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Palgrave Studies in Minority Languages and Communities

Series Editor: Gabrielle Hogan-Brun, University of Bristol, UK

Worldwide migration and unprecedented economic, political and social integra-


tion in Europe present serious challenges to the nature and position of language
minorities. Some communities receive protective legislation and active support
from states through policies that promote and sustain cultural and linguistic
diversity; others succumb to global homogenization and assimilation. At the
same time, discourses on diversity and emancipation have produced greater
demands for the management of difference.

This series publishes new research based on single or comparative case studies
on minority languages worldwide. We focus on their use, status and prospects,
and on linguistic pluralism in areas with immigrant or traditional minority com-
munities or with shifting borders. Each volume is written in an accessible style
for researchers and students in linguistics, education, anthropology, politics and
other disciplines, and for practitioners interested in language minorities and
diversity.

Titles include:

Jean-Bernard Adrey
DISCOURSE AND STRUGGLE IN MINORITY LANGUAGE POLICY FORMATION
Corsican Language Policy in the EU Context of Governance

Durk Gorter, Heiko F. Marten and Luk Van Mensel (editors)


MINORITY LANGUAGES IN THE LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPE

Nancy H. Hornberger (editor)


CAN SCHOOLS SAVE INDIGENOUS LANGUAGES?
Policy and Practice on Four Continents

Anne Judge
LINGUISTIC POLICIES AND THE SURVIVAL OF REGIONAL LANGUAGES IN
FRANCE AND BRITAIN

Yasuko Kanno
LANGUAGE AND EDUCATION IN JAPAN
Unequal Access to Bilingualism

Janet Muller
LANGUAGE AND CONFLICT IN NORTHERN IRELAND AND CANADA
A Silent War

Máiréad Nic Craith


EUROPE AND THE POLITICS OF LANGUAGE
Citizens, Migrants and Outsiders

Máiréad Nic Craith (editor)


LANGUAGE, POWER AND IDENTITY POLITICS
Bernadette O’Rourke
ATTITUDES TOWARDS WEAK AND STRONG MINORITY LANGUAGES
Galician and Irish in the European Context

Anne Pauwels, Joanne Winter and Joseph Lo Bianco (editors)


MAINTAINING MINORITY LANGUAGES IN TRANSNATIONAL CONTEXTS
Australian and European Perspectives

Susanna Pertot, Tom M. S. Priestly and Colin H. Williams (editors)


RIGHTS, PROMOTION AND INTEGRATION ISSUES FOR MINORITY LANGUAGES
IN EUROPE

Miquel Strubell and Emili Boix-Fuster (editors)


DEMOCRATIC POLICIES FOR LANGUAGE REVIVAL: THE CASE OF CATALAN

Linda Tsung
MINORITY LANGUAGES, EDUCATION AND COMMUNITIES IN CHINA

Glyn Williams
SUSTAINING LANGUAGE DIVERSITY IN EUROPE
Evidence from the Euromosaic project

Forthcoming titles:

Nkonko M. Kamwangamalu
LANGUAGE POLICY AND ECONOMICS IN AFRICA

Dovid Katz
YIDDISH AND POWER
Ten Overhauls of a Stateless Language

Peter Sercombe (editor)


LANGUAGE, IDENTITIES AND EDUCATION IN ASIA

Graham Hodson Turner


A SOCIOLINGUISTIC HISTORY OF BRITISH SIGN LANGUAGE

Palgrave Studies in Minority Languages and Communities


Series Standing Order ISBN 978-1-4039-3732-2
(outside North America only)

You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a stand-
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Minority Languages in the
Linguistic Landscape
Edited By

Durk Gorter
University of the Basque Country, Spain

Heiko F. Marten
Tallinn University, Estonia
and

Luk Van Mensel


University of Namur, Belgium
Selection and editorial matter © Durk Gorter, Luk Van Mensel, Heiko F. Marten
2012
Chapters © their individual authors 2012
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2012 978-0-230-27244-6
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First published 2012 by
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Contents

Notes on Contributors vii


Overview Map of Cases Discussed in this Book xii

1 Studying Minority Languages in the Linguistic Landscape 1


Heiko F. Marten, Luk Van Mensel and Durk Gorter

Part I Language Ideologies and Linguistic Landscape


2 ‘Latgalian is not a Language’: Linguistic Landscapes in
Eastern Latvia and how they Reflect Centralist Attitudes 19
Heiko F. Marten
3 Transgression as the Norm: Russian in Linguistic
Landscape of Kyiv, Ukraine 36
Aneta Pavlenko
4 Minority Semiotic Landscapes: An Ideological Minefield? 57
Michael Hornsby and Dick Vigers
5 Language Ideological Debates in the Linguistic
Landscape of an Irish Tourist Town 74
Máiréad Moriarty
6 Linguistic Landscape as a Tool for Interpreting Language
Vitality: Arabic as a ‘Minority’ Language in Israel 89
Elana Shohamy and Marwan Abu Ghazaleh-Mahajneh

Part II Linguistic Landscape and Language Policy


7 Policies vs Non-Policies: Analysing Regional Languages
and the National Standard in the Linguistic Landscape
of French and Italian Mediterranean Cities 109
Robert Blackwood and Stefania Tufi
8 Two-Way Traffic: How Linguistic Landscapes Reflect
and Influence the Politics of Language 127
Guy Puzey
9 The Revitalization of Basque and the Linguistic
Landscape of Donostia-San Sebastián 148
Durk Gorter, Jokin Aiestaran and Jasone Cenoz

v
vi Contents

10 All is Quiet on the Eastern Front? Language Contact


along the French-German Language Border in Belgium 164
Luk Van Mensel and Jeroen Darquennes

Part III The Distributive Approach to Linguistic Landscape


11 The Linguistic Landscape of Three Streets in Barcelona:
Patterns of Language Visibility in Public Space 183
Llorenç Comajoan Colomé and Ethan Long
12 The Linguistic Landscapes of Chişinău and Vilnius:
Linguistic Landscape and the Representation of
Minority Languages in Two Post-Soviet Capitals 204
Sebastian Muth
13 Multilingual Societies vs Monolingual States:
The Linguistic Landscapes in Italy and Brunei Darussalam 225
Paolo Coluzzi
14 Using Linguistic Landscape to Examine the Visibility
of Sámi Languages in the North Calotte 243
Hanni Salo

Part IV Fresh Perspectives on Linguistic Landscape


15 Discourse Coalitions For and Against Minority Languages
on Signs: Linguistic Landscape as a Social Issue 263
Eszter Szabó Gilinger, Marián Sloboda, Lucija Šimičić
and Dick Vigers
16 The Linguistic Landscape of Educational Spaces: Language
Revitalization and Schools in Southeastern Estonia 281
Kara D. Brown
17 The Material Culture of Multilingualism 299
Larissa Aronin and Muiris Ó Laoire
18 Minority Languages through the Lens of the
Linguistic Landscape 319
Luk Van Mensel, Heiko F. Marten and Durk Gorter

Index 324
Notes on Contributors

Marwan Abu Ghazaleh-Mahajneh teaches at the Department of Arabic


Language and Literature, Beit Berl College, Israel. He is a doctoral student
at Haifa University. His research interests include various aspects of Arabic
in Israel, such as language policy, linguistic landscape and language
rights.
marwan@eqraa.com

Jokin Aiestaran is Lecturer of Research Methods in Education at the


University of the Basque Country. His research focuses on bilingual and
multilingual children. He has published papers on bilingual education,
the linguistic landscape and language attitudes.
jokin.aiestaran@ehu.es

Larissa Aronin is Senior Lecturer at the Oranim Academic College of


Education, Israel and a Research Associate at Trinity College, Dublin.
She has published in a range of international journals on a wide array
of topics connected with multilingualism.
larisa@research.haifa.ac.il

Robert Blackwood is Head of French at the University of Liverpool, UK.


He carries out research projects on language policy, regional languages
of France and linguistic landscapes, and has published several articles
on those themes.
robert.blackwood@liverpool.ac.uk

Kara D. Brown is Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational


Studies at the University of South Carolina where she teaches courses
in social foundations, comparative education and qualitative research
methods. Her research focuses on language policy, minority schooling
and teacher practice in the Baltic States and the south-eastern US.
brownk25@mailbox.sc.edu

Jasone Cenoz is Professor of Education at the University of the Basque


Country. Her research focuses on bilingualism and multilingualism in
education. She has published extensively in international journals and
has edited several books on bilingualism and multilingualism.
jasone.cenoz@ehu.es

vii
viii Notes on Contributors

Paolo Coluzzi is currently working as Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of


Languages and Linguistics at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia. Until 2009 he was working at the University of Brunei
Darussalam. His research interests are endangered languages, language
planning, the linguistic landscape and nationalism.
pcoluzzi@yahoo.com
Llorenç Comajoan Colomé is Associate Professor at the School of
Education at the Universitat de Vic, Spain. He is a member of the
University Centre of Sociolinguistics and Communication at Universitat
de Barcelona. He carries out research in second language acquisition,
language teaching and sociolinguistics.
llorenc.comajoan@uvic.cat
Jeroen Darquennes is Associate Professor of German and General
Linguistics at the University of Namur (Belgium), Visiting Professor at
the Facultés Universitaires Saint-Louis (Brussels) and the University of
Luxembourg, and an affiliated Research Fellow at the Fryske Akademy/
Mercator European Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language
Learning in Ljouwert/Leeuwarden (The Netherlands). He has special-
ized in research on language contact and language conflict in European
indigenous language minority settings (with a special emphasis on lan-
guage policy and planning).
jeroen.darquennes@fundp.ac.be
Durk Gorter is Ikerbasque Research Professor at the University of the
Basque Country. Before that he was at the University of Amsterdam and
the Fryske Akademy (The Netherlands). He does research on multilin-
gualism, European minority languages and linguistic landscapes. He has
published numerous books and articles on those themes.
d.gorter@ikerbasque.org
Michael Hornsby joined the Celtic department of Adam Mickiewicz
University in Poznań, Poland, in October 2009, where he teaches Welsh
and Breton. He also teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses in
sociolinguistics at the University of Toruń, Poland. Before he worked on
a research project on Scots dialects at Aberdeen University, Scotland.
mhornsby@ifa.amu.edu.pl
Ethan Long is currently a writer in the advertising industry in
Philadelphia, US. He studied in Barcelona in 2007 and 2008 and later
worked teaching English in Murcia, Spain.
ethan.g.long@gmail.com
Notes on Contributors ix

Heiko F. Marten currently holds a position as Researcher and Lecturer


in German linguistics at Tallinn University, Estonia. From 2007 until
2009, his main position was at Rēzekne University College, Latvia,
where he continues to be involved in the TILRA project on regional
development. He has published on multilingualism, language policy
and minority languages in different European contexts. His research
includes issues of language policy in Germany, the Baltic States, political
decentralization and of motivation in foreign-language learning.
heiko.marten@fu-berlin.de

Máiréad Moriarty teaches sociolinguistics and new media at the School


of Languages, Literature, Culture and Communication at the University
of Limerick, Ireland. She is currently also a post-doctoral Research
Fellow on the Northern Multilingualism Project and the co-ordinator of
the 3M: Identities in Motion research network funded by Nordforsk. She
has published in a number of edited books and journals.
mairead.moriarty@ul.ie

Sebastian Muth is Lecturer in English Linguistics at Greifswald


University, Germany. He carries out research in linguistic landscapes as
well as studies on language attitudes, mainly focusing on post-Soviet
countries. He has specialized in linguistic landscape analysis, the study
of multilingualism and the interface between language and politics.
sebastian.muth@uni-greifswald.de

Muiris Ó Laoire is Professor of Language Revitalisation Studies in the


International Centre for Language Revitalisation in AUT New Zealand. He
is author of textbooks, academic books and several articles on sociolin-
guistics, multilingualism language regeneration and language pedagogy.
muiris.olaoire@staff.ittralee.ie

Aneta Pavlenko is Professor at the College of Education at Temple


University, Philadelphia, US. Her research focuses on sociolinguistic
and psycholinguistic aspects of bilingualism and second language
acquisition. She is particularly interested in language management in
post-Soviet countries.
apavlenk@temple.edu

Guy Puzey recently completed his Ph.D. at the University of Edinburgh,


UK. Linguistic landscapes are one of his main interests in sociolinguis-
tics, together with critical approaches to toponymy. He has published
a number of articles and book chapters on linguistic landscapes,
x Notes on Contributors

place-name studies and the politics of language, primarily concern-


ing Italy, Norway and Scotland. He has taught a variety of courses
at the University of Edinburgh and is also a published translator of
Norwegian.
g.puzey@ed.ac.uk

Hanni Salo is a Ph.D. student of Applied Linguistics at the Faculty


of Languages of the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. She is a post-
graduate Researcher at the Finnish Academy-funded (2008–11) Northern
Multilingualism Project. Her thesis focuses on multilingual Sámi families’
experiences on their language resources. She specializes in narrative
analysis, critical discourse analysis and linguistic landscape.
hanni.salo@jyu.fi

Elana Shohamy is Professor of Language Education at the School of


Education, Tel Aviv University where she teaches and researches a vari-
ety of topics related to language policy in the context of conflicts and
coexistence in multilingual societies. Specific areas include an expanded
and critical framework of language policy, language rights, linguistic
landscape and critical language testing.
elana@post.tau.ac.il

Lucija Šimičić is Researcher at the Department for Linguistic Anthro-


pology and Socio-cultural research at the Institute for Anthropological
Research in Zagreb, Croatia. Her research interests include language
variation and change, dialectology and language rights. She has submit-
ted a dissertation on language attitudes and identification processes as
determinants of language change and linguistic vitality on the island
of Vis, Croatia.
luce@inantro.hr

Marián Sloboda is currently Assistant Professor at the Department of


Central European Studies, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic.
His research interests include language management, multilingualism
and minority languages, with geographical focus on Central Europe
and Belarus.
marian.sloboda@ff.cuni.cz

Eszter Szabó Gilinger is Junior Assistant Professor at the Institute of


English and American studies of the University of Szeged in Hungary,
teaching BA- and MA-level courses in sociolinguistics and is currently
working on her Ph.D. thesis. Her current research interests focus on
Notes on Contributors xi

Hungarian, Francophone and (Canadian) Native hip hop, on questions


of language issues in educational settings and on the perception of
linguistic landscapes in minority communities.
eszter@ieas-szeged.hu

Stefania Tufi is Head of Italian at the University of Liverpool, UK. She


has published in variationist sociolinguistics, language ideology and
linguistic landscapes. Her research interests also include Italian dialec-
tology, language policy and minority languages.
stefania.tufi@liverpool.ac.uk

Luk Van Mensel is Researcher at the University of Namur since January


2007. Before he was at the Free University in Brussels. He has published
on economic aspects of multilingualism and on Dutch, French and
foreign-language proficiency, particularly in Belgium.
luk.vanmensel@fundp.ac.be

Dick Vigers is currently Research Fellow at the Centre for Transnational


Studies, University of Southampton, UK. His research interests include
the cultural memory of language shift, multilingualism and minority
languages. Recently, he has worked on regional language policies, inte-
gration and migration.
r.c.vigers@soton.ac.uk
Overview Map of Cases Discussed
in this Book

Note for the readers: All photographs of the linguistic landscapes dealt with
in the different chapters of this book are available in full-color on a webpage:
www.palgrave.com/linguisticlandscape

xii
1
Studying Minority Languages
in the Linguistic Landscape
Heiko F. Marten, Luk Van Mensel and Durk Gorter

Being visible may be as important for minority languages as being heard.


Traditional research on minority languages focuses on language mainte-
nance and language shift, on language endangerment and revitalization,
on language transmission in the family, on education, and on language
policies in other social domains such as the media. Although literacy has
become an important issue also for speakers of minority languages, much
less attention has been given to the written displays of minority languages
in the public space. In this volume, our aim is to explore the contribution
of linguistic landscape research to the understanding of the dynamics of
minority language situations, with an explicit focus on Europe. We wish
to add a new perspective to the long history of studies of linguistic minor-
ities, because we believe the aspect of the visibility of minority languages
in public space has received too little attention in traditional minority
language research. The linguistic landscape approach seems particularly
appropriate for a number of reasons. First, it adopts an all-encompassing
view on written language in the public space, paying attention to all
signs, rather than limiting its scope to the study of predominantly one
type of signs. Second, linguistic landscape research not only studies the
signs, but it investigates as well who initiates, creates, places and reads
them. Moreover, linguistic landscape research as presented in this volume
looks at how the linguistic landscape is manipulated – consciously or
unconsciously – in order to confirm or to resist existing or presumed lan-
guage prestige patterns and hierarchies. It also considers ways in which the
linguistic landscape does or does not reflect language demographics, use,
attitudes, and policies. Taken in this sense, linguistic landscape research
clearly feeds into the study of minority language communities, especially
since issues of power and resistance are at the heart of its research agenda.
Therefore, we hope that the linguistic landscape approach may enhance
1
2 Studying Minority Languages

understanding of minority languages, the struggles of their speakers


against structural disadvantages, and ultimately empowerment of minority
groups and survival of their languages. At the same time, we also aim at
taking the still rather young theoretical notions of linguistic landscape
research further and thus contribute to consolidating the field or at least
to sharpening its conceptual framework.
As the reader will notice, the chapters collected in this volume show
diversity in terms of scope, geographical areas, methodologies, theoreti-
cal frameworks, and philosophical underpinnings. This was a deliberate
choice, since it was our goal to present a wide array of applications
of linguistic landscape research in the context of minority languages.
Many of the contributions in this volume take the linguistic landscape
approach to countries and linguistic environments in which hardly any
such studies were carried out before (e.g. Eastern Belgium or Southern
Estonia), whereas others give further insight into areas which have
previously been in the focus of linguistic landscape research (e.g. the
Basque Country or Ireland). The empirical data for the chapters origi-
nate from a large variety of contexts in Europe and two cases from
outside: Israel and Brunei. This is partly an effect of the context of the
genesis of this volume, that is, two conferences on minority languages
which took place in Tartu (Estonia) and Limerick (Ireland) in 2009,
which also focused on European perspectives, and in which workshops
on the topic of linguistic landscape were organized. Several chapters
have a comparative perspective, although at different levels of social
organization. For instance, to highlight the contrast of the linguistic
landscapes between the city where a group of students lives and the
university where they study (Shohamy and Abu Ghazaleh-Mahajneh),
between different neighbourhoods in the same city (e.g. Long and
Comajoan in Barcelona), between two capital cities of two different
countries (e.g. Muth who compares Chişinău to Vilnius), or between a
European country and an Asian country (Coluzzi on Italy and Brunei).
Not only the social contexts, but also the demographic scale of the
places in which research for this volume has been conducted shows a
continuum. It comprises selected international metropolises with more
than a million inhabitants such as Barcelona or Kyiv, regional cities
with a few hundreds of thousands of inhabitants such as Donostia-San
Sebastián, Marseille or Genoa, smaller towns such as Võru in Estonia
or Eupen in Belgium, but also more rural areas such as communities
of a few hundred inhabitants in the traditional Sámi areas in Northern
Europe, or the countryside, for instance when looking at road signs
along major roads in Scotland or Italy.
Heiko F. Marten, Luk Van Mensel and Durk Gorter 3

Some chapters are driven by an ethnographic approach or by cultural


studies, whereas a more traditional sociolinguistic nature of linguistic
landscape research is at the core of others – that is, the investigation of
the functions of different linguistic varieties in society and their relation
to language policy or social inequality. What they all have in common,
however, is that (1) they use written language in the landscape as a
primary source of data and (2) that they analyse these data with regard
to the presence, status or functions of minority languages. Both aspects
will be discussed in more detail.

Linguistic landscape research: An emerging field

Research on linguistic landscape has grown exponentially over the


last years. The study of linguistic landscape started with several rather
unrelated preliminary ideas (see Backhaus, 2007, pp. 12–53 and Spolsky,
2009, pp. 26–29 for an overview of early linguistic landscape studies).
The widely quoted definition of linguistic landscape by Landry and
Bourhis (1997, p. 25) is a reference point for many of today’s develop-
ments:

The language of public road signs, advertising billboards, street names,


place names, commercial shop signs, and public signs on government
buildings combines to form the linguistic landscape of a given terri-
tory, region, or urban agglomeration.

The field rose to prominence after a panel on linguistic landscape studies at


the Third International Conference on Trilingualism and Third Language
Acquisition in Tralee, Ireland in September 2003. Subsequently, the
papers were published in Gorter (2006a). The field had a further develop-
ment through the publication of the monograph on Tokyo by Backhaus
(2007) and a number of collections of linguistic landscape studies, most
notably the volumes edited by Shohamy and Gorter (2009), Shohamy,
Ben-Rafael and Barni (2010), and Jaworski and Thurlow (2010).
These developments have led to a widened understanding of linguistic
landscape studies, from a focus on, but not exclusively, counting languages
on signs on the streets to including different levels of analysis of written
language inside and outside various types of buildings. Thereby, linguis-
tic landscape research today not necessarily focuses on the dichotomies
of top-down versus bottom-up or private vs. government signage as
many early studies did (compare the studies collected in Gorter, 2006a,
for example). Most studies include both quantitative and qualitative
4 Studying Minority Languages

data – in the form of background interviews or more in-depth analysis


of individual features of the data. Often, the systematic analysis of writ-
ten language in the public sphere becomes particularly valuable when
related to other data sources such as oral language practices or language
legislation.
The emphasis in most linguistic landscape work has been on examples
of written language on static signs. At the same time, this focus may seri-
ously limit the variety of signs that one can encounter in public space.
An analysis of static linguistic signs may seem slightly outdated in times
where flat screen displays, video walls and other dynamic visual stimuli
have spread in great quantities due to recent technological innovations
and price-cuts. Nowadays a focus on static signs therefore becomes more
problematic, incomplete and less clear due to the considerable impact
on linguistic landscapes of digital screens that contain text and pictures
which move, merge, change, collapse, blur and dissolve. Another field of
written language which is usually neglected but deserves more attention
are the more traditional non-static signs – such as texts on cars, trains,
but also on T-shirts and other clothing worn by residents and visitors of
an area, on bags and other gadgets that people carry around. In this
volume, most chapters focus on static signs, but several studies include
additional references to material artefacts or websites.
These studies all look at signs, but it is hard to define exactly the unit
of analysis (Gorter, 2006b). There is a tendency to focus on the smallest
individual sign as a sampling unit, or, as Backhaus (2007, p. 66) defines
it, ‘any piece of written text within a spatially definable frame’. Cenoz
and Gorter (2006, p. 71) aggregated to the level of an establishment
(a store, a bar or a restaurant) and Ben-Rafael et al. (2006, p. 8) have
suggested looking at the linguistic landscape as a larger unit, a Gestalt.
It is indeed possible to take an even wider and more holistic approach.
A ‘landscape’, after all, refers to what one can see from one’s point of
view. However, it is hard to avoid arbitrary decisions about the unit of
analysis. It could be worthwhile to experiment with an approach in
which the unit of analysis becomes ‘a landscape’ as it can be seen in a
single view. It depends, of course, on the perspective of the researcher
and the goal of the analysis. Linguistic landscape studies have so far usu-
ally been limited to ‘written texts’; but limiting the linguistic landscape
to its visible elements, in contrast to the spoken or audible language,
is also problematic because those boundaries get diffuse. Shohamy and
Waksman (2009) propose an all-inclusive conception of the linguistic
landscape, but others would object that ‘linguistic landscape’ as a con-
cept then loses its specificity.
Heiko F. Marten, Luk Van Mensel and Durk Gorter 5

Other areas in which linguistic landscape research has been applied are
educational settings where it has been used because of its easy application
on all levels of education (compare Cenoz and Gorter, 2008 or Lazdiņa
and Marten, 2009, for example). Linguistic landscape data have also
proved to be useful in interdisciplinary studies, drawing to fields such as
economics (e.g. Nunes et al., 2008), political science (e.g. Sloboda, 2009)
or tourism (e.g. Kallen, 2009 or Thurlow and Jaworski, 2010).
In this volume we understand linguistic landscape from such a broad
perspective of approaches, perceptions and methodologies as outlined
previously. The underlying interest of all of these approaches, however,
remains similar. Linguistic landscape research raises interesting ques-
tions as to who puts up what sign(s) where, in what language(s) and
last but not least why (or why not)? Therefore, its heuristic potential to
‘point out patterns representing different ways in which people, groups,
associations, institutions and government agencies cope with the game
of symbols within a complex reality’ (Ben-Rafael et al., 2006, p. 27), is
undoubtedly one of its main reasons of success. And this clearly points
out why we take it to be an interesting and important way of looking at
minority language issues.

Linguistic landscape and minority languages

In the previous section we have briefly discussed the tenets and particu-
larities of linguistic landscape research in general. Here we will sketch
ways in which the fields of linguistic landscape and minority languages
are connected as well as attempt to discuss what makes linguistic land-
scape research particularly apt to look into minority language issues.
The underlying question of the linguistic landscape research in rela-
tion to minority languages collected in this volume is how researchers
from different backgrounds identify benefits of the linguistic landscape
approach for understanding different types of minority language situ-
ations. Some chapters raise issues directly of relevance to minority lan-
guage studies since they add empirical evidence for understanding the
position of individual languages. Others take up wider issues and they
enhance our understanding of the place of minority languages in the
linguistic landscape from a more theoretical perspective.
But before looking at the possible links between minorities and
linguistic landscapes, we briefly discuss a few central issues with regard
to minority languages. There is a multitude of perspectives from which
minority languages can be approached. One major distinction can be
made between autochthonous (or ‘traditional’) and migrant (or ‘new’)
6 Studying Minority Languages

minority languages, although as Extra and Gorter (2008, p. 9) stress


these languages have much more in common than is usually thought.
Another important distinction is the difference between ‘unique’ minor-
ity languages, that is, languages which exist only as minority languages
(such as Basque, Sámi or Frisian), and ‘local-only’ minority languages
which are majority languages in another state (such as German in
Belgium or Italy). In this volume, most examples stem from the range
of unique autochthonous languages, and the implications for policies
and practices linked to them. Yet, we acknowledge that this distinction
is to some degree arbitrary, and not always easy to be applied to a spe-
cific situation, such as, for instance, in the case of Russian in large parts
of the territory of the former Soviet Union. Although we have chosen
autochthonous minority languages as a focal point, there is no doubt
that the methodology would also be useful for the analysis of power
relations between other types of languages such as languages in migra-
tion processes, pidgins and creoles or similar.
Further, it also needs to be stressed that in the view adopted here and
as, for instance, also Pavlenko emphasizes in her chapter, the distinction
between majority and minority groups ‘is not based on numerical size,
but on clearly observable differences among groups in relation to power,
status, and entitlement’ (May, 2006, p. 255). The common denomina-
tor in this approach is that the negotiation of symbolic or real power is
involved and treated through language, and in this case, the presence of
language in the public sphere. Minority implies majority, and it would
seem that in all these cases someone or a group of people feels (or is
supposed to feel) as if they are being of lesser value. In this volume,
we understand minorities in terms of power relations, applied to local,
regional or national levels. The languages studied include big languages
with several millions of speakers and a relatively stable social status such
as Catalan or German in Belgium. On the other end of the spectrum,
they also include small local varieties with only a few hundred speakers
such as Inari Sámi in Northern Finland, varieties which are disputed in
terms of status as a separate language such as Latgalian in Latvia or Võro
in Estonia, or varieties which are usually considered to be dialects such
as Lombard varieties in Northern Italy. In terms of ethnolinguistic vital-
ity, the languages vary from, globally speaking, not endangered super-
languages such as Russian or German to seriously endangered languages
such as Sámi or Scottish Gaelic. One of the questions raised is therefore
also if there is a difference in the relation of linguistic landscape and
minority languages between well-established, sizeable language commu-
nities and marginalized languages with only a few hundred speakers.
Heiko F. Marten, Luk Van Mensel and Durk Gorter 7

Important issues on the agenda of minority languages and their


power relations are, according to May (2006, p. 255), ‘their spread,
their domestic and public vitality, the determinants of language
maintenance versus language shift towards majority languages, the
relationship between language, ethnicity and identity, and the status of
minority languages in schools, in particular in the compulsory stages of
primary and secondary education’. The visibility of minority languages
as an indicator of spread, vitality, maintenance, identity or status of a
language is certainly an under-exposed aspect of revitalization studies
or documentation of endangered languages (all minority languages are
endangered languages in one way or another, at least in their specific
minority settings). It has therefore been a regular demand by minority
language activists to ensure public visibility of smaller languages –
including, for instance, the demand by the Universal Declaration of
Linguistic Rights (1996), whose Art. 50.1 reads: ‘All language communi-
ties have the right for their language to occupy a pre-eminent place in
advertising, signs, external signposting, and in the image of the country
as a whole.’ Similarly, Edwards (2010) includes linguistic landscape in
his list of domains which determine the status of a minority language.
The visibility of a minority language in this view signals ownership
or at least co-existence in a place, but gets sometimes limited to token-
istic functions. Otherwise, the presence of a minority language in the
linguistic landscape might be used as an alibi by the majority in reject-
ing further measures with the line of reasoning that the state of the
minority language cannot be too bad if it is visible here and there. This
volume intends to shed light on the following questions. Which role do
minority languages play on the linguistic landscape market in particular
contexts? What are the mechanisms that influence practices of users?
Does visibility of a language really help to sustain a language? Does it
increase the value or does it help to gain functions and prestige? Where
is the presence of minority languages mainly symbolic or tokenistic? Or,
to which degree is there an informational value in public signage? May
the public visibility of a language contribute to participation of a minor-
ity community in political decision making and is it thereby, ultimately,
a contribution in the struggle for human rights? These questions relate
to the use of place names in what may be labelled ‘applied toponomas-
tics’: How is space negotiated? Where is it contested and by whom?
Which arguments are used in on-going struggles? Is ‘Nelde’s Law’ that
‘there is no language contact without language conflict’ (Nelde, 1997)
valid for linguistic landscape investigations or are there situations where
languages co-exist peacefully? Language conflicts may be openly visible
8 Studying Minority Languages

through reactions by different social groups to signage, for instance,


where non-desired languages are painted over, or missing varieties
are added. But where such practices are missing – because of a lack of
awareness, courage or a tradition of authoritarian practices in the public
sphere – to which degree are linguistic conflicts taking place under the
surface?
Gorter, Aiestaran and Cenoz in their chapter argue that laws, decrees,
other rules and regulations and promotional measures shape the linguis-
tic landscape. According to Shohamy (2006, p. 112), ‘linguistic landscape
is a mechanism of language policy’. In this view, linguistic landscape
is part of the agenda of language policy studies, of political and legal
regulations and the contrast between overt language policy and more
covert, hidden practices. Where language legislation directly regulates
the shape of the linguistic landscape such as in Barcelona or the Baltic
States, linguistic landscape research shows how speakers react to them.
Where can niches of individual interpretations of linguistic rules as
a compromise between official rules and personal wishes be created?
Where and how are conflicts negotiated and how do legal regulations
influence them? In this language rights-driven approach it could even
be argued that positive discrimination is an important factor: do such
practices take place – and if so, from above or from below?
In connection with minority-majority relations the volume also
investigates how the connection of linguistic landscape and minority
languages can contribute to the understanding of nationalism, micro-
nationalism or regionalism. Can linguistic landscape decisions initiate
debates and thereby raise attention and create more understanding for
minority languages? Or is it more likely that they have the opposite
effect and create awareness which is used by minority-language opposed
forces of society?
Another issue in the investigation of minority languages in the
linguistic landscape is the role of writing traditions. Spolsky (2009)
identifies literacy as an important factor in analysing linguistic landscape.
More attention for the linguistic landscape can also imply a ‘visual turn’
in language policy studies. In the case of minority languages, according
to Edwards (2010, p. 27) the linguistic landscape should therefore be
included into a ‘domain of necessity’ for language revival. For a language
to be revitalized and to secure a sustained future, it needs to be used in
written language, and consequently it will also appear in the linguistic
landscape, at least in urban contexts (with possible exceptions for a few
relatively isolated language communities which have not taken over any
aspect of a globalized twenty-first century lifestyle).
Heiko F. Marten, Luk Van Mensel and Durk Gorter 9

About the contributions

As stated previously, the chapters of this volume focus on linguistic


landscape situations throughout Europe, with examples from Israel and
Brunei added as contrastive cases. The chapters are grouped into four
main thematic categories, each approaching the analysis of minority
languages from a different angle: ideologies, language policy, distribu-
tions of languages, and fresh perspectives which open up new theoretical
and methodological views on linguistic landscape research. Needless to
say, these categories overlap.
Part I focuses on linguistic landscape to gain a better understanding
of language ideologies with regard to minority languages. In the first
chapter, Heiko F. Marten discusses the role of the regional language of
Latgalian in the linguistic landscape of the region of Latgale in Eastern
Latvia. This case study illustrates how the study of linguistic landscape
can contribute to the understanding of the functions which are assigned
to a minority language in the ethnolinguistic composition of a region
and of the underlying language ideology. In the case of Latgalian this
means that a centralist state ideology towards the language is clearly
reflected in the absence of the minority language.
Aneta Pavlenko’s chapter examines manifestations of language con-
flict in the linguistic landscape of Kyiv. It discusses a conflict between
the official language, Ukrainian, and Russian as an atypical minority
language in the sense that it has long enjoyed status as the most power-
ful language. After the collapse of the USSR in 1991, Ukraine became an
independent country, and in agreement with the dominant nation-state
ideology, the new government proclaimed Ukrainian as the only state
language. The chapter argues that a tacitly accepted norm has emerged
from this – in formal contexts, the official monolingual Ukrainian state
policy is accepted, whereas a bilingual Russian-Ukrainian norm applies
in less formal situations.
The chapter by Michael Hornsby and Dick Vigers explores the inter-
play of ideologies and linguistic landscape in a comparative case study of
Scottish Gaelic and Welsh. Through the lenses of an economic approach
to language and the ‘ideology of contempt’, the authors illustrate how
policy and the understandings of that policy in popular culture may be
related. One major conclusion of the chapter is the resulting paradox
found in cases where the successful status planning of a minoritized lan-
guage may increase its visibility in the linguistic landscape, but may simul-
taneously contribute to strengthening negative attitudes to the respective
minority language. In this, the meanings deduced from the appearance,
10 Studying Minority Languages

design and position of signs appear to be at least as important as the


language used – with (exogenous and endogenous) standard languages
being generally more accepted than non-standard varieties.
Mairéad Moriarty’s chapter discusses the manipulation of the lin-
guistic landscape through mechanisms of language policy, whereby
the public space of a territory is managed by the state or by individuals
and consequently marks the power relationships between languages in
contact. The chapter argues the case for linguistic landscape research as
an important aspect of language ideology analysis in a small Irish town,
Dingle. While Dingle is part of the officially Irish-language speaking
area, English remains the dominant language of the community and
it is the main language of the town’s key industry, tourism. The ideo-
logical debate centres around a controversy arising due to the highly
symbolic change in the name of the town from a bilingual English-Irish
name to a monolingual Irish version, An Daingean, and the observation
of the changing texts on a wall of a building on its main street where
bottom-up written comments are criticizing official policies.
Elana Shohamy and Marwan Abu Ghazaleh-Mahajneh report on a
study of Arabic in Israel. The chapter challenges the traditional notion
of the term ‘minority’ language based on the documentation of linguis-
tic landscape in two territories in the public space: the town of Ume El
Pahem where Arabic is a vital and dynamic language, and the campus
of the University of Haifa, where Arabic is almost non-existent. Through
quantitative data and interviews with Arabic-speaking students, the
authors gain insight into the consequences and impact of the status of
Arabic as a ‘minority’ language in its relation to Hebrew and English.
Thereby, the authors show to which degree the concept of minority and
majority are relative and politically determined.
The contributions in Part II focus on language policy and its imple-
mentation in changing environments. Robert Blackwood and Stefania
Tufi analyse regional languages and the national standard in the
linguistic landscape of French and Italian Mediterranean cities in the
light of the contrast between Italian and French language policies –
the long-established and well documented policy of privileging the
national standard language, French, over all other languages in France
versus the generally tolerant position towards dialects and minority
languages in Italy. The linguistic landscape offers a rich stream of data
by which these policies (or non-policies) can be evaluated from the per-
spective of written-language practices. The chapter assesses the extent of
language practices in the regional languages in six Mediterranean towns
and in the national standards with the aim of evaluating the extent to
Heiko F. Marten, Luk Van Mensel and Durk Gorter 11

which different language policies can be argued to govern writing in


the public space.
Guy Puzey takes agency and authorship as points of departure for
examining how linguistic landscapes reflect and influence the politics
of language in Italy, Norway and Scotland. His paper examines empiri-
cal evidence of the presence of regional and minority languages in the
interplay of nationalism, technocracy and language capital in order
to illustrate how the linguistic landscape can act as a reflection of the
political circumstances of these languages, and how it can also influ-
ence language policies. The chapter thereby takes up the notion that the
relationship between linguistic landscape and the sociolinguistic situa-
tion is a bidirectional one, as the linguistic landscape can both reflect
and influence the relative power and status of different languages.
Durk Gorter, Jokin Aiestaran and Jasone Cenoz focus on the linguis-
tic landscape of the city of Donostia-San Sebastián (Basque Country,
Spain), where Spanish is spoken as the majority language in the city
but where there is a strong policy to promote the use of Basque in dif-
ferent domains including the public space. The study takes a detailed
look at local language policy and its relation to other efforts to revitalize
Basque. One example is the replacement of all street name signs from a
strict bilingual approach to a more Basque approach, leading to interest-
ing examples of alternation and blending. Another example concerns
the contestations as shown in painted-over signs. English and other
international languages remain ‘unregulated’ as far as local policy is
concerned. The authors show that the linguistic landscape of the Basque
Country provides us with an additional data resource to obtain further
knowledge about language diversity and about multilingual processes.
Luk Van Mensel and Jeroen Darquennes discuss issues of language
contact and language conflict along the French-German language bor-
der in eastern Belgium. They address the questions of how officially
and non-officially regulated signs reflect the language contact situation
in the areas selected, to what extent the linguistic landscape correlates
with the actual language behaviour of the population, and how the
linguistic landscape reveals ongoing language conflicts. Their results
show that pragmatic attitudes prevail and that language conflicts are
rather rare. In absence of larger political struggles, the German-speaking
community in Belgium is perceived by the locals as institutionally and
legally stable.
Part III collects studies which apply the distributive approach to lin-
guistic landscape studies. In the first chapter in this section Ethan Long
and Llorenç Comajoan analyse the linguistic landscape of three streets
12 Studying Minority Languages

in Barcelona. The demographic composition of the districts is related to


variations in language usage in these areas. Attention is also paid to the
linguistic legislation of Catalonia, which requires Catalan to appear on
all textual signage. The extent to which this legislation is implemented
appears to vary, depending on the part of the city under investigation.
The relative prominence of languages is also studied in terms of quanti-
tative and qualitative dominance.
Sebastian Muth’s chapter examines how two post-Soviet societies deal
with multilingualism: the capitals of Moldova and Lithuania, Chişinău
and Vilnius, are chosen for comparison. The chapter focuses on the
representation of Russian and Polish in relation to Lithuanian and of
Russian and Gagauz in relation to Moldovan. The study is based on
a corpus of signs from four districts of each city, chosen on the basis
of their location and demographic data. Muth’s results indicate note-
worthy differences between Vilnius where Russian and other minority
languages such as Polish are almost not represented, and Chişinău
where the linguistic landscape resembles the ethnolinguistic diversity
of the city’s inhabitants and includes Russian.
Paolo Coluzzi compares the linguistic landscape in two Italian cities,
Milan and Udine with the capital of Brunei, Bandar Seri Begawan.
Thereby he gives the largely European framework of the volume an
outside perspective. Even though the results are quite different, it is
remarkable that minority languages occupy a marginal role in both
countries (apart from Chinese in Brunei). Their presence in the linguis-
tic landscape seems to be closely related to factors such as the vitality
of the corresponding ethnic group, the presence or absence of literary
traditions for the minority language, the literacy of their speakers, legal
provisions for their protection and the status as an official language
in other countries. What one can clearly observe in both countries is
a tension between the multilingualism of the general population and
the monolingual tendency of the state. In between these two opposing
poles English plays an interesting role as an in-between language.
Hanni Salo examines the linguistic landscape with regard to the small
speech communities of the Sámi languages in Northern Europe from a
cross-country perspective. The chapter analyses four villages in Russia,
Norway, Sweden and Finland, paying particular attention to the visibil-
ity of indigenous Sámi languages. The results point to a varying level of
Sámi language presence, but an interesting pattern of language use in
the linguistic landscape is uncovered. The use of the language in tour-
ism domains and in youth culture domains are particularly noteworthy.
In all it points to the value of expanding linguistic landscape studies
Heiko F. Marten, Luk Van Mensel and Durk Gorter 13

by encapsulating more research on endangered languages in peripheral


regions.
The chapters in Part IV shed new light on linguistic landscape studies
from a more theoretical or methodological point of view. The chapter
by Eszter Szabó Gilinger, Marian Sloboda, Lucija Šimičić and Dick
Vigers takes the theoretical frameworks of the Advocacy Coalitions
Framework and the theory of Discourse Coalitions to underpin their
analysis about the perception of multilingual signs in four locations:
Békéscsaba (Hungary), Llanelli (Wales), Pula (Croatia) and Český Tĕšín
(Czech Republic). The authors provide examples of answers elicited
from informants which show that public discourses about linguistic
landscape treat signs explicitly as either instrumental objects or as sym-
bolic spaces. In a more implicit way, however, signs are also indexical.
Decisive factors for the perception of signs in minority languages are the
size of the minority community and the stage of language shift.
Kara Brown’s case study analyses the re-emergence and reinscription
of the regional language of Võro in the halls and curricula of public
schools in Estonia. Using qualitative data from a school-based ethnog-
raphy, the chapter examines school space as a crucial and contested
linguistic landscape where language ideologies are officially sanctioned
and socially supported. It draws on place-based education and critical
language theory to argue that the long-time absence of the regional
language in Estonian schoolscapes has kept local places and communi-
ties largely invisible in formal education. The planned and spontane-
ous reintroduction of the Võro language in the school environment
over the last 20 years has led to new conversations about community
and delicate negotiations over the contested symbolic space of school.
Brown identifies two themes of schoolscapes in the context of linguistic
revitalization and endangerment: regional language as the enricher of
national culture, and regional language as historical artefact.
Larissa Aronin and Muiris Ó Laoire, finally, propose to include the
study of linguistic landscape in the investigation of what they call the
‘material culture of multilingualism’. The chapter outlines the essentials
of material culture and attempts to show how this premise is relevant
to studies and practices of multilingualism. In particular, it discusses
types of objects and artefacts which are relevant to multilingualism and
puts forward the definition of ‘language-defined object’ as a meaningful
wholeness of its material and verbal components. The benefit of this
approach lies in the potential to offer additional evidence, measure-
ment, and thereby to provide new insights for understanding minority
languages and multilingual situations in general.
14 Studying Minority Languages

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Part I
Language Ideologies and
Linguistic Landscape
2
‘Latgalian is not a Language’:
Linguistic Landscapes in Eastern
Latvia and how they Reflect
Centralist Attitudes
Heiko F. Marten

Overview

This chapter presents the role of the regional language of Latgalian


in the linguistic landscape (LL) of the region of Latgale in Eastern
Latvia. The example shows how LL as a method can contribute to the
understanding of the functions that a regional or minority language is
assigned to in the ethnolinguistic composition of a region and the
underlying language ideology. In the case of Latgalian this means that
centralist attitudes to the language are clearly reflected.
I will first introduce the ethnolinguistic composition of the region of
Latgale and the sociolinguistic role of Latgalian from a contemporary
and historical perspective. Then, I will report both the quantitative and
the qualitative results of an LL project conducted in the town of Rēzekne
and in some rural parishes (cf. Figure 2.1). Finally, I will interpret these
findings by analysing reasons for the linguistic behaviour identified and
thereby return to the question of how LL analyses may contribute to an
understanding of minority-language situations.

The region of Latgale and its languages

The ethnolinguistic situation of Latgale is characterized by a long tradi-


tion of multilingualism. Historically, this easternmost region of Latvia
has always been a border area between Baltic and Slavonic languages. As
part of Polish-Lithuanian territory between 1561 and 1790, it remained
Catholic when the practices of the Reformation dominated the rest
of present-day Latvia, and it also remained administratively separate
when all of the Baltic lands were part of the Russian Empire until 1918.

