week 10- place

Question 1

WHAT IS LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPING?

Answer 1

The study of the written texts visible in public spaces, exterior and interior

Question 2

what did Landry and Bourhis (1997) define linguistic landscaping as?

Answer 2

“The visibility and salience of languages on public and commercial signs in a given territory or region.”

Question 3

what can we do with linguistic landscaping?

Answer 3

• Connect people to the physical spaces in which they spend their time
• See what behaviours are encouraged, discouraged or excluded
• See evidence of social rules and regimes
• See how people influence physical spaces
• Persuasion
• Presenting identity
• Asserting rights e.g. ownership
• Power and control
• Recognise physical space as social space
• Uncover hierarchies

Question 4

what can we find out through linguistic landscaping?

Answer 4

• What sociolinguistic regimes are in an area
• Whether the area is multilingual
• Which languages are present
• When various languages are used
• Whether the languages in evidence represent those present

Question 5

picture: in Birmingham, a Chinese restaurant with some English writing. an Indian man is looking in.
what is being represented and what isn’t?

Answer 5

• Chinese and English are being represented. Both languages are relevant to the linguistic landscape.
• the Indian mans language is not represented as it is not relevant to this linguistic landscape.

Question 6

what can texts in the LL can tell us about?

Answer 6

• the lives of the people who created the texts
• the people to whom the texts are directed
• those who are excluded from/by the text (semiotically or semantically)
• and (very often) larger discourses in society

Question 7

what does linguistic landscaping research deliver?

Answer 7

“A sharply articulated image of social processes over a span of time, identifying participants, their mutual forms of dependence and interaction, power differences, stages in processes of becoming and change, and so on.” (Blommaert, 2013)

Question 8

what forms of linguistic landscaping are there?

Answer 8

• Contemporary photographs
• Historical photographs
• Images from Google Earth

Question 9

what is semiosis?

Answer 9

the process of signification in language

Question 10

what does space have to do with linguistic landscaping?

Answer 10

• signs occupy specific spaces

- a sign is only relevant in certain spaces

Question 11

what are some theoretical iseas surrounding linguistic landscaping?

Answer 11

• Power relations (e.g. Bourdieu 1980)
• Good reasons (e.g. Boudon 1989)
• Presentation of self (Goffman 1956)
• Collective identities (e.g. Bokser-Liwerant 2002)

Question 12

What does LL deliver?

Answer 12

A sharply articulated image of social processes over a span of time, identifying participants, their mutual forms of dependence and interaction, power differences, stages in processes of becoming and change, and so on.”
(Blommaert, 2013:16)