Constructing public visibility: Chinese as a minority language in the linguistic landscape of Port of Spain

This study examines how the public visibility of Chinese, a demographically marginal minority language, is constructed in the linguistic landscape of Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. Drawing on 98 Chinese-associated public signs documented in August 2023, it combines quantitative distributional mapping with qualitative analysis to identify the mechanisms through which Chinese remains recognizable in an English-dominant environment lacking demographic concentration and institutional support. Three interconnected mechanisms are identified. Hierarchical embedding shows that Chinese occupies secondary positions within bilingual displays, yet this subordinate arrangement enables signs to address multiple audiences simultaneously. Multimodal amplification shows that where written Chinese is reduced in scale, color schemes, the Fu character, and compositional arrangements make Chinese identity perceptible beyond linguistic legibility. Temporal layering shows that the coexistence of traditional and simplified characters, Cantonese romanization and Mandarin Pinyin, and contrasting writing directions renders the streetscape an archive in which different periods of migration remain materially legible. Together, these findings suggest that minority-language visibility is actively constructed through linguistic, visual, and historical resources rather than determined by demographic strength alone, extending existing accounts of overseas Chinese communities beyond established Chinatown settings.