19
20
Figure 2.1 Places of LL research reported in this chapter and the area assigned as Latgalian Language Area by the Ethnolinguistic
Survey of Latgale (Lazdiņa and Šuplinska, 2009) in the context of Latvia
Source: Latvijas novadi un pagasti.
Heiko F. Marten 21

Therefore, the native Latgalian varieties developed separately from


Latvian varieties throughout several centuries, with a strong impact
on lexical, but also on structural features (cf. e.g. Puisāns, 1995). This
separation also resulted in a distinct writing tradition which developed
into a written standard during the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries. The existence of Latgalian varieties in contact with Russian,
Polish and Belarusian ones have therefore, in addition to Catholicism,
remained the most important identity markers for the traditional popu-
lation of Latgale in contrast to the population of the rest of Latvia. In
spite of this tradition, however, Latgalians declared unity with Latvian
nationalists in the process which led to the establishment of the Latvian
state in 1918, thereby defining their identity as a regional identity
within Latvian identity as a whole instead of emphasizing a separate
identity (cf. Marten, Šuplinska and Lazdiņa, 2009). On this basis, a vivid
Latgalian literature developed in the 1920s, and Latgalian was used as
a language of instruction in primary schools in Latgale. After the take-
over of the authoritarian Ulmanis regime in 1934, however, Latgalian
declined in prestige and in function. Its use in any official context was
restricted, a policy which was continued by Latvian communist leaders
during the two Soviet occupations in 1940–1 and from 1944 until 1991.
The use of written Latgalian was forbidden, and its oral use was discour-
aged by administrative and educational institutions. This resulted in a
low prestige of Latgalian and a perception as ‘the most distinct dialect
of Latvian’, and a stigmatization as a variety of rural areas and the
uneducated classes. As a written language Latgalian survived only in
the Catholic church and in exile, for instance in the monthly church
publication Katoļu Dzeive (Catholic Life), or through short-term journals
and individual publications published by exiled Latgalians, for example
in the Latgaļu izdevnı̄ceiba (Latgalian Publishing House) in Munich.
Today, about 20 years after the re-establishment of Latvian independ-
ence, both Latvian linguists and general discourse in Latvian society
still frequently perceive Latgalian as the most distinct dialect of Latvian
instead of a language in its own right (cf. for instance the tradition in
Latvian linguistics to label Latgalian varieties as ‘augšzemnieku diale-
kts’ or the ‘dialect of Upper Latvians’, which Nı̄tiņa (2007, p. 124), for
instance, characterizes as the ‘dominating view in Baltic linguistics’).
Latgalian competes today on the linguistic market of Latgale with several
languages, a situation which in many respects can be compared with
other post-Soviet situations, including for instance the Võru-speaking
region in Southern Estonia (cf. Brown, this volume). Competence in
Latgalian, according to the large-scale Ethnolinguistic Survey of Latgale
22 ‘Latgalian is not a Language’

93.5 90.9
100 %

80
62.1

60

30.9
40

20 7.2 15
5.2 3.5 0.4 0.4 0.8 1.2

0
an n lian ian lish
n ian ny h an h rs
ssi tvia rai
nia ton ma glis nc he
Ru La tga rus Po Es Ro En Ge
rm Fre Ot
La Be
la Uk

Figure 2.2 Language competence in Latgale: Percentage of respondents answer-


ing positively to the question of ‘Which of these languages or dialects do you
know?’ (Lazdiņa and Šuplinska 2009, p. 332)

(Lazdiņa and Šuplinska, 2009), is claimed by 62.1 per cent of the


respondents (cf. Figure 2.2). In contrast, competence in Latvian as the
sole official language in Latvia is claimed by 90 per cent of residents in
Latgale. This is slightly less than the percentage of people who claim a
command of Russian (93.5 per cent). Russian has existed as a traditional
language in the area for several centuries as the language of the tradi-
tional religious group of the Old Believers, but its status was heavily
strengthened during Soviet times when workers from all Soviet repub-
lics migrated to Latvia (cf. Ozolins, 2003, p. 218). At the time, Latvian
and Russian were in a relation of asymmetric bilingualism with Russian
as the variety which dominated the public sphere. In addition to these
wide-spread varieties, Polish, Lithuanian and Belarusian have existed as
traditional minority languages in Latgale for centuries, but their role is
today very limited. Many of those speakers who claim a minority iden-
tity have lost their traditional language, with Belarusian as the strongest
language of these languages in Latgale being spoken by 7.2 per cent of
the respondents. In addition to those languages, Western international
languages traditionally taught in Latgale are German and English, but
competence in these languages is rather low (English 30.9 per cent,
German 15 per cent). Competence in other international languages
such as French or Spanish is extremely rare.
According to official statistics, Russians are the strongest ethnic group
in the city of Rēzekne with its 36,000 inhabitants. A total of 49 per cent
Heiko F. Marten 23

of the population claim Russian ethnicity, thereby outnumbering the


44 per cent who claim Latvian ethnicity (which neither in terms of eth-
nic identity nor linguistically is distinguished from Latgalian in official
contexts). Of the town’s population, 2.6 per cent are Poles, 1.7 per cent
Belarusians and 1.4 per cent Ukrainians (numbers from 2007, Rēzeknes
pilsētas dome). The fact that Latgalian is not listed as a separate ethnic-
ity reflects the attitude of the authorities responsible for the Latvian
census and the residents’ registration offices in Latvia.
The perception of Latgalian is therefore today characterized by a certain
level of confusion among the general public. From an ethnolinguistic
point of view it is most adequate to characterize Latgalian as a regional
language with a disputed status in society. The Latvian state language law
supports Latgalian as a ‘historical written variety’ of Latvian (Republic of
Latvia, 1999). Latgalian and the micro-language of Livonian which is at the
edge of extinction with some moderate efforts of revitalization (cf. www.
livones.lv), are the only varieties besides Latvian mentioned in the consti-
tution and the Latvian Language Act. Yet, the phrasing of this recognition
is so vague that it is open to interpretation what this means for the role of
Latgalian in society and the level of support and legal protection.
On the one hand, there have been some symbolic steps for supporting
Latgalian. One of the most prominent were Latvian President Zatlers’
congratulations in a speech on 18 November 2008 on the occasion
of the 90th anniversary of independence of the Latvian State on ‘the
pride with which people speak and sing Latgalian’ (‘Valsts prezidents
valsts svētku priekšvakarā Rēzeknē slavē latgaliešu sirsnı̄bu’). On the
other hand, there are no clear steps by Latvian politicians to support
Latgalian. There is a remarkable logical contradiction in the official
attitude to Latgalian: Latgalian is rejected in most official situations –
in these, Latgalian is not considered to be ‘sufficiently Latvian’. Yet,
when speakers of Latgalian try to gain recognition for the standardized
version of Latgalian, they are regarded as separatists and Latgalian is
denied the status of a language in its own right. This logical paradox
is thereby in line with other examples of states which carry out strong
state language policies and which camouflage a lack of willingness to
support minority languages by a small range of tokenistic activities
without a true spirit of language maintenance or revitalization, as, for
instance, identified for the Russian state’s treatment of its minority lan-
guages (cf. Zamyatin, forthcoming).
In October 2009, a conference of Latgalian linguists and activists
published a declaration which demanded recognition of Latgalian as a
regional official language. The reactions by the State, however, showed
24 ‘Latgalian is not a Language’

that officials only paid lip service to a more positive attitude to Latgalian.
Two letters by the Latvian Ministries of Justice, and of Education and
Science to the Latvian Association of Regional and Lesser-Used Languages
repeated the tradition of seeing Latgalian as a dialect of Latvian. In an
entirely formal line of argumentation, and thereby completely refusing to
acknowledge the real spirit of the demand, the Ministry of Justice argued
that also the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages
does not consider ‘dialects of official languages to be eligible as regional
languages’, and on these grounds denied Latgalian the possibility to gain
such status (Latvijas Republikas Tieslietu Ministrija, 2009). Similarly, the
Ministry of Education and Science rejected the demand by referring to
the fact that Latvian laws do not create the ground for providing official
status to any variety other than Latvian, instead of considering that it
might be time to create such legal grounds. The Ministry only refers
to the possibility of safeguarding Latgalian traditions, including the
Latgalian language, under the UNESCO Convention on Non-material
Cultural Heritage (Latvijas Republika, Izglı̄tı̄bas un Zinātnes Ministrija,
2009). Again, it seems, Latgalian is trapped between the dilemma of
not being ‘language enough’ for being accepted as a regional language,
and of not being ‘Latvian enough’ in order to be seen as a separate
written tradition within the Latvian language which might allow for
such status. Latgalian is thereby again put into the historical corner,
and the message is clear: Latgalian is not supposed to take a more active
position in contemporary Latvian society. The only action taken by
the government as a response to the demands was the organization of
a public discussion by the Ministry of Justice in December 2009. As a
result of this discussion, a working party was created in order to inves-
tigate possible measures. Until the present day (July 2010), however, no
further steps have been taken, and Latgalian activists are overwhelm-
ingly sceptical regarding the results of these discussions, based on their
previous experience of how reluctant the Latvian state has been to sup-
port Latgalian.
The comments in an online discussion forum of one of the biggest
and most prestigious daily newspapers in Latvia – Diena – as a response
to the publication of an article on the occasion of the launch of the
activists’ declaration highlights the ambiguous perception of Latgalian
in the general public (Rozentāls, 2009). Some comments stressed the
Latgalian case as a legitimate wish by a regional population to linguistic
self-determination which did not threaten Latvian unity. Others,
however, considered these demands to be tantamount to separatism.
Comments included statements that it was ‘an organised provocation
Heiko F. Marten 25

by the Kremlin, no point in discussing it’ (user ‘Kārlis’ on 12 November


2009, 16:35 hours), but also purely polemic statements such as ‘official
recognition for Latgalian is as badly needed as my parrot needs a napkin’
(user ‘Pamela’ on 12 November 2009, 16:37). Thereby, these respondents
clearly repeated classic centralist perceptions of fears of separatism and
of a complete lack of understanding of language rights and identity
questions.
These views have led to an interesting mixture of attitudes among
the Latgalian population itself. Some groups of activists are providing
voluntary Latgalian classes in schools, and a Latgalian Radio (Latgolys
Radeja) and a Latgalian Youth Organisation (Latgolys Studentu Centrs)
have worked successfully for some years (for an overview of such activi-
ties cf. Marten, Šuplinska and Lazdiņa, 2009). There is also a tendency to
more regular use of written Latgalian in popular Internet portals (cf. for
instance the website Taiseits Latgola http://madeinlatgola.lv). A majority
of respondents of the ethnolinguistic survey wish to see Latgalian with
some role at school (Lazdiņa and Šuplinska, 2009, p. 337). Yet, what at
first glance seems to be a relatively strong level of support is weakened
when considering that only 23 per cent of the respondents do not
wish Latgalian to be used at school, while 8.3 per cent are in favour of
Latgalian-medium education, 10.5 per cent as a compulsory subject, and
the overwhelming majority, 58.2 per cent, as an optional subject.
Of the respondents, 35 per cent wish to see Latgalian as an official
language (33.9 per cent are against and a remarkable 31 per cent do not
know), which is, however, less than those who perceive a need to know
Latgalian as substantial for being integrated in the local community
(58.9 per cent; Lazdiņa and Šuplinska, 2009, p. 337). In total, these atti-
tudes show that the local population is in favour of Latgalian, but that
there is no consensus concerning its official status. All this displays an
ultimate feeling of insecurity, which clearly reflects the ideology of the
Latvian state regarding the Latgalian language.

The legal position of Latgalian signage

For analysing the role of Latgalian in the LL of Latgale, not only


attitudes and ideologies are of vital importance, but also the official
regulations regarding public signage. The Latvian State Language Law
regulates that public signage has to be in Latvian only where state
duties are concerned (including, most prominently, public bodies and
road signs). On private signs, however, a Latvian-plus rule applies: other
languages are explicitly tolerated as long as they are used in addition to
26 ‘Latgalian is not a Language’

Latvian and if they are not more dominant than Latvian. It is here again
that the logical contradiction in the Latvian State’s attitude to Latgalian
is displayed: if Latgalian is considered to be a variety (albeit historical)
of Latvian, it could be argued that Latgalian signage should be allowed
everywhere without restrictions. Yet, the Latvian State takes the posi-
tion that Latgalian, in this sense, is not sufficiently Latvian. According
to the common interpretation of the law by public bodies, Latvian
signage has to be in the Latvian literary standard, although there is no
clear legal norm on what counts as Latvian in this respect. Yet even if
the official position is that Latgalian is not Latvian, on private signs,
Latgalian is allowed as an additional language to Latvian, just like any
other language.

The LL project in Latgale

The research on the LL of Rēzekne has been carried out within the
framework of a project dealing with a contrastive view of the LL of
several regional centres in the Baltic States. The project started in 2008
(cf. Lazdiņa and Marten, 2009) and is at present envisaged to continue
until 2012 (TILRA). The data is based on a systematic analysis of the signs
in clearly defined areas in the main streets of shopping and administration
in Rēzekne (similar to, for instance, the LL studies by Cenoz and Gorter,
2006 or Edelman, 2009). The research was then extended to less promi-
nent streets, the area around the train station and a residential area. The
project was conducted together with students in the Master’s programme
in Philology at Rēzekne University College. As a contrastive element,
some of the students involved also conducted research in rural parishes.
The analysis of signs in Rēzekne provided the following appear-
ances of languages on the total of 830 signs (cf. Marten, 2010 for more
detailed results with regard to the languages other than Latgalian).
It is striking that Latgalian is hardly present at all in the written land-
scape of Rēzekne (cf. Table 2.1). There are only seven instances of Latgalian
in the database of signs in Rēzekne, which corresponds to 0.8 per cent of
all signs. Thereby, Latgalian is not only by far less present than Latvian
and Russian, the two other strong languages in Latgale, but also much
less frequent than English. In addition to these three strong languages,
also German, Lithuanian, French, Norwegian, Estonian and Italian were
found more often than Latgalian, mostly in the context of international
products or advertising. The other traditional minority languages in the
region appear even less frequently than Latgalian, Polish features three
times and Ukrainian and Belarusian were not recorded at all.
Heiko F. Marten 27

Table 2.1 Languages on Signs in Rēzekne


Language Appearances on the 830 signs %
Latvian 717 86.4
English 240 28.9
Russian 64 7.7
German 19 2.3
Lithuanian 16 1.9
French 16 1.9
Norwegian 13 1.6
Estonian 12 1.5
Italian 12 1.5
Latgalian 7 0.8
Spanish 6 0.7
Polish 3 0.4
Swedish 3 0.4
Danish 2 0.2
Finnish 2 0.2
Latin 2 0.2
Japanese 1 0.1

Where Latgalian is present in Rēzekne, it usually has clear functions.


On the informal side of language use, three out of the seven signs con-
taining Latgalian are examples of graffiti in the LL of Rēzekne. These
include personal names in their Latgalian versions, but also emphasize
the division between Latgalians and people from other parts of Latvia.
The graffiti čangaļi ruļavoj (forward Latgalians), for instance, uses the col-
loquial Latgalian name for Latgalians, čangaļi, whereas another exam-
ple of graffiti uses the pejorative term ‘čyuļi’ for Latvians from outside
Latgale, in combination with a typical vulgarism (a term which is identi-
cal in Latvian and Latgalian). An example from a more formal domain
is a restaurant offering traditional Latgalian cuisine (cf. Figure 2.3). This
restaurant does not only serve typical Latgalian food but also has an adja-
cent shop and gallery where Latgalian handicraft and the work of local
artists are on display. In spite of this deep emphasis on regional culture,
however, only the restaurant’s name is Latgalian. Everything else is in
Latvian, including the menu and the sign which identifies the restaurant
as part of a regional project to promote places which maintain regional
traditions. In a similar way, a local real estate agent has a Latgalian name
in order to show its local origin (in contrast to national or international
chains), but also here, all other information is in Latvian.
The sign of the small local Latgalian radio station, on the other hand,
is the only example of a sign in which Latgalian is clearly dominant in
28 ‘Latgalian is not a Language’

Figure 2.3 Traditional Latgalian café/restaurant ‘Mols’ – the name is Latgalian,


but the information is in Latvian

a more formal context. The sign outside the building in which the radio
station’s offices and its studio are located shows the Latgalian version
of the name Latgolys Radeja in large letters (cf. Figure 2.4). In addition,
there is the small information ‘2nd floor’ in Latgalian in the sign’s
lower right corner, and an even smaller translation Latgales radio in the
Latvian version in the upper right corner. In a personal conversation,
the founder and director of the radio station explained that the choice
of languages on the sign serves two purposes. On the one hand, it is
supposed to make a clear statement regarding the Latgalian language
and thereby to promote its public visibility, but on the other hand, it is
also deliberately composed in such a way to test possible reactions by
public bodies to such a sign.
Possibly the most remarkable situation in which Latgalian appears
in the data, however, is the bilingual Latvian-Latgalian text on a stone
commemorating the deportation of some of the population of Rēzekne
Heiko F. Marten 29

Figure 2.4 Latgalian Radio Station ‘Latgolys Radeja’ – in Latgalian but with a
small translation in Latvian on the upper right corner

to Siberia in 1941 (cf. Figure 2.5). Here, Latgalian is again displayed


in one of the functions traditionally assigned to it: whereas the infor-
mation about the deportation is in Latvian, Latgalian is used for the
biblical blessing ‘and may light perpetually shine upon them’ in order to
add an emotional component to the purely informational part. In total,
the situations in which Latgalian is used on signs in the LL of Rēzekne
thereby clearly indicate the traditional role of Latgalian as a language
of emotions, of personal issues and informal communication, and to a
limited degree as a variety of traditions and of history, or as a symbol
denoting a local or regional affiliation.
In addition to the instances where Latgalian is used, it is also interesting
to consider the question where Latgalian is not used. Not surprisingly,
Latgalian is not used in any official notices, but, in addition, also in
private messages or in advertisements by local enterprises it is hardly
used at all. The only clearly private use which was identified were the
few instances of graffiti described previously, which, however, are also
only a clear exception with regard to all examples of graffiti found in
the area of investigation. Latgalian is, however, only rarely used for
30 ‘Latgalian is not a Language’

Figure 2.5 Stone commemorating the deportation of parts of the population of


Rēzekne to Siberia in the 1941: ‘To the victims of the Red Terror in June 1941’
(in Latvian) – ‘… and may light perpetually shine upon them’ (in Latgalian)

contemporary public information. In this context, it is remarkable that


there is no exploitation of Latgalian for touristic purposes, in contrast
to, for example, research from Ireland (cf. Kallen, 2009) where Irish
features as a language for creating an exotic image which is considered
to be beneficial for the local tourism industry.
The role of Latgalian in the LL of Rēzekne is confirmed by research
conducted in rural parishes in Latgale. Latgalian is frequently consid-
ered to be a relatively rural language, both in terms of its traditionally
low prestige and regarding demographic patterns. These are the results
of far less migration from other parts of Latvia and from other Soviet
republics to rural parishes than to towns (with some exceptions where
industrial plants were established in small rural communities). Pošeiko
(2009) analyses the municipality centres of three rural parishes in
Latgale (Mežāre and Vı̄pe in the province of Jēkabpils and Vārkava in
the province of Preiļi). In her study, she found no single instance of
Latgalian in the LL at all, despite reported and observed oral competence
in Latgalian. Similarly, students’ class work in the town of Preiļi and in
the parish of Saunas showed only one example of Latgalian. The name
of a bus stop where the Latgalian version of the village name of Prı̄kuļi
Heiko F. Marten 31

was written on the official bus stop sign can easily be explained: It was
chosen in contrast to a bus stop in the region of Vidzeme North-West
of Riga which has the same place name in the Latvian version (Priekuļi)
as its official name (cf. Bravacka, 2009).

Qualitative observation and interpretation

Since oral competence in Latgalian is high, the question has to be asked


why Latgalian is used so infrequently in public signage. As has been indi-
cated previously, there is a striking difference between the competence in
Latgalian and insecurity of how and where to use it. This view was con-
firmed by the qualitative data of the research which was obtained through
mostly spontaneous interviews with locals in the streets and shops and
an analysis of their reactions to our research (cf. Marten, 2010 for a
more detailed account of the qualitative part of the research). Regarding
Latgalian, respondents repeatedly expressed that it was either ‘not a
written language’, often with an attitude which was clearly characterized
by the tradition of official degradation of Latgalian, or they answered that
they believed that using Latgalian on public signage was not allowed. At
the same time, individual respondents expressed their regret that they had
never learnt how to write Latgalian or that they felt insecure about using
it even though they wanted to. Finally, our research occasionally also pro-
voked genuine positive interest, most notably by a local TV production
company and the Latgalian Radio station mentioned previously. Both
institutions were happy to record small features about our research, in
which they explicitly asked what kind of impact our results could have for
Latgalian language maintenance and its use in more prestigious domains.
The ignorance of legislation and the possibility to use Latgalian at least
alongside Latvian may account for the difference between oral and writ-
ten language use. The occasional genuine interest in the research, on the
other hand, showed that there also exists a desire for a more active discus-
sion of linguistic issues among parts of the population and for raising the
currently restricted use of Latgalian, even if this attitude is limited to a
rather small scene of activists in the media or in cultural organizations.

Conclusion

The reduction of the functions of Latgalian through official policies


throughout the twentieth century has found its way into the LL of
Latgale. Latgalian is hardly used, partly because it is not considered to be
appropriate for written purposes, and partly because of a lack of literacy
32 ‘Latgalian is not a Language’

in the language. This marginal position in the written sphere contrasts


sharply with its regular presence as a spoken language and the broadly
positive attitudes towards it by large sections of the population.
The language policy of the State is therefore well reflected in the LL of
Latgale, in particular regarding the dominance of Latvian over Latgalian
(and also over Russian). The avoidance of ‘undesired’ varieties as a result
of strict language laws and low linguistic awareness is an example of what
I have labelled ‘legal hypercorrection’, i.e. language legislation, in this case
regarding the possibility to display public signs not only in Latvian but
also in Latgalian or in other varieties, are followed in a stricter way than
required by the laws (Marten, 2010). Given the unclear status of Latgalian
in Latvian language laws and the lack of knowledge of laws regarding
public signage, people feel insecure when using it in the written public
space. In contrast to the relatively low use of Russian in the LL of Rēzekne,
when compared with English and Latvian, a lack of written competence in
Latgalian is a second important factor since Latgalian literacy has not been
systematically promoted since the 1930s, along the lines of Spolsky (2009,
pp. 29–30) who identifies a lack of literacy in a variety as one important
factor in explaining the absence of a language in the LL. Yet, the absence
of Latgalian also in this respect might be a question of an insecurity of
where to use it rather than of illiteracy in the strict sense. Speakers of
Latgalian also without formal education in the language usually have little
difficulties in reading it, and since the new standard for written Latgalian
was adopted in 2007, there tends to be some confusion regarding correct
spelling, especially among older speakers.
Considering the general attitudes of the Latvian State towards
Latgalian, centralized language planning authorities in Riga are argu-
ably not unhappy to see that there is a certain level of confusion about
how Latgalian may be used on public signs and that Latgalian speakers
have not started to use their language more frequently in the written
public domain. The analysis of the LL in Rēzekne has thereby provided
further evidence for the traditional patterns of prestige and of the cen-
tralist perception that ‘Latgalian is not a language’. General insecurity in
using the oral language of their choice in written signage prevails. The
existing activist groups have not succeeded in gaining more publicity
and in creating more positive attitudes to the use of written Latgalian
among larger groups of the population in the sense that it would have
developed a critical mass of attention-raising activism. Given the lack
of knowledge of written Latgalian and of language laws and because of
the contradictory attitude of the State itself towards Latgalian, people
are afraid to break language laws, even where they are allowed to use
Heiko F. Marten 33

Latgalian. Because of the low spread of orthographic knowledge of


Latgalian, the generations between the 1930s and the 1990s (and then
only to a very limited degree) had hardly any chance of receiving formal
education in Latgalian, which plays a role for those parts of the popula-
tion who would wish to use Latgalian. From the perspective of language
maintenance, it is therefore important to spread the new written stand-
ard of Latgalian and to increase educational measures wherever there is
demand, and to increase awareness of legal regulations.
What does the example of Latgalian indicate for the potential of the LL
methodology for studying minority languages? This case study highlights
the disastrous state of Latgalian in the written public sphere. The results
show how the attitude by central authorities can shape the Linguistic
Landscape in a region in which a minority language is widely used orally.
The research has shown how the low status of a language is cemented and
how it ultimately is reduced to low-prestige functions, a process which may
threaten its long-term survival. In addition, the findings of this study add a
new perspective to understanding the position of Latgalian, in particular if
contrasted with other research about Latgalian such as the Ethnolinguistic
Survey by Lazdiņa and Šuplinska (2009). The still relatively widespread
competence in the language and the moderately positive attitude to the
LL research shows the political side of Latgalian usage. Yet, since language
laws allow Latgalian signage, the results can be taken as a further point
of departure for facilitating a discussion on language use, activism, and
awareness-raising, and for its use, for instance, for touristic purposes. The
current continuation of the research project is doing this: it evaluates
the LL in Latgale in connection with an investigation of the potential of
Latgalianness for attracting cultural tourists from Latvia and abroad.

Acknowledgements

The chapter has been produced within the context of the Project
Teritoriālās Identitātes Lingvokulturoloģiskie un Speciālekonomiskie
Aspekti Latgales Reģiona Attı̄stı̄bā’, Nr. 2009/0227/1DP/1.1.1.2.0/09/
APIA/VIAA/071 of the European Social Fund.

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‘Valsts prezidents valsts svētku priekšvakarā Rēzeknē slavē latgaliešu sirsnı̄bu’
(The President on the eve of the national day in Rēzekne praises Latgalian
sincerity), nra.lv 16 November 2008, http://www.nra.lv/zinas/12050-valsts-
prezidents-valsts-svetku-prieksvakara-rezekne-slave-latgaliesu-sirsnibu.htm
(accessed on 15 January 2010).
Zamyatin, K. (forthcoming) ‘Russia’s language policy and the state languages of
the republics’. In R. Toivanen and J. Saarikivi and M. Riessler and H. F. Marten
(eds) Equally Diverse: Comparing Language and Culture Minorities in the Russian
Federation and the European Union.
3
Transgression as the Norm:
Russian in Linguistic Landscape
of Kyiv, Ukraine
Aneta Pavlenko

Introduction

Some minority languages behave like good children, seen but not
heard. Others behave like normal children, both heard and seen.
And yet others may behave like unruly children and be heard or
seen even when banished away from the public eye. The latter is the
case of Russian in Ukraine. Russian is an unusual minority language.
It is spoken by the majority of the population of Ukraine and under-
stood by the rest. The study of Russian in Ukraine offers minority
language scholars an opportunity to examine the process of creation
of a minority language, through downgrading of a former lingua
franca. This downgrading is particularly visible in the area of linguis-
tic landscape, or public uses of written language. Russian in Ukraine
also offers an excellent case study of transgressive semiotics. Scollon
and Scollon (2003, p. 146) define transgressive signs as signs unau-
thorized in terms of placement, for example, graffiti. In the present
chapter, this definition is extended to signs unauthorized in terms of
language choice, that is, signs whose languages are not sanctioned by
language laws.
I will begin with a brief overview of the historic, demographic, and
sociopolitical context of Russian-language use in Ukraine. Next, I will
discuss the aims and principles of data collection in this study. The
subsequent analysis will examine the use of Russian in official,
commercial, and private signage. I will show that in the context of
bilingual Kyiv1 the use of Russian in linguistic landscape constitutes
a permissible transgression which has become the new, implicitly
accepted, norm.

36
Aneta Pavlenko 37

Russian in Ukraine: A historic perspective

Kyiv is a particularly apt location for the study of semiotic transgression.


On the one hand, it is a Russian-speaking city; on the other, it is a cap-
ital of the officially monolingual Ukraine and, as such, a city where
Ukrainianization policies are applied particularly vigorously, including
in the linguistic landscape (e.g. Shakh, 2010). These policies are com-
monly believed to be a ‘reversal’ of Russification policies adopted by
imperial Russian and Soviet governments, yet in reality Kyiv has never
been a Ukrainian-speaking city.
Founded in the fifth century, in the 880s the city, then named Kiev,
became the capital of Kievan Rus, a polity that served as a precursor of
all three modern East Slavic nations: Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian
(Magocsi, 2007; Smolij, 2008; Snyder, 2003). At the time of its great-
est territorial extent, Kievan Rus included almost all of the present-day
Belarus, much of European Russia, and almost half of the present-day
Ukraine (Magocsi, 2007). The polity was diglossic, using Church Slavonic
as the written medium and East Slavonic as the language of commerce
and everyday interaction (Franklin, 2002). Destroyed by the Mongol
invaders in 1240, Kiev lost its pre-eminence. Eventually, together with
the rest of southern Rus, it became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
(1363–1569) which continued to use a variety of East Slavonic, known
as ruski (Ruthenian), and its literary version Chancery Slavonic. After the
territories passed to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569–1654),
Polish replaced Chancery Slavonic as the language of civil administra-
tion and exerted significant influence on Ruthenian leading to the
emergence of Old Ukrainian (Smolij, 2008; Snyder, 2003).
Following the treaty of Pereyaslav (1654), Ukraine was split along
the river Dnieper and left-bank Ukraine, including Kiev, was incorpo-
rated into the Russian Empire (1654–1918). Right-bank Ukraine was
annexed to the Russian Empire during the eighteenth-century partitions
of Poland, while western Ukrainian territories became part of the Austrian
Empire. From then on, the development of Ukrainian in the eastern
and western territories followed separate trajectories. In the west, the
Austrian, Austro-Hungarian, and Polish governments treated Ukrainian
as a regional or minority language, allowing Ukrainians to maintain
their language and to develop a strong sense of nationalism (Bilaniuk
and Melnyk, 2008). In the east, following the 1863 Polish uprising,
the Russian government undertook several measures to subjugate
groups that might foment nationalist rebellions. To prevent Polish and
38 Transgression as the Norm

Ukrainian intelligentsia from establishing primary education in ‘Little


Russian’ (the term used to refer to Ukrainian) and from using it to trans-
mit separatist ideas, the tsarist administration banned publication of
scientific and instructional books in Ukrainian (1863), state-sponsored
Ukrainian-language instruction (1864), and import of Ukrainian books
from abroad (1876) (Saunders, 1995; Solchanyk, 1985). Oppressive as
they were, these measures made little real impact because the majority
of the Ukrainians were illiterate: according to the 1897 Census, 91 per cent
of Ukrainians were peasants, only 18.9 per cent over the age of 10
were literate, and only 0.36 per cent progressed beyond primary school
(Saunders, 1995; Snyder, 2003). In failing to spread Russian-language
schooling, the government failed to assimilate this rural population.
To account for the undeniable, if limited, success of Russification,
we need to focus on the urban contexts and to consider not only top-
down policies but also bottom-up integration processes. In the Russian
Empire, as later in the USSR, Russification was often the result of migra-
tion and social incentives. In Kiev, de-Polonization and Russification
took place through demographic changes brought on by the industrial
revolution: the city’s population swelled from 19,000 residents in 1797,
to 50,137 by 1845 to 626,000 by 1914, due to a massive influx of Russian
workers brought in from the North as factory labourers (Hamm, 1993;
Magocsi, 2007; Subtelny, 1994). As a result, Russian became the domi-
nant language not only in administration but also in interaction and in
linguistic landscape. The local census of 1874 revealed that 80 per cent
of Kyivites declared Russian as their language (Hamm, 1993). In 1890s,
a visitor to Kiev noted that the city was ‘not Ukrainian in character, but
rather, Moscovite. Russian script and Russian words appeared on street
signs, storefronts, restaurants, and taverns. And when we said that we
neither spoke nor understood Russian, people tried to speak to us in
Polish. Here and there a villager spoke Ukrainian, as did a few from the
working poor’ (cited in Hamm, 1993, pp. 102–3).
To reverse the results of imperial Russification, the Soviet government
initiated an unprecedented nativization campaign. In Ukraine, the
authorities undertook Ukrainian-language standardization efforts,
established a comprehensive Ukrainian-language educational system,
subsidized publication of Ukrainian dictionaries, books, journals, and
newspapers, expanded Ukrainian theatre, and founded Ukrainian radio,
film, and opera (Liber, 1992; Maiboroda, 2008; Masenko, 2004). In Kyiv,
Ukrainianization was reinforced by the large influx of Ukrainian peasants
who entered the urban labour force and made Ukrainians the dominant
ethnic group (Liber, 1992; Masenko, 2004). This demographic shift
Aneta Pavlenko 39

did not, however, shift the language balance. Instead, the newcomers
continued to shift away from Ukrainian associated with peasant back-
wardness to Russian, linked to urbanity and modernity (Bilaniuk and
Melnyk, 2008).
The 1958–9 Soviet education reform gave parents the right to choose
the medium of secondary instruction for their children. In some repub-
lics, such as Azerbaijan or Uzbekistan, this decree led to an increase in
enrolment in titular-language-medium schools, while in Ukraine there
was an increase in enrolment in Russian-medium schools. Data in
Table 3.1 show that this increase was not motivated by the reduction
in numbers of Ukrainian-language schools: their proportion continued
to be greater than that of their pupils, suggesting that the shift was of
a voluntary nature, forcing Russian-medium schools to serve much
higher numbers of students. The second language remained obliga-
tory: Russian-language schools continued to teach Ukrainian language
and literature, and Ukrainian-language schools Russian-language and
literature, although Russian received more hours in the curriculum of
Ukrainian-medium schools than vice versa.
To sum up, throughout most of the twentieth century, Kiev existed in
a state of asymmetrical bilingualism: both Russian and Ukrainian were
used in administration, secondary and higher education, the media,
and linguistic landscape (Pavlenko, 2010). Russian, however, dominated
everyday interaction and the fields of science, healthcare, technology,
and entertainment, while Ukrainian was widely understood but rarely
used by the city’s inhabitants.
This brief overview also served to show that until 1991 Ukraine did
not have a history of independent political statehood, nor even conti-
nuity within the same contiguous territory. It was not until 1940 that
the territories inhabited by ethnic Ukrainians were brought together
after centuries of separate existence, while Crimea was transferred
by the Soviet government from Russia to Ukraine only in 1954 (for
in-depth discussions of Ukrainian history see Magocsi, 2007; Snyder,
2003; Smolij, 2008; Subtelny, 1994). In what follows, I will show that it
was this historic discontinuity that gave rise to linguistic tensions that
continue to plague modern Ukraine.

Russian in Ukraine: A demographic perspective

In 1991, Ukraine proclaimed its independence and made Ukrainian


the only official language. Yet two decades later Russian continues to
dominate the east and south of the country. This persistence cannot
40
Table 3.1 Languages of instruction in secondary day schools in Ukraine*

1927–8 1938–9 1953–4 1955–6 1967–8 1980–1 1988–9 2005–6


Ukrainian-medium 80% 84.8% 85.2% 85.3% 80.7% 82.2%
schools elementary (1969–70)
Pupils in 75.8% 78.2% 74.9% 72.8% 62.0% 54.6% 47.5% 78.0%
Ukrainian-medium elementary
schools 60.7%
secondary
Russian-medium 6.7% 9.8% 13.6% 13.8% 19.3% 6.5%
schools elementary (1969–70)
Pupils in Russian- 10.6% 14.0% 23.8% 26.3% 37.2% 44.5% 51.8% 21.0%
medium schools elementary
15.5%
secondary

* The data does not include bilingual schools (i.e. Ukrainian/Russian) and minority language schools (e.g. Hungarian).
Sources: Bilaniuk and Melnyk (2008), Bilinsky (1964), Kolasky (1968), Ryan (1990), Solchanyk (1985).
Aneta Pavlenko 41

be explained by purely demographic factors: according to the 2001


Census (www.ukrcensus.gov.ua), ethnic Ukrainians constitute the
majority of the population of Ukraine as a whole (77.8 per cent), of
its five geographic areas (see first column of Table 3.2) and of all indi-
vidual regions, with the exception of Crimea, where ethnic Russians
constitute 58.3 per cent. Overall, ethnic Russians, the largest national
minority, constitute 17.3 per cent of the Ukrainian population, and
native speakers of Russian 29.6 per cent. The discrepancy between the
two numbers reveals that 12.3 per cent (approximately 6,000,000) are
ethnic Ukrainians and members of other ethnic groups who consider
Russian their native language. Unofficial estimates of this number are
much higher because many ethnic Ukrainians indicate Ukrainian as
their native language, yet favour Russian on an everyday basis (Kulyk,
2010; Maiboroda, 2008). According to a recent survey, in everyday com-
munication, 40.3 per cent of the population use Russian, 35.3 per cent
use Ukrainian, 20.4 per cent use both languages equally, and the rest
use mixed Russian-Ukrainian language varieties called surzhyk or other
languages (Besters-Dilger, 2009; for similar results, see Bilaniuk and
Melnyk, 2008; Maiboroda, 2008).
Table 3.2 displays an estimated breakdown of the population of
the main geographic areas by language and ethnicity (based on
Ohul’chans’kyi, 2006). These data show that the tensions in Ukraine are
not between Ukrainians and Russians, but linguistic cleavages take place
along the lines of previous historic divides. Ukrainophone Ukrainians
dominate the west of the country (until 1918 the territory was part of
the Austro-Hungarian Empire and then until 1940 Poland) and Russian-
speaking Ukrainians and Russians dominate the east and south (previ-
ously part of the Russian Empire). The split also occurs alongside the
urban/rural divide: the cities, with the exception of the west, are largely
Russian-speaking, while villages are dominated by Ukrainian. This

Table 3.2 Regional ethnic and linguistic distribution in Ukraine


Ethnic Ukrainophone Russophone Surzhyk- Russian- Others
Ukrainians Ukrainians Ukrainians speaking speaking
Ukrainians Russians
West 93.1% 91.7% 1.3% 1.5% 1.5% 4.0%
Central- 90.3% 59.3% 17.2% 13.0% 5.8% 4.7%
West
Central- 85.7% 30.8% 33.5% 20.6% 11.1% 4.0%
East
East 61.0% 3.6% 48.6% 8.3% 34.1% 5.4%
South 59.3% 5.3% 40.0% 11.3% 31.3% 12.1%
42 Transgression as the Norm

Table 3.3 Census data on ethnicity and language in Kyiv

1926 1959 1970 1979 1989 2001


Ethnic Ukrainians 42.2% 60.1% 64.8% 68.7% 72.5% 82.2%
Ethnic Russians 24.5% 23.0% 22.9% 22.4% 20.9% 13.1%
Ethnic Jews 27.4% 14.0% 9.3% 6.2% 3.9% 0.7%
L1 Ukrainian 27.6% 43.7% 50.7% 52.8% 57.6% N/A
L1 Russian 49.6% 53.8% 47.5% 44.8% 40.5% N/A

situation perpetuates the stereotype of Ukrainian as a peasant language


and Russian as a language of culture and modernity (Bilaniuk and
Melnyk, 2008). At the same time, the population is largely bilingual: a
2007 survey by the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences found that
79 per cent of the respondents were fully fluent in Russian and 71 per
cent in Ukrainian; others declared different degrees of fluency and only
1 per cent stated that they did not understand Russian and 2 per cent
Ukrainian (Maiboroda, 2008).
As seen in Table 3.3, the ethnic and linguistic composition of Kyiv
reflects that of the country at large. Ethnic Ukrainians constitute the
majority of the population and bilingualism is almost universal: according
to a 2007 survey, 92 per cent of Kyivites are fully fluent in Russian and
79 per cent in Ukrainian (Maiboroda, 2008). In interviews on language
issues, the inhabitants of Kyiv stress their bilingualism and willingness
to accommodate speakers who display language preferences (Besters-
Dilger, 2009; Bilaniuk, 2005). At the same time, Russian continues to
dominate informal interaction: in 2007, 65 per cent of Kyivites stated
that in public they use Russian (Maiboroda, 2008). This trend persists
even among the youngest generation educated in Ukrainian-language
schools (Besters-Dilger, 2009; Bilaniuk and Melnyk, 2008; Maiboroda,
2008; Marshall, 2002; Masenko, 2004; Podolyan, 2005; Zalizniak &
Masenko, 2001).

Russian in Ukraine: A sociopolitical perspective

So, what makes Russian a minority language? In the view adopted here,
the distinction between majority and minority groups ‘is not based on
numerical size, but on clearly observable differences among groups in
relation to power, status, and entitlement’ (May, 2006, p. 255). In 1989
the Ukrainian government declared Ukrainian the only state language.
Article 10 of the 1996 Constitution of Ukraine reaffirmed this status
Aneta Pavlenko 43

and proclaimed Russian a national minority language. Consequently,


what makes Russian a minority language both de jure and de facto is
the fact that its speakers do not have the same rights and entitlements
as speakers of Ukrainian.
Furthermore, current Ukrainian legislation restricts the right to
claim Russian as a native language to ethnic Russians and denies such
right to ethnic Ukrainians and members of other ethnic minorities
(Bowring, 2009). The effects of this restriction are particularly acute in
education, where the numbers of Russian-medium schools have been
drastically reduced (see Table 3.1). At present, authorities often deter-
mine the numbers of schools operating in particular languages on the
basis of the ethnic composition of the population. In their opinion on
Ukraine, the Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention for
the Protection of National Minorities (2002, pp. 16, 23) criticized this
approach and recommended ‘sufficient demand’ as the main criterion
for minority language education, yet no visible changes have been
made. In Kyiv, the elimination of Russian-language schools proceeded
without any recourse to demographics or parental preferences. While
in 1987, 77 per cent of the city’s school children received education in
Russian (Masenko, 2004), in the school year 2007–8 only 7 out of 527
secondary schools offered Russian-medium instruction (Kalynovs’ka,
2009). This is in stark contrast with language preferences of the local
population: in 2007, Russian was the dominant home language of 56
per cent of Kyivites and Ukrainian of 31 per cent, with the rest using
both or surzhyk (Maiboroda, 2008; for information on languages of
schooling in other regions, see Bilaniuk and Melnyk, 2008).
Education is not the only area where Russian speakers have experi-
enced the loss of rights. In the past few years debates were also fuelled
by laws that required the dubbing of Russian-language films and TV
shows and by (failed) attempts to declare Russian a regional language
in Russian-speaking areas (Besters-Dilger, 2009; Bilaniuk and Melnyk,
2008; Maiboroda, 2008; Pavlenko, 2008). Local scholars and intel-
lectuals are divided in these debates. Supporters of Ukrainian-Russian
bilingualism, such as the prominent archaeologist and historian Petro
Tolochko (2004), are dissatisfied with Ukrainian language laws and
point to discrimination against Russian, while supporters of Ukrainian-
only, such as the well-known linguist Larysa Masenko (2004), are dis-
satisfied with their implementation and complain about the insufficient
institutionalization and use of Ukrainian, Russification of the mass
media, indifference of the population to Ukrainian-language publica-
tions, and the threat to the unity and stability of the country presented
44 Transgression as the Norm

by bilingualism (for an in-depth discussion, see Besters-Dilger, 2009;


Bilaniuk, 2005; Kulyk, 2010; Maiboroda, 2008).
The discrepancy between official language policies and interactional
norms in Kyiv and other large Ukrainian cities, such as Kharkiv or
Odessa, has attracted significant attention in the study of bilingual-
ism (e.g. Bilaniuk, 2005; Marshall, 2002; Podolyan, 2005; Polese, 2010;
Søvik, 2010). In the present study, this discrepancy will be examined in
the domain of linguistic landscape where the materiality and perma-
nence of the signs make transgressive language choices more tangible
and potentially more of a liability.
To date, I know of only one study that has systematically examined
linguistic landscape in Ukraine. Shakh (2010) studied the distribution
of languages in the signage in the centre and the periphery of the two
largest Ukrainian cities, Kyiv and Kharkiv. She found that Ukrainian
dominated the linguistic landscape of Kyiv (75.3 per cent), while
Russian dominated that of Kharkiv (57.2 per cent). In both cities,
Ukrainian was more frequently used in the centre of the city and the
use of Russian increased in the periphery. The greatest proportion of
Russian signs was observed in the periphery of Kharkiv (73.4 per cent).
These findings provide a meaningful background for the present study
where the focus is on the phenomenon of transgression, rather than on
language distribution per se.

Data collection

The data for the study was collected in the central part of Kyiv,
located between the main street Khreshchatyk and the parallel street,
Volodymyrs’ka, and ending at Maidan Nezalezhnosti (the Independence
Square) and Sophiivs’ky Square on the one side, and Tolstoy Square on
the other. The area in question is characterized by the high density
and diversity of the signage: it contains many official buildings, such
as the city hall, several museums and historic monuments, such as the
Golden Gate and the St Sophia Cathedral, and numerous businesses,
restaurants, billboards and public advertisement boards. I do not claim,
however, that language use in this area is representative of the rest of
Kyiv. In fact, the opposite is the case. As shown by Shakh (2010), the
state language Ukrainian is used more frequently in the centre of Kyiv
(84.9 per cent) than on the periphery (70.3 per cent). I also do not claim
that language choices in the centre of Kyiv are representative of those
in other Ukrainian cities. In reality, they vary greatly: linguistic land-
scapes of western cities, such as L’viv, contain hardly any Russian, while
Aneta Pavlenko 45

linguistic landscapes of eastern cities, such as Kharkiv or Donets’k, and


southern ones, such as Odessa or Kerch’, are dominated by Russian
(Polese, 2010; Shakh, 2010; Søvik, 2010). The uniqueness of Kyiv lies in
the fact that it is a truly bilingual city, and the importance of its central
area is not in its typicality, but in the fact that it represents the public
face of the country and thus constitutes the most unlikely site of resist-
ance to official policies.
The study adopted Backhaus’ (2006) definition of a sign as ‘any piece
of written text within a spatially definable frame’ (p. 55). This approach
includes all things visible to passers-by, from street signs, to commercial
billboards, to handwritten advertisements and graffiti. The pictures
were taken digitally, during five trips to Kyiv (August 2006, October 2007,
August 2008, July 2009, August 2010), an approach that allowed me to
ensure that the phenomena observed can be extrapolated beyond a sin-
gle point in time. A comparative analysis of pictures taken in different
years confirmed that even though new commercial and private signs
went up and others disappeared, language choice in different types of
signage remained consistent.
The data analysed in the present study constitutes a part of the
larger corpus and includes signs where Russian appeared as the main
or base language (the few signs in the latter category contain logos or
website addresses in English, or additional comments in Ukrainian).
As shown in Table 3.4, the 89 Russian-language signs were divided
into the following categories: (a) official signage, that is signs placed by
authorities (e.g. street signs, memorial plaques), (b) commercial signage,
that is signs displayed by commercial enterprises (e.g. shop signs, bill-
boards), and (c) private signage, that is signs placed in public spaces by
individuals (e.g. ads, graffiti). This distinction was made on the basis
of the relationship of the signs’ presumed authors to ruling language
policies. While official institutions have to be compliant, businesses
may have some leeway for creativity, and individuals are usually free to
express themselves in the language of their choice. The analysis further
differentiated between permanent signs, that is, signs made from durable

Table 3.4 Signs with Russian as the only or dominant language

Permanent signs Temporary signs


Official signs 4 4
Commercial signs 28 20
Private signs N/A 33
46 Transgression as the Norm

materials, such as stone, metal, or plastic, and temporary signs, that is,
signs made from fragile materials, such as paper, or written in imperma-
nent media such as chalk that can be made illegible by the weather. The
signs in each category were examined in terms of: (a) language choice,
(b) genre, (c) information arrangement, (d) indexical functions, and
(e) implied audiences.
Given that Russian and Ukrainian are genetically related languages that
use the same Cyrillic alphabet, a note is also needed on language determina-
tion. Despite their close relationship, lexical and orthographic differences
usually allow readers to tell the two languages apart (e.g. Ukrainian
alphabet has the letter i non-existent in Russian, while Russian has the
letter bl non-existent in Ukrainian). Some words, however, are bivalent,
that is in signage they can be read as both Ukrainian and Russian
(e.g. кафе (kafe) ‘café’, вокзал (vokzal) ‘train station’, банк (bank) ‘bank’).
The bivalent signs were excluded from analysis. The closeness of the
languages and bilingualism of the city’s population also facilitate com-
prehension of the signs. Both Ukrainian- and Russian-language signs can
be understood by the city’s inhabitants and consequently, both carry an
informational function.

