Translation Regimes and Language Hierarchy in Huai Khwang’s Multilingual Signage: Evidence From Bangkok’s Emerging Chinese Commercial District

Abstract

This article examines how translation regimes and visual prominence jointly organise language hierarchy in Huai Khwang, Bangkok, a commercially dynamic district associated with Chinese-oriented urban change. Drawing on a district-wide corpus of 1,144 photographed public signs collected across six major routes between March 2024 and March 2025, the study analyses 840 multilingual signs by sector, language configuration, relative prominence, and translation regime. The results show that multilingual display in Huai Khwang is sectorally differentiated rather than uniform. Consumer-oriented sectors account for the largest share of multilingual signage, indicating that the district’s visible multilingualism is driven primarily by market activity rather than by state signage alone. Thai remains foundational to public legibility and institutional authority, English is strategically elevated in sectors oriented to access, mobility, and commercial reach, and Chinese is highly visible but selectively dominant in Chinese-oriented commercial addressivity. Direct translation is the dominant regime overall, especially in government signage and in sectors where communicative clarity and service transparency are central, whereas partial translation is strongest in tourism and retail and wholesale consumption, where branding and selective audience targeting carry greater weight. The article argues that Huai Khwang is best understood not as a uniformly Chinese-dominant district, but as a stratified multilingual marketplace in which language hierarchy varies systematically by sector, audience, and communicative purpose.