ABSTRACT
Packaging of common household items such as foods, drinks and pharmaceutical products is a large part of the textual landscape of homes and shops almost everywhere and multilingual packaging is common nowadays. This chapter provides a preliminary approach to the analysis of multilingual product packaging, using two perspectives: multimodality, where texts function both as language and as images, with semiotic interactions between the two; and multidimensionality, seeing product packages as three-dimensional objects. Three-dimensional space allows for interpretations such as ‘front’, ‘back’, ‘top’, ‘base’ of containers. Interpretations are often produced through text and image, potentially linked to particular languages in a specific context. The chapter is based observations of a collection of about 80 multilingual packages from 16 countries. Three-dimensional space and geometrical relations, it is argued, are typically used to represent informational hierarchies (marketing messages vs safety warnings) but can also represent sociolinguistic hierarchies. Alternatively, symmetry and space may be used as visual metaphors to establish languages as equal, avoiding or negating such hierarchies. This strategy is typical in countries where there is official equality between languages. Where products are packaged for an international market, more diverse and complex arrangements of language and text are found.
