The Construction of Public Space through Language

Castillo Lluch, Mónica/Kailuweit, Rolf/Pusch, Claus D. (ed.): Linguistic Landscape Studies. The French Connection, Freiburg im Breisgau: Rombach, 2019

Over the last two decades, many researchers investigated the presence of written languages in public space and their proportion to each other. Along with the enhancement of the discipline, the question arose how passers-by perceive the linguistic landscape (LL) and to what extent the signs impact on their language behaviour. This study pursues an interdisciplinary approach and adopts the methodological principles used within perceptual psychology to explore the pedestrians’ reactions on the LL. By means of experiments and interviews conducted in the multilingual town Aosta in Italy, the level of attention paid to the signs and the manner of verbalising their content was analysed. The results of the pilot study prove that the psychological method is fruitful for unveiling the laypersons’ degree of consciousness and for explaining their responses to the LL.

Linguistic landscape (L.L) is the study of written languages in the public space. This paper is an endeavor to explore and describe the linguistic make-up of Casablanca as it is conveyed in its Linguistic Landscape in order to explore the languages used in its public signs, the characteristics of these signs, and language attitudes at play that shape the public space of this city. Two different places, Prince Moulay Abdellah Avenue and Idris Alharti Boulevard, were chosen as sites of investigation. The data include over 177 pictures of language signs that were analyzed so as to determine the number of languages used, the languages on the signs and the characteristics of monolingual, bilingual and multilingual signs, with a special attention given to bottom-up signs (non-governmental signs). Although Arabic and Tamazight are official languages in Morocco, their presence in the LL is not equal. The signs in Casablanca's linguistic landscape reveal language attitudes that are present and sometimes promote one language over another. On the same line, close-ended questionnaires (60) and interviews (7) with shop owners give a good insight into their language choice. The findings indicate that the linguistic landscape is, to a large extent, shaped by language attitudes that construct the public space with certain languages and that there are important differences between the two settings-Prince Moulay Abdellah Avenue and Idris Alharti Boulevard.

Traduction et Langues , 2014

Linguistic landscape, henceforth LL, is made up of public and private signs i.e.; the language(s) displayed in public space. It has recently been researched by scholars from different disciplines concerned with issues of languages in contact phenomenon which is rather a case of written languages in contact. Two factors intervene in its development. The first factor falls within the official language agencies responsible of language use and regulations while the second includes individuals, and private institutions using language(s) purposefully for their own objectives escaping the control of the authorities and thus taking the freedom of rule violation as a creative way of communication. As a field of language research it mostly deals with the sociology of language, and more particularly, language policy and planning, but it is also considered as a resource for language learning and as a place of contested identities and language conflicts and hidden language agendas. Thus, necessity rises to consider LL not only as a strategy for language management but also as the key place where it must take place. It is for these very reasons that the main objective of the present article focusses on exploring LL as a strategy of language planning and management because the bottom-up individual and private agencies constitute the active agents in issues of language use, maintenance, and promotion.

This chapter deals with the relatively new yet burgeoning interdisciplinary field of linguistic landscapes (LL), which focuses on the visual representations of language(s) in the public space. After discussing the emergence and institutionalization of the field, the chapter turns to a range of currently debated theoretical topics and methodological approaches. Attention is drawn to how LL research reflects a shift away from modernist perspectives on language and society by exploring issues related to multilingualism and translingual mixing, to language policy and contestation, to minority languages and tokenistic commodification, and to the scaled mobility of linguistic resources. By means of illustration, a number of pictures are provided from different locations in the linguistic landscape of Brussels (Belgium). In this chapter, we argue that because of the very nature of the LL research object, i.e. a more or less restricted (material) frame, LL can be a prime research locus to explore new phenomena and interdisciplinary methodological paths. Furthermore, this interdisciplinary potential of the field is arguably its most valuable contribution to future research on language in society.