Russian in the centre of Kyiv

Official signage
Article 35 of the 1989 Ukrainian Law on Languages states: ‘Texts of
official announcements, notices, slogans, posters, advertising, and so on,
shall be in Ukrainian. The translation of the text into another lan-
guage may be placed next to the text in Ukrainian’ (www.minelres.lv/
NationalLegislation/Ukraine/Ukraine_Language_English.htm). Article 38
specifies that ‘the toponyms (names of populated areas, administrative
and territorial units, streets, squares, rivers, etc.) shall be formed and
presented in the Ukrainian language’ (ibid.). The official signage in Kyiv
complies with this language policy. Ukrainian, sometimes in combina-
tion with English, is the language of street signs, road signs, and all but
a few building labels and commemorative plaques. Shakh (2010) who
analysed 869 signs displayed in the centre of Kyiv in August 2008 came
to the same conclusion.
Russian hardly appears on permanent official signage, in stark con-
trast to the Soviet era when official signs appeared either in Russian or
in both languages (Pavlenko, 2010). My corpus contains only four per-
manent official Russian-language signs: (a) a building label announcing
Aneta Pavlenko 47

the state-supported Russian-language theatre; (b) a commemorative


plaque on the same theatre celebrating its 120-year-long history (see
also www.rusdram.com); (c) a commemorative plaque on the wall of
a museum dedicated to Kyiv’s famous Russian writer, Mikhail Bulgakov,
and (d) a duplicating arrangement in Ukrainian and Russian announc-
ing the headquarters of the Architects’ Union. The first three signs
are linked to specifically Russian-language enterprises, while the latter
appears to be preserved from the Soviet era.
The near absence of Russian from official signage is seen here as a
result of language erasure, that is, deliberate removal of signage in a
particular language (Pavlenko, 2009). Materiality of linguistic land-
scape offers convenient means for implementation of language poli-
cies and tangible construction of national identities. While language
practices may be difficult, and sometimes downright impossible to
transform rapidly, the signage can be changed overnight. I distin-
guish three ways of erasing a language from linguistic landscape. One
can replace old signs with new ones where the offending language is
now absent. This approach is the most expensive but also the most
effective because it leaves no physical trace of the other language.
The second approach involves deletion (e.g. painting over) of parts
of bilingual signs. The third approach, adopted with languages that
use the same script, involves modification of single letters. Both of
these approaches are cheaper but also less effective than the first one
because they leave behind physical traces, and thus reminders, of lan-
guage erasure (for examples, see Pavlenko, 2009). Bilaniuk (2005) who
did her ethnographic fieldwork in Ukraine in 1991–2 recalls that at first
the authorities in Kyiv opted to modify letters in existing signs, thus
changing Russian words into Ukrainian as quickly and inexpensively as
possible, and only later replaced the old signs with the new. She argues
that the initial approach detracted from the normalizing force of lan-
guage institutionalization and ‘made the authority backing Ukrainian
appear as poor and superficial as the changes on the signage’ (Bilaniuk,
2005, p. 95).
By 2006 the process of sign replacement was completed and I could
no longer find physical traces of language erasure. I did, however, find
that the ban on Russian in official signage does not seem to apply
to temporary signs, such as public announcements. One such paper
announcement posted in August 2010 at one of the entrances to
Kyiv medical university and signed by the university administration
stated: ‘Прием иностранных граждан (Россия, Беларусь, Молдова, и т.д.)
проводится через международный отдел университета (каб 14)’
48 Transgression as the Norm

(Admission of foreign citizens (Russia, Belarus, Moldova, etc.) takes


place in the International Office of the university (office 14)). In this
announcement, Russian appears as a lingua franca of the post-Soviet
space. Yet it can also be used to address the local population. A paper
sign posted in August 2008 on the wall in an underground passage
in the Independence Square stated: ‘Распивать спиртные напитки в
подземном переходе ЗАПРЕЩЕНО’ (To drink alcoholic beverages in the
underground crossing is FORBIDDEN). Judging by the content of the
sign, it was placed there either by municipal powers or by the local
police.
The near-disappearance of Russian from official signage does not
appear to create any comprehension problems for the city’s bilingual
population. The city’s visitors, however, are a different matter. During
my visits to Kyiv’s museums, where the signage is either in Ukrainian,
or in Ukrainian and English, I heard several complaints from Russian-
speaking visitors from other post-Soviet countries who cannot
understand Ukrainian and are now forced to rely on their, oftentimes
limited, English skills and on Ukrainian-Russian cognates.

Commercial signage
The 1989 Law on Languages in the Ukrainian SSR, which is still
in effect in independent Ukraine, states that in advertisements ‘in
addition to the text in the Ukrainian language, there can be also
its translation in another language’ (Article 35). The 1996 Law on
Advertising adds ‘duly registered trademarks and company logos may
be provided (quoted) in the language of the original’ (www.minelres.
lv/NationalLegislation/Ukraine/ukraine.htm). This approach opens
the door to the use of other languages, including Russian. According
to Shakh (2010), Russian appears in 22.4 per cent of commercial
signs in the centre of Kyiv. The analysis of my corpus shows that this
appearance is not limited to temporary signs. In permanent signage,
some businesses use Russian in creative ways that, at least formally,
abide by the trademark exception. One such strategy is to display
Russian or potentially bivalent words, such as ‘продмаг’ (abbrevia-
tion of ‘grocery shop’) or ‘контракт’ (contract) in pre-1917 Russian
spelling with a silent letter ‘ь’ at the end. This approach conveys the
Russianness of the words and at the same time makes these words
into proper names. Another strategy is to bracket Russian words to
make them into proper names. Thus, a sign over an art gallery dis-
plays its Russian name ‘Мир искусства’ (Art world) in a large font and
Aneta Pavlenko 49

in brackets and its Ukrainian label ‘художнiй салон’ (art gallery) in a


much smaller font on top.
In other cases, however, Russian is used straightforwardly and one
may see commercial signs in Russian next to ones in Ukrainian. If
Russian use in these signs were limited to travel agencies or transla-
tion bureaus, one could argue that it is used to facilitate translation
or travel for visitors from other post-Soviet countries. Yet the signs
in the corpus show that such usage is not systematic. For instance, in
Figure 3.1, the top sign advertises ‘Translation bureau “Jahan”’ in
Ukrainian, while the bottom sign advertises the ‘Travel company
“Zimaletta” (Winter-summer)’ and ‘Airline tickets’ in Russian. The
same apparent randomness applies to other types of businesses.
The pancake kiosk on Volodymyrs’ka Street advertises its wares in
Russian, while the kiosk on the next corner promotes pancakes in
Ukrainian.

Figure 3.1 Kyiv, July 2009


50 Transgression as the Norm

On temporary signs Russian appears systematically, even in businesses


whose permanent signage is in Ukrainian. These temporary signs can
be divided into four categories. The first consists of signs where the
appearance of Russian follows the law. For instance, the sign advertising
a Russian-language newspaper ‘События и люди’ (Events and people) has
the title of the paper in Russian followed by the text in Ukrainian stat-
ing ‘Читати нас стане модно’ (It will be fashionable to read us) and ‘Нова
кольорова газета Олександра Швеця’ (New multi-coloured newspaper by
Oleksander Shvets’). This advertisement exploits the bilingualism of its
audience, appealing in Ukrainian to potential readers of the Russian-
language paper.
The remaining three categories involve different genres of Russian-
language signs. The first contains menus of the day, written in chalk
on advertising boards placed in front of cafés and restaurants, and sales
ads written in paint on the glass windows of respective shops. One
might argue that these businesses want to appeal to Russian-speaking
tourists from other post-Soviet countries. However, my visits to a few
of the cafés and restaurants suggest that even in the summer, at the
height of the tourist season, their clientele is mostly local and, during
lunch hours, dominated by office workers from nearby institutions and
enterprises.
Another genre where Russian appears frequently involves billboards
and posters advertising exhibits, plays, and shows. In some cases, the
choice of Russian is legitimized by the transnational nature of the event
(e.g. a fashion show from Belarus) or its links to Russian language (e.g.
a play at the Russian-language theatre).
Russian is also commonly used in public announcements printed on
sheets of paper, enclosed in plastic sleeves, and posted on walls, doors,
windows, or columns. These announcements often appear in businesses
whose permanent signage is in Ukrainian. Thus, a sign on a column
in the shopping centre Globus reads ‘Администрация ТВК «Глобус» за
оставленные личные вещи ответственности не несет’ (Administration of
the Shopping Centre ‘Globus’ is not responsible for personal items left
behind). A sign in the window of a bookshop Litera (Letter (Ukrainian))
informs potential customers ‘Ксерокса нет’ ((We) have no Xerox).
Figure 3.2 portrays an array of such announcements posted on a door
of a business complex on Kyiv’s main street, Khreshchatyk. These
announcements inform customers, reading clockwise, that the business
is looking for a cleaning person, that the price of photocopying is 40
kopecks per page and it is available from 9.30 a.m. to 9 p.m., and that
the restroom inside charges a fee.
Aneta Pavlenko 51

Figure 3.2 Kyiv, August 2008

The use of Russian in commercial signage, in particular in temporary


signs, confirms its position as the language of everyday use in Kyiv.
However, from the point of view of language policy, most commercial
signs discussed here violate language laws in using Russian for purposes
other than registered trademarks and logos and without a corresponding
Ukrainian translation. The systematic nature of this transgression suggests
that it may constitute a tacitly agreed-upon local norm that presumes a
bilingual audience and allows for personal preferences or language com-
petencies to drive language choice, in particular in temporary signs. At
the same time, the waiting staff and sales people are usually sensitive to
language preferences and, for the most part, willing and able to accom-
modate them. For instance, while shopping in an academic bookshop in
July 2009 I overheard the cashier and the saleswoman speaking Russian
to each other but when I brought a Ukrainian-language book to the cash
register, the cashier addressed me in Ukrainian, assuming that a client
purchasing such a book may prefer Ukrainian.
52 Transgression as the Norm

Private signage
The analysis of private signs, such as graffiti and private ads posted on
public advertisement boards and columns, shows that the inhabitants
of Kiev use both Ukrainian and Russian when writing for private pur-
poses in public spaces (the graffiti also appears in English).
Figure 3.3 portrays a typical advertising board where ads by
organizations and businesses are mixed with private notices and
Russian-language ads with Ukrainian ones. On the right side, one can
see several Ukrainian-language ads posted by ‘Kyivan pilgrim’, the
pilgrim service at St Michael’s cathedral, advertising short trips for
the religiously inclined. The Russian-language advertisement posted
at an angle in the top right corner promotes summer holidays in
Crimea. Russian-language ads on the left advertise plumbing serv-
ices, piano services, an apartment rental, and purchases of antiques
from the population. A semi-detached advertisement on the top
informs of finding a pet with white spots. These ads are mixed with

Figure 3.3 Kyiv, August 2008


Aneta Pavlenko 53

Ukrainian-language ones advertising legal services and an interna-


tional music festival.
Of particular interest is a Russian-language advertisement placed
at the centre on the left side. It states: ‘Срочно! Сниму комнату на
длительный срок для 2-х студентов (Дуже чемнi хлопцi без шкiдливих
звичок) Порядок и своевременную оплату (не дороже 1300 грн. за комнату)
гарантируем. Посредникам – просьба не беспокоиться.’ (Urgent! Will rent
an apartment for a long term for two students (Very polite guys without
bad habits) Order and timely payments (no more than 1300 grivnas per
room) guaranteed. Intermediary agents do not bother). While Russian
is the base language of the advertisement, the italicized words appear
in Ukrainian, presumably in order to encourage potential Ukrainian-
speaking landlords.
Together, this and other public billboards where Ukrainian and Russian
coexist, sometimes within the confines of a single announcement,
provide convincing evidence of continuous Russian maintenance in
Kyiv, but also of the bilingualism and linguistic tolerance of the city’s
population.

Conclusion

The analysis of linguistic landscape in the centre of Kyiv shows that


the state language policy is strictly enforced in permanent official
signage and is mostly but not always adhered to in commercial sig-
nage. The less controlled temporary and private signage, on the other
hand, reveal that the city’s population is bilingual and may favour
Russian in the informal sphere, not only in spoken interaction but
also in public writing. One might be tempted to interpret the display
of Russian-language signs in the heart of the Ukrainian capital as a
conscious act of resistance that contests the official linguistic regime.
However, its common acceptance and the lack of public commentary
(e.g. media debates) on the continuing presence of this signage led
me to argue that what we see is a permissible transgression and in
fact the tacitly accepted norm. It appears that in Kyiv public writing,
just like spoken interaction, is governed by two norms. In formal
contexts, such as official signage, it is governed by the state language
policy that aspires to Ukrainian monolingualism (or bilingualism in
Ukrainian and English). In less formal contexts, such as commercial,
private, and temporary signage, language choice is governed by the
54 Transgression as the Norm

bilingual Russian-Ukrainian norm that allows people to advertise and


purchase wares and services in the language they favour or are most
comfortable in.

Acknowledgements

Data collection for the study was supported by a grant from


Temple University’s Center for International Business Education and
Research (CIBER). The paper has also benefited from insightful com-
ments by two anonymous peer-reviewers. All remaining errors are
exclusively mine.

Note
1. I will use the names Kiev and Kyiv in accordance with the dominant usage in
particular historic periods.

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4
Minority Semiotic Landscapes:
An Ideological Minefield?
Michael Hornsby and Dick Vigers

Introduction

If the linguistic landscape encompasses a variety of signs and


(place)names in various territories, regions and urban centres (Landry
and Bourhis, 1997), then our attention tends to be drawn, not unrea-
sonably, to the visual aspect of such ‘linguistic objects that mark the
public space’ (Ben-Rafael, 2009, p. 40; our emphasis). It is this simulta-
neous focus on both the linguistic and the visual that leads us to locate
linguistic landscapes in a wider, semiotic framework, since the linguistic
aspect is but one component in an interface between cultural, social,
economic and (re)productive processes; moreover, ‘landscapes possess
“semiotic” properties, in other words, they contain signs in them that
can be decoded by those with intimate knowledge of them’ (Selman,
2006, p. 53). Our approach follows recent research in the area which
seeks to examine wider fields of investigation than just the linguistic,
such as ‘visual images, non-verbal communication, architecture and the
built environment’ ( Jaworski and Thurlow, 2010, p. 2). As a result, semi-
otic analysis takes place on a variety of levels and in the case of signage
in minority languages, the indexicality of the sign tends to dominate
debates, though decoding can also focus on the iconic aspects. Such
indexicality, we argue, is very often decoded through the prism of lan-
guage ideology, especially in situations of linguistic minoritization. This
decoding is not confined to these situations but is particularly emotive
in circumstances where signage in minority languages is a fairly recent
phenomenon and represents a break with previously established prac-
tice; similar shifts towards multilingualism are especially noteworthy in
those areas of Europe where ‘a peculiar fatigue of the national principle
has provided an opening for a unique reconfiguration of political space’

57
58 Minority Semiotic Landscapes

(Joppke, 1999, p. 280). Moreover, if a language ideology functions as


‘the cultural system of ideas about social and linguistic relationships,
together with their loading of moral and political interests’ (Irvine,
1989, p. 255), then the inevitable clash of principles and policies is
bound to lead to considerable tension in what might be termed an
‘ideological minefield’. This chapter focuses on the situations of two
Celtic languages, namely Welsh and Scottish Gaelic. Welsh has a longer-
established and more systematic procedure for producing bilingual
signage than the latter language, but shares with Gaelic equally contro-
versial positions in ideological debates, as we demonstrate below.

Methodology

The different locations involved in this study called for a variety of


approaches to be adopted in the collection of data. Our focus on ‘bottom-up’
attitudes to minority language signage in Scotland and Wales necessitated
an emphasis on primary sources of information, hence the predominance
of semi-structured interviews and reports from local newspapers as our
sources of data. These data have been analysed using an ethnographic,
qualitative framework, based on the anthropological linguistic concept of
language ideology, which we have used to explore the more implicit, meta-
pragmatic processes which underlie the sometimes vociferous arguments
for and against minority language signage in the situations we describe
here and, by extension, to arguments for or against the usefulness and
practicality (or otherwise) of attempts at minority/endangered language
maintenance/revitalization.
Initial fieldwork in Scotland was carried out with two fluent speakers
of Gaelic (L2) who were pursuing an intensive language course on the
Isle of Lewis in March 2009. Semi-structured interviews were conducted
about a series of ten photographs taken in Scotland, displaying a variety
of languages in the public domain. These photographs included a variety
of road signs and posters involving different fonts of varying sizes, dif-
ferent colours for the lettering and for the backgrounds and they were
produced by local authorities and arts organizations in Scotland. This
phase was followed up with an email survey with eight other research
participants from the same course (the majority of them being interme-
diate learners of Gaelic). Also included in this survey was a Polish citizen
taking Gaelic at honours level at Aberdeen University. In both phases,
consultants were asked to comment on their immediate reactions to the
photographs presented to them, and to concentrate on the effect the
signs would have, in their opinion, on the Scottish semiotic landscape.
Michael Hornsby and Dick Vigers 59

The data collection in Wales involved street interviews with passers-by


in Cardiff and Llanelli conducted in situations where examples of bilin-
gual Welsh/English signage were visible, for example, signs for pedestrians
and road users, on buildings and public transport, on advertisements and
shop fronts. No one interviewed was unaware of this specific element of
the semiotic landscape in Wales. Interviewees were randomly selected
and self-selecting in terms of their willingness to participate. The inter-
views were semi-structured and conducted in both Welsh and English.1

Ideologies in Scotland: The outer edge of the Celtic


periphery?

A number of ideologies of language appear to play a pivotal role in


debates over minority language signage. We refer especially to McRae
(1975) and Myhill (1999) who have identified two ecologically based
ideologies, the first associating language with individual identity, and
the second with specific territory. Myhill (1999, p. 34) terms them the
ideology of language-and-identity and the ideology of language-and-
territory. A third ideology, which has been examined in some depth in
the work of Heller (2003) links language with the economy; for the sake
of consistency, we are following Myhill’s terminology and will call it
the ideology of language-and-economy, though Heller discusses it more
in terms of linguistic commodification. Moreover, a further ideology
which is relevant to the data presented here is the ‘ideology of con-
tempt’ (Dorian, 1998, p. 7; Grillo, 1989, pp. 173–4) which we refer to
particularly in the case of Wales. Interestingly, elements of the first three
ideologies are found in the arguments of both advocates and detrac-
tors of minority language signage, though obviously in substantially
different ways. Even more significantly, Myhill (1999) argues that the
identity-based and territorial-based ideologies are inherently conflictual
and in fact tend to work against each other. The third ideology, that of
language-and-economy, has been discussed less widely than either of
the identity or territorial principles, and can be viewed as being due to
the effects of globalization and ‘high modernity’ (Giddens, 1991). As
such, the extent to which language can be viewed as a commodity and
the extent it can be linked to an individual language’s economic worth
is less clear-cut than the more obvious links between an interlocutor’s
identity and/or geographical origins. Most often, these ideologies appeal
to ‘common sense’ notions of the practicalities of, or the obstacles to
erecting minority language signage, and can often be hidden behind
the sometimes virulent arguments which such signage provokes.
60 Minority Semiotic Landscapes

The ideology of language-and-identity assumes that ‘language more


or less is (ethnocultural) identity, or at least the most important part
of identity’ (Myhill, 1999, p. 37). When the Scottish Executive first
announced its intention to provide Gaelic signage over a wide area of
Scotland, one of the reasons, rooted in this identity-based ideology, was
to ‘provide visible evidence of public support for Gaelic in Scotland and
[to] strengthen the confidence of speakers and learners in their use of
the language’ (The Scottish Government, 2003). In contrast, a territorial-
based ideology which centres on the historic connection of a language
to a given region, seeks to privilege a demographically disadvantaged
language by making it ‘dominant in a particular defined geographical
area’ (Myhill, 1999, p. 38). It can also extend from predominantly rural
regions (where minority languages have traditionally been best main-
tained) to urban centres. In Scotland, the occasional sign in Gaelic can
be found in major conurbations such as Edinburgh and Glasgow but also
in areas which have shifted from Gaelic/English bilingualism to English
monolingualism within living memory, such as areas covered by the
Highland, and the Argyll and Bute Councils, which have been the focus
of the most recent initiatives. This is in addition to already established
signage in the Western Isles, on the Isle of Skye and the western section
of A830 Mallaig Road. Most significantly, entry signs on the two major
roads into Scotland welcome visitors and returnees bilingually.
Bilingual road signs in Scotland typically have the Gaelic coming first in
each pairing, but in orange as compared with the more noticeable white
lettering for the English names of towns, and this arrangement provoked
a number of varying reactions among participants (see Figure 4.1).
All but one of them welcomed the inclusion of Gaelic, but felt the
colour was inappropriate and less prominent than the English, thus
lessening the impact of Gaelic’s initial positioning in the pairings.
One opinion that arose from fieldwork was that the sign was too
‘busy’ or ‘cluttered’ and possibly confusing for passing motorists.
Interestingly, one participant from the Highlands who grew up in
a Gaelic environment felt the inclusion of Gaelic to be confusing for
visitors and felt it should be in smaller letters or even omitted. Having
separate signs in English and Gaelic was one suggestion, based on the
experience of similar signage in Wales. In another example, the font
used caused differing opinions. A street sign from Inverness had the
Gaelic in a traditional Irish font and was clearly less prominent than
the English equivalent. The use of the script invoked ‘tradition’ and
was perceived as ‘artistic’ by those participants who viewed the sign
positively. More negatively, the script was viewed as ‘old’ and ‘tired’,
Michael Hornsby and Dick Vigers 61

Figure 4.1 Bilingual sign in the Highlands of Scotland

and the order of languages (English on top, Gaelic underneath) was


seen as inappropriate in that Inverness is commonly thought of as the
‘capital’ of the Highlands.
One image in the public domain that was presented to the partici-
pants was a promotion poster for a festival in Inverness. What stood
out is that it was trilingual (Gaelic, Polish and English) and, as one
participant pointed out, it is quite unusual to see English placed third.
Interestingly, most participants had no objections to the inclusion of
Polish. Indeed, Inverness, like many other parts of Scotland and the UK,
has a sizeable Polish population. The only reservation was expressed by
the Polish national, who clearly saw a hierarchy in the three languages
on display: ‘Polish is not a local language … and there seems to be some-
thing wrong in treating Gaelic, one of Scotland’s national languages …
in the same way as a language of a foreign, immigrant community.’
What emerges from this brief survey is that a certain hierarchy of lan-
guages is evident in the Scottish linguistic contact situation. We would
argue that this hierarchy is based very much on a further ideology
of standard language, which Gal (2006) has pointed out is the domi-
nant ideology in Western Europe. The supremacy of Standard Scottish
English (SSE) is not even questioned. As long as SSE maintains its prime
62 Minority Semiotic Landscapes

position, then there is room for tokenistic use of minority languages


in a peripheral sense, as long as the hierarchy of the standard language
(English) is maintained vis-à-vis the minority language (Gaelic). Even
then, though, the small space afforded these minority languages is not
evenly distributed. Gaelic has much more prestige than does Scots in
Scotland, given the amount of Gaelic initiatives being funded by the
Scottish government at the present time. Polish is finding its way on
to the semiotic landscape in Scotland, in recognition of the linguistic
background of some of its newer citizens, but this is at the expense of a
much longer established language (Scots) and certainly at the expense
of other immigrant groups in Scotland.
Nelde’s contention that there ‘can be no language contact without lan-
guage conflict’ (Nelde, 1998, p. 294) seems particularly true in the case
of the aforementioned ‘Welcome to Scotland/Fàilte gu Alba’ boards. The
presence of such signage on the Anglo-Scottish border caused conten-
tion locally when it was first erected and East Berwickshire Councillor
Michael Cook referred to the sign as pandering to ‘“cod Highlandism”,
[which] promotes this American view that we all wear kilts and speak
Gaelic’ (Paterson, Berwickshire News, 8 August 2007).
The ideology of language-and-economy seems to have a lot of influ-
ence on debates over minority language signage and centres on the
economic worth a language can represent. Nineteenth-century nation-
alist discourses have been successfully adopted by linguistic minorities
(such as French speakers in Canada, and by extension, elsewhere) to
the degree that

[t]heir emerging middle classes have staked out control over local
markets, and have established legitimate institutions on the basis of
their modernist claims to autonomy. In the new economies of high
modernity several things have happened. For most linguistic minori-
ties, local characteristics have acquired new value in tourism and
cultural industries.
(Heller, 2003, p. 227)

Appeals to the economic benefit of signage in a minority language are


used to justify the expenditure on bilingual signs in Scotland: ‘It is …
expected that the new signs will have a positive impact on improving
the tourism experience people have when they visit the Highlands and
Western Isles’ (The Scottish Government, 2003). The economic argu-
ment is, however, sometimes used in the popular press to oppose the
erection of bilingual signage in Scotland: ‘It means that every pound
Michael Hornsby and Dick Vigers 63

spent on making these bigger signs is a pound less spent on mending


potholes’ (Grant 2009). Bilingual signs in Gaelic and English are seen as
unnecessary since ‘the policy is wasting scarce resources at a time when
jobs are under threat’ (Grant 2009).
Other arguments are less overt in their ideology and claim to be more
concerned with road safety. According to the Scottish Government’s
transport minister, ‘drivers take up to 41 per cent longer to read bilin-
gual signs’ (Stornoway Gazette, 12 March 2009). This could have a det-
rimental effect on road safety, according to the same minister:

We do not know if these [bilingual signs] are having a negative impact


on road safety over time and this can only be determined from detailed
accident studies. Clearly, it would be irresponsible not to evaluate the
current policy.
(West Highland Free Press, 13 March 2009)

Interestingly, such statements remain at the level of opinion, as they are


not backed up by empirical evidence. This does not seem to lessen their
direct influence on policy, however.

Wales: An ideological battle won?

Debates over the place of Welsh in contemporary society have been long,
acrimonious and divisive, with little or nothing to distinguish Wales
from England in terms of separate legal and educational systems as in
Scotland. The language has always had a prominent role in identity and
boundary construction hence the Assembly’s assertion that ‘language
is part of a nation’s identity. The Welsh Assembly Government intends
that Wales should be seen as a truly bilingual nation’, with the recogni-
tion and the indexing of both metaphoric and geographic landscapes
(Welsh Assembly, 2009; our emphasis). In the interests of social justice
and equality, Welsh has been given a public visual status that, in certain
circumstances, is equivalent to that accorded to English.
The schemes that were set up by the Welsh Language Act 1993 mean
that every Planning Authority (e.g. county councils, national parks)
operates under the requirements of a statutory Welsh Language Scheme.
The schemes include measures to support the use of Welsh names for
new streets and developments which reflect the area’s traditions. There is
also a duty on the Planning Authority to encourage applicants for plan-
ning permission to erect bilingual or Welsh signs. Planning guidance
includes reference to Welsh and states that ‘signs can have a very visible
64 Minority Semiotic Landscapes

impact on the character of an area, including its linguistic character’


(Planning Guidance (Wales) 2000, paragraph 13). Using the language
on signage, marketing materials, advertising and publicity is encour-
aged by local authorities as ‘a good way of demonstrating your commit-
ment to bilingualism’ (Bwrdd yr Iaith Gymraeg/The Welsh Language
Board, 2008; our emphasis). The use of bilingual printed materials and
signage is encouraged as a means of ‘capturing the respect of your local
customers; it’s also in keeping with the cultural identity of the area and a
unique selling point for visitors and clients from further afield’ (ibid.). All
of these are presented as having an economic benefit as well.
In contrast with the situation in Scotland (and the relations of power
between English, Gaelic, Scots and other languages made visible in the
linguistic landscape), Wales represents a further stage in the transforma-
tion of the geosemiotics of a United Kingdom region where Welsh is no
longer absent or subordinated in relation to the dominant language.
The presumption is that other ‘national regions’ have adopted the same
principle as in Wales or indeed that the principle was established there.
‘Well if you’re in Wales you’re in Wales. Well if you go to Scotland you
have signs in Gaelic or whatever you call it’ (Llanelli, middle-aged man).
Thus in the context of the United Kingdom at least, Wales has become
a benchmark for bilingual signage. For example, in a 2009 Scottish
Parliament debate on plans for Gaelic, Wales is explicitly referred to:
‘The experience in Wales shows that people have no problem dealing
with bilingual signs’ (Scottish Parliament, Official Report, 29 January
2009). Similarly, the Gaelic Committee of the Highland Council, in
their response to the same Gaelic Language Plan, cited Wales (and
Ireland), claiming ‘that there was no evidence that they (road signs) had
had a negative impact on road safety’ (12 March 2009).
This is a relatively recent phenomenon, however, and although Welsh
has had a presence in the landscape since the spread of Nonconformism
from the mid-eighteenth century onwards and the connected increase
in literacy in the language (e.g. on chapel façades and notice boards and
later also warning signs on railways), its use in official contexts was very
limited: ‘In the mid 1950s almost the only visible official Welsh was the
few bilingual signs erected on county boundaries’ (Davies, 1992, p. 625,
our translation). It was not until the 1970s that road signs in Welsh (in
addition to English) were introduced. This was in response to vigorous
campaigning from the 1960s onwards by most notably Cymdeithas yr
Iaith (Welsh Language Society) whose espousal of direct action made
contestation visible on the landscape with posters, graffiti and by the
painting out and removal of English signs (Merriman and Jones, 2009).
Michael Hornsby and Dick Vigers 65

Moreover it was fundamentally a campaign for an improvement in


the status of the Welsh language, since there were already few Welsh
speakers who could not function effectively through English, however
inequitable and displeasing it might be for them.
The gradual extension of bilingual signs throughout Wales, both
in the Welsh-speaking core - Y Fro Gymraeg - and areas of compara-
tively recent (the Valleys) and more distant language shift (Radnor,
South Pembrokeshire) right up to the administrative border of Wales,
are evidence of the ideology of territoriality in action. The acrimony
of the sign painting campaign is forgotten and, for younger people,
unknown. Familiarity with and acceptance of their presence is wide-
spread and valued for the distinctive branding it brings to Wales by
both bilinguals and monoglot English speakers where the ideologies of
both language-and-identity and language-and-economy in action are
representative of a large number of statements that we encountered
throughout our data collection process. However, a civil servant from
the Welsh Assembly Government, interviewed for the study (see Note 1),
commented: ‘If the general public had the faintest idea of the addi-
tional cost involved of signing bilingually I’m quite sure they’d find it
more ridiculous than doing away with Trident’ (the United Kingdom’s
nuclear deterrent system).
Bilingual signs seem to serve some indexical purpose, by their very
use of Welsh, officially acknowledging the Welsh identity of the loca-
tion that corresponded to the identities of participants or their expecta-
tions of local identity:

It’s Wales I think everything should be in Welsh anyhow so there.


It’s a … oh, I don’t think it’s a problem. I haven’t heard of anyone
saying that it’s a problem.
(Cardiff, middle aged Welsh speaker)

Because we’re in Wales and they should be in Welsh.


(Llanelli, students at a Welsh medium school, Welsh speakers)

Because Welsh is a tradition in this country, this part of the United


Kingdom … And I think it’s very important to save this tradition
speak.
(Cardiff, German tourist)

Thus Welsh on signs symbolizes Wales as distinct from England and


indexes Cardiff and Llanelli (among others) as communities in which
66 Minority Semiotic Landscapes

Welsh is used, in a reinscription of the language as a prime marker of


identity for speaker and non-speaker alike. Nevertheless, public visibility
of Welsh in official contexts has a perceived instrumental purpose, that
is, not only connotative of identity but also supplying information, that
some respondents believed was intended for those who might not be
able to access it in English:

It’s [i.e. bilingual signage] more important in north Carmarthenshire


where everyone is Welsh-speaking.
(Llanelli, young man, Welsh speaker)

There’s people down there from, way up far like Crickhowell area,
and when they come down here they speak totally in Welsh, and if
they’re down here and they’re like speaking Welsh all the time and
they’re looking at where’s the explanation.
(Cardiff, middle aged man, non-Welsh speaker)

These and similar comments suggest that the signs themselves are inter-
preted as information about aspects of the sociolinguistic composition
of the community by those using them. However, there were limita-
tions to this instrumentality:

Usually Welsh, you know, but where if it’s something we don’t


understand we go to the English, but usually Welsh.
(Llanelli, older woman, Welsh speaker)

English … it’s easier, yeah it’s easier … we’d rather English.


(Llanelli, students at a Welsh-medium school, Welsh speakers)

Here the literary/high register of the Welsh used is perceived as unfamil-


iar and possibly difficult to understand; English functions as the default
language for comprehension. Another element in the instrumentality of
the Welsh content of the sign was to keep the language ‘alive’:

It encourages people to learn the Welsh language … even if you don’t


know you are learning by the signs because you’ve got English and or
English and Welsh so then eventually it does sink in.
(Cardiff, middle-aged man, Welsh speaker)

Similarly to Scotland, the aspect most noted by both Welsh and English
speakers was not the presence of Welsh with English but the relative
Michael Hornsby and Dick Vigers 67

position of the languages, that is, their spatial relationship. The perception
of Welsh speakers was that the sign was expected to reflect the linguistic
composition of the district in which it was situated. Inconsistencies were
noted and an English-speaking area where Welsh was uppermost on signs
was contrasted unfavourably with Llanelli where, in some circumstances,
English came before Welsh.

Man 2: Yes, what is wrong with what they do what is right in


Pembroke and there’s not a lot of Welsh down there but they
have their signs in Welsh first and English after.
Man 1: Pembroke ‘Little England’ down there.
Man 2: It’s ‘Little England’ but they have Welsh first then English but
we in Carmarthenshire seem to have more often than not
English first and then Welsh.
(Llanelli, middle-aged and older man, Welsh speakers)

This appears to be at odds with the practice in the area (Carmarthen-


shire) where Welsh is usually above English. For English speakers, knowl-
edge of where English was placed determined how they looked at the sign.

Student 1: I like the fact that they’re in English first.


Student 2: Yeah I do like that, yeah.
Student 1: Because then you can read the English and just sort of
ignore the Welsh. It sounds really harsh but, it’s like
I understand that one, I don’t need to read the rest.
(Cardiff, student visitors)

The use of different fonts or colours for each language was not noted
in these interviews as a deviation even though it is usual in railway
stations in Wales and also on some pedestrian signage, for example, in
Cardiff where a ‘Celtic’ font is used for Welsh, similar to the Irish or
‘Celtic’ one used on the English/Gaelic sign in Inverness.
In the case of languages other than English and Welsh there seemed
to be little objection to additional languages other than the size of signs
required and again with the proviso that Welsh should appear at the
top, indicating a language hierarchy in at least one participant’s view:

Man 1: Well it all depends, the signs they’d be big then.


Man 2: As long as it’s not in front of us. If you want to put a
Czechoslovakian sign up, make sure it’s underneath us.
(Llanelli, middle-aged and older man, Welsh speakers)
68 Minority Semiotic Landscapes

In Llanelli, where there is a large Polish community in the town and


surrounding villages, respondents had noted its appearance on notices
and thought that it would be acceptable on signage although road signs
in Polish were not necessary since, ‘they don’t have a Polish word for
Swansea’. Bilingual Welsh/English signage appears to be accepted as
the norm in these areas of Wales at least and may account for relaxed
attitudes to the inclusion of further languages in official contexts.
Nevertheless, where signs have been erected in Polish and English with-
out Welsh in Wales there have been negative reactions, for example, in
North-East Wales where Polish fishermen were thought to be catching
a protected species: ‘There are quite a few Polish speakers in Wrexham
but not as many as there are Welsh speakers. It is wrong that Polish signs
have been used instead of Welsh ones’ (Daily Mail, 5 March 2007).
Although the evidence supplied by participants in Wales suggests
that bilingual signs have become an accepted and valued part of the
visual landscape of Wales, consonant with further ideologies based on
inclusion and equality, their presence is still not without contestation.
Concerns about road safety were one of the principal objections to
bilingual signs when they were first introduced. These were addressed
by the Welsh Office’s Committee of Inquiry into Bilingual Traffic Signs
(known as the Bowen Committee).2 However, despite the conclusions
of the committee and the lack of evidence from other bilingual areas,
unshakeable misgivings endure that there is something inherently
unsafe in English/Welsh signage, both among drivers, for example,
‘Welsh before English road signs dangerous’ (Automobile Association
(AA) The Forum blog, December 2008–May 2009) and policy actors: ‘So
at the end of the day it’s a policy we’ve got to live with. It’s a political
choice. We have to make the safest job we can out of it’ (Welsh Assembly
Government civil servant, August 2009).
While the principle of bilingualism on signs seems invulnerable to safety
concerns, ongoing unease about the presence of Welsh has found another
conduit of expression, repackaged as a concern about the proliferation of
signs in general and their aesthetic impact on the visual environment.
Bilingual signs are necessarily larger than monolingual ones, and Welsh is
apparently not as lexically compact as English. Irritation of a similar kind
has been voiced over bilingual announcements at railway stations: ‘If you
stand at Cardiff Station and a lengthy announcement about a platform
change is made first in Welsh, then there is a risk by the time that it is
repeated in English that the train you want has come and gone’ (South
Wales Echo, 12 July 2007). Bilingualism as the norm can lead to the exclu-
sion of traditional Welsh names (ones that have not ever had an English
Michael Hornsby and Dick Vigers 69

equivalent) and to the practice of giving Welsh and English names to


new developments rather than Welsh ones alone, for example, new street
names in Llanelli. Here the standardizing ideological position that informs
the policy appears to subvert the objective of parity of status where it is
no longer the absence of Welsh but the ineluctable presence of English
that seems to be profiting from the ambiguity inherent in a policy of
bilingual parity. The challenge for language policy in respect of the visual
landscape is whether a discourse of inclusion dictates that bilingualism is
the only possible outcome or whether any space remains for Welsh and
Welsh only. If not, Welsh must always be accompanied by English, as the
referential form.

Ideology of contempt?

One aspect that gave rise to comment was mistakes on signs. Deviations
from the expected normative form of Welsh are quite frequent and
there is confusion over who is responsible for the correctness of the
sign and to whom complaints are addressed. Many of the inaccuracies
occur on signs used by subcontractors working for local authorities. The
Welsh Assembly Government is responsible for approving Welsh signs
on trunk roads while local authorities do so on secondary roads using
official translation units. The most remarkable examples have been the
subject of press and media comment in Wales and have been circulated
widely on the Internet. Some of these examples were known to the
respondents although no one had actually seen the signs in question.
The mistakes noted are always in the Welsh version of the text although
only one participant commented on this. However, it seems to be
accepted that English is the unmarked form, the ideal, the ur-form from
which the Welsh is derived:

Some signs don’t make sense – they translate it wrong.


(Llanelli, students at a Welsh medium school, Welsh speakers)

This is a reasonable, and accurate, assumption to make and it explains


the way notations of deviation focus on interference from English
on the Welsh forms that are adopted. More idiomatic forms reinforce
the indexicality of the sign making the linguistic form match the per-
ceived intention of the sign, marking Welshness, more accurately:

Before you come into Carmarthen, do you know sometimes if it’s


a busy roundabout there’s queues, traffic queues, you know, right?
70 Minority Semiotic Landscapes

But I’ve been noticing there it’s in Welsh first, right, but what they’ve
got there is ciwiau [‘queues’, a loan from English]. Right? Ciwiau.
(Right.) Ciwiau yn bosibl possible right? But I thought ciwiau there’s
no such word, ciwiau … fydden i’n dodi, erm fel, ‘Rhesi o draffig yn
bosibl’ Nage ‘ciwiau’. Falle bo fi’n rong, chi’n gwbod ond nag wy’n gweld
taw ‘ciwiau’ yw e (No I would put erm like ‘Traffic queues [literally
lines, rows] possible’. Not ‘ciwiau’. Perhaps I’m wrong, you know, but
I can’t see that it’s ‘ciwiau’).
(Llanelli, older woman, Welsh speaker)

These signs suggest the subtle persistence of the unequal value accorded
to a minority language since we argue that they appear to confirm that
Welsh is still not adequate for the status it has achieved; to the public
they encapsulate graphically and publicly the disjunction between
policy and its implementation. As the following picture illustrates
(see Figure 4.2), real, local value is invested in the anglicized forms of

Figure 4.2 Inconsistency and inaccuracy in a bilingual sign with a monolingual


unofficial sign in Wales
Michael Hornsby and Dick Vigers 71

Cwmyoy and Llanthony but only symbolic value is apparent in the


lower sections, the brown background indicating that the information
is for tourists and by implication, ‘outsiders’.

Conclusion

With the increasing presence of Gaelic and Welsh in the semiotic land-
scape in both Scotland and Wales, the prevalence of ideologies linked to
identity, territory and the economy mark the Scottish and Welsh situa-
tions as contentious, as shown in our data, and make the appearance of
bilingual signage more problematic than might at first be suspected. The
situation is further complicated when other languages, (e.g. bank signs
in Polish) appear to be accepted in both Scotland and Wales within a
rapidly expanding, officially sanctioned bilingual landscape. However,
the underlying ideology is still one of standard language supremacy that
can accommodate standard English, Gaelic and Welsh, even Polish, but
not what is perceived as non-standard, namely Scots. The public pres-
ence of other languages of large long-standing communities, especially
in conurbations, for example, the Somalis in Cardiff, is scarce. The trend
towards bilingual signage in regions of the United Kingdom is therefore
not a neutral development but replete with tensions arising from the
differing ideological positions of the parties involved: the producers of
such signs and the public for whom these signs were intended. They
are particularly heightened when antagonistic ideologies are brought
to bear in favour of, or in opposition to minority language signage
and reflect the friction between top-down policies of official bilingual-
ism and more ‘authentic’ local language practices. Such unanticipated
conflicts make the consequent process of accommodation a veritable
‘minefield’.
Significantly, the meanings deduced from the appearance/design/
position and not simply the language(s) are of equal importance in
the evaluation of the sign for users so there is dissatisfaction with art-
ful, heritage tokenism that may transform itself into a demand for
change (from the ‘bottom-up’). Moreover in the Welsh context, it is the
English that is tacitly acknowledged as the standard, the ur (original or
‘authentic’) text and the practice of permitting non-standard deviations
from ‘standard Welsh’ permitted by lack of funding (for checking) and
an ongoing ideology of contempt for the other minority language. As
Gaelic signs in Scotland become more commonplace, it will be interest-
ing to observe whether the arguments opposing them develop along the
same lines as those found in Wales.
72 Minority Semiotic Landscapes

Notes
1. The data are derived from fieldwork that formed part of a study led by Marian
Sloboda of Charles University, Prague in the LINEE (Languages in a Network
of Academic Excellence) project on Multilingualism in Europe (see the
chapter by Szabó Gilinger, Sloboda, Simicic and Vigers, this volume).
2. Roderic Bowen, Liberal MP for Cardiganshire 1945–66, was the author of this
report, which concluded in 1971 that bilingual signs in Wales were safe.

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5
Language Ideological Debates
in the Linguistic Landscape
of an Irish Tourist Town
Máiréad Moriarty

Introduction

The aim of this chapter1 is to present an empirical study of one particular


point in the linguistic landscape of a peripheral tourist town on the
south-western seaboard of Ireland, Dingle. The particular point in ques-
tion is a wall located in one of the town’s main streets, where a particu-
lar language ideological debate is present. The debate, referred to herein
as the Dingle naming debate, centres around a controversy arising due
to a change in the name of the town from a bilingual English-Irish
name to a monolingual Irish version, An Daingean. Through an analy-
sis of the multimodal signs present on the Dingle Wall, two important
points of discussion are brought to the fore. Firstly, it is clear that the
linguistic landscape is an important space for such ideological issues to
be presented and debated, particularly when one considers the lin-
guistic landscape as a component of the ecology of language (cf. Hult,
2003; Shohamy, 2006) or a symbolic construction of social space that
allows us to determine the functions and values of linguistic resources.
Secondly, the Dingle Wall offers a powerful vehicle to uncover the ide-
ologies that are at play in this peripheral community. Thus, by drawing
on the recent work of Leeman and Modan (2009) who view the lin-
guistic landscape as an ideologically charged socially constructed repre-
sentation of place, this chapter seeks to further advance the qualitative
applications of linguistic landscape research. To this end, the linguistic
landscape is seen not only to be reflective of language ideologies, but
also a space where language ideologies can be indexed and performed,
thus providing an apt tool for dealing with the multimodal nature
of language ideologies. By combining linguistic landscape research
with nexus analysis (Scollon and Scollon, 2004), this chapter seeks to

74
Máiréad Moriarty 75

uncover the language ideologies, understood here as the beliefs held by


the community relating to the perceived value of the Irish language,
present on the Dingle Wall.
In order to address these issues the chapter begins by focusing on
how the study of minority language speech communities in periph-
eral locations can help advance the study of linguistic landscape. The
Dingle naming debate is then contextualized, in an attempt to put the
discourses that mediate the actions of the local social actors into perspec-
tive. This is followed by an application of nexus analysis as a framework
for the examination of the Wall. Finally, through an analysis of data col-
lected in Dingle, the chapter will uncover the stances of various language
ideological brokers ( Johnson, 2005, p. 4) involved in the debate that are
evident on the Wall. The final discussion highlights that an in-depth
analysis of the Dingle Wall shows that what appears to be just about lan-
guage in the linguistic landscape may in actual fact be a coded conflict
about economics and the commodification of place and culture.

Minority languages and the linguistic landscape

Following Landry and Bourhis’ 1997 seminal study, linguistic landscape


has expanded as a field of study and the manipulation of the linguis-
tic landscape has been studied by scholars such as Shohamy (2006),
Backhaus (2007) and Shohamy and Gorter (2009), as well as many
more. Gorter and Cenoz (2008) outline some of the principal themes
that have been addressed by linguistic landscape scholars to date. These
include research on multilingualism, the global spread of English, dif-
ferences between public and private signs and more recently, the effect
on de facto language policy (Shohamy, 2006). To date the majority of
linguistic landscape research has been conducted in large urban centres
such as Jerusalem, Tokyo, Rome and Washington. Minority language
communities have received some attention in linguistic landscape stud-
ies (cf. Cenoz and Gorter, 2006; Hornsby, 2008), however much of the
work on other minority languages such as Welsh and Catalan, as well as
other languages, have focused on language relations in urban settings.
For example, Cenoz and Gorter (2006) have examined the presence of
Frisian and Basque in the respective cities of Ljouwert-Leeuwarden and
Donostia-San Sebastián, comparing and contrasting the presence of each
minority language. Indeed there are examples of previous works where
place names and road signs in minority-language communities have been
examined. For example, Hicks (2002) examined place names in Scotland
and Puzey (2008) compared and contrasted road signs in three separate
76 Language Ideological Debates

communities involving four language varieties namely Sámi and Kven in


Norway, Gaelic in Scotland and Italian dialects in Northern Italy (see also
Puzey, this volume). There are a number of recent studies, which perhaps
reflect the present study more closely. In terms of peripheral minority
language communities, Pietikäinen et al. (Forthcoming) examine the
presence of Sámi languages, Kven and Meänkieli in the linguistic land-
scape of the North Calotte region (see also Salo, this volume). Sloboda’s
(2009) study of the presence of Hungarian in road signs in Slovakia fol-
lowing the fall of Communist Czechoslovakia and Hanauer’s (2009) study
of graffiti on the separation wall in the town of Abu Dis are also relevant
when examining the Dingle Wall as a site of language contestation.
By acknowledging the work of previous researchers, the aim of this
chapter is to add to this area of linguistic landscape research, while also
expanding the traditional reach of such studies to include a minority
language community that lives in a geographically peripheral area (see
also Salo, this volume). To date possibilities afforded by the linguis-
tic peculiarities of peripheral locations, where often the relationship
between majority and minority languages are more flexible and fluid,
have received little scholarly attention. Also, by expanding the view of
such landscapes as objective physical environments, the present study
will add to the growing number of qualitative linguistic landscape
studies. Torkington (2008: 125) argues that a qualitative account of a
given linguistic landscape allows for the

study of both the situational context in which the LL is embedded


along with a more detailed examination of the interactional context
of the signs themselves would help to reveal something about the
collective identities and ideological orientations of the social groups
that make up the community in question.

