Language landscape or linguistic landscape studies are a relatively new field of research within language sociology that has a specific interest in the public space (Shohamy, 2006:128). Linguistic landscape studies analyzes the use of language in the public and/or institutional sphere~ to determine the (instrumental or symbolical) value represented by the graphic representation of language, taking into account the relevant language policy (see also Gorter, 2007:5; Curtin, 2007:11). The goal of this research is to test and empirically apply the theory of the developing international and national linguistic landscape research paradigm on the multilingual South African higher education landscape. The design for this research consists of a theoretical and an empirical component. The aforementioned entails a thorough investigation of linguistic landscape studies and its development over the past couple of years. The empirical component is done in three phases. Phase 1 involves an in-depth investigation regarding nine of the 12 South African universities whose language policies are available in the public domain. During Phase 2, these universities are visited and structured interviews are held with the language committee/language manager to determine what the situation is regarding policy and practice in the language landscape domain. In Phase 3, the data from the previous two phases is assessed and interpreted to make recommendations to South African universities as to how to overcome the possible mismatch. This research found that the visibility of multilingualism in the South African higher education landscape is relatively low due to a mismatch between policy and practice. However, the mismatch is not caused by universities' lack of commitment to multilingualism. Deep-set causes, i.e. the processes involved with language planning, the lack of detailed language plans, and so forth, lead to this mismatch and the lack of visibility of multilingualism at South African universities. / Thesis (M.A. (Afrikaans and Dutch))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2009.

Magister Artium - MA (Linguistics, Language and Communication) / Street harassment refers to the unsolicited verbal remarks and nonverbal gestures that women are subjected to by men when moving through (public) spaces. The dominant discourse sees this phenomenon as firstly a gendered interaction. In this sense, men are construed as initiators and women as recipients, although this is not always the case. Secondly, the remarks are often viewed as solely sexualized in nature. Lastly, public spaces are seen as male realms in which the actions of males are context specific, whereby the public nature of space sees it as conducive for inevitable street harassing events. This study seeks to understand how street harassment unfolds in the South African (post-apartheid) context. Drawing on Phenomenological Discourse Analysis approach, the study focuses on interview accounts of six participants from across the demographics whose experiences represent a microcosm of harassed female skinscapes in and around Cape Town. Phenomenology is a useful entry point to understanding emotive recounts of traumatic events in the lives of the participants, specifically street harassment. Public space is approached through the lens of Linguistic Landscapes (LL) which focuses on language and linguistic artefacts as they are arranged or located in space. For this study, the perception of and bodies in space comes to the fore. Hence, it is the interplay between space, body and the phenomenological account of the body as a corporeal 'site' of harassment which is a focal point.

The presented thesis studies the language management of six historical objects currently maintained by the National Heritage Institute (NHI). With each, several different aspects were studied. Firstly, the aspect of organized language management, particularly the use of language when communicating with visitors, presenting the object publicly and organizing tours. The linguistic landscape analysis focused primarily on the visitor information system of each of the heritage objects. This provided crucial data for the study of the spatial use and distribution of languages. Furthermore, the matter of language ideologies and their influence on the language hierarchies was addressed. The last, aspect to be scrutinized, was the organizational structure of the NHI, particularly the levels responsible for language-related decisions. The thesis aims to describe the workings of such heritage sites from the aforementioned viewpoints, thus illustrating the language management process in the tourist industry.

