Socio‐economic stratification of English in globalized landscapes: A market‐oriented perspective

Globalization has dramatically altered the urban societies of Amsterdam and Brussels over recent decades, with intensified socio‐economic inequality, unprecedented levels of multilingualism and the increasing importance of English. In this paper, I examine the use of English in the linguistic landscape of socio‐economically stratified commercial shopping streets in these two second‐tier global cities. I adopt a market‐oriented, contextualized approach to quantitative and qualitative variability in how English emerges in these particular commercial ‘linguistic markets’. McDonaldization in midscale shopping streets occurs alongside downscale and upscale uses of English which are more susceptible to local commercial dynamics, in particular in Brussels. As such, global English in these single city contexts emerges as a heterogeneous and scaled phenomenon shaped by specific local commercial and linguistic market conditions.