The application of nexus analysis to linguistic landscape studies was


pioneered by Hult (2007, 2009). He argues that: ‘nexus analysis com-
plements linguistic landscape analysis by providing a systematic way of
interpreting data about the distribution of languages in public spaces.’
(Hult, 2009, p. 91). Nexus analysis, put forward by Scollon and Scollon
(2004), is an ethnographic sociolinguistic approach where discourses
are seen to operate on a series of interrelated and overlapping tem-
poral and spatial scales. This approach places the emphasis on social
interaction where all human actions are understood as social and tak-
ing place in interactional contexts. The point of social action, referred
to as the nexus of practice, is central to nexus analysis as this is where
Máiréad Moriarty 77

multiple discourse cycles meet and become intertwined. Thus, a nexus


of practice is a repeated site of engagement where some type of social
action is facilitated by a relatively consistent set of social processes which
occur through some aggregate of three levels. These are (1) Discourses in
place: discourses that circulate in a society over varying temporal and
spatial dimensions; (2) Interaction order: the norms and expectations
that mediate the social action, which in the case of the current research
relates to the language use on the Wall; and (3) Historical body, this is
largely built on Bourdieu’s notion of habitus, where social actions are
mediated by the internalized habits of the individual social actors.
One can uncover these three cycles by finding the crucial social actors,
observing the interaction, determining the most significant cycles of
discourse and by establishing the zone of identification.
Adopting a nexus analytical approach to the study of the linguistic
landscape demands that we understand that linguistic landscape as a
symbolic and informational site, where a collection of semiotic proper-
ties which index and perform a localized action can be present. This
allows us to overcome the micro-macro dichotomy and to examine the
links between a micro level of language use (a sign) and broader proc-
esses of language shift, revitalization, multilingualism, and so on. Thus
by identifying the Wall as a nexus of practice one can map the cycles of
people, places, discourse objects and concepts which circulate through
this micro semiotic eco-system. However, before moving on to the anal-
ysis of the Dingle Wall, it is important to contextualize this language
ideological debate within the wider context of Irish language policy and
planning. The current study will not provide a quantitative account of
the multilingual nature of the linguistic landscape of Dingle. Instead,
by applying nexus analysis to study of the discourses present, it seeks to
offer a more qualitative interpretation of one particular feature of the
town’s linguistic landscape, the Dingle Wall.

The Irish language in the linguistic landscape

The Irish language is the first official language of the Republic of Ireland,
as per the Constitution of 1937. Yet, in spite of such a high status and
eight decades of language planning and policy, the use of Irish in con-
temporary Irish society is low. The current situation of the language is
one marked by low levels of intergenerational transmission and there
are no remaining monolingual speakers of Irish (cf. MacGiolla Chríost,
2006; Ó Laoire, 2007). The results of the 2006 census suggest that 42 per
cent of the population are Irish speakers. However, it can be argued that
78 Language Ideological Debates

these figures are greatly inflated by the inclusion of school-age children,


as Irish is a compulsory school subject at both primary and secondary
level. As Ó Laoire (2007) suggests, the reality is that approximately 3 per
cent of the population are balanced bilinguals and a further 10 per cent
are what he describes as secondary balanced bilinguals, which refers
to those who have acquired the language via the educational system.
However, from an ideological perspective, the support for the language
remains strong because it has always been an important marker of
identity, a way of validating Irishness. There are relatively few linguistic
landscape studies of the Irish context, but it can be said that the pres-
ence of Irish in the linguistic landscape is strong given that state policy
dictates that all official road signs and place names must be bilingual
Irish and English. Furthermore, the use of Irish is widespread in the
tourist industry, where the use of the language in food menus, tourist
products and in tourist settings is somewhat high. Kallen (2009) in his
study of the use of Irish in four tourist locations, two in the Republic
and two in Northern Ireland, found a direct link between high inci-
dences of Irish language use and the presence of tourists.
The current research was undertaken as part of a wider study of
Dingle’s linguistic landscape under the remit of the Northern Multilin-
gualism Project, which made use of research design and methods of
previous investigations. The study included a detailed examination of the
languages used on signs, shop fronts, tourist products, and so on, on a par-
ticular route recognized through an extensive ethnographic study of the
area to be the typical trajectory a tourist would take through the town.

The context: The Dingle naming debate

‘The Gaeltacht’ is the term given to the seven officially designated Irish-
language speaking regions in the Republic of Ireland, which are scattered
predominately along the western seaboard. Dingle, on the south-western
seaboard of Ireland, is the principal town of the Corca Dhuibhne
Gaeltacht. Dingle represents a peripheral minority language community,
given that it is a geographic location on the edge of Europe and its dis-
tance from the large urban centres within Ireland, yet it is an important
place for the surrounding community in terms of both administration
and trade. Although Dingle is the largest of the Gaeltacht towns, its rela-
tionship with the Irish language is far from straightforward. In a com-
prehensive study of the use of Irish in the Gaeltacht areas, Ó Giollagáin
et al. in (2007) developed a system for categorizing the Gaeltacht areas.
Through their analysis they found that three distinct types of language
Máiréad Moriarty 79

communities exist within the statutory limits of the Gaeltacht as


currently defined, namely category A, where over 67 per cent of the
population use Irish on a daily basis, category B, where between 44 per
cent and 66 per cent use Irish on a daily basis and category C where less
than 44 per cent use the language on a daily basis. Dingle falls into the
latter category and it can be argued that if one removed school-going
children and elderly members of the population the figures quoted in
the report would be considerably lower, pointing to a weak communal
use of the language. Yet, the Irish language is very much drawn on as
a resource in order to justify Dingle as an authentic Irish town, which
fuels the town’s major industry, tourism. In a recent study on tourist
websites, Dingle was described as a place of authentic otherness given
its physical beauty with its own temporal dimension, with the language
playing a key part in authenticating Dingle as a place of geographic
and cultural escape (Kelly Holmes, Pietikäinen and Moriarty, 2011).
Dingle is one of the most visited places in Ireland both by domestic and
international tourists; in fact Dingle was recently named as the sixth
best European destination to visit and 18th in the world by the Internet
travel based company TripAdvisor. (cf. www.tripadvisor.com/pdfs/tca/
TCDestinationsAwards2008.pdf).
The Official Languages Act, the first piece of legislation to provide a
statutory framework for the delivery of public services through the Irish
Language, was signed into law on 14 July 2003. The primary objective
of the Act was to ensure better availability and a higher standard of pub-
lic services through Irish; it also led to the creation of the post of Irish
Language Commissioner. A subsection of the 2003 Official Languages
Act, the Place names Order (2004), highlighted the government’s
intention to change the official signs for all place names in Gaeltacht
areas from bilingual Irish-English to monolingual Irish. The effect of
the Order was that the name Dingle was to be officially abolished and
henceforth would be officially referred to, and signposted solely as ‘An
Daingean.’ The Order took effect in 2005 and led to serious contro-
versy in Dingle. The locals opposed the name change from Dingle to
An Daingean for two main reasons. Firstly, the local community felt
the change from Dingle to An Daingean would severely damage the
Dingle tourism brand. The argument was that by changing the name
of Dingle to An Daingean on all official maps and road signs tourists
would not be able to get to the town, particularly given the fact there
is a town named Daingean in the midland county of Offaly. In a news-
paper article from The Irish Examiner dated 02/04/07, it was found that
84 per cent of tourists to Dingle over the St Patrick’s Day Bank Holiday
80 Language Ideological Debates

weekend of that same year had experienced many problems in trying to


get to Dingle. Secondly, An Daingean was not seen by the local ideologi-
cal brokers as a preferred translation from English to Irish. The correct
Irish language town name is Daingean Uí Chúis and the bilingual name
for the town as Dingle/Daingean Uí Chúis has appeared in documents
dating as far back as the thirteenth century.
The frustration of the local community was evidenced by the forma-
tion of a local committee set up to fight against the place name change
and to promote the re-establishment of the town’s traditional name in
English (Dingle) and in Irish (Daingean Uí Chúis). The committee took
action on various levels including through local government channels,
the media, including the creation of a dedicated website www.thedin-
glename.com, as well as the erection of a Hollywood-esque Dingle sign
on a nearby hill. Dingle’s linguistic landscape provides many clues to
the locals’ frustration with the state intervention. Locals have graffitied
the name Dingle over An Daingean on all road signs in Dingle but
also on the main tourist roadways in the wider geographic area, and a
number of banners, flags, signs and car stickers were created with the
slogan ‘Dingle/Daingean Uí Chúis Báile gan Anim (A town without
a name/A town denied democracy), as well as many other examples
including the Wall, which forms the basis of this analysis. The Dingle
Gaelic Athletic Association club, the regatta club as well as many other
clubs and societies changed their names to Dingle/Daingean Uí Chúis.
One of the most significant actions conducted by the committee was
the motion to hold a plebiscite under the Local Government Act of
1946, thus providing the local community with the right to a demo-
cratic vote on the name of their town. A plebiscite involves a ballot
paper being sent to all members of the local electorate asking them to
accept or reject a particular place name proposal, which in the current
context referred to the renaming of the town from An Daingean to
Dingle/Daingean Uí Chúis. The plebiscite took place in October 2006
and an overwhelming majority of the electorate, 90 per cent, voted
in favour of the name Dingle/Daingean Uí Chúis. The legality of the
plebiscite was not accepted by the Minister for Gaeltacht, Rural and
Community Affairs, Minister Ó Cuív as it went against the Official
Languages Act. He subsequently suggested that the English place name
could remain if the town opted out of the Gaeltacht, thus losing all the
financial and other state resources provided to Gaeltacht areas. Public
reaction following the debacle in Dingle was very critical towards locals
for not accepting the change and framed the townspeople as problem-
atic and being against the Irish language.
Máiréad Moriarty 81

The Dingle Wall

The Dingle Wall, illustrated in Figure 5.1, constitutes the front of a


vividly painted green building on the main business street of the town,
Main Street. The Wall can be identified as a multimodal space because
it combines both verbal and non-verbal signs. On the Wall one can
see laminated copies of the communications between the local commit-
tee set up to campaign against the name change and Minister Ó Cuív
as well as many other government officials. There are letters of support
from politicians such as Senator Joe O’Toole, a native of Dingle, whose
exchanges with Minister Ó Cuív over the Dingle wrangle were widely
covered in local and national newspapers. There are numerous inter-
national, national and local newspaper articles covering the debate.
There are copies of letters of support from locals as well as visitors,
images of campaigning activities as well as examples of local resistance
through non-acceptance of polling cards issued with an address line of
An Daingean.
Indeed the discourse of the naming debate evident on the Dingle Wall
presents an alternative dimension to the study of minority-language rights
and to the study of place names. The debate is controversial in that for
many minority language communities being allowed one’s own language

Figure 5.1 The Dingle Wall


82 Language Ideological Debates

to appear on all official road signs and maps would be an achievement.


Landry and Bourhis (1997) suggest the presence of the minoritized lan-
guage on place names ‘can contribute most directly to the positive social
identity of ethnolinguistic identity’ (ibid., 2). Yet, as will be discussed, the
Dingle place name debate shows that it is not just about language, but in
fact is much more complicated given the links to local politics and eco-
nomics, especially when one considers the fact that the town’s economy
is almost entirely dependent on the tourist industry.
Similarly, it can be argued that the Dingle Wall constitutes a language
ideological debate because it reflects a debate which is taking place at a
specific time and place and real social actors are collectively disputing
the nature and function of the language ( Johnson, 2002, p. 551). It
presents the public interventions of ideological brokers from both the
top-down and bottom in the form of government officials and local
actors respectively, who by interacting with one and other allow macro-
level and micro-level discourses to circulate simultaneously. In what
follows nexus analysis is applied as an analytical framework in order to
uncover the stances of these ideological brokers.

The Dingle Wall as a nexus for a language ideological


debate

Hult (2009) argues that nexus analysis provides a lens that allows one to
zoom out, and in so doing the circulating discourse(s) can be identified
at a very broad level, while also allowing you to zoom-in to uncover
the micro level discourses that are at play, thereby highlighting the
multi-disciplinary potential of linguistic landscape studies. Significantly,
nexus analysis takes human action as the unit of investigation, which
is particularly apt in the current study. The Dingle naming debate and
the Wall in particular represent a human (re)action to a State-attempted
change. Discourses about the debate are solidified in the linguistic
landscape and transgressions from the State-imposed norm are obvious
in the Wall, but also in other signs of Dingle’s linguistic landscape, such
as graffiti. Meaning can therefore be interpreted by examining the Wall
as one complete multimodal entity and part of a wider debate, but also
by taking into account each individual sign.

Zooming out

In identifying the Wall as a nexus of practice it becomes the central


point where the relevant social issue, that is, the Dingle naming debate,
Máiréad Moriarty 83

is being produced, ratified and contested. The Wall can be identified as


a site of engagement where a number of social actions and actors have
discursively created an ideological stance which falls within the wider
nexus of practice of Irish language policy. The Wall represents a point
in the linguistic landscape of Dingle where discourses come together to
enable a reaction to a government attempt to regulate the Irish language
presence in Dingle. By altering the historical process whereby top-down
imposed norms have been accepted by the local community and point-
ing to a new process of social action, it can be seen as an example of de
facto language policy (Shohamy, 2006).

Zooming in

If one zooms in to examine each individual sign present on the Dingle


Wall it becomes clear that it is representative of a language ideological
debate, where the stances of the ideological brokers from both sides
of the debate are readily identifiable. The positioning of newspaper
articles and letters on the Wall may well be haphazardous, but the plac-
ing of certain discourses alongside one another serves to highlight the
attempts by the State to coerce the people of Dingle to accept the name
change. For example, by zooming in on the wall one can see a number
of issues with respect to language rights.
There is a Polling Information Card which shows that an individual
has taken action not to accept her card based on the fact that her address
appears as An Daingean. Also on display is a letter from Senator Joe Ó
Toole, the content of which relates to a battle between him and Minister
Ó Cuív, two members of government and both key ideological brokers
in the debate. Minister Ó Cuív’s reaction to the result of the plebiscite,
evident in the excerpt given next from an Irish Times article present on
the Wall, highlights his intention to remove Dingle’s Gaeltacht status.
Indeed in much of the communications from Minister Ó Cuív evident
on the Wall, the townspeople of Dingle are framed as being difficult and
corrupt, as well as being against the Irish language:

People can not insist on retaining ‘Dingle’ on signposts inside the


Gaeltacht, but there is a possible solution, if that is the wish of the
community, and that is to begin legislation to take An Daingean out
of the Gaeltacht altogether. Even this might not be enough to change
the legal status of the placename.
(The Irish Times, 01/05/2005)
84 Language Ideological Debates

As we previously mentioned Senator O’Toole is a native of Dingle and


was very much on the side of the campaigners. He was infuriated by
the way in which the Minister handled the debate, especially by the
manner in which the Minister ignored the constitutional right of local
residents to vote on the name of their town. He took Minister Ó Cuív
to task following the latter’s threat to remove Dingle’s Gaeltacht status
if it did not comply with the Official Languages Act. The discourse of
rights is clearly evident in the extract given next taken from a letter sent
to Minister Ó Cuív from Senator O’Toole, where he states:

I have read if not studied the Official Languages Act and indeed what
I was proposing that Kerry County Council should do to neutralise
Section 32 of that Act. The fact is that Minister Ó Cuív conveniently
chose to ignore the rights of residents as envisaged by the Local
Authorities Act when he used the Official Languages Act to change
the name of Dingle!

In viewing the Dingle Wall as a mediated action one can map the cycles
both into and out of the Wall. For example, there are several photographs
on the Wall which show one of the principal social actors, Mary Devane,
in locations such as Tiananmen Square holding one of the flags produced
within the context of the Dingle/Daingean Uí Chuís campaign, thus fore-
grounding such action as part of the discourse and evoking even ‘wider’
discourses, on human rights in general, or ‘fighters for the just cause’.
Similarly the website www.thedinglename.com is another example of
how the discourses evident on the Dingle Wall can be transformed and
re-semiotized from discourse into action and into meditational means,
which may be used by participants as a basis for further actions. Indeed
the virtual linguistic landscape is emerging as a significant field within the
study of linguistic landscape (cf. Ivkovic and Lotherington, 2009). Thus
the Dingle name website, illustrated in Figure 5.2, offers a space where
the debate is expanded and includes multimodal texts including images
of Dingle, campaign banners and a song specially composed about the
campaign that can be downloaded from the site. The dominant colour of
the site is green and the use of old Irish script is also noteworthy in how
it emphasizes the historic naming of the town.
Shohamy and Waksman (2009) identify the virtual linguistic land-
scape as a multimodal space where numerous text types emerge simul-
taneously thus rendering physical geographic boundaries useless by
allowing those not present to take part in the social construction of
meaning evident in the linguistic landscape scenery. Indeed if one
Máiréad Moriarty 85

Figure 5.2 The campaign’s website

Isnt it time Minister John O’Donoghue helped Dingle? After all its his constituency
& 1005 people of Kerry South voted for Dingle-Daingean Uí Chúis
Ireland
Australia says, leave it as Dingle.
Australia
Our Dad is from Dingle. We all feel that Dingle is also our home! It is a shame that
the name of the Town we love so well is in jeopardy.
United States
The Government need to bring back Dingle Daingean Uí Chúis now! They r
supposed to represent the people and 93% voted for Dingle so do it. Thats ur job!
Iraq

Figure 5.3 Comments posted on the website

examines the guestbook on the Dingle name website, the symbolic


function outlined by Shohamy and Waksman becomes evident through
the various comments posted by people all over the world, who,
although they are not physically present can express their own stance
on the matter. Figure 5.3 presents an example of such comments from
around the Globe.

Discussion and conclusion

Both the Wall and the website show the circulating discourses that medi-
ate the actions of the linguistic landscape actors thus pointing to these
sites as fertile arenas for determining the ideologies that are at play within
86 Language Ideological Debates

the discourse of the Dingle naming debate. The ideological stances of


each individual ideological broker are clear and so are the assumptions
made on behalf of the state that are embedded and reproduced in the
structure of its response to the language issue. By zooming in and out
of the flow, the ideologies are clearly intertwined in the wider discourse
of Irish-language policy and planning. The Dingle Wall is an example of
linguistic activism from the bottom-up in an attempt to transgress top-
down imposed norms disrupting the assumed authority of the state to
impose top-down language norms. It is an example of when language
policy collides with community desirable forms of language use thus
further reinforcing the link between language policy and linguistic
landscape studies. The symbolic function of the linguistic landscape is
underscored in the Dingle naming debate. The Irish language is used as
a resource to authenticate Dingle, but it is not seen as the language that
will get things done, like bringing tourists to Dingle. This in turn points
to the need to examine the relationship between minority languages,
tourism and the commodification of place and culture.
Moreover, the data points to the linguistic landscape as a space for
indexing and performing language ideologies, as a fluid space that is
socially constructed and constantly being contested and renegotiated. Thus
it is important to monitor the same space over a period of time. In so doing
one can detect changes in ideological stances as well as the formation of a
new pattern of meaning. To this end, the Wall is being photographed by
the author at six monthly intervals, with the aim of providing an account
of the fluid nature of this particular language ideological debate.

Note
1. The chapter is produced within the context of the Northern Multilingualism
Project funded by the Finnish Academy 2008–11 and the Identities in Motion3M
research Network funded by NordForsk.

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6
Linguistic Landscape as a Tool for
Interpreting Language Vitality:
Arabic as a ‘Minority’ Language
in Israel
Elana Shohamy and Marwan Abu Ghazaleh-Mahajneh

Introduction: Arabic as a minority language in Israel

Much of the research in linguistic landscape (LL) focuses on the presence


and/or absence of languages in public spaces; the main reason being
to identify systematic patterns which can lead to new understandings
of various language and social phenomena. Thus, in a study by Ben-
Rafael et al. (2006), different bilingual patterns within Jewish and Arab
communities in Israel were identified. These findings showed that the
study of language in public space does not replicate patterns used by
individuals in speech, leading to new insights as to the nature of LL as
representing language as ‘symbolic construction of the public space’.
These findings were then interpreted within theories of collective iden-
tity, self-presentation and rational choice.
This chapter reports on a study which examines dimensions of LL in
relation to the Arabic language in Israel, a language that is institutionally
defined as a minority language. It documents LL in two spaces – an Arab
city and a university campus demonstrating that there is high repre-
sentation and vitality of the Arabic language in the city while there is
total lack of the Arabic language in the LL of the university campus;
this is so in spite of the large number of Arab students who study at the
university. The documentation was accompanied by interviews with
a number of Arab students who attend the university inquiring about
their attitudes towards the LL patterns on campus. They interpreted it
as lack of recognition, marginality and exclusion while still complying
with this reality given the general political context.
These results led us to a critique of the institutionalized and nationally
defined term ‘minority’ in relation to the Arabic language in the very

89
90 Arabic as a ‘Minority’ Language in Israel

context of Israel, given the vitality and functionality of the language


in the areas where Arabs reside. Specifically, it led us to challenge and
question the sweeping bureaucratic definition of ‘a minority language’
when it is based on a criterion of ‘number of speakers’ in the very con-
text. It is through the analysis of the LL data in the two locations and
the stark difference between them, that we argue that the term ‘minor-
ity’ may not be appropriate to all language situations in similar ways.
The term ‘minority’ in this situation delivers a message of hierarchy
and marginality. It therefore may defy the historical context, current
tensions of Jews and Arabs, and future expectations of co-existence.
It is thus argued that in this very politically and ideologically charged
context, criteria of functionality and vitality in open and fluid spaces,
should be used rather than those made up by in bureaucratic territories
of ‘nation state’. As will be described next, Arabic is loaded with strong
marginalizing connotations because it used to be a ‘majority’ language
for Arabs in the past, while today, it has been pushed aside given that
it is associated with people who are viewed by many Jews in Israel as
marginalized and not truly belonging to the ‘Jewish’ state. At the same
time, Arabic is an important language in the Middle East and in Israel
as it is used as the main language of instruction in schools and in public
spaces, in most towns and cities where Arabs reside. It is the political
and historical chain of events that brought about a situation whereby
Arabs in Israel turned into a minority ‘group’ in relation to the Jewish
population using Hebrew. Based on the LL data we collected we attempt
to bring forward notions of less bureaucratic views of language in spaces
and enclaves which are more open and fluid and at the same time focus
on functionality and vitality; these views may be instrumental in deliv-
ering a more positive and empowering message of inclusion, equality
and rights.

Arabic in Israel

Reference to Arabic as a ‘minority language’ in Israel began around the


time of the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 (Amara and Mari,
2002; Spolsky and Shohamy, 1999; Yitzhaki, 2008). The association of
the term ‘minority’ with the Arabic language and not with Hebrew is
somehow ironic as Hebrew had been a language which was in the proc-
ess of revival since the end of the nineteenth century and throughout
the first half of the twentieth century in Palestine, later Israel. At that
time, Hebrew was a second language for most of the Jewish population
who arrived there speaking a variety of other territorial and/or Jewish
Elana Shohamy and Marwan Abu Ghazaleh-Mahajneh 91

languages. During the twentieth century, mostly as a result of active


promotion by the Zionist movement, Hebrew turned into the dominant
language and the only language of instruction in schools. While equal
numbers of Arabs and Jews were living in Palestine at the end of the
British Mandate, a shift in the demographic situation was brought about
after the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 when many of the
Arabs living in Palestine were deported and/or fled the area. The demog-
raphy of the state of Israel changed radically in terms of numbers. As of
today the proportion is: 80 per cent Jews and 20 per cent Arabs, out of a
total population of 7 million. It is important to note here that for many of
the Jews arriving in Israel from the Middle East and North Africa, Arabic
or some variety thereof was their first language. However, upon arriving
in Israel, they were forced into the Hebrew language as a symbolic and
practical act of nation building. While many of these Jews continued to
use Arabic at home, the language disappeared within one generation as
no recognition was given to home languages because Hebrew was pro-
moted as the single legitimate language of the new state.
The historical developments and the attitude of the British Mandate
towards the status of the two languages throughout their administration
are highly relevant. As early as 1922, leaders of the Zionist movements
in Palestine convinced the British Mandate authorities to recognize the
Hebrew language (spoken by a small number of people at the time)
as an official language. Thus, three languages were viewed as official:
English, the language of the British Mandate, Arabic, the language of
the Arab population residing in the area, and Hebrew as the language
of the Jewish population. The campaign for reviving Hebrew within the
Jewish community was very binding and entailed fierce battles against
other languages such as Yiddish, German and other territorial languages
(Shohamy, 2008, pp. 205–18; Spolsky and Shohamy, 2001). It thus
involved a variety of imposing and oppressive mechanisms that were
exercised in private and public domains: at home, in the workplace and
in education as Hebrew was chosen as the single language of instruc-
tion in all Jewish schools. This trilingual official situation where Hebrew
or Arabic were functional languages within each of the communities
and English as the language of the British administration, continued
throughout the British Mandate years accompanied by active campaigns
by groups such as the Organization for the Defence of the Hebrew Language,
or the Committee for the Hebrew Language. The policy can be defined as
subtractive bilingualism as it demanded that home languages should not
be used and not be granted legitimacy in public spaces (and often even at
homes). It was after the rejection of the UN proposal of partition of two
92 Arabic as a ‘Minority’ Language in Israel

states, in 1947, the establishment of the state of Israel as an independent


state in 1948 and the deportation and/or escape of huge numbers of
Arabs to neighbouring countries that the number of Arabs living in the
newly established state fell drastically. It is around that time that Arabs
were referred to as ‘a minority’ population using a ‘minority’ language.
Among the first language policy acts carried out after the establishment
of the state was the abolition of English as an official language, leaving
both Hebrew and Arabic as the two official languages of the state (Amara
and Mari 2002; Shohamy, 2006; Spolsky and Shohamy, 1999).
As of today Hebrew is the main language of the Jewish population in
Israel in all domains of life, while Arabic continues to be vibrant and func-
tional in Arab towns, cities and villages and as a language of instruction
in all Arab schools. Most Jews are not proficient in the Arabic language
although it is compulsory to study the language for three years (grades
7–9) in Hebrew-speaking schools. In the public space Arabic has limited
visibility outside these territories and little LL representation in Jewish
areas. Almost all street names use Hebrew and these names are associated
exclusively with Jewish history and culture. The situation is somewhat
different in a number of mixed towns where Arabs and Jews share the
same space as per a Supreme Court decision stipulating that street
names in mixed cities and in major freeways need to include Arabic as
well (Ben-Rafael et al., 2006; Trumper-Hecht, 2009). Already in the early
days, during the Mandate years and especially after the establishment of
the state most towns were assigned Hebrew names as per a strict policy
of Prime Minister Ben Gurion in order to transform, or rather to erase
the places where Arabs used to, or still do, live. Thus, it is evident that
the official status of Arabic does not carry with it any significant mean-
ing. Indeed the language of the public space represents a contested arena
where tensions between Jews and Arabs are manifested. It is this tension
that led to the 1999 Supreme Court decision, a result of an appeal by the
Arab activist group ‘Adala’ (Trumper-Hecht, 2009).
As to the status and use of the Arabic language, in spite of massive
transfer of lexical and other linguistic elements from Hebrew to Arabic,
the effect has been additive. This means that most Arabs adopted a bilin-
gual Arabic-Hebrew pattern. Thus, while most Arabs were monolinguals
in Arabic before the establishment of the state of Israel, they maintain
Arabic along with adding Hebrew to their linguistic repertoire. At the
same time there has been a decrease among Arab students in their moti-
vation to study Arabic as there is no recognition or economic reward for
knowing the language within Israel. This is most clearly manifested at
Israeli universities where all courses are taught in Hebrew. Most texts are
Elana Shohamy and Marwan Abu Ghazaleh-Mahajneh 93

presented in English, while Arabic is virtually non-existent. The effect


has been that many Arab students, already in secondary school, request
the use of Hebrew in a number of school subjects and courses as science
and mathematics. This demand is further enhanced as no textbooks
in Arabic in these subjects are available. Further evidence of the repre-
sentation of the two languages in the public space in Israel, along with
English, can be obtained from a study by Ben-Rafael et al. (2006) which
documented LL in Arab and Jewish areas in Israel and is presented in
Figure 6.1 below.
In summary, a historical chain of events, accompanied by a strong
national language policy in order to create a collective national Jewish
identity, meant that the Hebrew language was used as a major symbol for
the establishment of the state of Israel as a Jewish state. The Arabs living
in Israel at the time, residing in homogenous towns and villages as well
as in some mixed towns, along with the Arabic language they used, were
marginalized. Whether Israel should be defined as a ‘Jewish state’ or as
a state ‘for all its citizens’, is still a very highly debated and politicized
topic. In the past few years, strong statements that Arabs do not fully
belong in Israel in spite of having citizenship, are often heard by various
political and religious leaders and are part of the public discourse espe-
cially by members of the current right-wing government. For example,
the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. A. Liberman argues for the need for
Arabs to pass ‘loyalty tests’ as conditions for citizenship and contin-
ued residence in Israel. It is in this very charged context that the term

Hebrew (dark) Arabic (grey) English (light)

100

80

60

40

20

0
Jewish Arabic East Jerusalem

Figure 6.1 The bilingual patterns of languages in Jewish and Arab communities
in Israel and East Jerusalem (Ben-Rafael et al., 2006)
94 Arabic as a ‘Minority’ Language in Israel

‘minority’ has been serving as a powerful discursive tool to perpetuate


the hierarchy of the low status of the Arabs in relation to the Jews.
According to Spolsky and Shohamy (1999), ‘Arabic is a rare case in which
a major language, once spread by conquest, has been forced by changed
circumstance to play a markedly secondary role. Arabic in Israel is the
second official language, and not the competing partner in a dyadic
bilingual state … It is without a doubt a minority language, denied in
law and in fact many privileges that might be expected to result from
its being second official language’ (p. 116–17). The term ‘minority’ may
have played an important role in the creation of this hierarchy.
It is the transition from the high status of Arabic as a vital and
dynamic language in Arab towns and cities to its marginal, minor and
almost non-existent status at Israeli academic institutions that led Abu
Ghazaleh-Mahajneh (2009) to examine the experiences of Arab students
in their transition process between the two spaces. The examination of
the university space is of special importance given its high status and
prestige for paving the way for societal participation and employment.
Using a variety of measuring tools, such as questionnaires, interviews
as well as documentation of the linguistic landscape, Abu Ghazaleh-
Mahajneh examined the process which students at the University of
Haifa went through within a period of seven months, from the beginning
of the academic year, when the students first arrived at the university to
the end of the first year of their academic studies. The specific research
questions of the study focuses on the reactions, feelings, attitudes and
perceptions of Arab students regarding the linguistic transition. The spe-
cific topics examined related to the position of the students regarding
the use of the three central languages – Hebrew, Arabic and English. The
questions addressed their views of the importance of possessing a good
command of each of the languages, for obtaining access and broadening
their opportunities for profitable employment, their willingness to com-
municate, their methods of coping with the languages and the extent
to which these coping mechanisms affected them emotionally in terms
of their self-image.
Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used with a sample
of 144 students who had commenced their studies at Haifa University
in 2008. The results showed that participation at the university where
all subjects are taught in Hebrew and texts are read in English had a
negative impact on their attitudes towards their L-1, Arabic. At the
same time they developed more respect and positive attitudes towards
the other two languages, and especially towards Hebrew. Abu Ghazaleh-
Mahajneh interprets this as an act of surrender to the ‘Hebrew only’
Elana Shohamy and Marwan Abu Ghazaleh-Mahajneh 95

policy on the account of their own language. It is this research project


that was the backdrop of the present study.
In this study we focused on the LL manifestation of Arabic in two
public spaces: one, an Arab city and the other, a campus of the university
where many of the students are enrolled. The focus is on the experiences
of people in these two spaces where they constantly participate, moving
from one space to another in their daily lives, home and school. The
term ‘language space’ or ‘language enclave’ (Creese and Blackledge, 2010)
is of special significance here as it refers to territories beyond municipal
and bureaucratic boundaries where certain linguistic rules are applied.
Thus, the focus on language enclaves or on spaces proposes a way of
overcoming traditional definitions of places. We therefore shift atten-
tion from place to space, with emphases on functionality. It is within
this framework that we examine the functionality of Hebrew and Arabic
as manifested via LL in these two spaces. LL thus provides us with
a tool to examine the functionality and vitality of the languages and
as a prism through which various sociolinguistic realities can be under-
stood and interpreted.
The focus on LL in various places in Israel is not new because a
number of studies were carried out that examined various dimensions
of LL in the public spaces which serve as arenas of participation and
contestation. For example, Trumper-Hecht (2009, 2010) examined con-
testation of Arabic and Hebrew in a number of mixed towns in Israel
with a special focus on the complexity of the implementation of the
Supreme Court decision mentioned here. Signs in public spaces in Israel
provide an effective index and tool for examining issues of identity,
exclusion, colonialization and group hierarchies and status.

The study

The study compares LL in the town of Ume El Pahem whose inhabit-


ants are Arabs with the LL of the campus of Haifa University, one of
the seven major universities in Israel. It is located in the north of Israel
and attracts a large number of Arab students who come from towns and
villages in the area; the Arab students on campus make up 25 per cent
of the student body and Arabs make up 9 percent of the population of
the city of Haifa. The city of Ume El Pahem is located in Vadi Ara in the
north of Israel; its population consists of 48,000 people, all Arabs.
The LL data in Ume El Pahem was collected in four locations, two
schools and two shopping areas. The schools consisted of one high
school, grades 9–12 and one middle school, grades 6–8. As to the
96 Arabic as a ‘Minority’ Language in Israel

shopping area, LL was documented in shops and buildings in the


central area and similar sites in the streets that connect the town with
the main freeway which leads to areas where Hebrew-speaking Jews
reside. The data at the Haifa University campus was collected in two
areas: the main buildings of the campus and the housing area where
many of the Arab students reside during the school year. Both the LL
of the outside buildings and the inside of the rooms were recorded.
The data were collected via pictures of all the signs in the areas, top-
down and bottom-up. All together 405 signs were documented in Um
El Pahem and 430 signs at the university. This documentation was
accompanied by a set of partially structured in-depth interviews with
eight interviewees who were questioned about their reactions to the LL
representations based on their personal experiences.

Results

The LL documentation points to stark differences between the LL


representation of Ume El Pahem and Haifa University. As can be seen
in Table 6.1 given next, Arabic is a vivid and vital language in Ume El
Pahem. The Arabic language is represented in about 90 per cent of the
signs on the internal road, 82 per cent in the connecting road to the
main motorway, 87 per cent in secondary school and 100 per cent in
the middle school. Hebrew appears in substantially lower number of
signs than Arabic. With regard to locations, Hebrew signs are present
slightly more in the high school than in the middle school, possibly
reflecting the situation that students in high school are approaching
higher education and are beginning to engage more with Hebrew in
preparation for their academic studies at university where Hebrew is
the language of instruction. Hebrew has more frequent existence in the
LL on the road connecting to Hebrew territories (69 versus 82 per cent).
English does exist in these areas but in substantially lower numbers.
As can be seen in Table 6.1 as well, in contrast, at Haifa University,
LL in Arabic is literally non-existent. There were only two signs on
campus, and these were mostly probibitions, such as ‘no smoking’
(Figure 6.2), that is, 3.2 per cent. Hebrew is represented in 100 per cent
of the signs on campus (62 signs) and English is very dominant as well.
Arabic appears in 9.6 per cent of the signs only. There is even no Arabic
(Figure 6.3) on emergency and warning signs referring to locations of
shelters or a safe area to escape to during bombing attack. The only
place where Arabic can be found is in some of the rooms of the students’
housing area (Figure 6.4) alongside with additional languages.
Elana Shohamy and Marwan Abu Ghazaleh-Mahajneh 97

Table 6.1 LL representation in the city of Um el Pahem versus Haifa University


in various areas of each
English language Hebrew language Arabic language Areas
as first/second/ as first/second/ as first/second/
third third third
Ume el Pahem
8.39 48.64 86.91% Total Ume El Pahem
(34) (197) (352) 405 signs
0% 0% 100% Percentage and
(0) (0) (44) numbers of signs in
Middle School (11%,
44 signs)
1.85% 42.59% 87.03% Percentage and
(1) (23) (47) numbers of signs in
High School (13%,
54 signs)
15.5% 69% 82% Percentage and
(31) (138) (164) numbers of signs
in connecting road
to main highway
(49%, 200 signs)

University
22.7% 92.3% 10.9% Total university:
(98) (397) (47) 430 signs
23.75% 98.13% 10.3 % Percentage and
(76) (314) (34) numbers of signs on
academic buildings
22.92% 43.75% 22.92% Percentage and
(11) (21) (11) number of signs in
students’ rooms on
campus area (56%,
48 signs)
17.74% 100% 3.2% Percentage and
(11) (62) (2) number of signs of
buildings in housing
area (44%, 62 signs)

In what follows, we discuss the reactions of eight first-year university


students to the LL displays in the public space of the campus. These
students were selected randomly from the larger sample of students
who participated in the Abu Ghazaleh-Mahajneh (2009) study. They
were questioned twice during the year, at the beginning and at the end
98 Arabic as a ‘Minority’ Language in Israel

Figure 6.2 No smoking sign in three languages

Figure 6.3 Emergency signs in student housing: No Arabic (emergency exit; safe
area and name of street at entrance to a building)
Elana Shohamy and Marwan Abu Ghazaleh-Mahajneh 99

Figure 6.4 LL in the students’ rooms

about their emotional reactions regarding the LL on campus with a


special focus on their attitudes towards the representation of the three
languages in the public space of the university.
By and large these students claimed that they thought there was a
need to translate the signs around the university into Arabic. The main
reason they gave was not their lack of understanding of the messages the
signs were conveying, but rather that they felt there is a need to grant
Arabs symbolic recognition at the university as this has implications for
their identity and gives them a feeling of belonging. Half of the students
noted that they saw the present lack of Arabic LL in public spaces as
violation of their human and personal rights. The students also reacted
to the electronic signs, and especially to the aural announcements such
as those heard over the loudspeakers in the library and in the students’
housing area. They stated that their cultural identity is lessened since
they view the LL around the campus as a symbolic act of marginalizing
them. They were very pessimistic about the future indicating that they
cannot see how this situation will ever change. This view about the
future, they noted, led them to become less active and engaging in taking
any steps to try to affect a change in the language of the signs. It seems
that the policy of ‘Hebrew only’ in the public space of the university or
100 Arabic as a ‘Minority’ Language in Israel

the bilingual policy of Hebrew/English reinforces and confirms their


feelings that this is a permanent reality that will never change. These
reactions seem to indicate that they internalized the notion that their
university is a ‘Jewish’ university where they are marginalized and have
no participatory role to play, in other words they surrender to the reality
and comply with de facto policy rather than act.
Since the data were collected twice from the students, it is especially
significant to emphasize the observations of the students at the begin-
ning of their first academic year in comparison with their reactions at
the end of that year. While at first they felt that their language had a
more major role to play, at the end of the year they saw it as totally mar-
ginalized. Following are quotes from some of the students interviewed
along these two timelines.
At the beginning of the year Achlam said that ‘The signs at the uni-
versity need to represent the Arabs as well. The university needs to
translate the signs for the Arab students in order to show respect, even
if we understand the meaning when it is written in Hebrew’. At the
end of the school year she said: ‘I understand the meaning of the signs,
but prefer that these signs will be translated in order to provide us with
some rights at the university’. At the beginning of the year Nizar said:
‘The signs at the university are mostly in Hebrew, since this is the domi-
nant language, but there is a need to put these in Arabic as well. This is
so since more than a fifth of the students at this university are Arabs.’
At the end of the year he said: ‘We need to grant the Arab students
respect and translate the signs into Arabic. It is true that Hebrew is a
dominant language, but at least the signs can be translated into Arabic,
this is the least they can do.’ These examples demonstrate that at the
beginning of the year, there is support in translating the signs into
Arabic, not only in order to understand the language, but for empower-
ment, and grant symbolic value as putting the signs in Arabic can also
show respect. It is important to note that in both times these students
speak of ‘rights’ and ‘respect’ that Arab students should be given.
Nizar noted the need to translate the signs into Arabic as ‘the least they
should do’. ‘They’ here refers to the Jewish authorities of the university.
Said said that it is important to translate in order not to harm the lan-
guage rights of the students; and ‘the need to show the presence of the
language in public’. Said claimed that the translation is needed ‘to pro-
vide legitimacy to the speakers of the language on campus’. Ahmed said
that: ‘Yes, there is a need to translate the signs into Arabic, despite of my
understanding of the Hebrew, as we have to show that the Arab students
are an integral part of this university, and hence our language needs to
Elana Shohamy and Marwan Abu Ghazaleh-Mahajneh 101

gain respect and importance.’ He then added that: ‘There is a difference


in the balance of power between schools and university. In schools
everything is handled in Arabic, even in the Hebrew and English classes.
And although many of the books are in Hebrew, the Arabic language is
exclusive and totally dominant, no questions are asked. But the situation
at university is very different. The Hebrew and English languages are
dominant while Arabic has no presence and significance at all. This cre-
ates a total language shock and trauma for students that lasts a very long
time and it is very difficult to ever overcome’. Avir noted that: ‘I prefer
that the signs will be in both languages in order to expand the use of
Arabic on campus. This will demonstrate the existence of the language’.
Rim said that: ‘There is a need to translate the signs into Arabic as Arab
students are a critical mass at this university and they have a right to
read signs in their own language’. Ahlam said that ‘The signs need to
represent the Arab people, to give us rights, at least in the signs’. Finally
Muhammad said that ‘I am very hurt from the type of signs I see at the
university, for me they have taken away all the rights of the Arabs. I want
to speak Arabic, but I do not have any opportunity to express myself.
The signs are meant to weaken the status of the Arabic language and this
is why I am interested in translating the signs into Arabic’.

Conclusions

A number of findings can be generated from this study. First, the docu-
mentation of LL in various enclaves of the city, both educational and
commercial, points to the dominance, vitality and functionality of the
Arabic language. When the criterion is not the nation state territory but
rather a differently defined space, the city, different conclusions need
to be reached – in the city of Ume El Pahem Arabic is not a minority
language; other languages are, Hebrew and English. Expanding further
the notion of ‘spaces’ to include other types of territorial spaces such as
regions or neighbourhoods, lead us to re-think this widely-used term.
The special context, its history, current vitality and collective identities
need to be incorporated into the meaning of the term ‘minority’. In
other words, there is a need to raise questions about the meaning of the
term ‘minority language’ in this context and especially with regard to
its connotations and consequences.
The second finding refers to the lack of LL representation of Arabic
at the Haifa University campus. Despite the fact that the Arabic stu-
dent population forms 25 per cent of the student body, that Arabic
is an official language in Israel, and that the city of Haifa is one of
102 Arabic as a ‘Minority’ Language in Israel

the mixed cities obliged to follow the Supreme Court decision regard-
ing Arabic signage, the language has no representation and is totally
ignored and erased from the public space. This is also in strong contrast
to the municipal territory of the city of Haifa itself which by and large
follows the Supreme Court decision on signage and includes Arabic
on all road signs. In fact Haifa is the only town in Israel where Arabic
was included in public signs even before the court decision. It is clear
that the Haifa campus has very different rules and regulations, which
are detached from the city in which it is located. This provided further
evidence as to the need to focus on micro spaces such as workplaces,
universities, neighbourhoods, shopping areas, which establish and cre-
ate their own language rules and policies, often totally detached from
the macro geographical spaces. There is a special importance to follow
micro spaces to obtain deeper understanding of language patterns; the
focus on the macro overlooks important phenomenon and even by
doing research on the macro researchers face the risk of overlooking
important patterns and they may also buy into bureaucratic political
categories.
Thirdly, it is clear that the low profile of Arabic at Haifa University does
not go by un-noticed by the students who study there. Rather, the LL
pattern conveys important messages to the Arab students on that campus
as can be concluded from the interview. The students clearly perceive the
LL situation as further evidence and perpetuation of their feeling of lack
of rights, and transmitting them with messages of exclusion that are here
to stay. They state that they adopt a strategy of compliance and accept-
ance while still viewing the policy as unjust and discriminatory.
A number of questions need to be raised: given the situation with
regard to Arabs and the Arabic language in the context of Israel, loaded
with history, unresolved political conflicts, yet with aspirations of co-
existence, should the term ‘minority’ even be used to define status of
language? Are we not ‘shallowing’ the rich and complex phenomenon
of language use by adopting a bureaucratic criterion such as numbers,
especially in politically charged situations as those of nation-states
where there is still conflict? Should we not seek fuller criteria to exam-
ine and judge languages situations such as visibility, functionality,
appreciation, vitality, respect, or energy before categorizing languages?
In the case of Arabic in Israel and based on the data collected in this study
regarding one city, it is clear that Arabic has all these characteristics –
vitality, visibility, functionality, energy, aspiration to continue to exist and
many more. Clearly, comparisons of one language, Arabic, in relation to
‘the other’, Hebrew within the territory of a given nation state with its
Elana Shohamy and Marwan Abu Ghazaleh-Mahajneh 103

loaded national ideologies and agendas may have negative discursive


effects. It is suggested that we avoid terms which are reinforcing the
nation states in relation to other arenas, which are less political, less ideo-
logical as they are used in more fluid spaces. Arabic is clearly not a minor-
ity language in the Middle East and Hebrew is not a majority one in that
area as well. The term ‘minority language’ may have been relevant in the
era when nations wanted to convey dominance of certain languages and
people and as symbolic acts of creating homogenous national societies
of ‘one language, one state’; these may no longer be relevant in this day
and age of multiculturalism, diversity and multilingualism. Nowadays
there is a need to accept the diversity of languages and people and avoid
the use of hierarchical terms which have discriminating connotations.
Assigning the term ‘majority’ to some languages and ‘minority’ to others,
perpetuates hierarchical categories and prioritize some groups on account
of others. This argument may not apply to all ‘minority situations’ espe-
cially when languages that have been severely endangered are gaining
strength and functionality.
A further conclusion that can be reached from this study relates to
the definitions of places and space. The fact that the campus of Haifa
University does not follow the pattern of the city, as stipulated by the
(national) Supreme Court decision, demonstrates that other spaces
(often called ‘micro’ spaces), need to be further researched and docu-
mented. The contradiction between the official status of Arabic in Israel
and the lack of LL representation challenges the meaning of nation and
state governed language policy rules in favour of other types of spaces.
Thus, there is a need to adopt more fluid and open definitions of various
territories and to examine them in deeper ways. The focus on enclaves
and different types of spaces, cities and campuses and the study of LL
within these spaces, can be used to gain deeper, new and innovative
meanings of language in a variety of territorial contexts within and
beyond the nation-state. One even wonders if the marginalization of
Arabic at the university may be a sign of contestation against the city’s
more tolerant policy and the political activism of the student body at
this university, given the large number of Arab students on campus
which is larger than in other Universities.
As can be seen from the data, while the Arab students at the university
comply with the minority category and on the surface accept the power
of the dominant language, it does not mean that they are happy with
it; they clearly comply as they have no choice given the strong pressure.
Yet, they are clearly aware of the inequality. Their strong emotional reac-
tions should be a warning sign to the university authorities and to the
104 Arabic as a ‘Minority’ Language in Israel

civil agents that something needs to be done. The picture that emerges
from the interviews is that this situation is accompanied by negative
consequences on the part of Arabic speakers and feelings of lack of repre-
sentation, marginality and exclusion. The fact is that the language they
are most proficient in does not exist in the public space at all has strong
implications as an offensive act, lack of respect, exclusion and a form
of denial and erasure of their own presence. According to May (2001,
p. 164) ‘linguistic consequences cannot be separated from socioeco-
nomic and socio-political consequences.’ This is an especially significant
finding, given that the marginalized status of the language is a result of
political colonialization and continuous public talk by some prominent
government representatives regarding the need for Arab citizens in Israel
to pass loyalty tests as a condition of their continued residence, as men-
tioned earlier. Arabs in Israel are compelled to learn Hebrew in order to
participate in higher education, which seems to be symbolic but also an
act of delegitimization. In this case the deletion of Arabic from the LL
of the campus needs to be viewed as institutional deletion which has
both symbolic and practical meanings; symbolic in terms of erasing of
a speech community and functional as in the case of Figure 6.2 where
Arabic is excluded in situations of high security and safety.
Finally, regarding the use of LL as a tool: LL data can provide us with a
useful device, an instrument that we can use to examine also the status
and vitality of languages with different spaces, biases and discrimina-
tions especially when they are accompanied by interviews with speakers
of the community who share their experiences, feelings, reactions and
emotions about the situation. It is recommended here to use LL further
not only as a research tool but also as an activist tool to bridge commu-
nities in order to create a more harmonious co-existence, participatory
situation and transformation. This use of LL may provide a necessary,
obviously not sufficient, act that will provide greater recognition of the
people and a just society versus the continued use of the term ‘minority’
which may unfavourably. May (2001, p. 163) states: ‘Meanwhile, the
association of modernity with one “common”’ language and culture
needs to be recognized as the nationalist myth-making that it is. Only
if language change is separated from the current hegemonic imperatives
of the nation-state can the prospect of more representational multina-
tional and multilingual states be secured … both national and minority
languages remain, for many of their speakers, important indicators of
individual and collective identity. To accept this principle for one and
not the other is clearly unjust’. We clearly accept this notion of May
but also take it further by critiquing the term ‘minority’ (as well as
Elana Shohamy and Marwan Abu Ghazaleh-Mahajneh 105

national or majority), and to promote and propose the lack of official


terms for both; the change needs to be made both in the term and in
the meaning. The two are closely inter-related. This could improve the
life chances of groups who are presently disadvantaged in their access to
and participation in public services, employment and education.
Relating this to the current context, LL can serve as a transformation
tool as well as a descriptive one. In the case of Arabic in Israel, the term
‘minority’ cannot be detached from politics, context, history, struggle
and the conflicts of Arab and Jews as well as the future visions of co-
existence. The terms ‘minority’ and ‘majority’ represent a propaganda
tool to delegitimize one group and to elevate another, especially in
times of fierce tensions. The absence of Arabic, an official language in
Israel from the space especially from state environments as Universities,
and from language of instruction at university, in spite of its official
status, is not a neutral nor natural act. It does not reflect the reality in
terms of the LL in many areas. Thus, the study of LL can be used as an
empirical yardstick and as an activist and transformational tool to chal-
lenge these notions, to question and dispute acceptable terms and cat-
egories and to look for descriptions of language which are more relevant
to how languages are viewed in this day and age. LL is a useful tool to
examine language in such contexts.

