The Study of Linguistic Patterns in Shop Signs of Tabriz

The study of shop signs is a research domain in the field of sociolinguistics, and scholars try to address the topic from different perspectives in order to provide a deeper insight to the language in use. The present study attempts to analyze the diverse linguistic patterns in Tabriz shop signs. First three areas, i.e. area A (affluent), area B (semi-affluent), and area C (poor) were located, and from each area, 300 names were collected. The findings indicate that from 900 shop signs, 78.3 percent use monolingual Persian names, and Turkish with just 6 percent of usage, works as a minor language in the naming process. The comparison of the three different areas, show that there is a relationship between the economic, social welfare and the use of varying linguistic patterns. It is also shown that in some businesses like clothing shops as well as restaurants, employing diverse linguistic patterns is a popular method to absorb higher number of customers. At the end of the article, the results of the present study are compared with the findings of other Iranian and non-Iranian contributions.