Language Landscape. An innovative tool for documenting and analysing linguistic landscapes


Abstract


Abstract – Language Landscape (www.languagelandscape.org) is a website aimed at documenting, investigating and promoting linguistic diversity. It is a user-generated map, where particular instances of language use in speech, sign or writing can be geo-tagged on the map of the world with the information about when and by whom they were made. In this article, we propose that Language Landscape (henceforth LL) can be a valuable tool for studying the fluidity of linguistic landscapes, and explain why this is the case. We show how the website can be used in researching linguistic landscapes, and discuss the issues pertinent to doing research on crowd-sourced data. We discuss one method of studying linguistic landscapes in particular, namely Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). Subsequently, we focus on those functionalities of LL which are particularly useful to scholars investigating linguistic landscapes from the CDA perspective, pointing to those features of the website that can contextualise and enrich such studies.

DOI Code: 10.1285/i22390359v25p65

Keywords: language mapping, language documentation, crowdsourcing, linguistic landscapes, Critical Discourse Analysis

References


Baker P. and Eversley J. 2000, Multilingual Capital: The Languages of London’s Schoolchildren and Their Relevance to Economic, Social, and Educational Policies, Battlebridge Publications, London.

Block D. 2006, Multilingual Identities in a Global City: London Stories, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke.

Blommaert J. 1999, Language Ideological Debates, De Gruyter Mouton, Berlin/New York.

Blommaert J. 2013, Ethnography, Superdiversity and Linguistic Landscapes: Chronicles of Complexity, Multilingual Matters, Clevedon/Buffalo.

Brito A. 2016, Multilingualism and Mobility: A Linguistic Landscape Analysis of Three Neighbourhoods in Malmö, Sweden, MA Thesis, Lund University, Lund.

Cunningham D., Ingram D.E. and Sumbuk K. (eds.) 2006, Language diversity in the Pacific: endangerment and survival, Multilingual Matters, Clevedon/Buffalo.

Dahl Ö. and Veselinova L. 2006, Language Map Server, in “Arc User Magazine” 9 [1], http://www.esri.com/news/arcuser/0206/language_ms1of2.html (26.11.2014).

Di Carlo P. and Good J. 2014, What are we trying to preserve? Diversity, change, and ideology at the edge of the Cameroonian Grassfields, in “British Academy Proceedings” 199, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 229-262.

Fairclough N. 2010, Critical discourse analysis: the critical study of language, Routledge, London/New York.

Fairclough N. 2012, Critical discourse analysis, in Gee, P.J. and Handford M. (eds.), The Routledge handbook of discourse analysis, Routledge, London/New York, pp. 9-20.

Goodchild S. in press, Patterns of multilingualism in Atlantic languages, in Lüpke F. (ed.), The Oxford guide to the Atlantic languages of West Africa, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Goodchild S. 2016, “Which language(s) are you for?” “I am for all the languages.” Reflections on breaking through the ancestral code: trials of sociolinguistic documentation, in “SOAS Working Papers in Linguistics” 18, pp. 75-91.

Gorter D. 2006, Linguistic Landscape: A New Approach to Multilingualism. Multilingual Matters, Clevedon/Buffalo.

Gorter D. 2013, Linguistic Landscapes in a Multilingual World, in “Annual Review of Applied Linguistics” 33, pp. 190-212.

Landry R. and Bourhis R.Y. 1997, Linguistic Landscape and Ethnolinguistic Vitality. An Empirical Study, in “Journal of Language and Social Psychology” 16 [1], pp. 23-49.

Lüpke F. and Storch A. 2013, Repertoires and choices in African languages, De Gruyter Mouton, Boston/Berlin.

Moriarty M. 2014, Languages in motion: Multilingualism and mobility in the linguistic landscape, in “International Journal of Bilingualism” 18 [5], pp. 457-463.

Ritchie S., Goodchild S. and Dohle E. 2016, Language Landscape: supporting community-led language documentation, in Ferreira V. and Bouda P. (eds.), Language Documentation and Conservation, SPO9: Language Documentation and Conservation in Europe, University of Hawai’i Press, Honolulu, pp. 121-132.

Torkington K. 2009. Exploring the linguistic landscape: the case of the “Golden Triangle” in the Algarve, Portugal, in “Papers from the Lancaster University Postgraduate Conference in Linguistics and Language Teaching (LAEL PG)” 3, pp. 122-144.

Van Dijk T.A. 1995, Aims of Critical Discourse Analysis, in “Japanese Discourse” 1, pp. 17-27.

Weidl M. and Goodchild S. in press, Translanguaging Practices in the Casamance, Senegal: Similar but Different: Two Case Studies, in Sherris A. and Adami E. (eds.) Making Signs, Translanguaging Ethnographies: Exploring Urban, Rural and Educational Spaces, Multilingual Matters, Clevedon/Buffalo.


Full Text: pdf

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribuzione - Non commerciale - Non opere derivate 3.0 Italia License.