References
Abu Ghazaleh-Mahajneh, M. (2009) Attitudes Towards the Status of the Arabic,
Hebrew and English Languages among Arab Students at the University. MA thesis,
Tel Aviv University (in Hebrew).
Amara, M. and A. Mari (2002) Language Education Policy: The Arab Minority in
Israel. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishing.
Ben-Rafael, E., E. Shohamy, M. H. Amara and N. Trumper-Hecht (2006)
‘Linguistic landscape as symbolic construction of the public space: The case of
Israel’. International Journal of Multilingualism, 3, 1, 7–31.
Creese, A. and A. Blackledge (2010) ‘Translanguaging in the bilingual classroom:
A pedagogy for learning and teaching?’ The Modern Language Journal, 94, 1,
103–15.
May, S. (2001) Language and Minority Rights: Ethnicity, Nationalism and the Politics
of language. New York: Routledge.
Shohamy, E. (2006) Language Policy: Hidden Agendas and New Approaches. London:
Routledge.
Shohamy, E. (2008). ‘At what cost? Methods of language revival and protection:
Examples from Hebrew’. In K. King, N. Schilling-Estes, L. Fogle, J. Jia and
B. Soukup (eds) Sustaining Linguistic Diversity: Endangered and Minority
Languages and Language Varieties. Washington DC: Georgetown University
Press.
106 Arabic as a ‘Minority’ Language in Israel

Spolsky, B. and E. Shohamy (1999) The Languages of Israel – Policy, Ideology and
Practice. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Spolsky, B. and E. Shohamy (2001) ‘Hebrew after a century of RLS activities’. In
J. A. Fishman (ed.) Can Threatened Languages be Saved: Reversing Language Shift,
Revisited: A 21st Century Perspective. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Trumper-Hecht, N. (2009) ‘Constructing national identity in mixed cities in
Israel: Arabic on signs in the public space of Upper Nazareth’. In E. Shohamy
and D. Gorter (eds) Linguistic Landscape: Expanding the Scenery. London:
Routledge.
Trumper-Hecht, N. (2010) ‘The perspective of the walkers in an Israeli mixed
city’. In E. Shohamy, E. Ben-Rafael, and M. Barni (eds) Linguistic Landscape in
the City. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Yitzhaki, D. (2008) Minority language and language policy: The case of Arabic in
Israel. Ph.D. thesis. Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University.
Part II
Linguistic Landscape and
Language Policy
7
Policies vs Non-Policies: Analysing
Regional Languages and the
National Standard in the Linguistic
Landscape of French and Italian
Mediterranean Cities
Robert Blackwood and Stefania Tufi

Introduction

This chapter will discuss one aspect of an on-going investigation into the
Linguistic Landscape (LL) of French and Italian Mediterranean coastal
towns with a view to examining the context for the management of the
public space, something which in terms of language policy is tackled
in radically different ways by the two states involved. Since 2007, we
have collected data from Mediterranean urban areas in both France and
Italy, and consider here our findings from Corsica, Northern Catalonia,
and Marseille (in France), and Genoa, Cagliari, and Naples (in Italy). By
comparing two different approaches, we seek to discern whether what we
refer to as policies and non-policies influence the appearance of the LL.
The primary focus of this discussion is the regional languages of France
and Italy, given their position as minority languages in their respective
countries. We will present a brief sociolinguistic overview of the six regional
languages under consideration here, as well as evaluating the language
policies of France and Italy in order to contextualize the findings from the
fieldwork. By contrasting the presence of these regional languages with
the national standard languages (French and Italian), we intend to assess
the extent to which policies and non-policies have an impact on the LL.
In the course of the discussion the importance of the urban dimension of
the observed settings and of cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1991) as an asset in
the construction of minority identity will be highlighted. Ethnolinguistic
vitality as outlined in Landry and Bourhis (1997) will also represent a use-
ful perspective in the analysis of the Italian cityscapes.

109
110 Policies vs Non-Policies

In this context we use the term ‘regional languages’ in a broad


sense insofar as it includes all languages other than French and Italian
which have been historically present on the two national territories
(e.g. Catalan in south-west France, and Sardinian in Cagliari), be they
acknowledged regional languages (e.g. Corsican) or not (e.g. Neapolitan,
which is usually referred to as a dialect).1
In this examination of the LL, we use the tripartite definition of lan-
guage policy (in the singular) proposed by Spolsky (2004, pp. 8–14), with
reference to language beliefs (the ideology and the attitudes towards
languages), language practices (the decisions made by speakers in terms
of language use), and language management (the intervention to change
language practices or beliefs, or both). A definition of what constitutes
a regional language is not provided in either national context. The
expression ‘regional language’, is from the French langue régionale, used
for the first time in the text of the Deixonne law (1951). Italian national
legislation, by contrast, mentions ‘linguistic minorities’, with an empha-
sis on the speakers rather than on the languages. This is due to an origi-
nal concern with language rights which should not be denied to those
citizens who speak a language other than, or in addition to, Italian.

Regional languages: A sociolinguistic overview

France
In order to contextualize our data, it is important to provide some
information on each of the six areas. The three survey areas in France
are identified, to varying degrees, with one of France’s regional lan-
guages. Corsican is one of the seven main regional languages of France,
although it is an Italo-Romance language, spoken by approximately
167,000 people on an island of 270,000 (Blackwood, 2008, p. 108).
Since the early 1980s, Corsica has enjoyed increasing devolution, with
some powers and responsibilities transferring from Paris to the island’s
Regional Assembly. As a result, Corsican is now an obligatory subject
for the first two years of secondary schooling and it is a primary marker
of Corsican cultural identity, sustained during the twentieth century by
language activists, occasionally linked to nationalist movements.
Catalan is spoken by approximately 130,000 people in the adminis-
trative counties (départements) along the border with Spain, primarily in
Pyrénées-Orientales, which has a population of 392,930. In addition,
6 million individuals over the border in Catalonia speak Catalan, often
as a first language. In France, its position as a language in state educa-
tion, as a subject rather than as the medium of teaching, dates back
Robert Blackwood and Stefania Tufi 111

to 1951. There is language activism on behalf of the language, but


mainly in terms of generating support for the small network of private
Catalan-language schools in the area, as well as some cultural output
in song and literature (Judge, 2007, pp. 81–3). Giving a name to the
area in which Catalan is spoken is not straightforward, since whilst one
might refer to ‘French Catalonia’, this is not a term that would be used
in France. Although the area corresponds roughly to the historic prov-
ince of Roussillon, it is perhaps more helpful to use the name Northern
Catalonia, since this is used on road signs in the area, and reflects better
the area’s double identity as Catalan and French at the same time.
Marseille is France’s second city with 808,700 inhabitants, and lies
in the eastern half of the country’s Mediterranean coast. It has not been
identified with a regional language as explicitly as Corsica or Northern
Catalonia, although Marseille falls within the area in which historically
Provençal has been spoken. Provençal is considered by some to be a
regional variety of Occitan, one of France’s principal regional languages,
and is not explicitly identified with either the city of Marseille or the
wider region ( Judge, 2007, pp. 110–11). As such, Marseille’s relationship
with a minority language is more ambiguous than is the case in Northern
Catalonia or in Corsica.

Italy
In today’s Italy, linguistic fragmentation is a salient characteristic of
the country’s cultural heritage. The vast majority of Italians employ
two or more language varieties in different contexts, and the individual
or community repertoire ranges from varieties of local and regional
dialects to varieties of the common language, sometimes including
the officially recognized ‘historic minority languages’, as stated in the
Italian Constitution.
As the language of the city of Genoa, which was influential in the
Mediterranean from the twelfth to the eighteenth century, Genoese
established itself as the prestige variety and as such it influenced
the other dialects spoken in the region, thus contributing substantially
to the creation of a regional identity. In the post-war period, Genoa, as
part of an area primarily responsible for the industrialization of Italy,
underwent radical socio-economic changes which are acknowledged
to be the principal factors of Italianization. Amongst an urban popula-
tion which exceeds 600,000 inhabitants, Genoese retains its symbolic
value as a carrier of local and regional identity, but its use has declined
steadily over the last 50 years. According to a 2002 ISTAT survey, Liguria
(whose regional capital is Genoa) is one of the two Italian regions where
112 Policies vs Non-Policies

the exclusive use of Italian in the family is strongest (67.5 per cent of
respondents, second to Tuscany, 83 per cent).
Unlike Genoese, Sardinian on the island of Sardinia enjoys minority
language status. Sardinian, however, is not a unified language but, rather,
a range of varieties. Our study focuses on the city of Cagliari and there-
fore ‘Sardinian’ means here the Cagliari variety of the regional language.
Sardinians generally share a high level of linguistic awareness, and
language is a primary marker of identity (Oppo, 2007). Oppo (2007,
p. 7) in particular reports that over 68 per cent of islanders speak a local
variety, and that an additional 29 per cent understand one. The major-
ity opts not to use the language with their children, however, despite
decades of cultural and linguistic militancy which have made the
language question central to public debate in Sardinian society. Local
cultural production in Sardinian is widespread, literary output is on the
increase and in recent times there has been a proliferation of Sardinian-
language websites, blogs and online publications (although the latter
do not enjoy wide diffusion). Sardinian therefore provides an unusual
example of a minority language which is used by the majority of the
population (1,600,000 inhabitants).
Neapolitan is spoken in the city of Naples, and it lies somewhere
between the aforementioned two linguistic situations. As the language
of the capital city of a kingdom that extended from central Italy to
Sicily, and as the expression of a rich literary and cultural tradition
which crossed regional borders, Neapolitan is a strong marker of local
and regional identity. Its use is widespread and not limited to specific
sociolinguistic domains or social groups. This is particularly remarkable
in an urban environment, which is in fact a metropolis by Italian stand-
ards as Naples is Italy’s third city and has about 1 million inhabitants.
The language is the sole means of communication between parents
and children in a third of Neapolitan families, and it is used in alterna-
tion with Italian in more than half of families (De Blasi, 2006, p. 281).
Cultural dialectal expression, moreover, is still highly productive in
literature, theatre, and song. Although initiatives for the promotion of
Neapolitan date back to the Renaissance period, attempts to codify it
have remained unfulfilled (Toso, 2006, p. 93).

Language management

Although France and Italy are well-documented multilingual contexts,


official measures for the management of such complex linguistic sce-
narios differ significantly between the two countries. France, on the one
Robert Blackwood and Stefania Tufi 113

hand, is characterized as one of the most striking examples of a modern


nation state which seeks to use explicit, directive language manage-
ment strategies in order to enact a language policy focussed squarely
on establishing and then maintaining France as a monolingual entity
(Spolsky, 2004, p. 63). On the other hand, whilst the education system
has been greatly responsible for the propagation of linguistic ideology,
alongside negative stereotyping of anything connected with dialects in
Italy, the Italianization of Italians has mostly been due to the radical
socio-economic changes that have affected post-war Italy, and not to
unilateral and consistent language policies (De Mauro, 2008). In this
sub-section, we contrast the policies enacted in France, with what we
refer to as the non-policies in Italy.

France – language policies


In France, the question of linguistic minorities has long been particu-
larly contentious. The French state, since the Revolution, has sought to
unify the nation around the idea of one single identity: French. This
has meant that minorities are not officially recognized, and on the
occasions that formal references to ethnolinguistic groups are made,
they are contested with the full force of the Constitution, as evidenced,
for example, by the prolonged Parliamentary discussions in the late
1990s to the term ‘the Corsican people’ in legislation on devolution
(Blackwood, 2008, pp. 73–4). In terms of language policy towards named
languages, since 1992, Article 2 of the French Constitution has decreed
that French is the language of the Republic. In 2008, the Constitution
was amended, to state in Article 75 that the regional languages are
recognized as ‘part of France’s heritage’, although these languages are
not identified by name. From a national legislative point of view, over
the course of 500 years, legislation has been used to protect and extend
the use of French by defining the domains (such as the judiciary or
public administration) in which the national standard language must
be employed, thereby implicitly proscribing the use of other languages,
such as English and the regional languages.
Insofar as managing the LL is concerned, two particularly pertinent
laws were passed in the last quarter of the twentieth century. The Bas-
Lauriol law of 1975, and the Toubon law of 1994 can be summarized
as requiring both top-down and bottom-up management of language
practices to be undertaken in French when it is possible so to do. These
laws do not outlaw the use of other languages, but require the use of
French alongside any other language used. The ideology behind the
policy is clear and well known, and the strategies for manipulating
114 Policies vs Non-Policies

language practices find their echo in other well-known legislation, such


as Canada’s Bill 101 of 1977 (see Backhaus, 2009, pp. 157–70; Bourhis,
2001, pp. 126–33). Although Article 21 of the Toubon law notes that the
provisions of the legislation were not designed to marginalize the written
use of the regional languages, the policy which the law articulated does
not encourage the use of France’s other languages (Judge, 2000, p. 75).
It is worth outlining the provisions of the Toubon law which pertain
to the LL in order to contextualize the findings of our fieldwork in
France. Article 2 of the Toubon law affirms that the use of French is
obligatory in the sale and operation of commercial goods, and that all
advertising (written, spoken or audiovisual) must also use the official
language of France. Whilst brand names do not require French trans-
lations, all other information must be provided in French. Article 3
requires any text appearing in the public space (be that on the public
highway or even on public transport) to be in French, whilst Article 4
makes obligatory a translation into French of any information given in
another language in the domains of education, employment, commerce
or public services. Moreover, Article 4 stipulates that the French transla-
tion must be as legible, audible or intelligible as the source text.

Italy – non-policies
With the exception of the Fascist period, the Italian state has generally
maintained a tolerant position towards minority languages, although
this position has effectively been one of neglect. The school system, by
contrast, has traditionally been characterized by a punitive linguistic
approach whereby predominantly dialectophone pupils were taught
Italian with a view to eradicating perceived ‘bad’ linguistic habits as
represented by their native dialects.
As far as national legislation is concerned, linguistic issues appear in
the 1948 Italian Constitution. Article 6 mentions the linguistic minorities
explicitly, but in very vague terms, stating that ‘the Republic protects
linguistic minorities with special norms’. More recently, a law on the
protection of linguistic minorities was passed in 1999: law 482/1999.
This law also states that Italian is the official language of Italy. It was not
until March 2007 that a bill was passed in the lower chamber that the
Italian Constitution should include such a statement. This bill, however,
has not yet been passed by the Senate.
Law 489/1999 lists 12 linguistic minorities which are historically
associated with a given territory. The territorial criterion, however, does not
allow for adequate differentiation of their idioms on sociolinguistic
grounds, nor for adjustments in the legal provisions. The German-speaking
Robert Blackwood and Stefania Tufi 115

minority in Alto Adige/South Tyrol, for example, is effectively a national


minority and the language is actively used, taught, broadcast and inter-
generationally transmitted. For the Catalan speakers in Alghero (Sardinia),
conversely, the archaic form of Catalan that part of the local population
uses is a heritage language and the legacy of a fourteenth-century Catalan
colony. In addition, issues of language contact and language shift have
affected recognized minority languages and local varieties alike, whilst
the underlying assumption that bi- or plurilingual speakers in Italy
should identify with only one of the language codes (and the relevant
cultural heritage) that they have acquired is not tenable.
What Italian national legislation has left out, (and that regional laws
have addressed to varying degrees, see Toso, 2006) are smaller linguistic
minorities existing within recognized linguistic minorities (such as the
Tabarchini in Sardinia); minority language speakers who have moved
from their original territory to other areas of the country (or those who
are not denoted by territorial stability, such as Romani speakers); and
the ever-increasing number of migrants who have brought their own
languages to Italy (Orioles, 2007).
National legislation has also neglected all those regional and local
language varieties which are still a dynamic component of Italian group
identity and cultural heritage. Regional linguistic legislation, therefore,
reflects attempts to compensate for the inadequacies of national legisla-
tion, sometimes including norms for the protection of regional and/or
local languages at the devolved levels of local government. The most
significant regional laws, however, remain those linked to particularly
sensitive geographical areas and/or communities, and are a result of the
urgency to address separatist tendencies in the aftermath of the Second
World War. Other regional legislative initiatives remain on the whole
inadequate and are usually not carried out effectively.2
In spite of their diversity, regional initiatives reveal once again the
fundamental absence of the Italian state when it comes to regulating
language matters (see also the chapters by Coluzzi and Puzey this vol-
ume). There is, therefore, a striking difference between French-language
policies and Italian non-policies when it comes to imposing the pri-
macy of the national language.

The fieldwork

Methodology
For the Mediterranean Cities LL project, we adopt a common methodology
not for only the recording and coding of data, but also in terms of what
116 Policies vs Non-Policies

we consider to be a sign (discussed in full in Blackwood, (2011). This


enables comparison not only between the areas surveyed, but means
that the project can be positioned alongside fieldwork we have already
undertaken beyond the Mediterranean. In each of the areas surveyed,
we select 20 sites, starting normally with what might be understood
as the principal street and subsequently identifying roads of lesser sig-
nificance. In each street, a 50-metre stretch is paced out, and all signs
are coded according to their function and language(s); other informa-
tion is also recorded where relevant (see also Blackwood, 2009). For
this project, we adapt the method proposed by Backhaus (2007, p. 66)
who defines a sign as ‘any piece of text within a spatially definable
frame’. By comparison, we define a LL sign as a written text considered
as a single item, be that the name of a shop, a price-list in a window,
a single-word instruction, or a brand name. Once recorded and coded
on the streets, we enter the data into a spreadsheet, which facilitates
a relatively sophisticated analysis of the six corpora. In evaluating
the data recorded from the six surveys, we make particular use of the
distinction articulated by Ben-Rafael et al. (2006) regarding top-down
and bottom-up signs, in order to analyse the different forces govern-
ing the appearance of languages in the public space. The surveys were
undertaken between August 2007 and September 2009, and Table 7.1
outlines the total number of signs in each corpus. Table 7.1 also includes
the number of signs featuring each regional language (and the respec-
tive proportions of the total), as well as the total number of signs in the
national standard language.

The data
In terms of our findings, signs in the regional languages, despite the
different contexts and the differing statuses they enjoy, were few and
far between in our surveys. However, there is a noticeable difference to
observe here; whilst Sardinian, Genoese, Neapolitan and Catalan barely
feature in their respective LLs, there is a considerable relative presence
of signs in Corsican.
The surveys on Corsica recorded 511 monolingual Corsican signs, and
a further 80 featuring the regional language plus another language, nor-
mally French. Given France’s language policies, it might seem initially
striking to note the existence of 511 signs where no translation into
the national standard is provided. One reason for the prominence of
Corsican in the public space is the use of the Corsican term for the
island, ‘Corsica’ (in comparison with the French term ‘Corse’), which is
exploited on items as varied as product stands, tourist advertising slogans,
Table 7.1 Signs featuring RLs and the national languages in the six areas

Areas Total no. Signs featuring Signs featuring Signs featuring Signs featuring
surveyed of signs the regional the regional the regional and the national
language language alone other languages language

Corsica 9 122 591 6.5% 511 5.6% 80 0.87% 7 765 85%

Northern 8 160 126 1.5% 71 0.87% 55 0.67% 7 401 91%


Catalonia

Marseille 9 909 0 0 0 0 0 0 8 599 87%

Genoa 7 352 55 0.75% 8 0.11% 47 0.64% 6 484 88%

Cagliari 11 379 31 0.27% 9 0.08% 22 0.19% 9 031 79%

Naples 12 724 53 0.42% 11 0.09% 42 0.33% 10 704 84%

117
118 Policies vs Non-Policies

merchandising and official slogans. Although it might be suggested that


‘Corsica’ is the English of Tuscan Italian name of the island, we contend
that, given its resonance in contemporary Corsican life, from the media
to public transport, it is considered a Corsican word and should be coded
accordingly (see Blackwood, 2011 for a full discussion of this point). The
second most widely recorded category of signs was the labelling of prod-
ucts in Corsican, totalling 21 per cent of the monolingual Corsican items.
These labels tended to be brand names which are written in Corsican,
most notably for drinks such as a local beer, ‘Pietra’, whose trademark is
completed by the Corsican words ‘A Biera corsa’ (‘Corsican beer’), or the
non-alcoholic drink ‘Corsica-Cola’, which employs the Corsican, rather
than the French name of the island. The use of a regional language in
a trademark does not contravene the strict measures of the Toubon law,
which requires a translation of product information, but not of the brand
name, where possible and feasible into French. To this extent, state lan-
guage policy has no impact on the use of the regional language.
This extensive use of a regional language in brand names and label-
ling does not find an echo in any of the other corpora. Whereas a small
but significant proportion of businesses on Corsica choose to use the
regional language in the labelling of their produce, no labels using any
of the other regional languages (either alone or with another language)
were recorded in the five other surveys. The use of the Corsican lan-
guage on product labels, especially local, does not only extend to brand
names. Examples were recorded of a product where the contents of
a package was given in both French and in Corsican; for example, a jar
of honey was on sale in one of the survey areas, where the label read
first ‘Miel de Corse’ (‘Corsican honey’ in French), and then below, in the
same font but a different colour, ‘Mele di Corsica’ (in the regional lan-
guage). These kinds of labels conform to France’s language policies. This
practice of using the regional language in labelling, which accounted
for 20 per cent of the monolingual Corsican signs and 5 per cent of the
multilingual signs, anchors the product in the island’s cultural heritage.
This is an exemplification of Spolsky and Cooper’s Sign Rule 3 (1991,
p. 84), which is where signs are written in a language with which the
product, in this case, is to be identified. In other words, Corsican-ness is
indexed by the use of the Corsican language on labelling as if to guaran-
tee its authenticity as a product of the island (see Figure 7.1).
Closer examination of the monolingual Catalan signs shows that
the position of this regional language is sustained by individuals and
small businesses, the categories that typify bottom-up forces identified
by Ben-Rafael et al. (2006). Of the signs recorded, 126 feature Catalan,
Robert Blackwood and Stefania Tufi 119

Figure 7.1 Jars of honey with bilingual labelling

35 of which (28 per cent) are top-down. If we examine monolingual


Catalan signs, the explanation for the presence of the regional language
becomes more striking. Of the 71 monolingual signs, only three of
the monolingual Catalan signs were top-down: two street names and
the name plaque outside a school. To comply with language policies, the
street names were also provided elsewhere on the street in French. In
terms of bilingual signs, public bureaucracies do place the regional lan-
guage in the urban environment, but normally in accordance with the
state’s language policy. Catalan appears on 33 signs with French, where
the majority (30 signs) are top-down. Of this sub-corpus of bilingual top-
down signs, 15 signs are street names, and 11 are the city’s bilingual logo
(discussed in Blackwood, 2010, pp. 298–99). It is fair to argue, therefore,
that in Northern Catalonia, the top-down forces are scrupulous in ensur-
ing compliance with France’s language policies, but that the majority of
signs featuring the regional language are bottom-up.
Over the 20 sites in the LL survey of Marseille, no signs were recorded
of a traditional minority language of France, although there were signs
in a dozen languages in addition to French. The minority language most
closely identified with Marseille, Provençal, did not feature at all on the
120 Policies vs Non-Policies

city’s walls. In part, this can be explained by the status and vitality of
Provençal, since, first and foremost, it can be considered to be a rural
language of the wider Provence area, rather than an urban variety (see
Sibille, 2003). Given that Marseille is France’s second city, it is possibly
unsurprising that a language identified with the countryside does not
appear on signs an urban centre.
In Genoa, eight of the 55 signs were monolingual, four were commer-
cial, two were stickers, one was an example of graffiti, and one was a ZE
sticker (for ‘Zena’, Genoa in Genoese). In the rest of the signs, Genoese
appeared either with Italian (17 signs), with English (three signs) or
with both Italian and English (27 signs). With the exception of the ZE
sticker, which appeared to have been issued by the city council, and of
a ‘zenazone’ tourist card, which is a tourist initiative supported by the
city council, all signs were bottom up. In addition to the two instances
mentioned above, Zena appeared in six more signs: in three shop signs
(a greengrocer’s, a restaurant and a cocktail bar), on a T-shirt displayed
in a shop window and on two stickers advertising a restaurant bar
which targeted young people. It can be argued that these are examples
of recent attempts of city re-branding, following the efforts undertaken
by the local administration to maximize the tourist appeal of the city
on the occasion of Genova 2004, European City of Culture. The zenazone
tourist card in particular was introduced early in 2005 and shows a con-
scious decision to exploit the city’s linguistic heritage as an essential
element of the city’s identity and the community’s cultural capital.
Sardinian featured on 31 signs, nine of which were monolingual, of
which six were examples of graffiti, two were information signs (trans-
lating no smoking into the regional language), and one was a Sardigna
Natzione sticker for a local political party (Figure 7.2).
The signs including Sardinian also featured Italian (15 signs), English
(four signs) and both Italian and English (three signs). With the excep-
tion of two road signs in Sardinian and Italian, all were bottom-up
signs. It could be suggested that the fact that Genoese is more visible than
Sardinian reflects a reluctance to embrace the recent rediscovery of dia-
lects and minority culture on the part of the economically more periph-
eral regions of Italy, such as Sardinia. Paradoxically, the Genoese have
almost forgotten their dialect, but they appear more comfortable dis-
playing it. On Sardinia, over ten years of institutional bilingualism
sanctioned by the regional law 26/1997 and by national legislation on
minority languages, on the other hand, do not seem to have encour-
aged any remarkable traces in the local LL. Official uses of Sardinian
were virtually absent from the LL of Cagliari and its metropolitan area.
Robert Blackwood and Stefania Tufi 121

Figure 7.2 Sticker for the Sardigna Natzione political party

Neapolitan appeared on 53 signs, of which 11 were monolingual: two


were shop signs and nine were texts such as poems, proverbs and say-
ings displayed on shop windows, often as items for sale. In the remain-
ing signs, Neapolitan appeared alongside Italian (37 signs) and Italian
and English (five signs). All signs were bottom-up. It is interesting to
note on the one hand the folkloristic intent of the monolingual signs
in Neapolitan, and on the other the weight of the literary and cultural
tradition. Both elements testify to the status of the language and to the
familiarity it enjoys outside the regional context. This type of cultural
capital can be exploited by as publishers, who can rely on a niche
readership in Neapolitan, but also by institutions. The Napolimania
campaign, introduced to encourage the use of public transport, is in
fact run by the local public transport authority in conjunction with the
company which produces signs in or including Neapolitan (Azienda
Napoletana Mobilità, 2006; see Figure 7.3).
Although the Napolimania signs are not included in the surveyed
data (they are displayed on buses), they are top-down insofar as they
are an initiative of the local council. The use of Neapolitan, Italian and
English in the campaign legitimizes Neapolitan as a competitor in the
local linguistic market. This is reinforced by the presence of other signs
122 Policies vs Non-Policies

Figure 7.3 Sign in Neapolitan displayed on bus as part of the Napolimania


campaign

featuring Neapolitan, which reflect a wider use of the dialect by a range


of actors for a range of functions. Neapolitan was also used on hand-
made political posters displayed on the occasion of a demonstration
organized by the unemployed in April 2009.
The regional languages identified in the three surveys often have
a problematic relationship with an almost exclusively dialectal past
which is synonymous with social stagnation and backwardness. Within
the perspective formulated in Landry and Bourhis (1997), a significant
difference between the LLs of Cagliari and Naples is that the former
reflects egocentric beliefs, whereas the latter reflects both exo-centric and
egocentric beliefs. In other words, whilst the presence of Neapolitan in the
LL of Naples contributes to and reinforces the cognitive representations
of the out-group (non-Neapolitans) about the vitality of the in-group
(Neapolitans), it also reflects the vitality beliefs of the in-group.
In Cagliari, by contrast, the LL does not reflect the overall objective
vitality of the language group based on demographic, political, economic
and cultural capital (Landry and Bourhis, 1997, 32). The LL of Cagliari
seems to reflect a separation between linguistic and (non-linguistic)
Robert Blackwood and Stefania Tufi 123

ethnic egocentric beliefs. Sardinian is a strong component of regional


identity, but not a core value to be maintained via intergenerational
transmission, as Oppo’s 2007 survey clearly showed. Despite appearing
on a higher number of signs than Sardinian, Genoese in the LL of Genoa
would gain a lower position than Sardinian in the LL of Cagliari on an
egocentric scale. The majority of signs featuring Genoese were graffiti
relating to football and stickers advertising a venue for concerts, drinks
and food. The use of Genoese would therefore reflect egocentric beliefs
of sub-groups which are internal to the in-group. The local administra-
tion’s (top-down) attempts to use the dialect to enhance the city’s tourist
appeal further reinforce this point.

Conclusion

It could be argued that the spread and consolidation of the respective


national languages in France and Italy are the result of different socio-
historical processes where stronger or weaker linguistic policies have had
a role to play. French dominates the LL of the French Mediterranean, as
might be expected given the language policy articulated in the Toubon
law. It is striking to note the relatively negligible presence of the regional
languages that have been traditionally associated with the three French
Mediterranean areas examined here. Similarly, Italian dominates the
LLs of all three areas in Italy, and the pervasive presence of Italian shows
continuity in the tradition of Italian as the primary code to be used in
the public, non-interactive domain. This is not, however, the result of
strictly regulated language policies.
At the regional level, Corsica and Sardinia are arguably the territories
with the widest range of devolved responsibilities, but this is not
reflected in the visibility of the respective regional languages. The
presence of Corsican in the LL is not sustained by the various bodies
and agencies which manage the island’s affairs, such as the Regional
Assembly in Ajaccio, but rather by private individuals and, most notably,
local businesses. Whilst these businesses comply with the language poli-
cies of France, we contend that the extent to which regional languages
are present in the LL of these French and Italian Mediterranean areas is
not governed by policies or non-policies. If on the one hand bilingual
signs from Northern Catalonia represent an instance of compliance
with French policies, on the other most signs displaying Catalan are
bottom-up.
It is a fact, however, that the stigmatization of regional languages,
either carried out explicitly via legislation or implicitly via institutional
124 Policies vs Non-Policies

practices such as educational ones, has had the same detrimental effect
in both countries. To use Spolsky’s terminology, even in the absence
of consistent top-down language management, as in Italy, language
beliefs and language practices have been strongly influenced by what
Fishman (1991, p. 383) calls the systematic delegitimization of minority
culture as anti-modern. The consequent standard/national language
ideology has affected the attitudes and behaviours of individuals, who
are ultimately responsible for language change. This is particularly clear
in Sardinia, where the status of ‘language’ granted to Sardinian arrived
at a time where the islanders’ linguistic behaviour already reflected an
acceptance of the dominant language ideology, possibly in the attempt
to distance themselves from those linguistic habits which symbolize
social stagnation and backwardness. The LL of Corsica, on the other
hand, reveals a more confident use of written Corsican. Whilst recent
educational developments may have encouraged a more widespread
use of written Corsican, the fact that French is not the Dachsprache on
the island (i.e. it is not closely related to Corsican; see Kloss 1967) pro-
vides the sociolinguistic grounds for asserting and expressing cultural
‘otherness’ publicly. Moreover, the public display of the local linguistic
identity is likely to have a remarkable impact when this form of lan-
guage management is exercised by those individuals who enjoy high
economic status and are key players in the local social network, such as
well-known local businesses, as well as local administrative bodies.
Neapolitan cultural operators (e.g. publishers) and part of the
Corsican business community, both significant economic actors, can
be identified as key players. Their contribution to the construction of
the LL, or of its commercial space, however, still relies on and exploits
what constitutes cultural capital, which is the defining element of
regional identity. This can in fact be observed even in the signs featur-
ing Genoese, in spite of the waning use of the regional language in
daily exchanges. Conversely, the lack of identification with an Occitan
regional identity may explain the total lack of Provençal in the LL of
Marseille. In conclusion, qualitative analysis of the data has revealed
that the regional languages considered contribute to the construction
of the respective LLs in different ways, and ostensibly, independently of
policies or non-policies.

Notes
1. For a discussion of the role of immigrant languages in Italian urban contexts,
which to all effects are ‘new’ minority languages, see Tufi (2010).
Robert Blackwood and Stefania Tufi 125

2. For the areas taken into consideration in this study, see regional law 32/1990
for Liguria (Genoa), accessible from http://camera.ancitel.it/lrec/jsp/index.
jsp; regional law 26/1997 for Sardinia (Cagliari), accessible from http://www.
regione.sardegna.it/j/v/86?v=9&c=72&s=1&file=1997026; and the bill (await-
ing approval as of October 2010) for Campania (Naples), accessible from
http://www.consiglio.regione.campania.it/cms/CM_PORTALE_CRC/servlet/
Docs?dir=atti&file=AttiCommissione_4203.pdf.

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8
Two-Way Traffic: How Linguistic
Landscapes Reflect and Influence
the Politics of Language
Guy Puzey

Language policy: Agency and authorship in the linguistic


landscape

The relationship between linguistic landscape (LL)1 and sociolinguistic


situation is a bidirectional one, as the LL can both reflect and influence
the relative power and status of different languages (Cenoz and Gorter,
2006: 67–8). In this chapter, the nature of this bidirectional relationship
will be explored in terms of the politics of language in three European
countries: Norway, Scotland and Italy. Qualitative empirical evidence
will be used to demonstrate how the LL and regional or minority
language policy are intertwined in these three countries, which have
each seen considerable controversy over the use of minority languages
in official signage. In Norway, the case of Sámi will be considered, with
indications that support for this ‘classic’ minority language is now
growing in the majority population. In Scotland, examples will be
shown of the treatment of Gaelic in the LL, particularly in Scotland’s
capital city, Edinburgh. Finally, the Italian case will highlight how the
inclusion in the LL of northern Italian dialects or ‘local languages’,
in particular Lombard, has been a political issue with consequences
beyond the sphere of language policy.
The LL offers an impressive volume of research material. If we con-
sider the LL not to be limited to signs in public spaces but to encompass
all occurrences of written language, then this material extends to all
cultures and all contexts in which written language is present. The LL
need not even be restricted to tactile physical objects or truly physical
spaces, as it could also include the linguistic cyberlandscape. As well as
the broad scope of the field, one of the great values of studying the LL
is the particular insight it gives us into language policy.

127
128 Two-Way Traffic

Spolsky (2004) outlines three components of language policy:


management, practices and beliefs. Language management involves
specifically directed intervention intended to alter or to reinforce the
linguistic situation. This intervention could be carried out by authori-
ties, institutions, private businesses, interest groups or individuals.
Language practices make up the actual exercise of language use in a
society. Of particular interest in language practices are the various
choices that individuals make between different words, sounds, gram-
matical structures, codes or languages. Language beliefs, meanwhile,
consist of the relative values that speakers associate with different
linguistic codes, varieties or linguistic choices. Adopting Spolsky’s tri-
partite model of language policy, Shohamy (2006) further describes the
‘mechanisms’ through which ‘real’ language policy can be seen. This
‘real’ or ‘de facto’ policy may stand in opposition to a ‘declared’ policy,
although formal policy documentation is certainly a part of the process
of constructing the ‘real’ situation. Shohamy (2006, p. 54) locates these
mechanisms as operating ‘at the heart of the battle between ideology
and practice’.
An important distinction has been made between ‘top-down’ and
‘bottom-up’ LL items (Ben-Rafael et al., 2006). The first group consists
of LL units produced at the behest of authorities, while the second is
elements of the LL created by individuals or private businesses. The
top-down LL could be seen as a clear interface between language policy
management and actual language practices. The linguistic composition
of top-down signs is in some countries regulated by law, and explicit
signage policies are worthy of study in themselves, as are the develop-
ment and criticism of these policies. Such rules are, however, no abso-
lute guarantee that all official signs will meet the specifications and,
even where regulations exist, there will often be considerable room
for variations in practice. Such deviations or variations can provide an
insight into the language beliefs of those behind the production of a
specific unit in the LL and may, therefore, tell another story from the
one explicitly displayed in policy documents.
As Spolsky (2009, pp. 30–2) indicates, the production of signs is a
more complicated process than the ‘top-down’/‘bottom-up’ distinction
may suggest, with a number of ‘agents’ including, but not limited to,
regulating authorities, advertising space lessors, sign initiators, own-
ers, makers, readers and objectors. Malinowski (2009) also discusses
the issue of ‘authorship’ in the LL. Here, the primary focus will be on
top-down items, touching on a range of agents and authors involved
at many stages of the linguistic landscaping process. This will include
Guy Puzey 129

the more evident role of state, regional and local authorities, but also
political organizations and individuals objecting to or influencing the
top-down linguistic landscape.
The initial key official LL provisions for the minority languages in
question in the three contexts presented here amounted to the inclu-
sion of minority place-names on some road signs. Although these pro-
visions may be seen as tokenistic, they were neither straightforward to
achieve nor have they been entirely accepted by the local populace. The
struggles to introduce these signs have in each case led to a significant
polarization of language attitudes, as well as paving the way for further
LL developments, with indications that the official use of the minority
languages in the LL may be extended.

Sámi in Norway: Towards acceptance?

Previous studies of northern Norway have looked at the heated debate


regarding the use of Sámi place-names on road signs, especially in the
county of Troms (Pedersen, 2009; Puzey, 2009, forthcoming 2012).
Here, the presence of the Northern Sámi language in the LL of that
county’s administrative centre, Tromsø, will be examined. Tromsø is the
largest settlement in northern Norway and the world’s northernmost
city with a population of approximately 67,000. It is the seat of Troms
County, which has a strong multicultural heritage with Sámi and Kven
populations, not to mention a long history of trade with Russia. Here
we will see how this multiculturalism is reflected in the LL with specific
reference to the use of Sámi, at a time when Sámi linguistic identity is
now being included by some as part of the developing sense of regional
identity in northern Norway (Zachariassen, 2008, p. 134). Although
Tromsø is not part of the Sámi language administrative area, a group
of municipalities where certain linguistic provisions for the Sámi are in
place, Troms County does currently include two municipalities that are
part of that area, and others may become part of that area in the future.
As a major centre of population, Tromsø also serves an even wider area
than Troms County itself, including most of the Sámi municipalities in
the neighbouring counties of Finnmark and Nordland.
In 2006, Troms fylkeskommune (Troms County Council) was given
an official dual Northern Sámi name, Romssa fylkkasuohkan, and this is
mainly used as part of the county logo or corporate identity, so Sámi text
can be found on some county-run buildings. When surveying the LL of
Tromsø in 2007, relatively few of these buildings had Sámi signs, but it
was only one year after the officialization of the county’s dual name.
130 Two-Way Traffic

One place where Sámi text could be found was at schools (Figure 8.1).
Sámi signs first appeared at Troms County upper secondary schools in
2001, five years before the Sámi dual name of the municipality was
officialized. Part of the rationale for installing bilingual signs in schools
across the county was that it would remove some of the pressure from
Gáivuotna-Kåfjord (Sætra, 2001). This officially bilingual municipality
in the east of Troms has been the site of great controversy over bilingual
signage and a correspondingly high incidence of vandalism, although
the storm may now have subsided. Recent research shows how the
‘top-down’ promotion of Sámi, together with ‘bottom-up’ willpower,
has contributed to improving the status of Sámi in the municipality
( Johansen, 2009; Pedersen and Høgmo, 2004).
Sámi road signs are not, strictly speaking, limited to Sámi municipalities.
According to Stadnamnlova (the Place-Name Act) 1990, when place-names
in Sámi or Kven, another minority language, are in use by the resident
population, these should be used together with Norwegian names on
maps, signs, and some other official documents, and this law applies in all
municipalities throughout Norway. In 2001, Tromsø’s mayor Herman
Kristoffersen expressed a desire for Sámi road signs in his city (Glosemeyer,
2001). Although this was potentially in accordance with the Place-Name
Act, the then undersecretary in the Ministry of Culture, Roger Ingebrigtsen,

Figure 8.1 This sign at an upper secondary school in Tromsø includes the
bilingual name of Troms County Council as well as a bilingual name for the
school itself
Photograph by the author, April 2007.
Guy Puzey 131

came out strongly against the idea, saying that it would be ‘ludicrous’ and
leading journalists to believe that, in addition to the criterion of usage of
minority place-names by the local population specified in the Place-Name
Act, there was a further question of these place-names only being used in
the LL ‘where appropriate’ (Lillebo, 2001).
In spite of the mayor’s enthusiasm, Sámi road signs are yet to be intro-
duced in Tromsø, but the municipality has initiated a project to encour-
age the official use of Sámi, especially with regard to building names
and place-names (Olset, 2005). There are signs, for example, inside the
Fokuskvartalet complex, which houses the public library, the city hall
and a cinema, that feature the Sámi words for ‘library’ and ‘city hall’
in a secondary position compared to the Norwegian terms (<Bibliotek /
Girjeájus> and <Rådhuset / Rád−eviessu>). The signs outside the build-
ing, however, are monolingual. Another example of the use of Sámi
by the municipal authorities can be found outside the cathedral, in
Richard Withs plass, where there are several trilingual Norwegian/Sámi/
English signs erected by Tromsø municipality’s park and roads service
that read <Vennligst ikke mat fuglene // Leage siivui ale biepma // Please
do not feed the birds>.
Some of the largest institutions in Tromsø use at least some bilingual
signs. Foremost among these is Universitetssykehuset i Nord-Norge
(the University Hospital of Northern Norway). The Sámi Act of 1987
included the right to local and regional health services in Sámi in the
Sámi administrative area, and this is the regional hospital for most of
the residents of that area. The hospital was the first large public building
in northern Norway to use systematically bilingual signs. A typograph
produced Sámi characters especially for the project, and great effort was
put into translating the Norwegian medical terminology for the signs.
Harald Gaski and Nils Jernsletten were given the task of devising new
words and trying to avoid the use of loanwords from Latin as much as
possible. The only words that were not translated were in abbreviations
common to both languages such as <Lab.> (Pollestad, 1991). Of par-
ticular note were the approximately 1,000 green illuminated emergency
exit signs, reading <NØD UT // HEATTI OLGGOS>, where many other
public buildings in Norway used the English word <EXIT>. These signs
have now become obsolete, as new regulations require emergency exit
signs to include ‘running man’ pictograms (Vik, 2007).
Another institution with strong Sámi credentials is the University
of Tromsø, which has a centre for Sámi studies and even a goahti, or
gamme, a traditional Sámi turf hut, on its campus. The university has
many bilingual signs, but these are not used as thoroughly as at the
132 Two-Way Traffic

hospital. Some cultural institutions or organizations also seem keen


to promote Sámi in Tromsø through the LL, such as the Hålogaland
Theatre, which also seeks to use local Norwegian dialects in its produc-
tions. Its main sign features Norwegian and Sámi text in the same size
characters, with the Sámi text appearing to the left: <HÁLOGALÁTTI
TEÁHTER // HÅLOGALAND TEATER>.
Tromsø was preparing a bid to host the Winter Olympics in 2018,
although this bid was aborted. Sámi identity was an important part of
the candidacy, as could be seen in the bilingual logo text outside the
committee offices (reading <Tromsø 2018 // Romsa 2018>), and the
bid had the support of the International Sámi Council. A Sámi resource
group was set up for the bid, and they made specific recommendations
to increase the visibility of Sámi design and language through a design
programme to include ‘signage of arenas, buildings and transport arter-
ies’. The group also suggested that the sports arenas should be given
bilingual names and, interestingly, they stated that they saw Sámi ‘words
and place-names’ as a ‘visual resource’ that could inspire the entire look
of the Games (Tromsø 2018 AS, 2007, pp. 13–14).
The language management developments in northern Norway indi-
cate that many local top-down actors see the value of Sámi in the LL for
the strengthening of regional identity, whereas some top-down actors
on the national level act in a restrictive capacity. In practice, the grad-
ual extension of bilingual signage to a variety of institutions and the
increased use of bilingual corporate identities does show an increasing
local acceptance of the role of Sámi as a minority language symbolic of
the North Calotte region, following the earlier controversies over bilin-
gual road signs in the peripheral municipality of Gáivuotna-Kåfjord. It
seems that the debate generated by those controversies, which featured
heavily in the national media, may have influenced a positive reassess-
ment of the beliefs held by many about the purposes behind the use of
Sámi in the LL.