Submitted by Geandra Rodrigues (geandrar@gmail.com) on 2018-10-24T12:05:10Z No. of bitstreams: 1 phelippenathanielribeirooliveira.pdf: 38807259 bytes, checksum: 0fb7a9c3618eead9cfaf2b0cd4b00d9c (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2018-11-23T11:11:27Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 phelippenathanielribeirooliveira.pdf: 38807259 bytes, checksum: 0fb7a9c3618eead9cfaf2b0cd4b00d9c (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-11-23T11:11:27Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 phelippenathanielribeirooliveira.pdf: 38807259 bytes, checksum: 0fb7a9c3618eead9cfaf2b0cd4b00d9c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-08-22 / Esta pesquisa de base qualitativa (DENZIN & LINCOLN, 1994) tem por finalidade coletar ocorrências de lookalike English (BLOMMAERT, 2012) a partir da paisagem linguística (GORTER, 2006) da cidade de Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais, e propor sua análise sob uma orientação translíngue (CANAGARAJAH, 2013) para a linguagem, a qual acreditamos permitir uma compreensão mais esclarecedora dos complexos processos subjacentes a estas práticas linguísticas. Revisitamos os principais modelos teóricos desenvolvidos a partir da segunda metade do século XX, tais como World Englishes (KACHRU, 1991), English as Global Language (CRYSTAL, 2003), English as a Lingua Franca (JENKINS, 2006; MAURANEN, 2017) e English as A Local Language (HIGGINS, 2009), os quais têm sido usados para se descrever a expansão global da língua inglesa e sua diversificação a partir do contato com outras línguas, a fim de evidenciarmos um dinamismo característico deste processo e traçar as bases conceituais necessárias à compreensão da virada multilíngue (MAY, 2014), à qual pretendemos alinhar nossas considerações. Discutimos como a mobilidade (BLOMMAERT, 2010) possibilitada pelos episódios mais recentes da globalização tem dado origem a novas formas de multilinguismo urbano em uma sociedade frequentemente descrita como superdiversa (VERTOVEC, 2005; BUDACH & SAINTGEORGES, 2017). Apoiados em pressupostos teóricos recentes da Sociolinguística e da Linguística Aplicada, tais como o entendimento de língua como uma prática local (PENNYCOOK, 2010), nas contribuições metodológicas da tradição etnográfica (BLOMMAERT, 2013; BLOMMAERT & JIE, 2010) e da análise de narrativas (DE FINA, 2009, 2015; DE FINA & JOHNSTONE, 2015), buscamos evidenciar nos accounts (SCOTT & LYMAN, 1968) produzidos em nosso trabalho de campo a natureza translíngue de tais práticas (CANAGARAJAH, 2013) e examiná-las através das lentes da multivocalidade (HIGGINS, 2009) e da inescrutabilidade (LEE, 2017), noções que nos permitem discutir questões de identidade e legitimidade envolvidas em práticas translíngues. / This qualitative study (DENZIN & LINCOLN, 1994) aims to collect examples of lookalike English (BLOMMAERT, 2012) from the linguistic landscape of Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais, and treat them from a translingual orientation (CANAGARAJAH, 2013) to language, which we believe to foster a deeper discussion of the complex processes underlying such language practices. We reexamine the most important theoretical models developed during the second half of the 20th century, such as World Englishes (KACHRU, 1991), English as Global Language (CRYSTAL, 2003), English as Lingua Franca (JENKINS, 2006; MAURANEN, 2017) and English a Local Language (HIGGINS, 2009), which have been used to describe the global expansion and diversification of English through its contact with other languages, in order to reveal the inherent dynamics of this process and build the conceptual foundations to the understanding of the multilingual turn (MAY, 2014), with which we expect to align our considerations. We discuss how the mobility (BLOMMAERT, 2010) brought about by the latest events of globalization has originated new forms of urban multilingualism in a society frequently described as super-diverse (VERTOVEC, 2005; BUDACH & SAINT-GEORGES, 2017). By drawing on more recent theoretical constructs in Sociolinguistics and Applied Linguistics, such as an understanding of language as a local practice (PENNYCOOK, 2010), as well as methodological contributions both from the ethnographic tradition (BLOMMAERT, 2013; BLOMMAERT & JIE, 2010) and narrative analysis (DE FINA, 2009, 2015; DE FINA & JOHNSTONE, 2015), we examine the accounts (SCOTT & LYMAN, 1968) produced during our fieldwork in order to unveil the translingual nature of such language practices, which are further discussed through the lenses of multivocality (HIGGINS, 2009) and inscrutability (LEE, 2017) in order to address identity and legitimacy issues embedded in these practices.

Magister Artium - MA / The purpose of this study was two-fold: firstly, to do a multimodal analysis of the multilingual signage, advertisements and graffiti present on different surfaces in the main business hub of a multicultural community called Wesbank, situated in the Eastern Metropole of the city of Cape Town. Signage of this nature, taken together, constitute the „linguistic landscape‟ (Gorter, 2006) of a particular space. My analysis of the signage included interviews with a number of the producers of these signs which reveal why their signs are constructed in particular ways with particular languages. Secondly, I interviewed 20 mature women from the community in order to determine their level of understanding of these signs as well as whether the linguistic landscape of the township had an impact on their levels of literacy. The existing literacy levels of the women being surveyed as well as those of the producers of the signs were also taken into account. My main analytical tools were Multimodal Discourse Analysis (Kress, 2003), applied to the signage, and a Critical Discourse style of Analysis (Willig, 1999; Pienaar and Becker, 2007), applied to the focus group and individual analysis. Basic quantitative analysis was also applied to the quantifiable questionnaire data. The overriding motivation for the study was to determine the strategies used by the women to make sense of their linguistic landscape and to examine whether there was any transportation of literacy from the signage to these women so that they could function more effectively and agentively in their own environment. This study formed part of a larger NRF-funded research project entitled Township women’s discourses and literacy resources, led by my supervisor, Prof. C. Dyers. The study revealed the interesting finding that the majority of the vendors in Wesbank, especially in terms of house shops, hairdressers and fruit and vegetable stalls, are foreigners from other parts of Africa, who rely on English as a lingua franca to advertise their wares. The signage makers had clearly put some thought into the language skills of their multilingual target market in this township, and did their best to communicate with their potential customers through the complete visual image of their signs. The overall quality of the codes displayed on the signage also revealed much about the literacy levels in the township as well as language as a local practice (Pennycook 2010). While English predominated on the signs, at times one also found the addition of Afrikaans (especially in the case of religious signage) and isiXhosa (as in one very prominent advertisement by a dentist). The study further established that the female respondents in my study, as a result of their different literacy levels, made use of both images and codes on an item of signage to interpret the message conveyed successfully. Signage without accompanying images were often ignored, or interpreted with the help of others or by using one comprehensible word to work out the rest of the sign. As has been shown by another study in the larger research project, these women displayed creativity in making sense of their linguistic landscape. The study further revealed that, as a result of frequent exposure to some words and expressions in the linguistic landscape, some of the women had become familiar with these terms and had thereby expanded their degree of text literacy. In this way, the study has contributed to our understanding of the notion of portable literacy as explored by Dyers and Slemming (2011, forthcoming).

