LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPE 4 AAU

Linguistic Landscape is an emerging field of study and a new interest of applied linguists focusing on the use of written texts such as billboards, posters, street and traffic signs, shop and product names, advertisements, posters, electronic flat-panel displays, etc.

Existing research on linguistic landscape covers a broad field of innovative empirical and theoretical studies, and deals with issues related to bilingualism, multilingualism, literacy, multimodality, and visualisation of languages, contestation of space, mapping diversity, linguistic models, language awareness, language ecology, economic analyses, language policy and management, among others.

The abundance of signage in the multilingual cityscape also leads to a kind of overuse of signs or an exaggerated prominence of certain types, which could be called ‘linguistic pollution’. The absence or the presence of certain languages, and thus their speakers, can be meaningful. Some language groups are given more access to the linguistic landscape than others. The regulation of the linguistic landscape is an important issue. The distinction between public and private space can become blurred by the language signs. People can have different ways to perceive and value the languages on the signs around them.