Linguistic Audit as a Professional Activity

The subject of this research is linguistic (or: language) audit. The term is new and not being widely used so far. Linguistic audit, in particular, is offered as a service of linguistic-consulting agencies’ activities. Modern linguistic consulting, according to the author, is a form of stimulating theoretical and practical development of linguistic ecology, a new branch of applied linguistics, which, in turn, predetermines development of communication ecology as a new direction of integrated humanitarian research.
Today, the most representative form of linguistic ecology is linguistic landscape, which, in the space of a certain society, demonstrates the most characteristic visual dialects of that society. Studying visual dialects makes it possible to judge the language situation in a society, the degree of vitality of languages represented in it; levels that its culture, science and education are at. The linguistic landscape has a high level of representativeness as well as a significant impact on the various circumstances of life and activities of a society, including its culture, religion, politics, science, education and even economy. Stability of a particular society as a whole can be determined by the level of linguistic landscape ecology. Linguistic audit is considered by the author from the functional and integrative point of view. Conducted by language means and aimed at studying and evaluating visualized forms of speech activity, linguistic audit (provided its algorithm has been systematically and conceptually developed) can become an effective tool to optimize language and communication ecology. Using the modeling methodology, the author offers and substantiates her own model algorithm of organizing and conducting linguistic audit institutions in the field of restaurant business in Moscow, Russia, to optimize their activities, improve their status and an optimal impact of their names on various aspects of their social interaction.