Magister Artium - MA / The purpose of this study was two-fold: firstly, to do a multimodal analysis of the multilingual signage, advertisements and graffiti present on different surfaces in the main business hub of a multicultural community called Wesbank, situated in the Eastern Metropole of the city of Cape Town. Signage of this nature, taken together, constitute the „linguistic landscape‟ (Gorter, 2006) of a particular space. My analysis of the signage included interviews with a number of the producers of these signs which reveal why their signs are constructed in particular ways with particular languages. Secondly, I interviewed 20 mature women from the community in order to determine their level of understanding of these signs as well as whether the linguistic landscape of the township had an impact on their levels of literacy. The existing literacy levels of the women being surveyed as well as those of the producers of the signs were also taken into account.My main analytical tools were Multimodal Discourse Analysis (Kress, 2003),applied to the signage, and a Critical Discourse style of Analysis (Willig, 1999;Pienaar and Becker, 2007), applied to the focus group and individual analysis.Basic quantitative analysis was also applied to the quantifiable questionnaire data.The overriding motivation for the study was to determine the strategies used by the women to make sense of their linguistic landscape and to examine whether there was any transportation of literacy from the signage to these women so that they could function more effectively and agentively in their own environment. This study formed part of a larger NRF-funded research project entitled Township women’s discourses and literacy resources, led by my supervisor, Prof. C. Dyers.The study revealed the interesting finding that the majority of the vendors in Wesbank, especially in terms of house shops, hairdressers and fruit and vegetable stalls, are foreigners from other parts of Africa, who rely on English as a lingua franca to advertise their wares. The signage makers had clearly put some thought into the language skills of their multilingual target market in this township, and did their best to communicate with their potential customers through the complete visual image of their signs. The overall quality of the codes displayed on the signage also revealed much about the literacy levels in the township as well as language as a local practice (Pennycook 2010). While English predominated on the signs, at times one also found the addition of Afrikaans (especially in the case of religious signage) and isiXhosa (as in one very prominent advertisement by a dentist).The study further established that the female respondents in my study, as a result of their different literacy levels, made use of both images and codes on an item of signage to interpret the message conveyed successfully. Signage without accompanying images were often ignored, or interpreted with the help of others or by using one comprehensible word to work out the rest of the sign. As has been shown by another study in the larger research project, these women displayed creativity in making sense of their linguistic landscape. The study further revealed that, as a result of frequent exposure to some words and expressions in the linguistic landscape, some of the women had become familiar with these terms and had thereby expanded their degree of text literacy. In this way, the study has contributed to our understanding of the notion of portable literacy as explored by Dyers and Slemming (2011, forthcoming).

Road signs form a non-verbal semiotic system – by many encountered on a daily basis – that dictates the actions of the users of the road, in order to create a safe and efficient traffic environment. It is clear that road signs are not just ‘saying’ things but ‘doing’ something. This study examines the commanding and performative aspects of a set of Swedish road signs. The first part of the analysis is a detailed investigation of (the ‘grammar’ of) the warning sign, drawing on a theoretical framework of semiotics and Grice’s cooperative principle. The second part investigates the speech act status of warning signs, priority signs and prohibitory signs, by applying Searle’s taxonomy of illocutionary acts. Results show that the warning triangle is not arbitrary but iconically motivated, both in color and in form, and that the silhouettes vary on a number of parameters, including the perspective of their mapping, the degree of iconicity and the degree of ‘danger reality’. Warning signs, just like verbal warnings, are best categorized as directives, whereas priority and prohibitory signs, unlike verbal prohibitions, emerge as declarations. Ultimately, this raises questions regarding the limits of and the ‘translatability’ between verbal and non-verbal language.

