Found in Transliteration: Translanguaging and the Polyvocality of Xiqu Centre

This article illustrates how the linguistic‐anthropological notion of axes of differentiation can illuminate translanguaging practices. Through an analysis of media texts, it explores the ways in which multilingual Hongkongers draw on their semiotic repertoires to make sense of Xiqu Centre as the English name of the recently inaugurated center for traditional Chinese theater in their city. Against the backdrop of different axes of differentiation, supporters and detractors contrast the Putonghua word xìqǔ “traditional Chinese theater” with its equivalents in English and Cantonese respectively, thereby arriving at diametrically opposed interpretations of the name. While many detractors engage in interpretive practices that challenge the discreteness of linguistic systems, others who use their multilingual knowledge to criticize the name appeal to ideologies of linguistic purism. To fully understand multilinguals’ production and interpretation of signs, we need to examine not only communicative practices that disrupt language boundaries but also those practices that do not.