LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPE – WHAT’S IN A NAME?

These 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.

Work-shop on LL in minority settings at ICML XII in Tartu (Estonia), May 27-30 2009

Dear all,

apologies for cross-postings - but maybe someone of you is interested :-)

We're very happy to announce that we will be able to carry out a work-shop on LL in minority settings - with contributions reflecting experiences and thoughts about future potentials of the LL method for minority language analysis and language maintenance policies. It will be part of the International Conference on Minority Language XII (ICML-XII) in Tartu (Estonia) on May 27-30 2009.

http://www.icml.ut.ee

Hope to see many of you in the rural Baltic States in beautiful May :-) !!!

Heiko

The following is a short version of the programme:

Linguistic Landscapes from a Minority Language Perspective

Convenors: Heiko F. Marten & Luk Van Mensel; Discussant: Durk Gorter

1. Introduction by Luk Van Mensel and Heiko F. Marten

2. Papers

- “Latgalian is not a Language”. LL in Eastern Latvia and how Centralist Language Attitudes are Reflected in them

Heiko F. Marten, Rēzekne University College, Rēzekne, Latvia

- Linguistic Landscapes in Post-Soviet Estonia

Anastassia Zabrodskaja, Tallinn University, Estonia

- All is quiet on the eastern front? Language Contact and Language Conflict in the Linguistic Landscape of three official German-speaking municipalities in Belgium.

Jeroen Darquennes & Luk Van Mensel, University of Namur, Belgium

- Linguistic Landscapes: Reflecting and Influencing the Politics of Language

Guy Puzey, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

- Using Linguistic Landscape to Examine the Visibility of Sami Languages in the North Calotte

Hanni Salo, Sari Pietikäinen & Sirkka Laihiala-Kankainen, University of Jyväskylä, Finland

In addition, we’ll have a poster by Paolo Coluzzi (Italy/Brunei) on LL in Milan and Udine with a focus on the local minority/regional languages of Western Lombard and Friulian.

3. Round–up Discussion

The Benefits of the LL Research Method for Regional and Minority Languages

Moderators: Durk Gorter, Luk van Mensel and Heiko F. Marten

LL in the news

A colleague of mine at Berkeley, Usree Bhattacharya, has done some internet searching on recent sign-related news and written about it in this post: "Road Signs: International Edition". Is anyone following any of these stories, or others?

Meet me at the corner of Van Ness and Obama

Hello all, I thought I'd write a bit about an event close to my Berkeley home in California...

Seeing the super-giga-sized and somewhat creepy photo of the thousands of people assembled in front of the Capitol building last week for Obama's inauguration, with its thousands of unsuspecting faces all looking intently toward the speaker in question, made me wonder: how many other things were going on on the same day, in different places?

San Francisco's claim to fame, or at least one of them, seems to have been the short-lived but much-photographed name change of Bush Street to Obama Street.


(Photo by Dawn Endico on flickr)

Laughing Squid, San Francisco's popular art, technology and culture blog, reports that a group calling itself the "Concerned Republicans Assaulting Posterity" went up and down Bush Street from Presidio to Battery (a length of almost 30 blocks), conducting what they called a "municipal upgrade" befitting the outcome of the presidential election. Check out the video below to see some of the action.

Predictably, some commenters on Laughing Squid and other blogs called this act completely misplaced, even criminal--after all, they say, Bush Street wasn't named for G.W. Bush in the 21st century or even his father at the end of the 20th, but (most likely) a young man named J.P. Bush who ended up helping to map the city's modern streets in 1847. And the San Francisco Examiner story said that, also predictably, city officials were complaining that given the scale of the operation and the messiness of the adhesive used to affix the Obama stickers, this was "more in the category of vandalizing city property rather than a humorous political stunt."

What's interesting to me is to see photos of the 'municipal upgrade crew' with people who appear to be SF police and fire officers -- nameless and rendered unidentifiable in the images, of course, but apparently taking in stride (and maybe even enjoying) the celebratory inversion of authority, the people's remapping of the city, if only for a day...