Stylization of history and heritage commodification: The linguistic landscape of refabricated historical streets in Chinese cities.

This paper examines the linguistic landscape of refurbished historical streets to reveal the semiotic construction of antiquity and commodification of heritage. Based on signage data collected from four historical blocs in Shanghai, Hangzhou and Ningbo in East China, this study reveals how Chinese semiotic artifacts contribute to stylizing antiquity and reinvigorating the space of consumption. Results suggest that the fabricated historical streets sustain the tourism rhetoric of cultural pride and commercial profit by appealing to history, tradition, exoticism, and nostalgia. The study problematizes orchestrated heritage tourism and points to the use of English as potentially subversive in the Chinese linguistic landscape. • History is refabricated and commodified to satiate tourist desires. • Traditional Chinese language serves to authenticate ancient Chineseness. • Access to history-saturated semiotic resources is unequally distributed. • English potentially counteracts the spatial hegemony of historicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]