Abstract

This chapter presents a comprehensive overview of the rural and urban linguistic landscape of India. To achieve this goal, various facets of what is termed ‘non-conventional’ advertising and outdoor signage are examined from three perspectives—language saliency, advertising, and marketing.The chapter addresses the following two key questions: One, how do marketers and advertisers craft their outdoor linguistic landscape to reach out to their audience/consumers in India, a country marked by exceptional linguistic and geographic diversity? Two, what factors determine media and linguistic choices of marketers and advertisers in the Indian linguistic landscape? The chapter argues that the overwhelming dominance of Indian rural advertising, termed ‘non-conventional’ advertising, mirrors the pattern of at least four thousand years of uninterrupted natural bilingualism, sending information-based messages to consumers in a way that reflects and define the rural mental as well as cultural landscape. Based on the analysis of over 2000 wall advertisements collected from villages and highways in three zones of India, it is argued that the rural advertising percolates not only to the urban linguistic landscape but also reaches to ecologically sensitive areas of the Himalayas and other regions. Ecological issues are also addressed.