I've just set up a flickr group for anyone who's already on flickr, or who would like to try it out. Like Kasper mentioned in his previous post, I guess we'll want to eventually move to a more robust site than this blog + Google group + flickr site combination, something that synthesizes all of this functionality together. But in the meantime...
I've uploaded some of my own photos, geo-tagged them, cross-referenced a few of them to blog posts I've done on the same photos, and started a discussion topic called "Signs of Surveillance" about a particular topic I'm interested in. This is just to explore some possibilities for what might be done on a broader scale with more of us participating--I would love to hear from those with other ideas about how we could profit from the tools of sites like this, while still making sure discussions of photos remain at a high quality and serve our interests.
Right now, the group is open to anybody who'd like to join. If we continue to use it and decide we'd like to make it invitation-only, that's an easy change to make later.
Would anyone like to be an administrator of this flickr group in the meantime?
--David
LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPE – WHAT’S IN A NAME?
ReplyDeleteThese are my thoughts about the name “Linguistic Landscape” and the contents of the papers purportedly on the topic. This follows the discussion we had on January 17 at the close of the workshop in Siena.
My present thoughts should be seen in the context of Elana’s suggestion, which wasn’t commented on at the meeting, of setting up a journal dealing with linguistic landscape.
Conferences can take a liberal view of the contents of papers. After all, at the Siena workshop out of the 33 papers presented (or should have been presented), only 5 (about 15%) were not concerned directly with language in the public space, but with language in a much more private space, e.g. in newspapers or on postcards, on computer screens, and with ‘language’ used metaphorically in relation to e.g. dance, paintings on electric boxes. We may also include what I asked (rhetorically) at the Tel Aviv meeting last year concerning the linguistic landscape of the books I have on my bookshelves behind me when I work on the computer at home.
The question I would like to raise is what the aims of a journal on linguistic landscape would be if we take into account the variety of papers presented at the last workshop. And here we may have to be concerned not only with detailing the aims of the journal but naming the journal in an appropriate way, too.
Let us take a look at the aims of several journals (from their websites) which have in the past published or may in the future publish articles on linguistic landscape:
Journal of Sociolinguistics promotes sociolinguistics as a thoroughly linguistic and thoroughly social-scientific endeavour. The journal is concerned with language in all its dimensions, macro and micro, as formal features or abstract discourses, as situated talk or written text. Data in published articles represent a wide range of languages, regions and situations - from Alune to Xhosa, from Cameroun to Canada, from bulletin boards to dating ads.
Language in Society is an international journal of sociolinguistics concerned with language and discourse as aspects of social life. The journal publishes empirical articles of general theoretical, comparative or methodological interest to students and scholars in sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, and related fields. Language in Society aims to strengthen international scholarship and interdisciplinary conversation and cooperation among researchers interested in language and society by publishing work of high quality which speaks to a wide audience.
The International Journal for the Sociology of Language is dedicated to the development of the sociology of language in its broadest sense, as a truly international and interdisciplinary field in which various approaches, theoretical and empirical, supplement and complement each other, contributing thereby to the growth of language-related knowledge, applications, values and sensitivities. To better achieve its purpose most issues of IJSL will be devoted to specific topics (although occasional issues of separate and unrelated papers may also be published).
All these journals are of a general nature in the field of sociolinguistics, and they may publish articles on linguistic landscape as long as “society” as a background is related to. Another journal that has published articles on linguistic landscape, Semiotica, also takes a very general approach to what it sees as appropriate:
Semiotica features articles reporting results of research in all branches of semiotic studies, in-depth reviews of selected current literature in this field, and occasional guest editorials and reports.
A topic like linguistic landscape is far more specific than the aims of the journals presented above. And if we call the proposed journal Journal of Linguistic Landscape or Journal of Language in the Public Space, or something similar, we would retain the specificity, and have to word the aims of the journal accordingly. One important ingredient is again the question of society. What does the linguistic landscape tell us about the society/community which hosts the landscape? It is of course possible to relate to society in a very general sense – not the immediate community, be it a country, a city, a neighbourhood, but, say, “the western world”, or more accurately “the technologically advanced world”. Then, the landscape on computer screens may be included, since this is shared by millions of people. But would such a broad definition of “society/community” include the community of newspaper readers or even postcard readers? A good example of the nexus (thanks to Francis Hult) between language and society is the Edelman/Gorter article on LL and the market distributed at Siena.
A similar question arises as to a definition of language (and therefore ‘linguistic’), as mentioned above. Does ‘language’ relate to natural human language or may it include metaphorical language – the language of painting? the language of dance? and, if so, what about the language of music?
Another question concerning terms was brought up in Siena: is the term “landscape” appropriate? There are other words with “-scape” as the second part, such as “cityscape”, which may be used.
But it was the “e-scape” button that many participants preferred to press at the Siena meeting, and at the Tel Aviv meeting, and allow a broad approach to LL. If, however, we do think of setting up a journal – even an online journal – these issues have to be dealt with in depth.