Горохова Александра Владимировна

The aim of the study was to gain an insight into the linguistic landscapes of the capital cities of seven North Caucasus republics of Russia and to investigate the main factors influencing them. The study employed the modern Street View technology (Yandex Panoramas Service) to have a better understanding of the multilingual nature of the urban areas in the North Caucasus and to provide an overview of the linguistic situation in the region in its current state. The study was based on the quantitative analysis of the collected data which showed that the linguistic landscapes of the selected cities are dominated by the Russian language, yet experience strong English influence, while the local languages are underrepresented in all investigated cities. The paper discusses possible reasons for the revealed features of the linguistic landscape. Further research may include a qualitative inquiry into the nature of multilingual signs to see how multiple languages are combined in the linguistic landscape of the area.