This paper explores Hispanic immigrants' reactions to linguistic servicescapes in retail banking in Southern California. This fertile area of enquiry combines the sociolinguistic theory of linguistic landscape with research into multilingual service encounters describing what happens in the retail servicescape before the service encounter which sets up expectations for what happens during the service encounter. This new term describes the use of language in and around a service encounter including signage and promotional materials as well as bilingual personnel. In multilingual areas such as Southern California where the use of a minority language is politically charged, effective encoding of symbolic language by the service provider is crucial for the success of a service encounter. The results of this study indicate that management's actual or perceived lack of sensitivity to appropriate linguistic symbols leads to both confusion and an attribution of discrimination towards the targeted ethnic group—even if none were intended. What is written or said in the service encounter is important, but this research illustrates that the context is also significant. The wider symbolic use of language is key in determining the success of service encounters.

Billboard advertising, a form of outdoor advertising, is undergoing a renaissance in the US with outdoor advertising revenue growing 16.5 per cent since 1990. The more public nature of billboards, however, means that Anglos and other non-Hispanics may be unintentionally exposed to Spanish language billboard advertisements. The reactions of non-Hispanic consumers to Spanish language billboards appear to be much more complex than first considered. In the field of language planning, most research has concentrated on language planning efforts at the governmental and even national level. When non-Hispanics are exposed to Spanish monolingual or bilingual billboard advertisements, people are more likely to feel alienated from their community. Spanish-language billboard advertising may indeed increase racist attitudes among non-Hispanics, although the effect may be more complex and require a more subtle survey instrument than the one created for and used in the research.

Article ‘Home, sweet casa’ – access to home loans in Los Angeles: A critique of English and Spanish home loan brochures was published on January 1, 1996 in the journal Multilingua (volume 15, issue 3).

Les As. examinent les strategies developpees par les banques pour atteindre les communautes ethniques ne parlant pas anglais (japonaise, chinoise et espagnole) a Los Angeles, ville multiculturelle et multilingue. Deux types de textes ecrits sont analyses: les brochures decrivant les services bancaires et les instructions ecrites aux clients, en particulier celles des distributeurs automatiques de billets. Ils comparent des documents ecrits en anglais avec leurs equivalents japonais, chinois et espagnol

The authors apply sociolinguistic theories of accommodation to investigate how consumers in a minority subculture respond to the use of their ethnic language in advertising. Specifically, Hispanic consumers' responses to the varying degrees of Spanish-language usage in print advertising were examined. It was found that the effects of Spanish usage in advertising can be usefully explained by accommodation theory. Spanish-language advertising increased Hispanic consumers' perception of advertiser sensitivity to Hispanic culture and people, and this perception in turn enhanced affect toward the advertisements. Yet, after controlling for perceived advertiser sensitivity, it was also found that advertising exclusively in Spanish decreased affect toward the advertisement. This finding may be interpreted to mean that though Spanish-language advertising appears to signal solidarity with the Hispanic community, exclusive use of Spanish in advertising may arouse Hispanic insecurities about language usage. Implications for future research and theory on language choice and usage in communication to consumer subcultures are discussed.