International Journal of Bilingualism, 2010

Sociolinguistic Studies, 2023

In today's linguistic circles, it is stating the obvious that the Linguistic Landscape (LL) approach has become a remarkable success story since the first studies were conducted, the first workshops organised, and the first collections of papers published about 15 years ago. During these years, Linguistic Landscape studies have moved from mostly quantitative to more qualitative approaches and multi-method research. The field has experienced an expansion into semiotic landscapes and all different types of '-scapes' in a variety of geographical areas and academic and social contexts which have been collected and discussed not least in edited volumes. This started with Gorter's 2006 groundbreaking introductory collection and travelled via more specific collections on, for example, semiotic landscapes (Jaworski and Thurlow, 2010), minority languages in the LL (Gorter, Marten and Van Mensel, 2012), sociolinguistic studies (Laitinen and Zabrodskaja, 2015) to relatively recent collections by Pütz and Mundt (2018) or Malinowski and Tufi (2020), just to mention a few. One important strand in this development is the connection between LL studies and education. Early influential individual studies and educational projects (e.g.

NOBEL: Journal of Literature and Language Teaching, 2018

Linguistic landscape research has been administered in different parts of the world by several researchers. However, linguistic landscape research in Indonesia is still limited in number. To respond to the scarcity of linguistic landscape study in Indonesia, the present research discusses the visible languages and the proportions of top-down and bottom-up signs in Sidoarjo City. The functions of the signs are also identified. Data were collected from signs in some public places and along the main roads of Sidoarjo City. The results of the study show that the linguistic landscape is dominated by Indonesian. English is used more frequently than Arabic. Surprisingly, Javanese as the mother tongue for the majority of the society of Sidoarjo is rarely used. Some other Asian languages are also apparent in the shopping centers. Description and explanation of the functions of the signs are also presented.

Manusya: Journal of the Humanities, 2016

Linguistic Landscapes, 2019

Linguistic landscape studies is the investigation of displayed language in a particular space, generally through the analysis of advertisements, billboards, and other signs. A common definition used in the field is the one posited in the canonical 1997 article “Linguistic Landscape and Ethnolinguistic Vitality: An Empirical Study” (Journal of Language and Social Psychology 16(1): 23–49) by Rodrigue Landry and Richard Y. Bourhis: “The language of public road signs, advertising billboards, street names, place names, commercial shop signs, and public signs on government buildings combines to form the linguistic landscape of a given territory, region, or urban agglomeration” (p. 25). (See Landry and Bourhis 1997, cited under Origins of the Field.) The study of the linguistic landscape (LL) is a fairly new area of investigation, with the establishment of its first international conference in 2008 and first international journal in 2015. An especially interdisciplinary field, it incorporates work from camps such as anthropology, linguistics, political science, education, geography, and urban planning. While the majority of research focuses on particular geographical places, the area of study has expanded to include the linguistic landscape of the Internet. This article highlights diverse works from male and female scholars, researchers of color, and scholarship on minority languages by scholars from all over the globe. Key texts include research presented in various forms including books, articles, conferences, conference presentations, and dissertations. The first half of the article is organized by contribution type. It begins with Key Works and then turns to Edited Collections. It then moves on to journals that commonly feature linguistic landscape work or special issues and then some of the latest dissertations that have been published. Finally, the article turns to conferences dedicated to the subject and important conference papers that have been discussed recently among scholars in the field. The second half of the article is organized topically in the following order: Origins of the Field, Innovative Methodologies, Applications and Approaches in the Field (including subsections Multilingualism, Global English, Minority Languages, Anthropology, Language Policy and Planning, and Education). In the subsection Anthropology, three central themes are considered: Language Attitudes and Ideologies, Identity, and Ethnography. Finally, the article reviews important works from a newer subcamp: The Linguistic Landscape of the Internet.

2018

New plurilingual spaces reflect a (super)diversity, which represents, in turn, an important indicator of the fluid and dynamic changes taking place in the structure of society today. Based on these considerations originating within the sociolinguistic paradigm that considers the interrelationship between plurilingualism and pluriculturalism in interactional space, the authors of the papers collected in this special issue adopt interdisciplinary views. They combine social theories and media studies, pragmatic, discourse and linguistic analysis, the theory of perception, aesthetics and semiotics to shed light on the complexity and plurality of the experience, practice and perception of the new spaces in media, urban and educational environments.