Gaelic in the linguistic landscape of Scotland

Previous LL studies of Scotland have looked at policies concerning the


use of Gaelic on road signs, and the language attitudes that have been
demonstrated in the debate over the recent extension of bilingual signage
(Hicks, 2002; Puzey, 2009, 2010, forthcoming 2012). A small number of
bilingual English-Gaelic road signs were introduced to parts of mainland
Scotland and the Isle of Skye from the mid-1970s, in part as a reaction
to campaigning by language activists, which was in turn inspired by the
Guy Puzey 133

successful campaign for bilingual road signs in Wales. More bilingual


signs appeared over the next couple of decades, on main roads and on
street nameplates in towns and villages. Highland Council was given
blanket authority to use bilingual signage on all the roads under its man-
agement in 1999, and in January 2003, the Scottish Executive announced
a major programme to introduce bilingual signage to seven trunk roads
in the north and west of Scotland. The bilingual content of these new
signs is generally restricted to place-names, but their design features a
highly developed and consistent mechanism of language differentiation.
Gaelic and English forms of place-names are shown in the same typeface
and the same size, with Gaelic place-names above the English but in a
slightly less prominent colour. This represents a great step towards greater
language parity while, at the same time, contributing to reducing reading
times (Puzey, 2010, pp. 80–1). The use of colour to differentiate between
the two languages is similar to the use of different colours for Greek and
Roman script on road signs in Greece (Baines and Dixon, 2003, p. 34).
There have been quite strong public reactions to the use of Gaelic
place-names on road signs, especially in the area of Caithness, where
some local councillors have called for their area to opt out of Gaelic
signposting (Puzey, 2009). The introduction of bilingual signs on any
further trunk roads is currently being held back pending the findings of
a three-year research project on the effects of bilingual signs in Scotland,
commissioned by Transport Scotland, the Scottish Government agency
responsible for the management of trunk roads, and carried out by TRL,
a company based in Berkshire, England (Ross, 2009).
Gaelic is used more extensively on road signs in the Western Isles,
often monolingually without English text, or bilingually with the
Gaelic and English forms of place-names written in the same typeface
and colour, usually with Gaelic first and English second, and often with
the English text in a much smaller size. There is some inconsistency in
sign design on the Western Isles, however, with an occasional use of
all-upper-case text on direction signs, which is generally avoided on the
United Kingdom mainland.
The Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005 created an official body
for the development of Gaelic, Bòrd na Gàidhlig, which is entitled to
require public bodies to draw up Gaelic Language Plans. The Scottish
Government, as the Scottish Executive now styles itself, launched a con-
sultation on its Draft Gaelic Language Plan in 2009. The graphic design of
the consultation document itself was based around a road sign motif, so
it was clear that policy makers see bilingual signs as an important symbol
of official efforts to support the Gaelic language. There were many aims
134 Two-Way Traffic

stated in the document that relate to linguistic landscaping, such as to


‘increase the use of Gaelic in external and entrance signage’ (Scottish
Government, 2009a: 37). In the 48 responses to the consultation, one of
the main concerns that was raised regarded perceptions of the Scottish
Government’s linguistic identity and provision of bilingual road signage
as ‘inadequate’ (Scottish Government, 2009b). This reinforced the con-
sideration made by the Council of Europe’s Committee of Experts on the
UK’s implementation of the Charter for Regional or Minority Languages
in 2007 that the Scottish Executive’s undertaking in terms of bilingual
signage was only ‘partly fulfilled’ (Council of Europe, 2007, p. 42).
In the bottom-up domain, companies in the Highlands and Islands
that wish to use Gaelic on signs or other promotional materials can
apply for financial support of up to £2,000 from Comunn na Gàidhlig,
an organization that exists to strengthen Gaelic across Scotland. High-
profile bilingual signage was introduced at ski centres at Glencoe,
Glenshee, the Lecht and at Nevis Range in 2009. With the busy ski season
of 2009–2010, Comunn na Gàidhlig took the opportunity to conduct a
survey of the general public, composed both of face-to-face interviews
at the Nevis Range ski centre and online questionnaires. From a total of
250 submissions, 69 per cent supported the bilingual ski centre signs,
20 per cent were indifferent and 11 per cent were against. Furthermore,
over three-quarters of those questioned thought that reverting to
English-only signs would be ‘a retrograde step’ and could be seen as
‘a snub to Gaelic and to wider Scottish culture’ (Comunn na Gàidhlig,
2010). These findings show that the negative views evidenced by many
letters to local newspapers and, not least, by the actions of councillors in
Caithness, appear to be at odds with the general public feeling.
In Scotland’s capital city, Edinburgh, there is not a large amount of
Gaelic in the LL. This minority language is, however, visible in various
places, including a motto on a war memorial and in a few hot spots,
including at Tollcross Primary School, where Gaelic is taught, and at
Greyfriars Kirk, where Gaelic services are held. At the University of
Edinburgh, the department of Celtic and Scottish Studies has imple-
mented bilingual signage both externally and internally. Other exam-
ples can be found at the Scottish Parliament and the offices of the
Scottish Government.
In addition to fairly comprehensive bilingual signage inside and out-
side the Parliament buildings (Figure 8.2), there are also artworks there
featuring text in English, Gaelic and in Scots, such as the Canongate
Wall, a long exterior wall dotted with stones inscribed with proverbs or
quotations, featuring the three languages. To mark the tenth anniversary
Guy Puzey 135

Figure 8.2 Clockwise from top-left: Bilingual signage outside the Scottish
Parliament; an ‘international gateway’ hoarding at Edinburgh Airport; a
bilingual poster advertising BBC Alba in Roseburn Terrace, near Murrayfield
rugby stadium
Photographs by the author, March 2009/September 2008/September 2010.

of the Parliament in 2009, two new quotations were added: one in


English and one in Scots (Scottish Parliament, 2009). This brings the
current composition of the wall to seventeen quotations in English, six
in Scots and three in Gaelic. Close to the wall, outside Queensberry
House, there is a quotation from the New Testament in Scots inscribed
in the pavement with steel lettering. Outside the main public entrance
to the Parliament, meanwhile, there are two poems by schoolchildren
engraved into the pavement: one in English and one in Gaelic. The
occurrence of Scots primarily only in artworks, where in this case it is
actually used more extensively than Gaelic, is indicative of the general
lack of provision for Scots in the top-down LL.
Like the Scottish Government, the City of Edinburgh Council also
put out its Draft Gaelic Language Plan for consultation in 2009. This
plan included proposals affecting the LL including, for example, plans
for bilingual entrance signs and ‘bilingual “Welcome to Edinburgh”
signage’ at important council offices. Most significantly, though, the
Plan suggests that ‘key visible road signs [could be] produced bilingually
for priority areas’, and that support would be sought from Ainmean-Àite
na h-Alba (Gaelic Place-Names of Scotland), the partnership that exists
to decide on definitive forms of Gaelic place-names for road signs and
136 Two-Way Traffic

official maps (City of Edinburgh Council, 2009, p. 53). Although the


plan covered many other areas of policy, it was the idea of signs that
was the main target of criticism in the local press (Blackley, 2009). In the
summer of 2010, following the public consultation, doubt was cast over
whether the final draft plan would follow through with the original
proposals for language visibility, as it was reported that the consultation
showed a generally negative public response, and the Council was now
citing a lack of funds (Blackley, 2010).
Gaelic can also be visible at national and international transport
nodes. Edinburgh Waverley railway station currently has a small Gaelic
welcome message on its timetable board. The arrivals areas at Edinburgh
Airport also has many ‘Welcome to Scotland’ posters and placards,
commissioned by the Scottish Government, which include a welcome
message in Gaelic in much smaller text (Figure 8.2).
All these examples of Gaelic are from the ‘top-down’ LL. They are
signs installed by public authorities, although the railway station sign
is owned by a private company, Network Rail, operating the railway
station as a public service. A very rare example of Gaelic in advertis-
ing in Edinburgh is actually the work of a top-down organization, the
publicly licensed Gaelic-language television channel BBC Alba, which
used a large billboard poster erected by the advertising company Clear
Channel UK to advertise its rugby programming (Figure 8.2). This was
apparently an attempt to reach out to the wider viewing public, as
code preference was given to English in the main text, even though the
channel broadcasts in Gaelic: <Live Magners Rugby // Rugbaidh Beò>.
The small print detailing the partnership behind the channel, however,
afforded code preference to Gaelic: <Co-bhanntachd eadar MG ALBA
agus am BBC. // A partnership between BBC and MG ALBA>.
There are many fewer examples of Gaelic in the ‘bottom-up’ LL of
Edinburgh, that is to say the private domain, on signs installed by
individuals, private businesses or other private groups. Some do exist
though, and while a few may be well-produced, serious attempts at
bilingualism, others are a little more insubstantial or inaccurate. In the
Old Town, there is, for example, a kilt shop called <Slanj>, an Anglicized
form of the Gaelic slàinte, meaning ‘cheers’, as well as a whisky bar
called <The Albanach>. The second part of this latter name, more com-
monly spelt Albannach in Gaelic, means ‘Scot[sman]’ or ‘Scottish’.
The increased use of Gaelic in Scotland’s top-down LL demonstrates
government will for the language to be recognized with greater respect.
The design of bilingual road signs in the north, as flagship LL items,
goes a long way to achieving the aim of equal respect for English and
Guy Puzey 137

Gaelic, but the inadequate language equivalence in other items, such


as the airport ‘Welcome to Scotland’ boards, shows that equal respect is
not always achieved in practice. Sometimes, as with the BBC Alba rugby
advertisement, the expected order of code preference may be reversed in
order to widen the appeal or the awareness of Gaelic services. Although
the Gaelic LL is certainly affecting public language beliefs, and authori-
ties do go through extensive consultation procedures, the persistence of
public negativity fuelled by the media demonstrates that there is still a
long way to go before the public at large accepts the practical implica-
tions of equal respect for Gaelic.

The Northern League’s road sign campaign in ‘Padania’

The LL can often be highly politicized, and this is certainly the case in
northern Italy. The Lega Nord (Northern League) was founded as a polit-
ical party in 1991 as a federation of regional autonomist leagues. This
now makes it the oldest party currently sitting in either chamber of the
Italian Parliament, with the exceptions of the much smaller regionalist
parties the Südtiroler Volkspartei (South Tyrolean People’s Party) and the
Union Valdôtaine (Valdotanian Union). Supporters of the league tend
to protest what they see as interference and high taxes imposed by the
central government in Rome, believing that northern Italy is subsidis-
ing the rest of the country. According to the league’s ethnocentric ideol-
ogy, the north of Italy has sufficient common differences from the rest
of the country to justify a greater degree of autonomy. Their imagined
nation, which they call ‘Padania’, is defined by symbolic boundaries
based around ‘sets of polar oppositions’ and ‘criteria of purity’ (Tambini
2001, pp. 18–19). One important symbol of these boundaries are the
dialects, or local languages, of ‘Padania’. League activists have been dia-
lectizing Italian place-names on road signs since the league movement’s
beginnings in the 1980s. The usual method employed in, for example,
Lombardy involves deleting the vowel endings of the Italian names,
either by painting over them with the movement’s own ‘Padanian’
shade of green (Figure 8.3), or by covering them with league stickers. On
municipal boundary signs, stickers are also often added below the place-
name, proclaiming ‘Padania’, ‘Repubblica Padana’ (Padanian Republic)
or the invented country code ‘PDN’, in green letters.
Some of these actions could be regarded as part of what members of the
league’s youth wing call their ciulade. This dialect expletive here implies
spontaneous, clandestine and rebellious actions, in the case of the league
usually painting slogans on roadside walls, and often carried out under
138 Two-Way Traffic

Figure 8.3 Clockwise from left: A direction sign in Luino defaced with green
spray paint and the label of a beer bottle to dialectize four place-names; an offi-
cial dialect sign beneath the municipal boundary sign at Cittiglio; a boundary
sign at Induno Olona defaced to remove the dialectal place name. The lower
plate on the latter sign originally read: <INDÜN // Loco duno (sec.XIII)>, the
second line referring to the name as attested in the thirteenth century
Photographs by the author, December 2006.

the cover of darkness. The youth wing, the Movimento Giovani Padani
(Young Padanians’ Movement), has a section of its website dedicated
to these ciulade, with several hundred photographs uploaded of graffiti
slogans (Movimento Giovani Padani website). There are many differ-
ent slogans shown, some in a form of dialect, such as <MEI ‘N DI DE
PADAN CHE CENT’ AN DE ‘TALIAN> (‘Better one day as a Padanian than
one hundred years as an Italian’), from Appiano Gentile, near Como.
Interestingly, there are no examples of road sign graffiti shown on this
website section, which may indicate that road sign actions are deemed
to be more serious in nature than other graffiti. The league’s graffiti
actions seem to have had the support of the party leadership, and the
party founder Umberto Bossi has called walls the ‘libro dei popoli’ (book
of peoples) (interviewed in Costantini, 1994, p. 216).
From the late 1990s, some municipalities under league administra-
tions began to erect official dialect signs. As the Italian Codice della Strada
(Road Traffic Act) did not allow for signs in languages other than Italian
Guy Puzey 139

outside officially bilingual areas such as Südtirol or Valle d’Aosta, at least


one Mayor was fined by the Carabinieri for putting up such signs. The
new Road Traffic Act, passed during Berlusconi’s second term in 2003 by
the ruling coalition that included the league, now allows for authorities
to use regional languages on municipal boundary signs together with
Italian. Normally, this might amount to the name of the place in ques-
tion, usually on a small plate, beneath the main sign with the standard
Italian place-name (Figure 8.3).
This promotion of dialects in the LL has been highly successful in gar-
nering free publicity for the party, but it does not seem to have inspired
greater respect for dialects outside the ranks of the Northern League.
With their recognition on official road signs, dialect place-names might
have lost their possibly subversive connotations to become instead part
of local ‘(banal) folklore’ (Dal Negro, 2009, p. 210). The signs have been
quite strongly opposed by some, however, and in a few cases, there
have been backlash graffiti campaigns to Italianize official dialect signs
(Figure 8.3). This reaction would appear to be due in large part to what
the league represents more broadly. The league is namely a challenger
to the integrity of the Italian Republic and also the most outspoken
large anti-immigration party in Italy, as well as being part of the current
Berlusconi government.
Some towns and villages in northern Italy have streets or other urban
spaces with names in dialect. It is still relatively unusual to see these names
on signs, but there are a growing number of such dialect street names.
The examples to be mentioned here are all in the Province of Varese, in
Lombardy, the traditional heartland of the league and the native province
of Umberto Bossi, the party’s leader.
Many (re-)dialectizations of street names seem to be motivated by
a place’s traditional or ethnographical significance. In Ferno, Piazza
del lavatoio, the washhouse square, was renamed in dialect Piaza dul
lavatoi (Varese News, 2001). Other examples demonstrate that, while
a large number of Italians speak dialects, their use of dialects as writ-
ten languages can often be unconfident. A road running between the
small town of Luino and the village of Germignaga has been named,
at least on the marble street nameplate on the side of Luino, <VIA //
DEL BRICC>, in imitation of the traditional dialectal name. This name-
plate appears to have been installed following the renovation of this
road early in the last decade. Bric, pronounced /brik/, is a dialect word
indicating a craggy or steep place, but it is usually spelt with just one
‘c’. According to the usual orthography of the local dialect in question,
bricc ending in two ‘c’s would be pronounced /brit∫/. The marble street
140 Two-Way Traffic

nameplate therefore indicates uncertainty regarding dialect spelling on


the part of the sign designer, as well as the influence of standard Italian
spelling. Another new map-type roundabout approach sign nearby
shows the same street’s Italian name as <via ponte Bricco>: ponte mean-
ing ‘bridge’. It is conceivable that the designer in that case felt com-
pelled to use standard Italian on a sign of more modern design.
Other changes linked to the league’s toponomastic campaign are
much more overtly political in nature. Apparently spurred on by moves
to introduce signs in dialect, the local league administration in Cassano
Magnago changed the name of Via Salvador Allende to Via vecchia villa
(Old Villa Street). Piazza Palmiro Togliatti, named after the longest-
serving leader of the Partito Comunista Italiano (Italian Communist
Party), was renamed Piazza Lega Lombarda (Lombard League Square).
The Lombard League was a medieval alliance of northern Italian city
states, but it also happens to be the name of the Lombard section of
the Northern League. This name change was cited in a written ques-
tion to the Italian Prime Minister, Regional Affairs Minister and Interior
Minister by senators Gianfranco Pagliarulo, Luigi Marino (both of
the Partito dei Comunisti Italiani (Party of Italian Communists)) and
Angelo Muzio (Verdi – l’Ulivo (the Federation of the Greens, affiliated
to the Olive Tree coalition)). They called for a judicial response to these
name changes, describing them as part of a series of incidents, includ-
ing the enforced display of crucifixes in classrooms in municipalities
such as Cassano Magnago, which represented a ‘climate of intolerance’
(Pagliarulo, Marino and Muzio, 2002, p. 22).
When the league put forward a motion for signs in dialect in the
town of Gallarate, their coalition partners from the right-wing Alleanza
Nazionale (National Alliance) submitted their own proposal to delay
the league’s dialect signs, reasserting their position in the municipal
coalition while at the same time unsettling the left-wing opposition.
Alleanza Nazionale proposed to rededicate Largo Togliatti to the memory
of what they called the ‘Martiri di Istria e Dalmazia’ (‘Martyrs of Istria
and Dalmatia’) (Rotondo, 2003). This name refers to Italians killed by
Yugoslav partisans in the 1940s in incidents that the left had for many
years largely ignored. There had already been an attempt by a league
mayor in 1995 to rededicate this urban space, which is little more than
a traffic island at the junction of Corso Sempione and Via Bolivia, to Pope
Paul VI (Raffo, 1995). In the end, Largo Togliatti stayed, but a new street
will eventually be named after the so-called Martyrs (Raffo, 2003).
The league’s prolonged campaign has strongly influenced LL man-
agement to the point that official dialect boundary signs have become
Guy Puzey 141

relatively common. This has gone some way to rectify the otherwise
almost total absence of Western Lombard dialects in the LL as docu-
mented by Coluzzi (this volume). As a result of the league’s prolonged
campaign, however, the use of dialects in the top-down LL of northern
Italy is generally associated with that specific political movement, and
this association will continue to limit acceptance of the initiative and
may have a negative long-term effect on language beliefs.
Just across the border from Lombardy, in the Italophone Swiss canton
Ticino, a number of places have monolingual dialect street names, but
that this is not seen to threaten national integrity means that it has
not generated the same controversies we see in northern Italy. Monte
Carasso, for example, has entirely monolingual official dialect street-
names, and the name change there was agreed to unanimously by local
councillors, which would be almost unthinkable over the border in
Lombardy (Puzey, 2009, p. 824).

Linguistic landscapes between nationalism, technocracy


and language capital

With the strong links that exist between the LL and linguistic iden-
tity, the use of minority languages in the LL often inevitably becomes
entwined with either affirmative or antagonistic feelings towards
nationalism, micro-nationalism or regionalism. LL items are in many
cases classic instances of what Michael Billig (1995) calls ‘banal nation-
alism’. This term is, however, increasingly seen to be misleading. It is
quite possible that Billig intended the concept to be broadly defined, as
‘banality’ can have many meanings, and instances of banal nationalism
can range from the mundane to the extreme or exotic. The most frequent
interpretation of the concept has tended to focus on the mundane, but
a more nuanced view can see the everyday symbols of nationalism as
key instruments for understanding the actual experience of nationalism
and of politics. Furthermore, such symbolism is by no means beyond
state influence and can become a battleground for those who wish to
challenge existing power structures, as has been shown in the case of
the campaign for bilingual signs in Wales (Jones and Merriman, 2009).
As a symbol of ‘banal’ linguistic nationalism, LL is therefore central to
the understanding of individuals’ everyday experience of the politics of
language and of language policy.
While the top-down domain of LL can demonstrate how authorities
wish to portray a local linguistic situation, the alignment of the bottom-
up domain can certainly reflect how much that portrayal is accepted by
142 Two-Way Traffic

the general population. For example, while the use of Gaelic is minimal
in the bottom-up LL of Edinburgh, it is still more visible than Sámi is in
the bottom-up LL of Tromsø. This may be due to the fact that Gaelic is
more established as part of the Scottish national identity that tourists,
in particular, expect to encounter, and it is especially in establishments
aimed at tourists that Gaelic can be found. Sámi is, however, certainly
on its way to being recognized in a similar capacity, as demonstrated
by the proposals for its extensive use in connection with the cancelled
Tromsø 2018 Olympic candidature, although that may be seen prima-
rily as a top-down organization. Tourism in the area of northern Italy
described here is not primarily of a cultural sort. Dialects there are
opposed to the dominant cultural identity as outsiders see it, while at
the same time part of the cultural identity recognised by local residents.
Any use of dialects in the local bottom-up LL is, consequently, aimed
squarely at local residents, for example in advertisements for local dia-
lect publications or the names of local cultural festivals.
In understanding the dynamics of all three cases described here, the
matter of authorship (Malinowski, 2009) is an important one. When it
comes to ‘top-down’ signs, the state or authorities may often be seen as
the authors, but the stage of authorship is complex and multifaceted in
itself. The top-down authority can be at the same time the regulating
authority, sign initiator, owner and, occasionally, the actual designer
and/or maker. Alternatively it may share or delegate, or may already
have had passed down to it some of these steps. I would put forward
that all these stages together can be seen as authorship, so the top-down
author is most often not merely a single body or authority figure.
The case of bilingual road signs on local roads in the Highland Council
area of northern Scotland is a good illustration of the complexity of the
top-down process and of the existence of a multiplicity of authors. The
regulating authority could be seen to be the Ministers of the Scottish
Government, who have inherited this authority from the pre-devolution
Secretary of State for Scotland, who was in turn empowered by the United
Kingdom Government. The sign initiator for these local road signs is the
Highland Council, which is also the sign owner. The designer could be
within the Council’s Roads and Community Works department, but
the base design of UK road signs depends on the UK-wide Department
for Transport, and the design of Gaelic signs has been influenced by
research carried out by private transport consultancies and laboratories
under contract from Transport Scotland, a Scottish Government agency.
The definitive forms of Gaelic names to be used on the signs are pro-
vided by the Ainmean-Àite na h-Alba (Gaelic Place-Names of Scotland)
Guy Puzey 143

partnership. The actual sign may then be made by a private local firm
and installed by council workers.
The top-down authorship process is therefore subject to intense techno-
cratic pressures and engineering considerations as well as market-driven
economics: the privatization of formerly state-owned bodies means that
private enterprises also play a role in the process, especially in the UK.
This becomes particularly clear in the case of signage in public places
such as railway stations, where the sign initiator and owner has now gone
from being a public body to a private one, but could still be considered
a top-down agent. The LL can therefore provide a unique insight into
the influence of technocracy, as well as economics, on language policy.
The top-down process of introducing Sámi to signs in Norway also often
encounters obstruction at various stages of the authorship process. When
certain municipalities request bilingual signs, as is their right, it can take
Statens vegvesen (the Public Roads Administration) a very long time to
install them (Pedersen, 2009, p. 42). This shows that the top-down author
can also object to their own intervention in the LL, in addition to the
opposition signs might encounter among their readers.
In Italy, meanwhile, the top-down process is subject to the intentions
of specific political groups that have gone from the role of objectors,
altering official Italian signs, to being the initiators of official dialect
signage. The political intentions of the Northern League, however,
mean that the signs may serve more to publicize their party and to
legitimize their claim to certain territories than they serve to contrib-
ute towards the protection and development of dialects as minority
languages. Those who object to the use of minority languages on signs
in other countries, such as Norway or Scotland, often put forward
technical or economic arguments, and this applies both to members of
the public and reluctant participants in the top-down authorship proc-
ess. In northern Italy, however, the rationale put forward by objectors
to the official use of dialects is of an overwhelmingly political nature
and mostly ignores any potential technical or economic counter-
justifications.
Deeper investigation of the true functions of different ‘top’ and ‘bot-
tom’ agents, and of how these agents perceive their own roles, would
help to improve our understanding of the linguistic landscaping process
and its dynamics.
For the promotion of minority languages, in particular, greater visibil-
ity through the appropriation of new spaces or increased prominence
within the LL is a fundamental step towards greater recognition. As the
appearance of minority languages in the LL so often inspires debate and
144 Two-Way Traffic

frequently becomes a major topos of language activism or campaigning,


it can act as a catalyst for challenging negative stereotypes or old preju-
dices and for other developments of direct benefit to the language.
In Norway, the initial use of Sámi on road signs and the strong reac-
tions this caused seem to have contributed to a re-evaluation of language
beliefs for some, and an increased use of Sámi in the LL, as with the sign
at the school in Tromsø and the plans for the Tromsø 2018 Olympic
candidacy. In Scotland, the reactionary response by some to the use
of Gaelic on signs has also led to debate which may help to improve
attitudes towards Gaelic, and there have even been direct benefits for
corpus planning, as the body Ainmean-Àite na h-Alba was set up spe-
cifically to select definitive forms of Gaelic names for signs and maps.
In Italy, the introduction of dialects to the LL may have contributed to
improving the status of dialects as far as the authorities are concerned
but, in the eyes of the public, the demand for the use of dialects on signs
had already become intrinsically linked with the Northern League. As a
locus for this party’s activism, the LL would also become a catalyst for
further changes to the political landscape.
The kinds of information shown in a given minority language in
top-down signage can be an important indication of the true scale of
official provision for these languages. On road signs, for example, it is
generally only place-names that appear in Sámi, Gaelic or Lombard, not
standard informational text, although most information on road signs
other than place-names is now conveyed by pictorial symbols. In Wales,
however, all informational text on road signs, such as details of parking
restrictions or road works, is presented in two languages. The fact often
only place-names are included in official minority language signage
may be indicative of the insufficient extent of official minority language
provision, but place-names have an important identity function, and
so the official use of minority place-names in the LL can be a good first
step towards improving the ‘subjective ethnolinguistic vitality’ (Landry
and Bourhis, 1997, p. 25) of a minority language. By raising the status
of languages and forming more positive language beliefs, inclusive and
well-designed linguistic landscaping can help to redress the balance
between majority and minority languages.

Acknowledgements

For their financial assistance while conducting parts of this research,


I would like to acknowledge the Arts and Humanities Research Council,
the Anglo-Norse Society and the University of Edinburgh.
Guy Puzey 145

Note
1. Direct transcriptions of LL text will be shown between chevrons, with a
double forward slash to mark clearly defined spaces or line breaks, and no
italics for other languages, for example, <No smoking // Défense de fumer>.
All translations are my own unless otherwise stated.

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9
The Revitalization of Basque
and the Linguistic Landscape
of Donostia-San Sebastián
Durk Gorter, Jokin Aiestaran and Jasone Cenoz

Introduction

Efforts at protecting and revitalizing minority languages are a worldwide


phenomenon supported by state, regional or local authorities and by
numerous NGOs. Many of these languages are severely endangered
(Moseley, 2009) and efforts are usually too weak to be successful in safe-
guarding a sustainable future for minority languages. In Europe, indigenous
minority language groups try to develop ways to revive their languages.
Official language policy plays an important role and the Basque language
is no exception.
Over a period of more than 30 years, the regional government of the
Basque Autonomous Community has elaborated a policy to protect and
promote the Basque language. Throughout most of the 19th and 20th
centuries, Basque lost speakers because it was only partially transmitted
across the generations. During the Franco dictatorship (1936–75) the lan-
guage was suppressed and outrightly forbidden to be used in public. This
was a very detrimental period for Basque and the number of speakers
declined severely. After democracy was re-established, a strong reaction
occurred and a general awareness of the need for supporting measures
was spread among activists, politicians, policy-makers and the popula-
tion at large. The language policy in the Basque Country is anchored
in a socio-political context in which language rights are important and
where the concept of ‘normalization’ plays a crucial role. This concept
is used by all regional minority communities in Spain. It refers to status
planning, which has as its goal to make the use of the minority language
in society ‘normal’ again. The minority language has to break through
the hegemony of the majority language, that is, Spanish. In that way the
minority language can become a vehicle for social cohesion and its use

148
Durk Gorter, Jokin Aiestaran and Jasone Cenoz 149

will be taken for granted. Thus a norm is provided for the recognition
and the use of the language for communication purposes. The normali-
zation process includes successful corpus planning by setting language
norms. It has to be taken into consideration that Basque and Spanish
are two distant and unrelated languages. Spanish is a Romance language
which belongs to the family of Indo-European languages, while Basque
is a language isolate of unknown origin.
Efforts by regional and local government agencies to ‘normalize’ the
use of Basque in society are confronted with an omnipresence of Spanish
as the dominant language, the spread of English as an international
language and an increasing presence of languages spoken by immigrants
such as Arabic or Romanian. Among the population at large there is a
basic agreement about the necessity to support the Basque language in
order to secure a future for it. Language policy in the Basque Country
aspires to cover the widest possible range of societal domains. There are
sufficient funds available to spend on language policy. At the same time,
however, the details of the how, when and what of the policy are hotly
debated political issues. The Basque language is one of the few relatively
productive and strong cases in which the number of speakers has started
to grow again. Notwithstanding this trend and the relatively strong lan-
guage policy, UNESCO recently classified Basque as an ‘unsafe’ language
(Moseley, 2009).
The linguistic landscape, understood as the written languages in the
public space, is an area in which official regulations and private initiatives
may cooperate or clash over the use of different languages. In this chapter
we will discuss the negotiation of language policies via the linguistic
landscape. We will show how the display of languages in the public
space is constructed through actions of compliance with new regulations.
We will also depict reactions of resistance to the current dominance of
the majority language. Our analysis is meant to lead to a deeper under-
standing of the interactions between language policy and the actual lan-
guage practices which take place in the linguistic landscape.
Our case study focuses on the city of Donostia-San Sebastián in
the Basque Autonomous Community in Spain. The local policy of the
municipal government is embedded in the wider context of language
policy by the regional government. Today the language policy is robust
and covers all eight stages of the GIDS-scale as defined by Fishman
(1991, 2001) in his model of Reversing Language Shift (RLS). Fishman,
however, warned against ‘reaching too high and losing it all’ in efforts
at reviving a minority language. Or, as Fishman (2001, p. 475) put it
rhetorically in the form of a question: ‘How many languages of atomic
150 The Revitalization of Basque

Figure 9.1 Exterior sign of the CIC NANOGUNE research centre

physics are there really today anyway?’ The supporters of Basque do


not seem to agree, because they want to include at least a minimum of
Basque in any possible sphere of life, including advanced physics. An
illustration is the sign in Figure 9.1 of the ‘CIC NANOGUNE centre’ in
Donostia-San Sebastián.
The text on the sign is a combination of Basque, Spanish and English.
It reads ‘CIC NANOGUNE, nanoscience cooperative research centre’.
The letters CIC are a Spanish abbreviation of ‘Centro de Investigación
Cooperativa’ ( Cooperative research centre). ‘Nano’ is the same in all
three languages, but ‘gune’ is a Basque word referring to place or centre.
The explanatory subtitle is in English, which is also the most commonly
spoken and written language among the international group of research-
ers who work in this building. Most of the signage inside the building
is bilingual Basque-English. This particular display could be replaced by
signs of other research centres that also use Basque designations, com-
bined with Spanish and/or English. Hard-science topics are also dealt
with in Basque in a limited number of articles, books and PhD theses.
At the universities, courses are taught in Basque in the departments of
physics and chemistry. Basque is used in just about any social domain
albeit in some cases to a limited extent (Department of Culture, 2008).

Earlier linguistic landscape research in the


Basque Country

A number of studies on linguistic landscape preceded the research


outcomes we present here. They all focus on the texts on the signs as
Durk Gorter, Jokin Aiestaran and Jasone Cenoz 151

they are encountered in the city streets. These are all empirical studies
where photographs of the signs are part of the methodology. All studies
were carried out in Donostia-San Sebastián, one of the mayor cities in
the Basque Country. The results are relevant for our current work and
we build on them in our analysis of local language policy. We briefly
mention two studies: (1) The comparison of the quantitative linguistic
landscape in two cities: one in the Basque Country and one in Friesland
(Cenoz and Gorter, 2006), and (2) the economic dimension, which
studies use and non-use values of the linguistic landscape (Cenoz and
Gorter, 2009) and the perceptions, preferences and payments of the
inhabitants of the city (Aiestaran, Cenoz and Gorter, 2010).

Languages on the signs


The first study comprises a comparison of one central shopping street
in Donostia-San Sebastián (the Basque Country, Spain) with a similar
street in Ljouwert-Leeuwarden (Friesland, the Netherlands) (Cenoz and
Gorter, 2006). Our research method consisted in taking pictures of the
signs in one street to construct a database for a quantitative analysis.
Our approach was inspired by earlier research in Israel (Ben-Rafael et al.,
2001, 2006).
The two places and their linguistic landscapes are similar: on the
signs we encounter a unique minority language (Basque or Frisian), a
dominant language (Spanish or Dutch), English and sometimes other
languages. The cases are also very different. For example, the strength
of the language policy is not the same and the extent to which the
minority language is taught in schools is distinctly separate (Cenoz,
2009; Gorter and Van der Meer, 2008). The relative presence of the
different languages and the resulting multilingualism in the linguistic
landscape is quite dissimilar. One of the most important findings is the
unequal distribution of the languages on the signs, either on their own
or in combination with other languages. In Figure 9.2, the diagrams
show the variety and the mosaic of languages that one encounters in
the linguistic landscapes in these two situations.
Dutch is clearly dominant, and the presence of Spanish is also strong:
36 per cent of the signs are monolingual and Spanish appears on 74 per
cent of all signs in Donostia, on its own or in combination with Basque
or other languages. The Frisian language is only present in 5 per cent
of all signs (either on its own or in combination with other languages)
and Basque is present in 46 per cent of all signs. Only 22 per cent of
the signs are bilingual Spanish and Basque. The diagrams include both
government signs and private signs.
152 The Revitalization of Basque

Bas&E Bas.Sp&E
2% 10%
Spanish
Dutch
36%
Du&E 53%
Sp&E
31%
6%

Bas&Sp
22% Fri&Du
2%

Other
5%
Other Basque 12%
English
8% English 6% Frisian
4% 3%

Figure 9.2 Languages on the signs in Donostia-San Sebastián and Ljouwert

The publication of these results was an eye-opener for the politicians


and responsible policy makers of the local authority in Donostia-San
Sebastián. For many years they had pursued a policy of systematic bilin-
gual signage for all government signs and they encouraged the use of
Basque in private signage. Their idea was that the percentage of bilingual
signs ought to be (much) higher. This led to a new study of the linguistic
landscape commissioned by the local authority.

The economic dimension: Perceptions, preferences


and willingness to pay
The second study arose in the context of SUS.DIV, a European Network
of Excellence on the theme of sustainable development in a diverse
world. We collaborated with some cultural and environmental econo-
mists and we explored the possibility of applying economic models to
linguistic diversity. We analysed the economic dimension of the linguis-
tic landscape in terms of a model of use and non-use values (Cenoz and
Gorter 2009; Nunes et al., 2008).
One of the applications of this economic approach was to use a
Contingent Valuation Method in an allocation scenario, which means
that we used questionnaires to interview persons about their ideas about
the languages in the linguistic landscape. We wanted to find out about
‘preference structures’ (What languages do they prefer?) and ‘priorities’
(How much is it worth to them?) among the population. We inter-
viewed on the street a sample of 303 local inhabitants of Donostia-San
Durk Gorter, Jokin Aiestaran and Jasone Cenoz 153

Sebastián. This was not a random sample of the local population, as it


obviously depends on who is available (and willing) at a certain time and
day in the public space. Still, even a selective sample can give us some
indications about preferences of local inhabitants for the signs in the
linguistic landscape, the way they perceive the languages on the signs
and the payments they are willing to make for having the signs the way
they want them (Aiestaran, Cenoz and Gorter, 2010).
A remarkable outcome is that the Basque and Spanish speakers do not
differ significantly in their perception of the different languages on the
signs. They agree to a large extent that Spanish is by far the most com-
mon language. This outcome is in agreement with our own quantitative
study of the signs.
Similarly, both language groups agree about the number of languages
they would like to see on the signs. Only a very small group is in favour
of monolingual signs. The differences of opinion are between those
who want two languages and those who want three or more languages
on the signs. Both groups are more or less split even over this issue,
although the Basque speakers in our sample are slightly more in favour
of bilingual signs.
We also discovered some interesting differences between Basque and
Spanish speakers regarding possible payments. We asked them how
they would allocate 100 euros over alternative possibilities. The results
showed that Basque speakers are ready to allocate a significantly higher
amount of money to the signage in the way they prefer, than the
Spanish speakers (Aiestaran, Cenoz and Gorter, 2010). It confirms an
important difference between speakers of minority languages and speak-
ers of dominant languages when it comes to support language policies
for a minority language that is ‘in danger’ of disappearing.

Language policy and linguistic landscape in


Donostia-San Sebastián

In this section we will discuss some of the advantages and disadvan-


tages of the different methods we have used in our research, as well
as describe briefly the current local language policy. Moreover, we will
present some results of the quantitative inventory we made of the city’s
linguistic landscape. We will also look at the effect of the language
policy on the linguistic landscape.
As in other studies of the linguistic landscape, this emerging field is in
search of the most adequate methods. It is our conviction that a combi-
nation of methods (using digital cameras, standardized questionnaires
154 The Revitalization of Basque

and open-ended interviews) is a fruitful way to proceed. By building up


experience over different research projects we have been able to create
a large database for the investigation of the linguistic landscape in the
city of Donostia-San Sebastián.
Our data include a large database of pictures of public signage (approx-
imately 12,000 digital photographs), as well as interviews with local
inhabitants and passing tourists, and discussions with policy makers. We
also carried out an analysis of documents related to the current policy
measures to promote the use of Basque for official and commercial
purposes.
Digital cameras have made it possible, relatively easy and cheap to
collect such huge collections of photographic data. For our first study
in 2004 we collected almost 1,000 pictures of all the signs in one street.
This includes cases where we took two, three or more pictures of the
same sign. In our more recent study of the larger part of the city of
Donostia-San Sebastián, pictures taken in five different neighbourhoods
have been used. In the framework of our studies we also carried out
street-interviews with local inhabitants (N  303) and we spoke to a
similar number of tourists (we will report on those in a future publica-
tion). Moreover, some informal open-ended interviewing was included
with local policy makers about their ideas on the use of languages in
the linguistic landscape.
In addition, we made an analysis of the policy documents of the city.
The most important one is the ‘Plan de Normalización del uso del Euskera
del Ayuntamiento de Donostia-San Sebastián, 4º periodo de planificación
(2008–2012)’ ( The plan for the standardization of Basque in the gov-
ernment of Donostia-San Sebastián fourth planning period (2008–12)).
The fact that it is the fourth planning period demonstrates that the
municipal government already has ample experience with developing
language policy. It is interesting to observe that policy makers have
come to elaborate their policy about the linguistic landscape. Indeed
this aspect has been dealt with in more detail and in a more specific
way than in earlier plans. This may indicate that previous research has
had an impact.
We assume that the linguistic landscape is affected by language
policy but, conversely, the linguistic landscape also affects policy. Sign
practices and policy development stand in a reciprocal relationship to
each other. Our central research question is about how the languages
used on the signs are related to language policy. Is what one sees in the
streets, in the public space, determined by policy decisions, and if so to
what degree and in what ways? In our study we want to find out more
Durk Gorter, Jokin Aiestaran and Jasone Cenoz 155

about the links between the two. Our expectation is that the effects of
the robust language policy to promote Basque as a minority language
are clearly visible in the practices in the local linguistic landscape (see
also Puzey, this volume).
For this study we looked at the regulations and promotional measures
that the official authorities have taken for the use of Basque, either on
its own or side by side with Spanish (or other languages). We also took
into consideration the overt conflict over the presence of languages
as indicated by painted-over signs, although they are seen relatively
seldom. We carried out a quantitative study of different neighbour-
hoods of Donostia-San Sebastián. It included thousands of pictures
and we compiled an annual progress report for the local authority. In
Table 9.1 the main outcomes for Basque in five neighbourhoods are
presented.
The total of the sample comes to about 2,500 units of analysis: an
establishment, shop, bank, real estate agency or bar is counted as one
sign but so is a street sign as well (see Cenoz and Gorter, 2006). There
are some differences between the neighbourhoods. On average less than
half of all the signs have at least some Basque in them. There is some
variation between the different neighbourhoods. In some just over half
of the signs have at least some Basque, but in the (new) city centre
Basque is included in only one-third of the signs. These results demon-
strate that the local language policy does not have the same impact all
over the city.
In general, there is overall agreement between the language plans
of the regional government of the Basque Autonomous Community,
the province of Gipuzkoa and the city of Donostia-San Sebastián. The
current official language policy of the city is laid down in the fourth
language plan (Department of Culture, 2008). The plan contains
a number of general principles. The policy is based on an ‘equality of
both official languages’ (Basque and Spanish). The underlying thought

Table 9.1 Basque on the signs in five different


neighbourhoods of Donostia-San Sebastián
Neighbourhood Signs including Basque (%)
Antiguo 53
Old part 59
Centre 33
Amara 36
Gros 42
156 The Revitalization of Basque

is that ‘Basque [has to be an] integral language of work’, a measure that


has only partially become a reality so far. Other basic ideas in the plans
are that Basque as a minority language needs governmental support so
that it can become a language on the same footing as Spanish.
Another general principle of the plan is to consider ‘the relationship
with the citizens’. There is a concern about the freedom of choice for
the citizens. The language facilities have to be set up in such a way that
citizens can be served in the language of their own choice, either Basque
or Spanish. For that reason, in the past years a lot has been invested in
Basque language courses for civil servants. The policy aims for ‘a change
from formal proficiency to equality (of use of both languages) in prac-
tice’. The overall goal of the plan is formulated as to ‘guarantee the use
of both official languages’ (Basque and Spanish). One of the specific
goals is to have a ‘presence of both languages in the corporate image
and in the linguistic landscape’. Thus the linguistic landscape is explicitly
mentioned in the language plan. This specific goal about the presence
of Basque in the linguistic landscape was not formulated in this way
before.
The most visible outcome of the language plan was, in 2009, the
replacement of all street name signs in the city. The example of the street
signs illustrates some further points of our main research question. We
analysed the details of the implementation of this change in the street
signs and we noticed that a different strategy had been adopted regard-
ing the street signs. In the past, signs used to be bilingual in Basque and
Spanish. The government would use signage in both languages, based
on the idea that both languages are equal. However, when the signs
were renewed this strategy was changed in subtle ways or even aban-
doned altogether. The preferred option now is to use Basque only.
A new pattern has arisen in which signs are preferred in Basque only,
‘whenever possible’. Even though Basque and Spanish are quite distinct
languages, this is possible in many cases because most streets bear the
name of a person, a river or another town. In ordinary conversation, most
streets are referred to by the proper name only (without the addition of
‘street’, ‘avenue’, ‘alley’ or ‘park’). This is reflected in the signs, where the
proper names appear in a larger font and the word ‘kalea’ is added in
smaller lettering (the word is similar to ‘calle’ in Spanish). The result is
that the sign is comprehensible for passers-by.
The examples in the top line of Figure 9.3 illustrate the strategy. In
the past it would be ‘Calle de Arrasate’, now it is Arrasate kalea. Another
interesting example is the name of the street ‘Calle de San Ignacio de
Loyola’ (the founder of the order of the Jesuits who was born in the
Durk Gorter, Jokin Aiestaran and Jasone Cenoz 157

Figure 9.3 Examples of new and old street signs

Basque Country). The street sign was changed into monolingual Basque
as ‘Loiola kalea’. As in most other streets, there is no longer any signage
in both languages. There are a few exceptions in which signs occur in
both languages. The reason seems to be that understanding might be an
issue (e.g. Kale Nagusia and Calle Mayor, the Main Street).
Figure 9.3 also includes the signs of the street where we did our first
study of the linguistic landscape (Cenoz and Gorter, 2003). The name of
the street is ‘Escolta real’ in Spanish (which translates in English as ‘the
street of the Royal guard’). In Basque it is Erregezainen Kalea. In accord-
ance with the language plan, the municipal government has also placed
new signs along the length of this street. In the photograph one can
see first the old signs that were there for almost 30 years: separate signs
both in Spanish and Basque (black lettering on a white background)
which was the common pattern of street signs all over the city. The new
signs with white letters on a dark blue background are on the bottom
of Figure 9.3. Even readers with no knowledge of Basque or Spanish will
notice that the new signs resemble each other more than the old ones.
Perhaps one could even say that the two languages have been brought
closer. The government continues to use bilingual signs only where the
158 The Revitalization of Basque

names of the same street in both languages are somewhat different and
they are also commonly referred to by their Spanish name. Street signs
are an important form of top-down policy because they have been put
there directly by the local authorities. In terms of absolute numbers,
these signs make up a relatively small part of all signs. A much larger
number of signs are related to commercial activities.
Another example shows that not everyone agrees with the govern-
ment signage. An activist has painted over part of the sign that carries
the name of the neighbourhood (see Figure 9.4). The government usu-
ally replaces these painted-over signs quickly and replaces them by the
same bilingual signs or by signs that have more Basque.
The name of a neighbourhood in Spanish is ‘El Antiguo’, but the
obvious Spanish part ‘el’ has been painted over and the form ‘Antiguo’
remains. This is a form commonly used in spoken Basque, but the cor-
rect spelling in Basque would be ‘Antigua’. Probably the person who
painted over the sign did not know this. The resulting form is neither
correct Spanish, nor Basque, but it seems to work as a kind of compro-
mise. The front and the back of the sign are painted over in the same
way. It shows how activism does influence the linguistic landscape.
A last point we would like to make about the language policy of
the government is that it is directed exclusively at promoting Basque

Figure 9.4 The neighbourhood sign of ‘El Antiguo’


Durk Gorter, Jokin Aiestaran and Jasone Cenoz 159

and Spanish. Their main concern is the rehabilitation of Basque, by


providing an equal place to both languages on public signs (and in other
domains). But there are, of course, other languages that are also spoken
in society and present in the linguistic landscape. Those languages have
not been explicitly mentioned in the policy documents. First and fore-
most, there is English. The spread of English comes along with processes
of globalization. English is observable in almost any linguistic landscape
worldwide, at least in commercial signage. A large part can be attributed
to the use of English (or English sounding) brand names. Brand names
can also be in French, Italian or German and a limited number of other
languages that are perceived as more prestigious. In the linguistic land-
scape of Donostia-San Sebastián other languages can occasionally be
seen, such as Arabic, Turkish and Chinese. In the case of commercial
establishments, they seem to be used for their symbolic or identifica-
tion value, more than for an economic prestige value. Along the main
motorway through the Basque Country, which also passes by Donostia-
San Sebastián, there are a number of official signs in Arabic (as well as
Spanish and Basque). These signs point to rest areas intended for drivers
to and from Morocco. We have observed no resistance against these
other languages, unlike in some other places in Europe.

