In mainland China, Reform and Opening up in the last few decades has opened a floodgate of foreign infusion. Foreign businesses such as KFC, Starbucks, Walmart, McDonalds, and Carrefour are seen everywhere. There have also been many loanwords. Some of the loanwords have become so much a part of the Chinese lexicon that their foreign origin may not even be clear to all. Apart from the social and cultural implications, the influx of things foreign presents quite a challenge to Chinese with its non-phonetic script. Various accommodation strategies have been used to represent foreign words with Chinese characters, including meaning translation, phonetic transliteration, or a combination of both, resulting in varying degrees of semantic and phonetic approximation. Incidentally, the fact that the Rebus (phonetic loan) Principle is extensively used for phonetic transliterations, whereby Chinese characters are used only for their sounds without regard to their meanings, gives the lie to the persistent ideographic myth concerning Chinese characters.

The rhetorical devices used in a language reflect both its linguistic characteristics and the cultural patterns of its users. Due to the extensive homophony in Chinese, punning is extensively exploited. The predilection for even numbers may account for the fondness for symmetry and parallelism. The special characteristics of Chinese characters naturally lend themselves to clever manipulation of graphic shape. As expected, rhetorical devices are seen more often in public writing such as advertisements and civic banners but less in strictly functional ones like road signs.

The signs in this chapter range from the strongest warnings to gentler reminders. 禁(止) ‘forbid’ and 严禁 ‘strictly forbid’ are used for the strongest warning possible. 请勿 ‘please don’t’ may be a tad less strong than 禁止. There are also other verbs of warning such as莫 ‘don’t’, 不得 ‘must not’, and 不可 ‘may not’. The most common reminders include verbs 当心 ‘beware of’, 小心 ‘be careful about’ and so on. To convey a sense of seriousness, the language of warnings and reminders tends to be formal, replete with classical Chinese elements.

Many signs in urban areas are bilingual in Chinese and English. It cannot escape the notice of even the most casual bilingual observer that many such signs are woefully (and sometimes hilariously) mistranslated. Mistakes can result from wrong segmentation, wrong word choice, wrong grammar, or inappropriate style, which is particularly important in Chinese. Mistakes can also result from missing crucial information or lack of understanding of English. There are also the ‘innovative analogies’, which give rise to non-existent English words. Also frequently observed are inconsistencies, wavering between the two strategies of pinyin transliteration and meaning translation. The inclusion of mistranslated signs can be pedagogically useful in more than one way. Studying mistranslated signs is an exercise in contrastive analysis. Through detailed analysis of the causes of the mistakes, such signs can be used as negative examples in the teaching of both Chinese and English. They can also be useful to the study and practice of translation.

For many visitors to China, airports may be where Chinese signs are first seen. This chapter will sample some signs that are commonly seen at airports, including those for customs, terminals, departure lounges, boarding gates, baggage claims, and transportation options. Most of the airport signs are bilingual with English translations. Most of the signs in this chapter are seen at the Pudong International Airport in Shanghai.

This chapter samples signs to do with eating out. They include names of restaurants, ordering and getting foods, dish names, and sample menus. The range of names for places to eat includes 饭店, 饭庄, 酒家, 酒楼, 餐厅, 馆, 店, 居, 厨房, 楼, 美食街, and 排档. As is the case with hotels, many restaurants have misleading names. For example, 酒家 and 酒楼 (distinct from 酒店 ‘hotel’) are not drinking establishments. In fact, few restaurants are straightforwardly called 饭馆 or 餐馆. 饭店 is used more for hotels than restaurants. To sound fancy and literary, aliases for place names are often used to refer to regional cuisines instead of official full names.

This chapter samples signs of various cultural institutions, entertainment venues and media.

This introductory chapter provides the rationale for the book, as well as its organization. As part of the linguistic landscape, public signage provides glimpses of a culture and its changes. The ability to read signs is a practical skill essential for daily survival in the target language environment. But there seems to have been a general neglect of signs in the typical Chinese language curriculum, even at advanced levels of instruction. This book aims to rectify the situation.

This chapter includes civic signs and political banners, which seem to be particularly numerous in China. They are used to extol civic and cultural values reflecting the current social and political climate. From their contents, one can get a sense of what are considered important at a particular time. Like couplets, the rhetorical device of parallelism is frequently employed.

This chapter samples some basic signs of location, such as exit and entry, names of cities and streets of various sizes and styles.

This chapter samples ads of three types: commercials, classified ads, and the so-called ‘small ads’. Ads can appeal to senses of good value, tradition and authenticity, novelty and popularity. To attract attention, they often employ rhetorical devices such as punning, parallelism, allusions to shared cultural knowledge, and unexpected juxtaposition for humorous effect.

Reflecting the changes that Chinese writing has undergone during the last century, Chinese signs are neither uniform in character style nor in text orientation. The mixing of different formats is also evident.

This chapter samples signs from educational institutions at various levels and a few school and government offices.

In this chapter, signs of basic services will be given, such as getting hydrated (and duly performing ‘bodily function’), getting connected and having access to funds.