In this thesis, the issue of language policies and nation-building as seen by a constructivist perspective are studied, the studied case being the Post-Maidan Ukraine. It is argued that the ruling elites of Ukrainian society are persuading the members of minority-language populations to re-categorize themselves according to the blueprint of national and linguistic identities that the elites are presenting. The thesis studies the responsiveness of the populations of Kyiv, Dnipro, Uzhhorod and Odesa to the identity-building efforts. To assess the success rates of the endeavour, the method of linguistic landscape analysis and a survey among students of Czech in Ukraine are employed. In the linguistic landscape analysis, the behaviours of issuers of official, commercial and informal messages appearing in the studied cities are observed. Looking at the language composition of these signs, the overall responsiveness of the populations towards the official language policies, and, by extension, towards the nation-building efforts overall, are assumed. The survey then provides supporting evidence by asking the respondents questions about their attitudes towards the language legislation and stance on the issue of language use in the country. It is observed that in informal contexts, the messages often revert...

This master’s degree essay aims to analyse the representation of languages in the Linguistic Landscape of two Northern Swedish towns, focusing on the minority languages spoken and originating in the areas. The languages studied are the Sámi languages and Meänkieli, in the two towns of Jokkmokk and Pajala. The study focuses on a quantitative analysis of the use of language on signs in both towns. The study is dealt into two parts, and will examine which languages are present in the Linguistic Landscapes: as well as how multilingual signs present different languages, be they regional minorities or foreign languages.             When looking at the language use in the Linguistic Landscape of both towns, one sees a clear favourability towards Swedish and English over the regional minority languages. This is evident in both top-down and bottom-up signs. Minority languages are generally used non-instrumentally in both areas, i.e., they are used to authenticate a product or an advertisement, rather than display information. / Mae’r traethawd yma yn bwriadu i ddadansoddi cynrychiolaeth ieithoedd yn Nhirwedd Ieithyddol dwy dref yng Ngogledd Sweden, ac yn ffocysu ar yr ieithoedd lleiafrifol a siaradir ac sy’n tarddu o’r ardaloedd. Yr ieithoedd a astudir yw’r ieithoedd Sami a Meänkieli, yn Jokkmokk ac ym Mhajala. Mae’r traethawd yn ffocysu ar ddadansoddiad ansoddol o sut mae ieithoedd yn cael eu defnyddio ar arwyddion yn y ddwy dref. Mae’r traethawd wedi’i rannu i ddau rhan, ac fe fydd hi’n archwilio pa ieithoedd sydd yn bresennol yn Nhirwedd Ieithyddol y ddwy dref: yn ogystal â sut y mai arwyddion amlieithog yn cyflwyno ieithoedd gwahanol, pe boed yn lleiafrifoedd rhanbarthol neu yn ieithoedd dramor.   Pan edrychir ar sut mae ieithoedd yn cael eu defnyddio yn Nhirwedd Ieithyddol y ddwy dref, gwelir ffafriaeth eglur tuag at Swedeg a Saesneg yn hytrach na thuag at yr ieithoedd lleiafrifol rhanbarthol. Mae hi’n amlwg yn arwyddion o’r brig i lawr ac yn arwyddion o’r gwaelod i fyny. Mae ieithoedd lleiafrifol yn cael eu defnyddio yn an-offerynol yn y ddwy ardal, hynny yw maen nhw’n cael eu defnyddio i ddilysu cynnyrch neu hysbysiad, yn hytrach nag i arddangos gwybodaeth. (Walesiska/Kymriska)

Research within the interdisciplinary field of linguistic landscapes, traditionally concerned with the study of language on fixed signage in public places, has under the last decade broadened its focus to transient linguistic landscapes, including those that unfold during acts of protests and demonstrations. The present study examines a linguistic landscape of protest in a context that has previously been overlooked within the field, namely the Syrian revolution and the case of Kafr Nabl, a town that over several years attracted international attention to the creative protest signs displayed during weekly anti-regime demonstrations. Through a qualitative analysis of a sample of 177 protest signs from a six-month period in 2013, this study explores the discursive and linguistic resources and strategies employed in the protest signs. Focusing on a selection of actors identified in the data set and using the concepts of intertextuality, interdiscursivity, resemiotization, and entextualization, the analysis shows how different discursive and linguistic strategies were employed to counter other actors’ discourses about the Syrian revolution, and to construct images of the involved actors and of Kafr Nabl itself. The study contributes to research on linguistic landscapes of protests, especially in the Arab world, as well as to further an understanding of the use of discursive strategies in both textual and visual modes, multilingualism, and varieties of Arabic in protest discourse.