Discussion and conclusion

It seems that our study of the linguistic landscape of Donostia-San


Sebastián (as reported in Cenoz and Gorter, 2006) had an effect on the
language policy of the city. The policy makers were surprised to find out
that Spanish was much more dominant than they expected. Although
it is hard to prove, they seem to have acted accordingly on those out-
comes in the development of new plans.
At the same time, we can observe that the linguistic landscape is affected
by the language policy plan. The replacement of all street signs is the most
obvious example. It is part of a policy change in which the minority lan-
guage is no longer placed on equal footing with the majority language,
but it is given preference where possible. This has led in some cases to
interesting examples of language alternation and blending. Although
Basque and Spanish are unrelated and very different languages, there are
ways to use only Basque in a way that is largely understandable to a popu-
lation that has increasingly learnt Basque at school (Cenoz, 2009) despite
the fact that Basque mother-tongue speakers are a minority.
The linguistic landscape is part of a larger social context in which
tensions between languages exist. The contact and conflict between the
160 The Revitalization of Basque

languages is part of daily life of speakers of both languages. Some have


become activists and defend the right to use the minority language by
painting over signs that do not display Basque (or in their eyes not suf-
ficiently). In this chapter we have focused on street signs placed by the
local authority and we have not discussed private signs or the part of
language policy that is explicitly aimed at the private sector. We only
briefly mentioned that languages such as English, French or Chinese
are also part of the linguistic landscape, but from the point of view
of the government those are ‘non-regulated languages’. But of course
these languages are present, and as such they are an important part of
the linguistic landscape. In earlier studies we saw that a large part of the
population appreciates and even prefers signs written in more than two
languages (Aiestaran, Cenoz and Gorter, 2010). Perhaps multilingual
signage is an item that the government will take into account in a
future version of the language plan.
The right to decide many important policy issues is an important
characteristic of the government of the Basque Country. Therefore,
its language policy is not determined at the central state level, but at
the regional and local levels. However, the Spanish state government
is not altogether without influence. Some Spanish politicians strongly
resist an increase in the use of Basque or other minority languages
such as Catalan or Galician. In political discussions and the public
debate, worries about the future of Spanish in regions such as the
Basque Country, Catalonia and Galicia seem to have intensified in
recent years.
Another important feature of the language policy in the Basque
Country is the availability of enough financial resources. Compared to
most other regions in Europe and elsewhere, the government of the
Basque Country has made sufficient funding available to pursue its
language policy. The policy rests on strong political and public support.
The attitude of the population is favourable to linguistic diversity and
largely accepts multilingualism as a characteristic of the linguistic
landscape (Aiestaran, Cenoz and Gorter, 2010). In many other cases of
minority languages, the predominant discourse may favour monolin-
gualism, but this is not the case in the Basque Country. Needless to say,
there are also outspoken opponents to Basque, and they may voice their
ideas on, for example, different Internet forums, but their opinions do
not seem to influence the policy to any substantial degree.
The language policy has been, among other things, successful in intro-
ducing Basque in the schools on an increasing scale over the past 30
years. Moreover, currently about 40,000 adults take Basque classes every
Durk Gorter, Jokin Aiestaran and Jasone Cenoz 161

year. Those developments are important for the linguistic landscape,


because it implies that texts in Basque can be read and understood by
a large part of the population. Literacy in the minority language has
increased through schooling and is no longer an obstacle as it might have
been in the past. Possible opposition to reading a relatively simple text
such as a street sign in Basque will not find a lot of supporters. A similar
development can be observed in the context of spoken language in for-
mal settings. In the past, everything spoken would be repeated in both
languages by means of a pattern of consecutive translation. Today it is
common to find an alternation of Spanish and Basque, for example in the
speeches of some politicians. They will switch between the two languages
in different parts of the speech without translation. Furthermore, the
regional Spanish spoken in the Basque Country is interspersed with com-
mon Basque words, for example, greetings (kaixo, egun on, agur) or ‘thank
you’ expressions (eskerrik asko, mila esker) thus encouraging acceptance.
Finally, we should observe that the linguistic landscape is constructed in
many ways. Language policy may influence the linguistic landscape, but
there are processes of globalization and factors at a local level that deter-
mine the outcome of the totality of the linguistic landscape.
All in all, when we take a step backwards and look at the Basque
Country, we could call it a laboratory of multilingualism in the public
space. For us, the linguistic landscape is like a workplace for conducting
scientific research. This region resembles a laboratory in as much that it
offers opportunities for observation, for practice and for experimenta-
tion. The public space functions as an additional data resource to obtain
further knowledge about language diversity and about multilingual
processes. Allocation of languages on the signs is not coincidental but
planned. The way the languages are displayed in the public space is not
at random but each sign has been designed and placed. Each sign has
some aesthetic value. It has a meaning and it is designed with the future
readers in mind.
The linguistic landscape is also like a multilingual workplace because
it provides insight in the strength of individual languages. Basque and
Spanish, together with other languages, struggle for visibility. For policy
makers and language activists it is important that Basque becomes
a sustainable language for the future. A strong presence in the linguistic
landscape can contribute to its survival in the long run. Therefore
a change which makes Basque stand more on its own and giving it
a higher functional load for the people who read the signs, can make
the language more important. The paradoxical situation arises that in
this policy, where Basque-only has become an official policy, the mixing
162 The Revitalization of Basque

of Basque and Spanish blurs the lines between the two languages.
Forms of blending appear in the linguistic landscape which did not
exist before. Sometimes the two languages on the official signs become
almost indistinguishable. This is remarkable for two languages that are
linguistically very different.
Backhaus (2009) observes that the linguistic landscape is consciously
shaped by official regulations. Laws, decrees and other rules and regula-
tions shape the linguistic landscape. This does not exclusively apply to
legal measures such as Law 101 in Quebec or the Toubon law in France.
In general, authorities do influence on what passers-by see on street
signs. Shohamy (2006) sees ‘linguistic landscape as a mechanism of lan-
guage policy’. In her view, linguistic landscape is part of the agenda of
language policy studies, despite the fact that researchers did not consider
it in earlier studies. Our case study of San Sebastián in the Basque
Country confirms that language policy studies can no longer neglect
the linguistic landscape as an important element. More attention for the
linguistic landscape can imply a ‘visual turn’ in language policy studies.
In the case of minority languages such as Basque, but also of many
other endangered or non-dominant language groups that are struggling
for survival, we may include the linguistic landscape as what Edwards
(2010, p. 27) calls a ‘domain of necessity’ for language revival. Minority
languages cannot be without a substantial presence in the writing on
the walls of the city. For a language to be revitalized and to secure a
sustained future, it needs to be visible in the linguistic landscape.

Acknowledgements

This study was carried out in the framework of SUS.DIV (Sustainable


Development in a Diverse World), a European Network of Excellence
(Contract No. CIT3-CT-2005-513438), see www.susdiv.org.

References
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and preferences of the inhabitants of the city of Donostia-San Sebastián’. In
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10
All is Quiet on the Eastern Front?
Language Contact along the
French-German Language
Border in Belgium
Luk Van Mensel and Jeroen Darquennes

Introduction

In this chapter we present the results of a composite pilot study on the


Linguistic Landscape (LL) in the French-German language border area in
eastern Belgium, more specifically in the municipality of Eupen (where
German is the official language and language facilities are offered to the
French-speaking minority) on the one hand, and the municipality of
Malmedy (where French is the official language and language facilities
are offered to the German-speaking minority) on the other. In significant
contrast to the ‘Flemish Periphery’ around bilingual Brussels (e.g. Housen
and Janssens, 2009; Janssens, 2002) or the Flemish communities in the
so-called Fourons area (bordering the province of Liège), where language
facilities are granted to the French-speaking population (e.g. Witte and
Van Velthoven, 1999), the communities alongside the French-German
language border in present-day Belgium are hardly ever heard of as loci
of struggle over language use or sites that need to be protected against
‘linguistic colonization’. More generally, the municipalities where
German is the official language or a ‘facility language’ seem to be quite
satisfied with the place they occupy within the federal state that Belgium
has gradually become since the 1960s. In this sense, the privileged situa-
tion of this ensemble of minority language speakers contrasts with many
others that are described in this volume. Typically, the German-speaking
community is represented in Belgian media discourse as ‘no fighters for
“the German cause”’ (DM 19-07-08) and ‘not asking for change’ (DM
29-10-08).1 Such representations feed the belief that language issues only
arise between Dutch-speakers and Francophones in Belgium and that ‘all
is quiet on the eastern front’. To investigate whether this general picture

164
Luk Van Mensel and Jeroen Darquennes 165

of ‘linguistic contentment’ in the eastern part of Belgium is corroborated


in a setting that is potentially loaded with high symbolic value such as
public space, we combine a quantitative investigation into the LL of
the municipalities of Eupen and Malmedy with a qualitative approach,
interviewing shopkeepers and passers-by on their perception of language
use in public displays. Attention is also paid to language legislation and
its implementation in top-down signage. To start with, however, we give
a general overview of the German-speaking areas within the Belgian
political context.

The German language area in Belgium

Due to its turbulent history, the German-speaking area in Belgium


cannot be looked upon as a single unit. From a historical point of view,
it can be divided into two regions that in scientific literature (albeit
not in political reality and in daily life, cf. Nelde, 1979, p. 12) are often
referred to as Old Belgium (Altbelgien) and New Belgium (Neubelgien). Old
Belgium has been part of the Belgian state since it was founded in 1830.
As shown on the map (Figure 10.1), it consists of Old Belgium North (the
Montzener Land), Old Belgium Central (the Bucholzer Ecke) and Old
Belgium South (the Areler Land). New Belgium was ceded by Prussia to
Belgium following the First World War; it comprises New Belgium Eupen
(including the municipalities of Kelmis, Lontzen, Raeren and Eupen),
New Belgium Sankt Vith (including the municipalities of Bütgenbach,
Büllingen, Amel, St Vith and Burg Reuland) and New Belgium Malmedy
(including the municipalities of Malmedy and Waimes).
When merging the historical classification of the German-speaking
areas in Belgium with the current political-administrative units in the
federal Belgian state, the following picture emerges: as parts of the
provinces of Liège (the Montzener Land and the Bucholzer Ecke) and
Luxembourg (the Areler Land), the Old Belgian communities belong to
the French-speaking community (Communauté française de Belgique).
All the New Belgian municipalities are located in the province of Liège.
Yet, whereas Malmedy and Waimes belong to the French-speaking
community, the four municipalities of New Belgium Eupen and the five
municipalities of New Belgium St Vith together make up the official
German-speaking Community of Belgium. This community consists of
approximately 75,000 inhabitants and, like the Flemish and the French-
speaking Communities, has its own parliament and a government with
executive power and authority in matters related to individuals as well
as direct power over cultural matters (including education).
166 All is Quiet on the Eastern Front?

The Netherlands

Northsea

Brussels Germany
1
Eupen
Welkenraedt 4
5
Malmedy

Bucholz St Vith

2 6
(1) Old Belgium North
(2) Old Belgium Central
(3) Old Belgium South Luxembourg
(4) New Belgium Eupen
(5) New Belgium Malmedy
Areler
(6) New Belgium St Vith
France
3

Figure 10.1 The German-speaking areas in Belgium

The political-administrative structure in present-day Belgium with


its nearly 40-year-old division into Communities and Regions is the
result of a slow, consensus-based process of state reforms that was
triggered shortly after the Second World War by civic unrest resulting
from language-related socio-economic differences between Dutch and
French speakers. The Belgian government managed to tone down the
societal conflicts, in which language functioned as a secondary sym-
bol for socioeconomic cleavages, through linguistic legislation. This
legislation was put into force in the 1960s and took care of regulating
language use in education, administration and the workplace according
to the principle of territoriality (Nelde, 1997; Witte and Van Velthoven,
1999). With the language laws of the 1960s, the language boundary was
fixed by law and divided the country into one bilingual area (Brussels
Capital Region) and three monolingual areas (the Dutch-speaking, the
French-speaking and the German-speaking Communities). Because of
the existence of historical Dutch, French and German language minori-
ties alongside the fixed Germanic-Romance language border, Belgian
linguistic policy included protective measures for these border minori-
ties. For the German-speaking Community, this entails that language
facilities are granted to the French-speaking minority that covers about
Luk Van Mensel and Jeroen Darquennes 167

5 per cent of the total population. ‘Language facilities’ also exist for
the historical German minority in Malmedy and Waimes, the size of
which is estimated at approximately 10 per cent of a total population
of approximately 18,500 inhabitants (cf. Bertl, 2004).
From a historical point of view, varieties of German have always been
used by a minority of the inhabitants of Waimes and Malmedy (most
of them residing in or around the town of Malmedy and the village
of Ligneuville) in public, semi-public and private domains of language
use. Especially since the second half of the nineteenth century and
even more so in the aftermath of the First and Second World Wars, the
German language in these areas has been subject to a process of societal
language shift (Darquennes, 2006, 2007). A number of recent pilot
studies (cf. Bertl, 2004; Étienne, 1996) have shown that the process of
societal language shift has had a negative influence on the intergenera-
tional transmission of the German varieties within the autochthonous
German-speaking population. As a result, most children raised in
families belonging to the autochthonous German-speaking minority are
socialized in French and some bilingually in French and German. The
process of societal language shift has also relegated the use of varieties of
German among the autochthonous German-speaking population mainly
to the private sphere. Only in the town of Malmedy and especially in the
community of Ligneuville are German varieties still occasionally used by
autochthonous German-speakers in the public and semi-public sphere.
According to the picture provided by Étienne (1996) quite a few local
shopkeepers, bartenders, bank clerks and public administrations and
services would have the necessary skills in German to carry out a basic
conversation with members of the autochthonous German-speaking
minority. Yet, these German-speakers would either not feel the need to
communicate in German or would consider it as disadvantageous or as
an act that would disturb local ‘linguistic harmony’.
Whether the affluent German-speaking immigrants from Germany in
Malmedy and Waimes (approximately 0.8 per cent of the total popula-
tion) show similar linguistic behaviour is difficult to say due to a lack of
empirical data. It might very well be the case that they show more asser-
tive language behaviour in public and semi-public domains of language
use than the autochthonous population. Bertl (2004), for instance,
reports that the German immigrants rather than the autochthonous
speakers of German would be responsible for the demand for official
documents in German at the level of the local administration. It seems
doubtful, however, that they should have the same possibility to use
German, either in its (regional) standard form or in the form of a local
168 All is Quiet on the Eastern Front?

variety, to the same extent as their counterparts in the German-speaking


Community (where approximately 14 per cent of the population are
affluent immigrants from Germany) who have the opportunity to use a
variety of German in all domains of language use.
The linguistic impact of German immigration on the communities
in Belgium where German has official status (especially the communi-
ties in Malmedy and Waimes) is an issue that is and has been hardly
considered in socio- and contact linguistic research. The same is true for
the linguistic behaviour of the Francophone minority in the German-
speaking Community. Alongside these topics the study of the linguistic
landscape can also be added to the research agenda considering the
German-speaking areas in Belgium (cf. Darquennes, 2006, for an over-
view). Apart from Riehl (2001, p. 45) who briefly describes the use of
German and French in shop windows, road signs and in public adver-
tisements in Eupen, and Horn (2004) who gives a brief account of the
application of the laws regulating the use of languages for place names
in Old Belgium and New Belgium, no contemporary studies have been
dedicated to a detailed and systematic study of the linguistic landscape
in the German-speaking areas in Belgium.

LL along the German-French language


border in Belgium

The LL of a language contact area has by now been proven to be an


interesting locus to study possible attestations of language contact
and conflict (e.g. Cenoz and Gorter, 2006; Puzey, 2007). The potential
symbolic value of written language in the public sphere, as a means of
asserting ownership (Spolsky, 2009), provides an excellent platform to
confirm or resist existing (or presumed) language prestige patterns and
hierarchies. The dynamic range (contrast/dynamics/tension) between
top-down and bottom-up messages, the symbolic vs. the informative
value of the messages, and the creativity of the makers of signs and
the legal constraints imposed upon them, offer a wide range of possible
linguistic artefacts and interpretations. Furthermore, as Backhaus (2007)
points out, the LL provides us with insights into various issues such as
language use, language policies, language attitudes and power relations
between different groups; hence, the LL constitutes a useful addition
to more traditional ways of investigating minority language situations.
In what follows, these issues will be addressed. First, the chapter will
concentrate on language legislation and its implementation in top-down
signage, then we will turn to non-official signage on the streets.
Luk Van Mensel and Jeroen Darquennes 169

Language legislation and its application


As mentioned earlier, the Belgian legislator gave shape to a complex set
of language laws in the 1960s and devoted special interest to linguistic
minorities located alongside the Germanic-Romance language border.
Drawing on Spolsky (2009, p. 31), one could easily argue that for the
whole of Belgium, in general, and for communities with linguistic
facilities (such as Malmedy and Waimes and the whole of the German-
speaking Community), in particular, there is surely no ‘absence of high
level policy’. The legal regulations for the use of French (and German
as a facility language) in Malmedy and Waimes and the regulations for
the use of German (and French as a facility language) in the German-
speaking Community with respect to the use of these languages in exter-
nal communication (including signs) can be summarized as follows:2

At the level of local community services, public announcements, official


communications and official forms that are made public are drafted
in German and French (with a priority for German) in the German-
speaking Community. In Malmedy and Waimes they are drafted in
French. They can, however, also be drafted in German depending on
a decision of the community council. Both in the German-speaking
Community and in Malmedy and Waimes, announcements and
communications for tourists can be drafted in three languages, that
is, German, French and Dutch. The decision to draft them in three
instead of two languages is taken by the community council.
At the level of regional services, a distinction has to be made between
regional services in the sense of the coordinated language legislation
of 1966 and other regional services, namely services of the Regions
and the Communities as established by the 1970 Act.
In the case of the regional services in the sense of the coordinated
language legislation of 1966 (e.g. regional offices of the tax authorities
or the office of the governor of a Belgian province), the regulations are
as follows. The administrative services of which the field of activity
coincides with the German-speaking area (i.e. the German-speaking
Community) and of which the headquarters are located in that same
area, draft public announcements as well as official communication
and official forms that are made public in the language(s) that are
used by the local administrative services when dealing with these
kinds of documents. The same applies to administrative services
whose field of activity covers several language areas (with the excep-
tion of the Brussels Capital area) and whose headquarters are not
located in the German-speaking community or in the communities
170 All is Quiet on the Eastern Front?

of Malmedy (i.e. Malmedy and Waimes). For the administrative


services whose field of activity covers several language areas (with
the exception of the Brussels Capital area) and whose headquarters
are located in the German-speaking community or in the communi-
ties of Malmedy (i.e. Malmedy and Waimes), no regulation exists. In
theory, it is the King of the Belgians who has to determine language
use whenever necessary. In practice, however, language use is regu-
lated by local services as explained previously.
In the administrative services of the German-speaking Community,
the procedure concerning public announcements as well as official
communications and official forms that are made public is identical
to the procedure used at the level of local services with one excep-
tion, namely that they are only drafted in French on demand. The
procedure used at the level of local administrative services also
applies in the case of administrative services of the French-speaking
Community and the Walloon Region that deal with issues relevant to
the population of the German-speaking Community or the German-
speaking population in Malmedy and Waimes.
As far as national administrative services (e.g. the Belgian postal serv-
ices) are concerned, the coordinated language legislation stipulates that
the language use in public announcements, official communications
and official forms that are made public through local services as an
intermediary has to follow the rules applying to these local services.

Understandably, the potpourri of laws and regulations is not always


clear to the end-user and, especially in Malmedy, gives rise to a rather
unsystematic and pragmatic application of the legal regulations. A few
examples suffice to illustrate this.

According to Étienne (1996) the possibility of having official docu-


ments and public announcements translated into German is (a)
something of which certainly not all of the German-speaking
inhabitants in Malmedy are aware, and (b) something that is not
hampered, but also not actively encouraged by the local adminis-
tration. As for the translation of announcements and communica-
tions for tourists, the laws regulating language use at the level of
local services stipulate that these can be drafted in three languages.
Interestingly, we have found tourist signs in Malmedy (and, addi-
tionally in Eupen) in four languages, that is, German, French and
Dutch and also English on top of that. On the Malmedy Palace of
Justice, for instance, a sign with tourist information is displayed
Luk Van Mensel and Jeroen Darquennes 171

in the three national languages and English whereas the sign with
opening hours is written in both French and German and a short-
term notice appears only in French.
At the level of regional services, it also seems to be the case that
the language laws are not strictly applied. Here, especially, language
use on road signs is subject to quite some variation. While some road
signs in the area surrounding Eupen and Malmedy are bilingual,
others are monolingual and ‘drafted’ in French where one would
expect German. According to Horn (2004, p. 73) the confusion would
at least partly be due to the fact that the branch of the Department of
Transportation located in the town of Verviers (which is outside the
area where German has official status) would be overtaxed with the
application of the language laws. That is one of the reasons why
the government of the German-speaking Community would like to
add matters related to road construction (now a competence of the
Walloon Region) to the level of the German-speaking Community.
Outside the post office in Malmedy (an office belonging to the
national administrative services, see Figure 10.2) we find a stamp
machine with the main information shown in French and German,

Figure 10.2 Language use on a stamp machine and the entrance door of the post
office in Malmedy
172 All is Quiet on the Eastern Front?

and the instructions for use in four languages (default for Belgium).
A more temporary notification on the entrance of the same office
is only written in French, the initiator (cf. Spolsky, 2009, p. 31) of this
sign clearly being a more local one than that of the other two signs.

Such inconsistencies do not seem to be considered a nuisance on the


part of the autochthonous German-speaking minority in Malmedy.
Given the fact that French place names for communities in the German-
speaking community are sometimes painted over on unilingual road
signs placed on the territory of the German-speaking Community
(see Figure 10.3), one could be tempted to conclude that a community-
wide protest against the wrong application of the language laws exists
in the German-speaking Community. Following Riehl (2001, p. 41),
however, these actions should be interpreted rather as actions of a small
number of ‘language separatists’.
This does not necessarily mean that the non-application of the lan-
guage laws would not lead to certain friction in the German-speaking
Community. More than the violation of language laws in the LL, however,
the violation of language laws in personal (written or oral) communication

Figure 10.3 Overpainted French place-names on a road sign on the motorway


to Sankt Vith
Luk Van Mensel and Jeroen Darquennes 173

between German-speaking inhabitants of the German-speaking Commu-


nity and employees of regional or national services cause frictions. Some
of the cases end up on the desk of a Brussels-based commission that over-
sees the application of the Belgian language laws (Vaste Commissie voor
Taaltoezicht, cf. De Pelsmaecker, Deridder and Judo, 2004, p. 153 and pp.
162–4). Since these problems are caused by factors that are external to
the situation in the municipalities of Eupen and Malmedy and involve
written and oral personal communication rather than issues of relevance
to the LL, they will not be taken into consideration in the following
paragraphs.

In the street
The first, quantitative study was conducted in spring 2008 in the New
Belgium towns of Eupen and Malmedy.3 Following Cenoz and Gorter’s
study on Ljouwert and Donostia (2006), we compared the LL of two
commercial streets: the Gospertstraße in Eupen and the rue Chemin-rue
(see Figure 10.4) in Malmedy.
Both administrative and non-administrative public linguistic signs
were systematically photographed, coded and subsequently analysed
in terms of language use and dominance. The units of analysis were
semantically defined (Backhaus, 2007), that is each establishment rather
than each sign was counted as a unit (Cenoz and Gorter, 2006, p. 71).
In Eupen, 100 units were counted and 71 in Malmedy. The dominance
factor was based on the independent judgements of three observers,
their decisions coinciding with the factors from Kress and Van Leeuwen’s
(2006) model (see also Machin, 2007). Table 10.1 shows the results for
both sites, comparing presence and dominance for each of them.
If we look at the results for Eupen, German is by far the most important
language; it is present in almost all units and dominant in 68 per cent
of them. On the other hand, French is almost exclusively found (in over
half of the units) in combination with (at least) German. Regarding
dominance, only 5 per cent of the units are dominantly French, but
interestingly the combination French-German can be found in 20 per

Figure 10.4 French-Walloon street sign in the town of Malmedy


174 All is Quiet on the Eastern Front?

Table 10.1 Presence and dominance of languages and language combinations


in Eupen versus Malmedy
Eupen Eupen Malmedy Malmedy
(presence) (dominance) (presence) (dominance)
n ⴝ 100 n ⴝ 100 n ⴝ 71 n ⴝ 71
German 40% 68% 0% 0%
French 1% 5% 50% 86%
English 2% 4% 0% 1%
German/French 27% 20% 1% 6%
English/French 0% 0% 15% 0%
French/Walloon 0% 0% 6% 3%
Other 30% (all incl. 3% 28% (all 4%
combinations German) incl. French)

cent of the cases, which contrasts with the very weak presence of this
combination in Malmedy (see below). We have found very little English
(only in combination with other languages), a result that contrasts
strongly with the situation in other parts of Belgium (Mettewie and
Van Mensel, 2009a) and deserves further investigation. Finally, hardly
any signs contain text in Dutch despite the vicinity of the Netherlands
and the fact that Eupen functions to some extent as a tourist hub for
people visiting the nearby nature reserve. Interestingly, we have found
an attestation of Dutch on a bilingual Dutch-French ‘Danger of death’
sign on an electricity cabin and next to it a separate sign in German was
added, clearly later. On another cabin, only a bilingual French-German
sign was found. This may suggest a larger presence of Dutch on official
signs before the language laws of the 1960s.
The results for Malmedy only partially mirror those for Eupen. Half
of the units contained only French text and French is the dominant
language in 86 per cent of the cases. In 15 per cent of the units French
was combined with English, which is comparable to findings from
other similar towns in the French-speaking part of Belgium (Mettewie
and Van Mensel, 2009a), but different from Eupen. Only 18 per cent of
the units contained German and always in combination with (an)other
language(s). This seems to be in line with the weak presence of German
as an autochthonous language in Malmedy. Interestingly, some of the
signs were written in the Walloon dialect. Drawing on observations by
Francard (2009), there seems to be a renewed interest in the (folklor-
istic) use of the Walloon dialect in the whole of the Walloon Region.
Attestations of Walloon in Malmedy included for instance publicity for
the local carnival celebrations or the name of a bar (Â vî Mâm’dî – The
Luk Van Mensel and Jeroen Darquennes 175

Old Malmedy). The presence of Walloon in the linguistic landscape is


also encouraged to some extent by the local authorities. For instance,
next to the official street signs, another plate is added with the Walloon
translation, its layout and colours clearly distinct from the official one
(see Figure 10.4). Some of the welcoming banners on top of the munici-
pality of Malmedy’s website (www.malmedy.be) appear in Walloon as
well, whereas all the other banners are in French. The website’s contents,
however, is (partly) available in four languages (French, German, Dutch
and English), but not in Walloon. The use of Walloon thus seems to be
merely symbolic in the sense that it alludes to the past (even literally in
the case of the bar), the traditional (carnival) and the authentic. Heller
(2006) states that in a globalized world, authenticity (or the suggestion
of it) sells. In this sense, it would be interesting to investigate to what
extent the Walloon dialect has an impact on the commercial viability of
the area, albeit indirectly, by attracting tourists in search of authentic-
ity and folklore (see Kallen, 2009, on tourism and the LL; see also the
chapters by Marten and Moriarty, this volume).
The second pilot study was carried out in the same two towns (Eupen
and Malmedy) in January/February 2009. In an attempt to enrich the
purely quantitative and artefact-centred approach from our first study,
we conducted semi-directed interviews with shopkeepers (ten in each
town) and passers-by (15 in each town) on their language use in the
shops and in the street as well as on the languages used in the displays.
The interviews were recorded and later transcribed. These data contain
a wealth of information about the linguistic attitudes and language
ideologies at play in the area. However, in the present contribution,
we will limit ourselves to a discussion of a number of issues in order
to illustrate how such an approach can contribute to a more nuanced
interpretation of LL data.
An important issue is the apparent discrepancy between what is
found on the outside of the shop and what is spoken inside. In German-
speaking Eupen, the shopkeepers that we interviewed are readily willing
to speak French if necessary and knowledge of French is considered
‘normal’ by our respondents (Darte, Mertens and Meyer, 2009). Thus,
our ‘provocative’ question ‘So you don’t speak any French?’ was con-
sistently met with surprised looks. The impression of Eupen as a domi-
nantly monolingual German-speaking community, as evidenced by the
quantitative analysis, is therefore not confirmed by actual language use
within the shops. In the same vein, German-speakers from Eupen claim
to readily switch to French when in Malmedy, ‘as if they went to a
different country’. Witness the rather explicit comments in Example 1.
176 All is Quiet on the Eastern Front?

Example 1 ( January 2009)

Resp: […] I speak my mother tongue [German] at home, but when I go


to Malmedy, where I go shopping, I speak French of course. When
I go to the UK I speak English, and I don’t know, when I go to Spain,
unfortunately I don’t speak Spanish but I’d still try to make myself
understandable.
(translated from French by the authors, emphasis ours)

The fact that in Malmedy French alone is the dominant language is thus far
from being contested; it is regarded as self-evident by respondents (cf. ‘[…]
of course.’ in Example 1). The picture that emerges is that of a German-
speaking community that displays itself in the commercial LL as largely
German-speaking, but in fact easily switches to French in most contacts
with Francophones, be it in Eupen or Malmedy, often for commercial
reasons. These findings corroborate observations by Riehl (2001, p. 40)
who writes that German-speaking inhabitants in the German-speaking
Community display positive attitudes towards ‘German-French’ bilingual-
ism, and that this may be due to economic reasons.4 However, one should
not jump to conclusions concerning such ‘positive attitudes’, as is also
shown by our data. Some German-speakers explicitly refer to the fact that
the Francophones seem to be less willing to use German, even if they have
sufficient skills to do so (cf. also Riehl, 2001, p. 43):

Example 2 ( January 2009)

Int: Do you have any language requirements when you hire someone?
Resp: Yes, he/she should be both German- and French–speaking […] Yes,
German-French is essential. […] We make more of an effort than
they do. We speak both languages. When you go to Welkenraedt
[neighbouring village, Francophone Region], they already don’t
know any German over there.
(translated from German by the authors)

These words uttered by a shopkeeper in Eupen (Example 2) show a


few interesting features: the emphasis lies on the pronoun ‘they’,
which demonstrates an us/them dichotomy, and the respondent is
obviously complaining about the ‘other’ group’s behaviour. This might
be interpreted as a sort of inhibited linguistic irritation, which clearly
problematizes the ideal picture towards speakers of French we derived
from the LL data discussed before.5
Luk Van Mensel and Jeroen Darquennes 177

The usefulness of combining quantitative, artefact-centred LL data


with a qualitative approach is also evident from our data for Malmedy.
According to our respondents, Malmedy is a de facto monolingual
French-speaking town. Some of the private (commercial) establishments
follow the guidelines that hold for official communication but this
seems more a form of language courtesy towards German-speakers than
an indication of competence in the German language. All of the shop-
keepers that were interviewed with bi- or multilingual signs on display
were French monolinguals and not able to have even a simple conversa-
tion in German. Furthermore, when discussing a sign in German in one
of the displays, (Francophone) passers-by said they had not noticed it
and were even surprised to find out about it when it was pointed out to
them. Apparently, the little German that can be found in the Malmedy
LL remains unnoticed in the eyes of the Francophone beholder. Thus,
the actual language use seems to be even less bilingual than our quan-
titative LL data suggest.

Conclusions

In this chapter, three types of data concerning the LL in the New Belgium
municipalities of Eupen and Malmedy have been combined: an analy-
sis of the relevant language legislation, a quantitative artefact-centred
study, and a qualitative approach. The results from this integrated
approach yield a differentiated picture for Malmedy (mainly French-
speaking with facilities for the German-speaking minority) on the one
hand, and Eupen (belonging to the German-speaking Community, with
facilities for the French-speaking minority) on the other hand.
As for Malmedy, the following conclusions can be formulated. First,
this municipality resembles other towns in Francophone Belgium viz.
the amount of English present in shop advertisements and the desire to
sell authenticity through the (top-down promoted) use of the Walloon
dialect, but not the ‘official minority language’ German. Then, though
complying with the language policy enforced in official signage, its
inhabitants adopt a very pragmatic (in the case of less permanent
official signage) or even indifferent attitude (in the case of passers-by
who overlook German signs in shop displays) towards the use of the
‘protected language’. This pragmatic way of dealing with the LL seems
possible partly by the unclear nature of the language legislation itself,
which allows local actors to take individual decisions.
As for the German-speaking community on the other side of
the language border, the image we get is quite different. Both the
178 All is Quiet on the Eastern Front?

composition of the LL and the attitudes towards the use of languages,


be it in the LL or spoken, differ from the ones we observed in Malmedy.
In Eupen, the protected minority language (French) is far more
present in bilingual signage than German is in Malmedy, reflecting
a larger presence of French-speaking residents or visitors. Moreover,
shopkeepers who make a point of keeping their display monolingual
German as a means of symbolically marking the territory tend to switch
to French quite easily, which does not preclude latent irritation. In this
sense, the LL in Eupen under-represents the bilingual practices of its
users, which is in sharp contrast with what we have seen in Malmedy.
Note that this need not be the case for the other, smaller towns in the
largely rural German-speaking Community as these are more directed
towards nearby Germany and are more monolingual than Eupen (see
also Riehl, 2001).
In sum, though differences between the two towns can be noted,
we observe a pragmatic attitude towards language use in LL in both
cases: people obey the official language policy but also remain tolerant
towards ‘differing’ language practices. A similar phenomenon has been
noted in other towns in Belgium on the French-Dutch language border,
especially further away from the ‘conflict zone’ of Brussels (Mettewie
and Van Mensel, 2009a). As long as there are no other political interests
involved, one could argue that the LL in well-protected or privileged
minority language situations such as these is not a reason for conflict
in se, since there is nothing to be symbolically struggled for. Duchêne
and Heller (2006) suggest that ideological conflicts on the terrain of
language centre on the position of nation-States and of minorities in
the new globalized world order. In this sense, the fact that the German-
speaking Community (as well as the German-speaking minority in
Malmedy) is already quite satisfied with its position within the Belgian
federal state may explain why all is quiet on the LL eastern front.

Notes
1. ‘[…] de Duitstalige Gemeenschap geen vragende partij is voor verandering.’
(De Morgen, 29 October 2008) ‘Die Duitstalige Belgen laten zich niet in een
hoekje duwen door de rest van het land. Elke gelegenheid grijpt Lambertz
aan om bevoegdheden naar Eupen door te sluizen. […] het draait hem om
centen en bevoegdheden. Hier en daar is op een verkeersbord het Franstalige
opschrift overschilderd, maar toch zijn de Duitstaligen geen vechters voor “de
Duitse zaak”.’ (De Morgen, 19 July 2008)
2. This summary is based on the coordinated language laws of 18 July 1966 on
the use of languages in administration; these laws have been modified in
Luk Van Mensel and Jeroen Darquennes 179

the course of the past decades (cf. Gosselin, 2003, as well as De Pelsmaecker,
Deridder and Judo, 2004, for details). Specificities concerning the (application
of) the coordinated language laws in the German-speaking Community can
be found in Vogel (2005). Bertl (2004) also contains detailed information for
the other areas in Belgium where German varieties are still in use.
3. We would like to thank the students who participated in the data collection
and analysis (see Boemer, Dessouroux and Labate, 2008; Darte, Mertens and
Meyer, 2009).
4. For a comparison with the Brussels situation, see Mettewie and Van Mensel
(2009b) on the impact of economics on the importance of Dutch.
5. Note that this type of discourse (moral judging, see, for example, Drew, 1998)
need not contradict the ‘normality’ of the behaviour as reported by our other
respondents. One could reasonably argue that normality is also connected
to morality, in the sense that what is constructed as normal is interpreted as
morally right (Laihonen, 2008). In this case, the German-speakers consider
bilingualism as normal and they berate the Francophones for not sharing the
same beliefs.

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Part III
The Distributive Approach
to Linguistic Landscape
11
The Linguistic Landscape of Three
Streets in Barcelona: Patterns of
Language Visibility in Public Space
Llorenç Comajoan Colomé and Ethan Long

The study of linguistic landscape (LL) has developed in the last


ten years following the publication of Landry and Bourhis (1997) and
has continued up to more recent works such as Gorter (2006) and
Shohamy and Gorter (2009). LL studies regarding the use of languages
in Spain have focused on the Basque country, and more specifically
on the use of Spanish, Basque, and English in the city of Donostia-San
Sebastián (Cenoz and Gorter, 2006). Regarding Catalan, several previ-
ous studies have described the use of Spanish and Catalan in public
signs, but they were carried out mainly for practical reasons related to
the implementation of language policy. This chapter builds on previ-
ous research on signage in public spaces in Barcelona by examining the
LL of three streets. The results are discussed in relation to current stud-
ies that adopt a theoretical and descriptive perspective (e.g. Shohamy
and Gorter, 2009).

Language policy and signage in Catalonia

Barcelona, the capital city of Catalonia, has 1.6 million inhabitants but its
metropolitan area, which includes 36 cities, has 3.2 million inhabitants
(approximately half the population of Catalonia) (Idescat, 2010, data from
2009). The city is divided into districts (‘districtes’ in Catalan), which are
divided into neighbourhoods (‘barris’). There are 10 districts and 79 neigh-
bourhoods in total. The population of Barcelona is distributed as follows
in terms of origin: in 2008, 60.3 per cent were born in Catalonia, 21.7
per cent were born in other parts of Spain, and 18.0 per cent were born
abroad. Even though Catalan and Spanish coexist in the metropolitan area,
the percentage of individuals who have Spanish as their mother tongue
(63.1 per cent) is higher than the percentage in Catalonia (55 per cent)
183
184 Three Streets in Barcelona

(Secretaria de Política Lingüística and Idescat, 2009, data from 2008). The
percentage of individuals who have Catalan as their mother tongue is
24.7 in the Barcelona metropolitan area, and 31.6 in Catalonia.1 When
individuals were asked about their habitual language, there was a decrease
in the percentage of people who declared Spanish as their habitual lan-
guage (53.8 per cent) (compared to those who had Spanish as their mother
tongue), which indicates that a number of people have Spanish as their
mother tongue but Catalan as their most habitual one.2
Since the new waves of immigration to Catalonia during the 1990s
and in the early twenty-first century, new languages have been added
to the linguistic repertoire of the city. Currently, there are no avail-
able data on the most common languages spoken in the city (besides
Catalan and Spanish), but data on the most common nationalities of
immigrants can provide an approximation to the most widely used
languages.3 Data from 2009–2010 show that the top ten nationali-
ties of immigrants in Barcelona are: Italy, Ecuador, Pakistan, Bolivia,
Peru, China, Morocco, France, Colombia, and Argentina (Ajuntament
de Barcelona, 2010), and thus, it can be inferred that some of the
most common languages spoken by immigrant groups in Barcelona
are Italian, Spanish-Quechua, Urdu-Punjabi-Pashto, Chinese, Arabic-
Tamazight, and French.4 However, the distribution of the immigrant
population in the different Barcelona districts varies greatly. For
instance, the distribution in the three districts that were included in
the study for this chapter shows that, in Sarrià-Sant Gervasi, immigrants
are largely from the European Union, whereas in Nou Barris they are
from Latin American, and in Ciutat Vella they are from Pakistan and
the Philippines (Table 11.1).
Language practices by individuals and organizations in Catalonia are
directly affected by the Language Policy Law of 1998, which, as stated in

Table 11.1 Ranking of nationalities in three districts of Barcelona (number of


individuals for each country of origin in parentheses)

Sarrià-Sant Gervasi Nou Barris Ciutat Vella


(Calvet Street) (V. Júlia Street) ( J. Costa Street)
1. Italy (2,064) 1. Ecuador (5,328) 1. Pakistan (5,785)
2. France (2,008) 2. Bolivia (2,939) 2. Philippines (4,486)
3. Germany (975) 3. Peru (1,852) 3. Italy (3,554)
4. Bolivia (793) 4. Morocco (1,586) 4. Morocco (3,487)
5. United Kingdom (732) 5. Colombia (1,390) 5. France (2,165)

Source: Ajuntament de Barcelona (2009).


Llorenç Comajoan Colomé and Ethan Long 185

its Article 1, had four main aims: ‘a) To protect and promote the use of
Catalan by all citizens, b) To provide effectiveness in the use of Catalan
and Castilian, without any citizens being discriminated against, c) To
promote the normal use of Catalan in administration, education, mass
media, cultural industries and in the socio-economic world, and d) To
ensure that proficiency in Catalan spreads to all citizens’ (Generalitat
de Catalunya). The law stipulates the following regarding signs (our
emphasis):5

• Article 30. Public Companies


Public companies of the Generalitat (Catalan government) and local
authorities, and also licensed companies thereof that manage or
operate the licensed service, shall normally use Catalan in their inter-
nal procedures and documents, and on their signs, instruction manu-
als, labelling and wrapping of products or services they produce or
provide.
• Article 31. Public service companies
Companies and public or private entities which provide public
services, such as those of transport, supplies, communication and
others, shall use, at least, Catalan in their signs and loudspeaker
announcements.
• Article 32. Serving the public
Permanent signs and posters with general information and documents
offering services provided to users and consumers in establishments
open to the public shall be at least drawn up in Catalan. This regula-
tion is not applicable to trademarks, commercial names or to signs
protected by industrial property legislation.

The current study takes as its point of departure the important


demographic changes that have taken place in Barcelona (and Spain,
in general) in the last decade, and it investigates how language policy
measures and the new demographics have contributed to the linguistic
landscape of the city. More specifically, this study provides answers to
the following research questions:

1. What is the distribution of languages in the LL of three streets in


different neighbourhoods of Barcelona, and how does the LL of the
three streets relate to the demographics of the area?
2. What is the function of different languages used in the LL of the
three streets under study?
186 Three Streets in Barcelona

Previous research on signage and demolinguistics


in Catalonia

Interest in the use of languages in public signs in Catalonia dates back


to the late 1980s and the application of the 1983 language policy law.
Early studies on signage were mostly for the internal use of the public
institutions that commissioned them and were unpublished (see the list
of studies from 1985 to 2004 in Centre de Documentació). After the
passing of the 1998 language policy law, interest on research on signage
increased, and studies became available as they were published and fol-
lowed similar methodologies. In retrospect, the studies on public signage
in Catalonia (focusing on Barcelona) can be divided into three categories:
a) studies that investigate public signage in businesses at the street level,
b) studies that research a specific type of business (e.g. supermarkets), and
c) studies within the LL framework.6
(a) The studies that focus on public signage at the street level were
published before and after the 1998 law and allow us to investigate
to what extent the law had an effect on the use of languages in signs.
Most of the studies were descriptive in nature and published by the
Secretariat of Language Policy of the Catalan government. Solé and
Romaní (1997b, p. 58) mentioned for the first time ‘paisatge lingüistic’
(linguistic landscape in Catalan) and stated the following:

‘External signage in general, and the commercial one in particular,


is one of the elements that make up what we call linguistic land-
scape, especially in those contexts where the economic system is the
market. The presence of one language in signage can be considered
an indication of the strength and social use of this language, even
though we do not know to what extent.’

Solé and Romaní (1997b) investigated more than 5,800 shops and busi-
nesses in 20 commercial areas in Barcelona, and they found that 32.9 per
cent of the main signs of shops were in Catalan, 27.4 per cent were in
Spanish, and 23.6 per cent were ambivalent (that is, they were signs that
were neither in Catalan nor Spanish). Very few signs were bilingual (3.5 per
cent), and 12.4 per cent were in a language other than Catalan or Spanish.
The results varied depending on several factors, such as type of sign
(informative signs that were not the main sign were more often in Spanish
than in Catalan), and type of business (Catalan was more common in
businesses related to flour products, education, food, commercial centres,
and banks; whereas Spanish was more common in businesses associated
Llorenç Comajoan Colomé and Ethan Long 187

with cars, clothes, appliances, and restaurants). In a further study,


Solé (1998) investigated 6,617 advertisements in Barcelona (on the street,
metro, buses, and soccer stadiums), and the results showed that use of lan-
guages varied according to location (more presence of Catalan on the street
than in the metro), the type of product being advertised (more Catalan for
transport companies, public organizations, mass media, and schools; less
Catalan for companies related to telecommunications, construction, cars,
food, tobacco, appliances, clothes, pharmacies, and opticians), and even
the type of support (more Catalan in advertisements hanging from street
lights; less presence on street signs and telephone booths). Finally, Leprêtre
and Romaní (2000) compared results from one earlier study (Solé and
Romaní, 1997a) on external advertising in Barcelona and six other cities in
Catalonia and found that the use of Catalan in general had increased on
some types of support (those that were not free of charge, such as advertise-
ments on street lights, on buses and metro, and phone booths), and that
there were very few bilingual advertisements.
After the passing of the 1998 law, a number of studies were published
dealing with public signage in streets in Barcelona and Catalonia. For
instance, Cazo and Romaní (2004) provided data on studies on signage in
businesses and shops in Barcelona and showed that, as far as the main sign
of the shop was concerned, Catalan was used in 36.6 per cent of the cases,
and there was an increase in favour of Catalan from 1997 to 2003 (from
33 per cent to 36.6 per cent). Regarding the external informative signage,
the results showed that bilingual signs were common and that there was
an increase of use of Spanish. Finally, it was found that Catalan was more
commonly used in shopping areas in city streets than in commercial cen-
tres (usually far from streets). Regarding the function of the signs and their
relationship to language, a study of signage in the businesses and service
companies in Barcelona (4,758 shops and companies) in 2005 showed that
27.8 per cent of businesses used Catalan in their signage (for identifica-
tion and information purposes), 21.7 per cent used Spanish, 15.8 per cent
used Catalan for identification and Spanish for information, and 7.3 per
cent used Catalan to identify themselves and were ambivalent regarding
information (i.e., it could not be decided whether it was Catalan or Spanish
due to the similarity of the languages) (Centro Informático de Estadísticas
y Sondeos, 2006). Finally, García (2009) directly addressed the issue of how
the 1998 language policy law affected signage in six cities outside Barcelona
and compared data from 2002 and 2007. The results indicated that, in most
shops, the exclusive use of Catalan was common for larger signs (about 50
per cent of signs), and that, in the period studied, Catalan had increased. In
informative signs, Spanish was the predominant language.
188 Three Streets in Barcelona

(b) A second type of studies on signage are those that investigate specific
types of establishments and describe what could be called their ‘internal
linguistic landscape’ (even though this term is not used), for example,
small and medium-sized companies (Secretaria de Política Lingüística,
2007), supermarkets (Solé, 1999), petrol stations (Farràs and Bosch,
2001), and driving schools (Boix, 2006). The Enquesta d’Usos Lingüístics a
Petites i Mitjanes Empreses (Survey of Language Use in Small and Medium
Companies) (Secretaria de Política Lingüística, 2007) provided data from
1,804 interviews with managers and executives of Catalan companies
and on-site observations. The results regarding the language of the main
sign of the company showed the following: in all types of companies,
Catalan was more common than Spanish, and this pattern was more
common in trade, restaurants, transport and other services than in the
business and finance sectors. In supermarkets, it was found that Catalan
was used in 62 per cent of the signs, but the use of Catalan depended on
two factors: signs for a local audience were mostly in Catalan, whereas
signs that were for a corporate or mass audience were mainly in Spanish.
Regarding petrol stations, the results showed that Spanish was domi-
nant, especially in companies that were part of a previously Spanish
monopoly. On the other hand, newer companies, which are branches
of multinational corporations, tended to have bilingual signs. In driving
schools, the results showed that despite the predominant use of Spanish
for teaching materials and classroom instruction, (external) signs, appli-
cations and other paper materials were bilingual.
(c) Finally, the first study that was carried out explicitly within the LL
framework analysed the LL in the Raval neighbourhood of Barcelona
(where most immigrants are concentrated) and the city of Santa Coloma
de Gramenet (in the Barcelona Metropolitan area, where the Chinese
population has settled). Grosso (2008) studied four streets in the Raval
neighbourhood (including J. Costa Street, one of the streets also analysed
in the current study), and she found that the most common languages
in the LL were Spanish (26.8 per cent), English (19.5 per cent), Catalan
(16.2 per cent), Urdu (13.9 per cent), Contact Spanish7 (8.9 per cent),
and Arabic (8.7 per cent). In contrast, the most common languages in
Santa Coloma were: Catalan (33.3 per cent), Spanish (26.6 per cent),
Chinese (23.8 per cent), Arabic (6.6 per cent), English (3.8 per cent),
Italian, (2.8 per cent), and Urdu (1.9 per cent).
Other studies within Spain that have explicitly adopted the LL
framework have showed that Spanish (or combinations of Spanish
and Basque) is the most common language in a city like Donostia
(Table 11.2).
Llorenç Comajoan Colomé and Ethan Long 189

Table 11.2 Languages on signs in Donostia

Language(s) Percentage
Basque 12
Spanish 36
English 4
Basque and Spanish 22
Spanish and English 6
Basque and English 2
Basque, Spanish and English 10
Other combinations 8

Source: Cenoz and Gorter (2006).

