Urban-rural disparities in Hanoi's café names: a linguistic landscape analysis of language choice and modifier placement in Vietnam

This study examines the Linguistic Landscape (LL) of café names in Hanoi, Vietnam, analysing 3,844 establishments across urban and rural districts. Using quantitative methods to investigate language distribution and syntactic patterns in English, French, and Vietnamese, the research reveals urban-rural disparities in language choice and grammatical structures. Urban cafés exhibit higher English prevalence with pre-nominal modification, while rural ones show more balanced distributions, preserving Vietnamese and French post-nominal structures. A key finding is that in bilingual names, the language of the noun phrase (NP) primarily governs syntactic structure, with French showing adaptability across global and colonial contexts. The study makes three key contributions: first, it foregrounds syntax as an ideologically charged aspect of public multilingualism – a dimension largely overlooked in LL research; second, it elucidates how global-local linguistic interactions manifest in grammatical structures; and third, it systematically maps urban-rural distinctions through both language choice and syntax. These findings have implications for language policy, highlighting the importance of grammatical structures in planning for multilingual equity and fostering sustainable linguistic diversity in transitional economies.