Abstract：The Markedness Theory developed by the Prague School in the 1930s has been a seminal theoretical paradigm in research of language structures. This paper is an attempt to apply the Markedness Theory to linguistic landscape studies and provide a new analytical framework for the language uses on signage. Compared to the prevailing quantitative approach to linguistic landscape, the proposed marking paradigm can help researchers to skip the conventional statistical procedures and undertake the thematic analysis straightforwardly. In this paper, the linguistic landscape of Beijing 798 Art Zone is investigated using the Markedness Theory in order to reveal the strategies of languages display by shop proprietors. The analysis shows that the presentation of artistic creativity and cultural significance relies on a variety of marked symbols, wordplay, spatial layouts or materiality. It is argued that the marking paradigm can facilitate the inquiry of subculture in linguistic landscape and the filtration of background noise in linguistic landscape, and its qualitative analysis can offer an in-depth insight into the sociolinguistic realities underneath the “discourse in place”.
