! features a large neon sign with Chinese script (possibly the only branch of the chain with décor in Chinese script) which reads 哇靠我要! (fig. 3). The name of the restaurant itself plays on a common colloquial exclamation, wà kào 哇靠, roughly translated as ‘holy shit’ or ‘holy fuck,’ replacing the second character with the homonym in English cow to denote the beef bowls offered by the restaurant. The neon sign takes this wordplay a step further, by prefixing wo yao 我要 ‘I want’ to the shop’s name so that it reads “Waa Cow, I want!” The use of Chinese is again unexpected; the restaurant is located in a modern grade-A office tower and caters to a largely white-collar or expat clientele. The restaurant does not serve Chinese food, and the sign has no denotational purpose. The neon sign can be considered part of the “spectacle” frame, signs that are “prominent, large and towering over the people in their proximity … relative to other signage in their environment” (Jaworski Reference Jaworski2014, 224). Emphasizing the form of the sign, including its neon medium (cf. Theng Reference Theng2021), rather than its content and the use of Chinese, suggests a fetishization of non-English languages (Kelly-Holmes Reference Kelly-Holmes2014), a point we elaborate below. The dialectical relationship between spectacularization and fetishization results in the increased desirability associated with the authentic local and as such allows linguistic tokens to index new values.

Despite the newness of the Second Draft gastropub, the bar is styled as if it has taken the place of a former industrial space. The centerpiece of the interior is a sign written both in English and Chinese that reads “Bright Apex Incorporated Ltd” (fig. 4). This is a reference to a Chinese naming practice that involves combining two separate characters together to form a name, in this case, the characters for “peaceful” and “light.” This is often complemented with a loose translation into English of the idea in the name—in this case, “bright apex”—since both English and Chinese are official languages in Hong Kong. Upon further research one finds that Bright Apex is in fact the registered business name of the company behind the pub. The horizontal line 有限公司 (fig. 4) reads from right to left, typical of how shop names were styled in days past. This bilingual theme extends to other corners of the pub. One finds several pieces of bilingual text, with others simply in Chinese. These are written in a stenciled typeface resembling signage found in factories, industrial buildings, and other so-called low-end workplaces. Figure 5 is found by a cashier counter, and the sign reads 員工必須洗手 ‘Must wash hands’, seemingly giving the impression that there was once a sink. In another part of the bar, the text “Fire escape path, please do not block” (fig. 6) appears only in Chinese; the corridor is ironically used as a storage area for barrels of beer that block any passage. Like the characters 康光 (fig. 4), the text is read top to bottom, right to left as with traditional Chinese writing. Figure 7 contains two pieces of text; the upper one reads 免費 WI-FI 網絡 (Free Wi-FI connection) in the same stenciled typeface, while giving away that all the text in the bar of this typeface is in fact newer than it appears, since a typical old-school industrial space would not contain such a sign. Unlike the example in figure 4, the reference to internet connection is read from left to right and thus also suggests in its form the somewhat less ironic, more sincere content of the message contrasted with those of the other messages. The use of Chinese text for these alternative purposes is surprising in a place where Chinese is supposedly the lingua franca; it appears that the lingua franca can still be employed as a marked choice in the context of its commodification.

Figure 4.

Second Draft

Figure 5.

Must wash hands

Figure 6.

Fire escape

Figure 7.

WI-FI connection available

The use of retro styling features is a consistent feature of the semiotics of gentrification, with work from different parts of the world suggesting that the semiotics of gentrification has become globally mobile. Lyons (Reference Lyons2018) gives examples in her research from San Francisco’s Mission District, where the semiotics of gentrification can involve the repurposing of old signage containing non-English script. Her example of the Lung Shan Restaurant, now Mission Chinese Food, illustrates nicely the parallels between such trends in the Global North and the Global South. Mission Chinese Food began as a pop-up store in an existing Chinese restaurant called Lung Shan. As it became increasingly popular, the owner of Lung Shan suggested to Mission Chinese Food owner Danny Bowein that he take over the store. Its modern take on Chinese food has resulted in its becoming an award-winning restaurant. As Lyons writes, “Despite the accolades and prestige—or perhaps because of them—the Mission street location of Mission Chinese Food maintains the same pre-pop up Lung Shan signage. … The awning, complete with the original (and no longer in service) telephone number does not just construct exclusivity through silence but subterfuge, the epitome of privileged semiotic choice” (Reference Lyons2018, 74).

Retaining original features of buildings is certainly a common conservation strategy in adaptive reuse projects, such as in Tai Kwun in Hong Kong and at Singapore’s National Gallery. These original features, including bits of text or signage, are left in situ or even restored to their original locations even if the purpose of the building has changed. In this way, the original character of the building is retained and connects the newly adapted place with its past heritage. In our examples, this same strategy has been borrowed as an elite practice in commercial spaces, where original signage makes the new space harder to find and, by extension, more exclusive. This is indeed the case for Ping Pong 129, which retains the original facade of the previous tenants, as well as Chye Seng Huat Hardware, which has kept elements of the original premises such as the metal grilles and windowpanes, allowing the shop to surreptitiously blend in with other businesses in the area.

The example of Second Draft, however, differs somewhat since it manufactures the look of the old in what is otherwise a new space, seemingly resolving the tension between vernacular spaces and nonplaces (Augé Reference Augé1995). Yet it does in fact manufacture an authentic nostalgia, since it is now possible to create old spaces from scratch—and perhaps convincingly so—and the simulation of an old space, created through the use of retro design features, enables such eateries to style themselves as elite. Dai and Chen, writing on the impulse for nostalgia in a fast-developing China, describe well the effect of such a move: “Nostalgic atmosphere, in embellishing the vacuum of memory and in creating personal identities within the span of historical imagination, simultaneously accomplishes a representation of consumerism, as well as a consumerism of representation” (Reference Dai1997, 211). By tapping into the collective memory of old spaces, Second Draft recreates and refashions the historic vernacular into today’s trendy, constructing a space both contingent upon and allowing for a reading of Chinese as a marker of nostalgia.