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- Volume 6, Issue 2, 2020
Linguistic Landscape - Volume 6, Issue 2, 2020
Volume 6, Issue 2, 2020
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Defining the position of ‘community’ in the study of linguistic landscapes
Author(s): Leonie Gaiser and Yaron Matraspp.: 109–127 (19)More LessAbstractThis special issue explores how multilingual (and semiotic) landscapes relate to constructions of community. With the present introduction we aim to embed theoretical notions of ‘community’ into the study of Linguistic Landscapes (henceforth LL). We first discuss how the notion of ‘community’ has been applied in previous LL research, and then introduce some relevant theoretical notions of ‘community’, which, in the final part, we seek to position in relation to an agenda for the study of LL.
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Semiotic rural landscapes and the performance of community in villages
Author(s): Gertrud Reershemiuspp.: 128–154 (27)More LessAbstractThis article analyses the semiotic landscapes of 19 villages in Low German-speaking northern Germany, thus contributing to the growing body of research in the field of semiotic landscapes in rural settings. Drawing from Blokland’s (2017) typology of community, it analyses the semiotic landscapes of the villages as material manifestations of communicative practices and performances which create fluid, flexible configurations of community. The analysis reveals that signage in this particular rural context reflects social processes by which individuals and communities have constructed new images of themselves by using elements of local tradition, culture, language, and history. In doing so, they have also carved out a specific approach to tourism for themselves, which is opposed to mass and package tourism.
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Multilingual voices of unification in ‘No man’s land’
Author(s): Christiana Themistocleouspp.: 155–182 (28)More LessAbstractThe island of Cyprus and Nicosia, its capital, have been divided by a UN-controlled buffer zone since the 1974 war. The ease of movement restrictions in 2003 saw Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots crossing into each other’s area after 30 years of complete separation and increased mobility, especially through the UN-controlled buffer zone at the Ledras Street crossing-point in Nicosia, interjected a new dynamic in the area. The analysis of photographic data collected over a period of three years from the Linguistic Landscape of the buffer zone reveals that ephemeral signs in Greek, Turkish, and English are used to establish connections and strengthen social ties between the former enemies, and to project ideologies that go against popular nationalist narratives. By adopting new conceptualisations of the term ‘community’ (Blokland, 2017), this study discusses how a new, imagined community can emerge in conflict-ridden contexts through the display of written public signs in the Linguistic Landscape.
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Community Ma(r)king in the linguistic landscape of the Ruhr Metropolis
Author(s): Evelyn Ziegler, Ulrich Schmitz and Haci-Halil Uslucanpp.: 183–212 (30)More LessAbstractCentral for this paper is the assumption that the Linguistic Landscape is a complex phenomenon that provides an insight not only into practices of symbolic place-making of communities but also into the relation between place, language, and belonging. According to Tietz (2002), a community is based on shared norms and attitudes, a collectively binding horizon of values and understanding which also mark the boundaries of a community. Starting from these considerations, we will explore processes of community ma(r)king in the Ruhr Metropolis, Germany, drawing on data collected in the interdisciplinary research project Metropolenzeichen/Signs of the Metropolis (Ziegler et al., 2018). Our multi-method approach combines data of geocoded digital photographs (N = 25,504) with metalinguistic data collected in on-site interviews (N = 180) and telephone interviews (N = 1,000) to gain a deeper insight into the formation of communities in the Linguistic Landscape of the Ruhr Metropolis.
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Signage as event
Author(s): Yaron Matras and Leonie Gaiserpp.: 213–236 (24)More LessAbstractOur aim in this paper is to propose a framework to analyse the relationship between language choice on signs in multilingual environments, place, and notions of ‘community’. We focus on an interpretation of the goals pursued by sign owners, exploring how linguistic (and non-linguistic) resources are mapped onto communicative acts to target addressees and initiate some form of encounter or engagement. We approach signs as complex and multi-layered communicative events that are composed of different illocutionary acts, and take into account the local language ecology and place. We show how signs, as a form of practice, contribute to creating relations between sign owners and addressees, and can thus be constitutive of community.
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