Negotiating and Contesting Identities in Linguistic Landscapes

Description

This collection represents contemporary perspectives on important aspects of research into the language in the public space, known as the Linguistic Landscape (LL), with the focus on the negotiation and contestation of identities. From four continents, and examining vital issues across North America, Africa, Europe and Asia, scholars with notable experience in LL research are drawn together in this, the latest collection to be produced by core researchers in this field. Building on the growing published body of research into LL work, the fifteen data chapters test, challenge and advance this sub-field of sociolinguistics through their close examination of languages as they appear on the walls and in the public spaces of sites from South Korea to South Africa, from Italy to Israel, from Addis Ababa to Zanzibar. The geographic coverage is matched by the depth of engagement with developments in this burgeoning field of scholarship. As such, this volume is an up-to-date collection of research chapters, each of which addresses pertinent and important issues within their respective geographic spaces.

Robert Blackwood is Reader in French Sociolinguistics at University of Liverpool, UK Elizabeth Lanza is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Oslo and Director of the Center for Multilingualism in Society across the Lifespan (MultiLing) Hirut Woldemariam is Associate Professor at Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia.

While public political discourse aims to wipe out otherness, the linguistic landscape in all its forms reveals the presence of others and it is exactly this dialectic that this book so nicely captures. * Linguistic Landscape * This thought provoking volume takes an important step in the development of research on the linguistic landscape by focusing on identities, multimodality and contestation. A particular strength of this volume is its wide geographical coverage. Highly recommended! -- Jasone Cenoz, Professor of Applied Linguistics,University of the Basque Country, UPV/EHU, Spain