In sum, results from previous research provide evidence for the


following: overall, there has been an increase in the use of Catalan in
signs for companies and businesses. However, the use of Catalan accord-
ing to law can be considered low. Variables such as the geographical
location, the type of business, and the type of physical support (for
advertisements) are related to language use. Finally, even though there
is a long tradition of studying signage in Catalonia, studies have tended
to be descriptive and focus on the business and trade sector and not on
the linguistic landscape as a whole.
The relationship between LL and the demographics of one area have
been discussed by Bagna, Barni and Vedovelli (2007), Bagna and Barni
(2005), and Barni (2008), who have remarked that the relationship is not
straightforward. They argue for different linguistic landscape conditions in
small, medium, and large cities depending on different patterns of demo-
graphic distribution, number of inhabitants and available services. The
methodology used in the current study is similar to what Bagna et al. call
static visibility of the languages, since the data come from photographs
and demolinguistic data (cf. data from surveys and direct observation).
Following Bagna, Barni and Vedovelli’s (2007) distinction between small,
medium, and large cities, Barcelona can be considered large and compa-
rable to their analysis of Rome (Quartiere Esquilino). Their results showed
that, in large cities, collective and individual identities are more likely to
be visible, and thus they can become part of the linguistic landscape of the
city. In contrast, in medium and small cities, non-native communities are
more compact, and it may be more difficult for them to become visible.
However, their results also showed that there is not a direct relationship
between demolinguistic characteristics and linguistic landscape. Thus,
in the Esquilino neighbourhood of Rome, the most common foreign
language in signs was Chinese (30 per cent of the signs), but the largest
190 Three Streets in Barcelona

immigrant population of the area is not Chinese (Bangladeshi and Filipino


individuals surpass the number of Chinese individuals).

Design of the study

Areas of study
For this study, three streets were chosen in three geographically and
demographically distinct neighbourhoods in the city of Barcelona. The
map of Barcelona in Figure 11.1 shows the neighbourhoods and the
streets that were included in the study. The three streets were:

• Carrer de Calvet (between Carrer de Calaf and Travessera de Gràcia)


in the neighborhood of Sant Gervasi-Galvany (District 5: Sarrià-Sant
Gervasi).

Figure 11.1 Districts of Barcelona. The three streets under study are marked on
the map (approximate location)
Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Barcelona_Districts_map.svg.
Llorenç Comajoan Colomé and Ethan Long 191

• Via Júlia (between Carrer del Mas Duran and Carrer de Borràs) in
the neighbourhoods of Verdun and la Prosperitat (District 8: Nou
Barris).
• Carrer de Joaquín Costa (between Carrer del Carme and Ronda de
Sant Antoni) in the Raval neighbourhood (District 1: Ciutat Vella).

The demographic and sociolinguistic profiles of the three districts


where the three streets are located are quite different. Thus, whereas
71.7 per cent of the population of Sarrià-Sant Gervasi was born in
Catalonia in 2008, in Nou Barris approximately half of the population
was born in Catalonia, and in Ciutat Vella only 36.8 per cent of inhab-
itants were Catalan-born (Table 11.3). On the other hand, the foreign
population in Ciutat Vella was high (almost half of the population),
whereas it was low in the other two districts.
The demographic composition of the districts is related to the
language competence of their inhabitants. Thus, linguistic competence
in Catalan is lower in Ciutat Vella and higher in Sarrià-Sant Gervasi and
Nou Barris (Table 11.4).

Procedure
For this study, data were collected for approximately 400 continu-
ous metres in each street. The streets were chosen based on their
high concentrations of commercial and public buildings (schools,

Table 11.3 Demographics of the three districts of Barcelona where the streets for
the current study are located (data from 2008)

Born in Catalonia Born in Spain Born abroad


Sarrià-Sant Gervasi 71.7 12.5 15.8
Nou Barris 50.8 29.6 19.6
Ciutat Vella 36.8 15.2 48.0

Source: Ajuntament de Barcelona (2008).

Table 11.4 Catalan linguistic competence of residents in three districts of


Barcelona (data from 2001 census)

Understand Speak Read Write Cannot understand


Sarrià-Sant Gervasi 97.4 84.6 84.5 57.7 2.6
Nou Barris 92.6 61.8 63.8 36.5 7.4
Ciutat Vella 88.1 59.8 58.5 34.6 11.9

Source: Ajuntament de Barcelona (2008).


192 Three Streets in Barcelona

government offices, among others). On each of these three streets,


photographs were taken of each sign visible from street level. In total,
approximately 700 photographs were taken.
In categorizing each photograph, the process to determine each unit
of analysis set forth by Cenoz and Gorter (2006) was used. They defined
the unit of analysis as ‘all [of] the signs in one establishment, even if
they are in different languages, have been the result of the languages
used by the same company [to] give and overall impression because
each text belongs to a larger whole instead of being clearly separate’
(Cenoz and Gorter, 2006, p.71). Each sign itself was not considered to
represent one unit; rather, each establishment was considered to repre-
sent one unit composed of the totality of signs that could be accurately
attributed to a given establishment. In cases where a sign was displayed
independently from any particular establishment (i.e., billboards, street
signs, banners), each was considered to represent one unit of analysis.
This approach eliminates the differing quantity of signs displayed by
each establishment as a component of the results, in favour of analyz-
ing each establishment as a whole.

Results

The general results show that establishments with monolingual signs


were the majority on all three streets (64.5 per cent on Calvet Street,
58.8 per cent on V. Júlia Street, and 64.6 per cent on J. Costa Street).
As far as bilingual signs are concerned, they were found in at least
30 per cent of the establishments on all three streets (Table 11.5). The
results also show some differences among the three streets. Whereas
establishments on V. Júlia only had monolingual and bilingual signs
(although monolingual establishments are more frequent), Calvet
and J. Costa included signs with three or more languages, and their
percentages of monolingual and bilingual signs were similar (about 64
and 30 per cent, respectively).

Table 11.5 Number of languages displayed in the LL of the


three streets

Languages displayed Calvet V. Júlia J. Costa


(n  96) (n  107) (n  113)
One 64.5 58.8 64.6
Two 32.3 41.1 29.2
Three or More 3.1 — 6.2
Llorenç Comajoan Colomé and Ethan Long 193

Taking into account that both Catalan and Spanish are co-official
languages in Catalonia and that the 1998 language law specifies that
signs must be at least in Catalan, one may wonder in what language
monolingual signs are written. Table 11.6 provides the answer to this
question.8
Regarding Spanish and Catalan, when examining monolingual
signs, on Calvet Street, establishments with Catalan signs were more
numerous (37.5 per cent) than those with Spanish (25.0 per cent). On
the other hand, on V. Júlia and J. Costa, establishments with Spanish
signs were more common (31.7 per cent and 46.0 per cent, respectively).
Establishments with bilingual signs in Catalan and Spanish had three
distinct proportions: 15.9 per cent on J. Costa, 25.0 per cent on Calvet,
and 38.3 per cent on V. Júlia. From these results, one can observe that
J. Costa was the area that most favoured Spanish, whereas Calvet was
the one with most presence of Catalan. In addition, J. Costa was distinct
due to the presence of a number of other languages.
Regarding the combination of Spanish and Catalan and other languages,
again, the three streets had very different profiles: V. Júlia only had a small
percentage of English together with Spanish (not Catalan). Establishments
with signs on Calvet included English in several combinations (together
with Catalan, 6.0 per cent; together with Catalan and Spanish, 3.1 per cent;
and in English-only 2.0 per cent). Finally, J. Costa had the highest com-
bination of languages, with Catalan, Spanish, Arabic, and English. There
were no signs solely in Arabic on J. Costa, and Arabic was more commonly
used with Spanish (4.4 per cent) than with Catalan (0.8 per cent).
These results beg the question about the mandate of the 1998
language policy law and what is done in response to it. Since on all
three streets there was a considerable percentage of signs in Spanish-
only, one can clearly see that the law is not strictly followed and that

Table 11.6 Use of languages in the LL of three streets in Barcelona

Languages Calvet V. Júlia J. Costa


(n  96) (n  107) (n  113)
Catalan-Only 37.5 27.1 17.7
Spanish-Only 25.0 31.7 46.0
English-Only 2.0 — 0.8
Catalan and Spanish 25.0 38.3 15.9
Catalan and English 6.2 — 1.7
Spanish and English 1.0 2.8 6.2
Catalan, Spanish, and English 3.1 — 1.7
194 Three Streets in Barcelona

it is adhered to more closely on Calvet and less so on V. Júlia and


J. Costa. When two or more languages are displayed on signs, we may
wonder whether all languages are represented equally on the sign.
Thus, all multilingual signs were analysed to investigate how the dif-
ferent languages were displayed. Table 11.7 shows the predominant
language and the salience of the main or largest text for each street.
Predominant language refers to the language that is numerically more
present in the totality of each establishment’s signs. Salience of the
main sign or largest text refers to the language present on the primary
sign of identification (Figure 11.2) or the largest text visible from street
level if the primary sign of identification of a given establishment is
not the largest text (Figure 11.3). For instance, Figure 11.2 shows a
shop that has its main sign in Catalan (Halcon viatges ‘journeys’), but
the numerically dominant language of the establishment is Spanish
(Figure 11.2, on the right, including ofertas ‘sale’ and specific signs on

Figure 11.2 Main sign of a store in Catalan and detail of the storefront (with
Spanish dominating)

Figure 11.3 Main sign of a store in Spanish and detail of the storefront (with
Spanish dominating)
Llorenç Comajoan Colomé and Ethan Long 195

journeys written in Spanish). In Figure 11.4, Catalan is on the main


sign/largest text (Pollastres, ‘chickens’), but Spanish is used for pri-
mary information and is numerically more predominant than Catalan
(Figure 11.4, on the right, including Spanish ‘arroz’ rice, ‘pollo’ chicken,
Turkish ‘doner’ and ‘durum’, and Arabic-script words).
The data from Table 11.7 provide evidence for the following: regard-
ing the predominant language in multilingual signs, one can observe
a clear trend in favour of Spanish. Thus, on J. Costa and V. Júlia, the
predominant language is Spanish in 57.5 per cent and 47.7 per cent
of the establishments, respectively. However, when we examine the
main sign or largest text (saliency), Catalan dominates on all three
streets. Other languages (or combinations thereof) were present only
on J. Costa, where Arabic-only was predominant in 2.5 per cent of
the establishments and its highest percentage was in combinations
with Catalan (7.5 per cent for predominance, 5 per cent for salience,
on J. Costa). Calvet and V. Júlia did not have any presence of signs in
Arabic.

Figure 11.4 Main sign of a store in Catalan and detail of the storefront (with
several languages other than Catalan and Spanish)

Table 11.7 Predominance and saliency of languages in multilingual signs

Calvet (n  34) V. Júlia (n  44) J. Costa (n  40)


Predom. Salience Predom. Salience Predom. Salience
Catalan-only 29.4 38.2 22.7 52.2 7.5 50.0
Spanish-only 29.4 35.2 47.7 22.7 57.5 20.0
Equal (Cat/Span) 38.2 14.7 29.5 20.4 17.5 2.5
English-only 2.9 11.7 — 4.5 — 15.0
196 Three Streets in Barcelona

Discussion and conclusion

The discussion of the results revolves around the two research ques-
tions: First, the different distribution of languages of signs on different
streets of Barcelona and their relationship to the demographics of the
areas; and second, the functions of the languages used in the signs.
The demolinguistic profiles of the districts where the three streets
are located differ. The population of the district of Sarrià-Sant Gervasi
has the highest linguistic competence in Catalan of the three districts
where the streets under study are located and the highest percentage of
population born in Catalonia. Moreover, it is in this district where most
presence of Catalan on signs was found. The district of Nou Barris,
where V. Júlia is located, is a working-class district with a high presence
of Spanish immigrants from the 1940s and 1960s, and the percentage
of population born in Spain outside Catalonia is higher than in the dis-
trict of Sarrià-Sant Gervasi. The LL of the street in this area to a certain
extent reflects this, since Spanish is the most visible language on this
street (by itself or in combination with Catalan). Finally, J. Costa, in
the Ciutat Vella district, is representative of an area that has radically
changed in the last 20 years following the arrival of non-Spanish speak-
ing immigrants to Barcelona, most specifically from Pakistan in the case
of J. Costa. This change is clearly reflected in the demolinguistic profile
of this area: almost half of the population was born abroad, and Ciutat
Vella has the lowest linguistic competence in Catalan of the three dis-
tricts examined.
When compared with previous research on signage in Catalonia, the
results from this study show that the percentage of use of Catalan on
the street where this language is more visible (Calvet) is lower than the
percentages in previous studies (e.g. Cazo and Romaní, 2004; García,
2009). On the other hand, results from the current study indicate that
some establishments display languages other than Catalan and Spanish
(namely, English or languages in Arabic script). These results are related
to important demographic changes in Barcelona and Spain in general
and point out that – despite the 1998 language policy law – Spanish
continues to be the most common language on signage and that the
presence of immigrant groups alters the linguistic landscape of the area
where they settle. However, it needs to be noted that differences in
results may also be due to differences in research methodology between
previous studies in Barcelona and the current study. The most important
difference is that in the this study – following most studies in the
current LL framework – the unit of analysis was the establishment, and
Llorenç Comajoan Colomé and Ethan Long 197

all sorts of signs (manufactured or manuscript) were analysed, whereas


in previous studies on signage in Barcelona the unit of analysis was not
clearly defined or was the sign itself, and only manufactured signs were
analysed. The fact that only manufactured signs were analysed may bias
the results towards higher percentages of use of Catalan since manu-
factured signs may be commonly written in Catalan and manuscript
signs in other languages (cf. the results in this study: Catalan was less
predominant than salient, Table 11.7).
When comparing the results from the current study with the one from
Donostia in the Basque Country, Catalan-only signs are more numerous
in all three Barcelona streets than are Basque-only signs in Donostia
(12 per cent) (Cenoz and Gorter, 2006, p. 73) (Table 11.2). The highest
percentage of signs in Donostia was in Spanish-only (36 per cent) and in
Basque and Spanish (22 per cent), whereas in the three areas of Barcelona
in our study they were: Catalan-only on Calvet (37.5 per cent), Catalan
and Spanish (38.3 per cent) on V. Júlia, and Spanish-only (46 per cent)
on J. Costa. These results indicate that Catalan is used more in Barcelona
than Basque in Donostia, which may be related to a stronger policy on
signage in Catalonia than in the Basque Country and the similarity
between Spanish and Catalan.
In the current study, there seems to be a close relationship between
the demographic composition of the districts and the linguistic land-
scape of the areas (cf. Bagna, Barni and Vedovelli, 2007; Bagna and
Barni, 2005; and Barni, 2008), since Pakistan is the country of origin of
the largest immigrant population in Ciutat Vella (location of J. Costa)
(Table 11.1), and this area has the largest percentage of Spanish-only
signs and signs written in Arabic script (Urdu and Arabic) (similar results
were obtained by Grosso, 2008). However, in agreement with Grosso
(2008), one notices that the Filipino population is the second largest in
the area, but no signs in Tagalog or other Filipino languages were found
on J. Costa. This is probably due to the fact that the Pakistanis mostly
work in or own grocery shops, whereas the Filipinos work in other non-
public services, which are less visible (such as domestic services).
As far as the demographic composition of the other two districts and
the linguistic landscape of the streets are concerned, one can see that
the non-native population of the Sarrià-Sant Gervasi district is largely
composed of European Union nationals, whereas that of Nou Barris is
from Latin America. The results indicated a larger presence of Catalan
in the linguistic landscape of Calvet than on V. Júlia, which partly may
be due to the differences in native and non-native population (Tables
11.1 and 11.3).
198 Three Streets in Barcelona

In sum, these results underline the fact that detailed analyses of specific
streets in multilingual cities are useful to investigate the relationship
between language policy, demographics, and language visibility. The
results from this study show that the demolinguistic profile of an area
can play a major role in its LL, but it is not the only factor (Bagna
and Barni, 2005; Grosso, 2008). Further research should develop more
in-depth analysis of entire districts in order to obtain more reliable
results and investigate how strong the relationships between LL and
the demolinguistic characteristics of groups are reflected in other dis-
tricts in Barcelona and other Catalan cities.
Regarding the use of other languages in the current study, it was
found that establishments with English-only signs are scarce, even more
so than in Donostia. The highest percentage of English presence was
on Calvet in combination with Catalan (6.2 per cent) and on J. Costa
in combination with Spanish (6.2 per cent). Regarding signs in Arabic
script, it is noteworthy that there were no signs in Arabic-only (Arabic
script appears in combination with Spanish or with Catalan-Spanish).
In their discussion of results, Cenoz and Gorter (2006) referred to
information and symbolic functions of the use of languages in the LL
(Landry and Bourhis, 1997). Cenoz and Gorter (2006, p. 78–9) argued
that ‘the use of Basque in bilingual signs in Donostia is not only inform-
ative, because everybody can get the information in Spanish, but it has
an important symbolic function which is related to affective factors and
the seeking of Basque as a symbol of identity’. In the case of Catalan
in Barcelona, which has a higher presence in society than Basque in
the largest cities of the Basque Country, the presence of Catalan may
be symbolic as well, because, from the informative point of view, most
information is also available in Spanish and the similarity of Catalan and
Spanish makes the information easy to convey in either language. Even
if it is symbolic, one would need to specify what type of symbolism is
marked by the use of one language or another, as the use of Catalan on
a sign in a grocery shop owned by Pakistani citizens in Ciutat Vella may
differ from the use of Catalan on a perfume shop on Calvet Street as to
what the language symbolizes. However, the fact that the law requires
the presence of at least Catalan on signs adds a new dimension to the
issue that goes beyond the information and symbolic dichotomy.
Furthermore, in multilingual settings like Catalonia, where two lan-
guages are in different power relationships but strong legislative efforts
have been made to reduce power disparities, it may be useful to add
a third function, which we may call a legal function, reflecting com-
pliance with linguistic legislation.9 Thus, it is likely that many shops
Llorenç Comajoan Colomé and Ethan Long 199

owned by Pakistani people on Raval include Catalan, because they


know it is what the law requires, and the use of Arabic and Spanish
is designed to convey vital information and be a symbolic gesture. In
terms of English, the function of this language on Calvet is probably
symbolic (e.g. for marketing purposes, since the signs do not target
English-speaking shoppers), whereas on J. Costa it is informational
(i.e., they may be written for some individuals who understand and use
English). This shows that the two functions are not static, but rather
dynamic in themselves, and depending on different streets of a city and
the street’s demolinguistic profiles.
The role of the legal function would explain the discrepancies one
can observe in the multilingual signs on the three streets (Table 11.7). It
was found that in multilingual signs on all streets, Catalan is the more
salient language, but not the more numerically predominant. Again,
depending on the demolinguistic characteristics of the area this discrep-
ancy increases. Thus, on J. Costa, Catalan is the salient language and
not the predominant one; on V. Júlia, Catalan is the salient language
and it is more predominant than on J. Costa; and finally on Calvet,
Catalan is less salient but more predominant than on the other two
streets. In general, in all three streets, on multilingual signs, Spanish
is the numerically predominant language (by itself or in combination
with Catalan), although on Calvet signs in monolingual Catalan and
Spanish are found in equal proportion (29.4 per cent). This suggests that
in many shops, they may include Catalan just to comply with the law
and then resort to the use of other languages for other aspects of their
daily operations. Further research needs to explore the impact of having
strong regulations on the use of languages in signs in different city areas
in order to investigate the decision-making process followed by business
and shop owners when designing and writing signs.
In conclusion, the use of the LL approach to analyzing the linguistic
composition of a given locality is particularly effective for two principal
reasons. First, as it is a reflection of the publicly visible linguistic com-
position of a chosen place at a given time; it provides an exceptionally
accurate and up-to-date profile of linguistic visibility of a locality in
which various contributing social factors intervene. As explained by
Ben-Rafael, ‘the only aspect of the urban landscape to be under the direct
and instant influence of social actors is LL … This dynamism jumps
to the eye and is palpable in central areas of large cities which have
become the landmarks of modern life and globalization’ (Ben-Rafael,
2009, p. 42–3). The accuracy in terms of ‘freezing’ a dynamic place
and time provided by the use of LL is not as readily available through
200 Three Streets in Barcelona

other research frameworks. Secondly, an LL approach has the ability to


function not only as a means of quantifying the linguistic composition
of public space, but most importantly serves as a means to examine how
multiple factors (e.g. power relationships, demographics, legislation,
and symbolic function) are viewed, processed, and then reflected in
different populations within a small geographic area.

Acknowledgements

We thank Sharon Feldman for encouraging us to carry out this study


and Giulia Grosso for her help in locating references regarding linguistic
landscape. Two anonymous reviewers provided valuable comments on
the study and helped improve it considerably.

Notes
1. The number of individuals who declare both languages (Catalan and Spanish)
as their mother tongues does not exceed 4.2 per cent, and the percentage
who declares another language other than Catalan or Spanish is less than
6.2 per cent. For other sociolinguistic data on the Barcelona metropolitan
area and Catalonia, see Secretaria de Política Lingüística and Idescat (2004,
2009), Comajoan (2004, 2009), Vila (2008), Pons and Sorolla (2009), Torres
(2005), Boix (2008), and Payrató and Vila (2004).
2. Initial language was defined as the language that the individual had learnt
first at home, whereas habitual language was defined as that which was used
habitually (at the time of the study). See Secretaria de Política Lingüística and
Idescat (2004, 2009) for more details on the definition of these terms and how
they interact with a third one (identification language).
3. The three mother tongues (other than Catalan and Spanish) with the highest
percentage of speakers in the Catalan population are: Arabic (16.6 per cent),
Romanian (14.3 per cent), and Tamazight (12.2 per cent). No data are avail-
able for Barcelona only (Enquesta demogràfica 2007, Idescat, 2010).
4. The high number of Italian citizens in Barcelona is related to the fact
that many Argentinean nationals have double nationality (Italian and
Argentinean). It is not known whether these nationals speak both Spanish
and Italian.
5. See Boix and Vila (1998), Branchadell (1997, 2005), and Bastardas (2009)
for reviews of Catalan language policy and the 1998 law. The 1998 law also
refers to other matters that are related to linguistic landscape, such as place
names (Chapter 2 of the law). See Hicks (2002) for the relationship between
linguistic landscape and place names in Scotland, Catalonia, and the Basque
Country.
6. In addition, the Catalan government has implemented two software tools for
analysing the use of Catalan in institutions (Indexplà) and cities (Ofercat),
which include information on language use in public signage (see Castells,
2003 and Romagosa, López, and Fabà, 2003).
Llorenç Comajoan Colomé and Ethan Long 201

7. Contact Spanish refers to a variety of Spanish learnt as a second language


(Grosso, 2008, p. 179).
8. Arabic in Table 11.6 and the remainder of the paper means ‘in Arabic script’
since the signs may have included Urdu, Farsi, and/or Arabic. The use of
languages other than Catalan and Spanish in the LL of the three streets
were: 0 (Arabic-only), 0.8 (Catalan and Arabic), 4.4 (Spanish and Arabic), 0.8
(Spanish, English, and Arabic), 2.6 (Catalan, Spanish, and Arabic), and 0.8
(Catalan, Spanish, English, and Arabic).
9. One reviewer pointed out that the legal and symbolic functions may over-
lap, and this is indeed possible, but in locations where specific language
policy measures regarding signage have been implemented for a long time
(e.g. Catalonia since 1998), the symbolic function may become an additional
function and to some extent be separate from the legal one. In this sense, the
‘collective-identity’ and ‘power-relations’ principles (Ben-Rafael, 2009) may
be more prevalent and overt in situations like the Catalan one (with specific
language policies on signage and multilingual groups cohabitating in the city)
than in cases where policies are covert and rarely enforced.

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12
The Linguistic Landscapes of
Chişinău and Vilnius: Linguistic
Landscape and the Representation
of Minority Languages in Two
Post-Soviet Capitals
Sebastian Muth

Introduction: Linguistic Landscape and Multilingualism


in Urban Centres

The representation of different languages within multilingual urban


environments is a phenomenon that has emerged in linguistic landscape
research in recent years (cf. Ben-Rafael et al., 2006; Ben-Rafael, 2009; Cenoz
and Gorter, 2006). By analysing written language in public space, assump-
tions about the functional domains, prestige, status and spread of languages
in bi- and multilingual settings can be made. Dimensions in linguistic
landscape research include advertising billboards, shop signs, placards or
any other displays of written language visible in the public sphere and
accessible to everyone (Landry and Bourhis, 1997, p. 25). For the study of
multilingualism in urban settings, the quantitative distribution of minority
languages on signs and other specimens of written language are obvious
indicators of patterns of language use within an urban area. At the same
time those signs are also part of a wider picture that relates to aspects of
political and cultural representation and status of the respective national
languages within bi- and multilingual societies. Although we should keep
the symbolic dimension of signage in mind, language choices by private
enterprises and individuals show the importance and functions of different
languages and indicate how and to what extent the multilingual reality is
reflected on displays of written language. For our study, signs in four districts
of each of the capitals of Moldova and Lithuania, Chişinău and Vilnius have
been chosen as areas of research. These districts were not chosen at random,
but reflect the socio-demographic situation of the two agglomerations, as

204
Sebastian Muth 205

the observation includes the central areas, mixed business and residential
districts as well as peripheral residential areas of the two capitals.
Both countries were part of the former Soviet Union and can be con-
sidered multi-ethnic and multilingual societies to a certain extent. In
Moldova, around 10 per cent of the population is ethnic Ukrainian, an
equally high number Russian and an additional 4 per cent are of Gagauz1
nationality (Moldovan Population Census, 2004).2 In Lithuania, approxi-
mately 6 per cent of the population is Polish while 5 per cent are Russian
(Lithuanian Population and Housing Census, 2001).3 Nevertheless, in
both countries, Russian-speakers are the largest language minority group
within urban centres, as during Soviet rule most immigrants from main-
land Russia were professionals working in factories and the service sector
mostly in urban agglomerations.
The aim of this comparative study of the linguistic landscapes of
Chişinău and Vilnius is to analyse if demographic data on the number of
speakers of minority languages are reflected in patterns of language use on
signs in both post-Soviet capitals. Within this context, the degree of repre-
sentation of Russian in the public sphere will be of special importance as
it gives insights into status, prestige and functional domains of the former
lingua franca of the USSR. Apart from a qualitative dimension that shows
to what extent minority languages are represented in the public sphere of
Chişinău and Vilnius, LL-research in both cities can provide us with other
perspectives on use of minority languages. First of all it is possible to relate
our findings to a broader social and political context and determine whether
attitudes towards minorities reflect themselves in patterns of language use
on signs. Furthermore it will also give us insight into the degree of accept-
ance of the national languages of the two countries by minority groups.
Given the methodological framework of this study, the number of
languages displayed on signs and the characteristic demographic com-
position of each neighbourhood serve as the basis of this study. Both
Chişinău and Vilnius are capitals that are characterized by a relatively
large Russian-speaking minority and are home to other minority groups
as well. Furthermore, both Moldova and Lithuania are countries where
the national languages Romanian4 and Lithuanian are promoted as
expressions of cultural identity and serve as a tool for national self-
identification and self-consciousness.
For this study, three research questions have been formulated:

(I) Which languages are visible in the public sphere of both Chişinău
and Vilnius and do differences in the use of minority languages
exist between the two capitals?
206 The Linguistic Landscapes of Chişinău and Vilnius

(II) Which assumptions can be made on the representation of the main


minority language (Russian) in both cities? Is it equally part of the
linguistic landscape of Chişinău and Vilnius as demographic data
suggests?
(III) Is it possible to relate the occurrence or absence of minority lan-
guages in the linguistic landscape to the general political frame-
work in these two post-Soviet countries?

History, minorities and the politics of language


in Moldova and Lithuania

Throughout the former Soviet Union, language and minority politics


were a hotly contested field, one decisive question being the status of
Russian and Russian-speaking minorities in post-Soviet states. Especially
in Moldova and Lithuania, the question of how to deal with the reality of
being de facto multilingual countries and at the same time nation states
that in many areas are still struggling to develop a clear understanding
of a national and cultural identity, remains largely unanswered.

Moldova
While most countries of the former Eastern bloc did not experience any
fundamental change in their concept of national identity and were able
to connect to pre-war traditions, Moldova is still struggling to find a
consensus over a genuine Moldovan cultural and political identity.
Throughout history, alternating influences from both Romania and
Russia dominated, allowing no development of a concept of national
identity. After the Second World War Moldova became part of the
Soviet Union and formed the Moldovan Socialist Soviet Republic. As
in most other Soviet Republics, large-scale migration from Russia and
other parts of the USSR was fostered and changed the ethnic composi-
tion of the country concurrently with a rise in the prestige of Russian
(Skvortsova, 2002, p. 163).
The conflicting self-image of Moldova and associated troubles in find-
ing a national self-consciousness can be used to exemplify the relation-
ship between language and politics in the country. Already before the
declaration of independence, language had political implications in
Moldova. In 1990, the Supreme Soviet of the republic passed language
laws stipulating that the Romanian used in Moldova should be written in
the Latin alphabet following the conventions of contemporary Romanian
instead of the Cyrillic alphabet. The status of Russian was devalued as
well, as it lost its distinguished status as a language on an equal footing
Sebastian Muth 207

with Romanian and became a ‘language of interethnic communication’


(Ciscel, 2008, p. 106; Dumbrava, 2003, p. 54). When Moldova became
independent in 1991, about half of the ethnic Moldovan population
had a sufficient command of Russian as it had been a lingua franca in the
region for centuries while most of the Russian-speaking population was
not able to speak Romanian, the sole new state language. In the follow-
ing years the decline in the status of Russian continued and Romanian
became the working language of all public institutions and the country’s
administration. This ethnic revival triggered fears of a rising Romanian
cultural dominance within the Russian- and Ukrainian-speaking com-
munities especially in the industrialized eastern regions of Moldova.
Eventually this resulted in the secession of these regions that presently
form the predominantly Russian-speaking self-proclaimed Republic of
Transnistria (Ciscel, 2008, pp. 106–7).
The language situation in Moldova is characterized by one national
language that, depending on political sympathies, is either designated as
‘Moldovan’ or ‘Romanian’, the latter signalling a political and cultural
orientation towards the west and Romania in particular (cf. Ciscel, 2008,
p. 99; cf. Tomescu-Hatto, 2008). Russian, Ukrainian, Gagauz and Bulgarian
are minority languages spoken in the country. Whereas Ukrainian is
mainly spoken in the rural parts of northern and eastern Moldova,
Gagauz and Bulgarian are used in the south of the country (Ciscel,
2008, pp. 103–4). Russian on the other hand has spread throughout the
country especially in urban centres and also functions as a lingua franca
among other ethnic minorities (Sarov, 2007, p. 106). Recent studies in vil-
lages close to the Romanian border have also shown that approximately
52 per cent of the respondents claimed to use Russian as an everyday
language (cf. Belina and Arambaşa, 2007, p. 194). Also the underfunded
Moldovan media accounts for the further existence of Russian. Often it
is not possible to acquire American or Western European TV productions
or dub them into Romanian. Cheaper Russian programmes are broadcast
instead, which are viewed by over 60 per cent of the population on a
daily basis (Belina and Arambaşa, 2007, p. 194). On top of that there is
a general tendency not to learn the national language among Russian-
speaking Moldovans as it is perceived as neither dominant nor prestig-
ious (cf. Ciscel, 2008).

Lithuania
Unlike Moldova, Lithuania was able to connect with pre-war tradi-
tions of statehood and to develop an understanding of its national and
cultural identity. After the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, the
208 The Linguistic Landscapes of Chişinău and Vilnius

country followed a path of integration into both NATO and European


Union and at the same time loosened its ties with Russia. In that
respect, Lithuanian was deemed to serve as a tool to enhance national
cohesion (Hogan-Brun, 2006, p. 125). Like Moldova Lithuania has
been a multilingual country as well. Until the Second World War, its cities
and towns were characterized by sizeable German-, Polish-, Russian-
and Yiddish-speaking minorities. Of these, Russian and Polish are still
spoken in the country.
Since the end of the Second World War, the founding of Soviet
Lithuania and, albeit moderate, migration from other parts of the USSR
to mainly urban centres, Russian emerged as the second language of
the country. Following a moderate policy of Sovietization in the 1970s,
the status of the USSR’s lingua franca grew and confirmed the status
of Lithuania as a de facto bilingual country till the end of the 1980s
(Grenoble, 2003, pp. 106–7). After independence in 1991, Lithuanian
became the state’s sole national language, resulting in a sharp decline
in the status of Russian both as a language learnt at school and as a
medium of communication in the public and private sphere. Although
this loss of prestige can be attributed to political factors and sentiments
related to shared memories of oppression and Russian hegemony dur-
ing Soviet times, the actual number of inhabitants with Russian as
their mother tongue remained relatively stable throughout the coun-
try after independence at around 6 per cent (Grenoble, 2003, p. 110).
Nevertheless, Russian and Polish are languages that are used at home
among relatives and friends and not in official contexts or as languages
of wider communication in general. Nowadays Lithuanian is perceived
as the language of social and economic success by speakers of Russian
and as such seen as a tool to integrate into Lithuanian society. In par-
ticular, young Russians in urban centres prefer higher education in
Lithuanian and feel positive about using that language. Between 1989
and 2000, the number of inhabitants of the country able to speak
Lithuanian rose from 85 to 94 per cent (Bulajeva and Hogan-Brun,
2008; cf. Hogan-Brun et al., 2008; Hogan-Brun, 2006, p. 126).

Exploring multilingualism in two Post-Soviet capitals

Demographic data on the number of mother tongue speakers in four


districts of each city are shown in the following. These figures were
obtained from the national statistics agencies of both Moldova and
Lithuania and will serve as the basis for assessing the language situation
within the two capitals in this chapter.
Sebastian Muth 209

Chişinău
Chişinău (Russian Кишинëв), the capital of Moldova with a population
of just under 600,000 inhabitants is the country’s largest city, its most
important transport hub and its economic and cultural heart. The city
follows typical patterns of Soviet urban planning and is characterized
by a prestigious central district where most government institutions,
embassies, private enterprises, upmarket shops and restaurants are
found. To the north, east and southeast, Chişinău is characterized by
huge residential areas that consist of various microdistricts5 dating from
the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. The rather diverse demographic make-up
of the city is shown in Table 12.1 based on the number of mother-
tongue speakers and in total includes four minority languages: Russian,
Ukrainian, Gagauz and Bulgarian. Out of these, Russian dominates with
about one-third of the population speaking it as their first language. In
the census inhabitants also had the option to declare either Romanian
or Moldovan as their mother tongue, even though Moldovan is consid-
ered to be a dialect of Romanian.

Vilnius
Vilnius (Russian Bипьнюс/Polish Wilno) is the capital of Lithuania and
its biggest city. With approximately 550,000 inhabitants it is the coun-
try’s political, economic and cultural centre and apart from that has
further developed into a popular tourist destination in recent years.
Vilnius has always been a multicultural and multiethnic metropolis that
in the past centuries has been under Russian, Polish and Soviet rule.
As in Chişinău, especially Russian influences show in the demographic
composition of the city’s inhabitants as illustrated in Table 12.2.

Table 12.1 Mother tongues in Chişinău by district in per cent

Centru Rîşcani Botanica Ciocana


Romanian 39.4 27.5 32.2 39.9
Moldovan* 28.7 31.6 27.5 27.2
Russian 27.5 32.7 34.0 24.2
Ukrainian 2.4 3.3 3.2 2.8
Gagauz 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.4
Bulgarian 0.6 0.8 0.6 0.5
Other/not 0.6 3.5 2.1 5.0
declared

* Moldovan is largely considered to be a dialect of Romanian.


Source: National Bureau of Statistics of the Republic of Moldova/Moldovan
Population Census 2004.
210 The Linguistic Landscapes of Chişinău and Vilnius

Table 12.2 Mother tongues in Vilnius by district in per cent

Senamiestis Naujamiestis Antakalnis Šnipiškės


Lithuanian 57.1 59.8 69.5 58.0
Russian 19.8 23.6 13.3 21.4
Polish 12.0 8.0 10.6 12.9
Ukrainian 0.4 0.4 0.3 0.4
Belarusian 1.3 0.9 1.0 1.0
Other/not declared* 9.4 7.3 5.3 6.3

* This category mostly includes speakers of languages of the former USSR.


Source: Department of Statistics to the Government of the Republic of Lithuania (Statistics
Lithuania)/Population and Housing Census 2001.

Apart from Russian-speakers, the city’s inhabitants include Polish


speakers (10 per cent), as well as a small proportion of speakers of lan-
guages of the former USSR, such as Ukrainian, Belarusian, Latvian and
Georgian. As in the case of Chişinău, speakers of Russian and other
minority languages live throughout the city, albeit with small differ-
ences in the overall distribution of speakers of minority languages
between the districts. Whereas in Vilnius, Russian-speakers tend to live
in or near the central areas of Senamiestis and Naujamiestis, in Chişinău
their numbers are highest in the mixed residential and commercial dis-
trict of Rîşcani, as well as in the residential district of Botanica on the
periphery of the city.

Methodology

Both corpora used in this study include a set of digital pictures of four
districts of both Chişinău and Vilnius. The corpus for Chişinău contains
a total of 1309 single items that count as units of analysis, whereas
for Vilnius the size of the corpus amounts to 808 items of displays of
written language. The Chişinău corpus was compiled in March 2009
and the one for Vilnius during April and May 2008. As urban centres
are fairly diverse places in themselves with a varying demographic and
social structure, the exploration of the linguistic landscape has to take
these differences into account as well. Data sampling in both capitals
concentrated on four districts of each city.

Areas of research

In Chişinău the affluent central area of Centru including Moldova’s


main shopping street bulevardul Ştefan cel Mare, the mixed business
Sebastian Muth 211

and residential district of Rîşcani and two peripheral low-prestige


residential areas, Botanica and Ciocana were surveyed.
In Vilnius, data sampling largely followed similar socio-geographical
patterns and included the central and most prominent district of the city,
the old town and UNESCO World Heritage Site of Senamiestis. There, the
main pedestrian shopping street Pilies gatvė, the main square of the area,
Rotušės aikšte as well as three smaller side streets were surveyed. In addition
to that, the central, yet mixed residential and business area of Naujamiestis
as well as two largely residential areas, Antakalnis and Šnipiškės were cho-
sen as parts of the survey. Apart from the geographical location these areas
differ in overall status and accessibility, allowing assumptions on prefer-
ences of different addresses with different social, educational or ethnic
backgrounds. To document a diverse linguistic landscape, signs located on
both the main thoroughfares as well as on less accessible side streets were
included in the analysis of each district of the two cities.

Data sampling

Apart from the aspect of geographical location, the next crucial task
in the analysis was to decide on the nature of the units of analysis.
On the one hand it had to be decided what actually counts as a single
unit of analysis. Here, this study largely follows the approach taken by
Cenoz and Gorter (2006, p. 71) that views shop fronts and comparable
establishments such as banks as single units of analysis. Although this
approach has its shortcomings, as especially businesses such as super-
markets and grocery shops often display advertising placards that are
not necessarily integral parts of the shops’ name or corporate identity.
Still, the placement of such posters can also be considered a conscious
decision taken by the owner and as such belongs ‘to the larger whole
instead of being separate’ (Cenoz and Gorter, 2006, p. 71). Other speci-
men of written language such as advertising banners, informal plac-
ards put up by individuals on lampposts and walls as well as graffiti
were counted as single units of analysis. Contrary to other surveys of
linguistic landscapes in urban agglomerations (cf. Cenoz and Gorter,
2006; Huebner, 2006; Backhaus, 2007), top-down (i.e. official) signs
were not included in the survey, as in the case of Vilnius, clear pat-
terns of language use on top-down signage emerged. Either these signs
displayed only Lithuanian or, in case of the inner city area, Lithuanian
and English, especially on road signs giving directions relevant to
foreign visitors. In Chişinău on the other hand, patterns of language
use on public signage were rather arbitrary and did not follow a clear
212 The Linguistic Landscapes of Chişinău and Vilnius

pattern. Although most official institutions displayed bilingual signs


in both Romanian and Russian, directions on road signs were given
either in Romanian or included Russian as well. In very rare instances,
only Russian was depicted or Romanian was written in Cyrillic script.
Nevertheless language on these signs seemed not to be displayed in any
particular language on purpose. As such, state ideology as described by
Sloboda (2009) on the example of Belarus did not mirror itself on public
signs in the Moldovan capital.
Being crucial for the codification of signs within multilingual con-
texts, an approach taken by Cenoz and Gorter (2006, p. 76) in their
survey of two shopping streets in Leeuwarden and San Sebastián was fol-
lowed which determines the languages which have the most prominent
position on bi- and multilingual signs. This strategy is considered as one
of the main dichotomies of linguistic landscape research (Malinowsky,
2009, p. 108) and the most feasible way to make claims about the rela-
tive importance and status of different languages displayed on bi- and
multilingual signs.
Another dimension in this comparative analysis is based on quantita-
tive aspects. As Chişinău and Vilnius are inhabited by a significant number
of speakers of Russian and in the case of Vilnius by speakers of Polish as
well, for each district the overall occurrence of different languages on
signs is compared with demographic data on the number of mother-
tongue speakers within each area. This allows us to make assumptions on
the representation of languages in the public sphere of the two cities and
reveals whether certain minority languages are underrepresented or even
non-existent in the linguistic landscape.

Findings

Within this section, the result of the analysis of the cityscapes of


Chişinău and Vilnius are presented and discussed. We will start by look-
ing at the quantitative dimension of the study and show to what extent
the number of languages spoken in the different districts of each city
corresponds to our survey of public verbal signs and determine whether
linguistic minorities are represented in the linguistic landscape of the
predefined areas in both cities. To illustrate our findings, we will char-
acterize patterns of language use on signs in all districts individually,
allowing an insight into the functional domains the observed languages
fulfil within their specific contexts. For Chişinău, we will consider all
bi- and multilingual signs within two districts and define the dominant
languages on these.
Sebastian Muth 213

Chişinău
A survey of the linguistic landscape of Chişinău reveals that three lan-
guages clearly dominate the public space, Romanian, the main minor-
ity language Russian, and English. The overall count of the number of
languages used on signs in all of the four districts is shown in Table
12.3. These figures support the assumption that in this particular case,
a relationship between the demographic strength of language minorities
and public verbal signs put up by individuals and private businesses is
visible.
Obviously, Romanian is the language most frequently used on signs
throughout the city, as over 65 per cent of all units of analysis included
the country’s national language and out of these, almost 24 per cent solely
used Romanian to convey information. Interestingly, Russian is also an
integral part of the capital’s linguistic landscape and as such can be con-
sidered a minority language that is firmly entrenched in the cityscape of
Chişinău. Just under half of all signs surveyed include Russian either as
the only language displayed or in conjunction with Romanian and/or
English. The third notable finding relates to the use of English on displays
of written language (cf. Muth and Wolf, 2010). Although Moldova must
be considered a country on the margins of Europe in many respects, the
spread of English as the world’s lingua franca is also visible in the capital’s
linguistic landscape. This is even more surprising given the fact that tour-
ism and a steady influx of foreign visitors are not typical of Chişinău or
Moldova in general. Otherwise, these factors fairly often explain a high
number of signs that use English (Huebner, 2007, p. 45; McCormick and
Agnihotri, 2009, p. 7), especially in urban agglomerations that are at the
same time popular tourist destinations such as Bangkok or Cape Town.

Table 12.3 Summary: Distribution of languages


on bottom-up signs in Chişinău in per cent

Chişinău
Romanian 23.7
Russian 17.8
Romanian/Russian 22.1
Romanian/English 15.5
Russian/English 3.4
Romanian/Russian/English 6.0
English 4.8
Other* 6.7

* This category includes other multilingual signs with


languages not frequently observed.
214 The Linguistic Landscapes of Chişinău and Vilnius

Other minority languages that are spoken in Chişinău such as Ukrainian,


Gagauz and Bulgarian were not part of the linguistic landscape of the city,
an exception being Gagauz, which was occasionally used by restaurants
offering ethnic Gagauz cuisine. Nevertheless the use of Gagauz did not
extend beyond a symbolic function.
Bi- and multilingual signage occurred frequently throughout the
city. Signs that were bilingual depicted both Romanian and Russian.
Grocery shops, supermarkets and kiosks in particular used both lan-
guages frequently. On advertising banners and on the front of upmarket
shops, English was used as well in conjunction with Romanian and
Russian, mostly having a rather symbolic function. On such trilingual
signs, information given in Romanian and Russian was identical in most
cases, whereas an English heading was used as a catchphrase to trigger asso-
ciations with the Western world and to convey notions of international-
ity, cosmopolitanism and a somewhat sublime sense of modernity. Typical
examples include catch-phrases such as ‘Moldova-Jobs’, ‘Fitness’, ‘Fast-
food’ or ‘Dresscode’. Arguably this exclusively symbolic dimension of
English within the linguistic landscape of Chişinău is solely aimed at
residents of the city, as actual information about a shop or business offer
was given either in Romanian, Russian or both.
Significant differences in the patterns of language use between the four
districts do exist. The most affluent area of Chişinău, the Centru district
features a rather diverse linguistic landscape as shown in Table 12.4.
The area most visitors of Chişinău will encounter is the city’s main
shopping avenue, bd. Ştefan cel Mare. It is the commercial centre of the
city and the areas in close proximity to it can be considered highly prestig-
ious places to live and work. Along bd. Ştefan cel Mare most government
buildings including the presidential palace and the parliament are

Table 12.4 Distribution of languages on bottom-up signs in Chişinău by district


in per cent

Centru Rîşcani Botanica Ciocana


Romanian 27.7 27.7 19.6 19.7
Russian 10.6 19.1 19.2 22.4
Romanian/Russian 19.1 14.2 27.8 27.3
Romanian/English 16.5 17.5 11.0 16.9
Russian/English 3.2 6.1 2.0 2.2
Romanian/Russian/English 9.5 2.7 7.8 3.8
English 4.9 6.8 2.4 4.9
Other* 8.5 5.8 10.2 2.6

* This category includes other multilingual signs with languages not frequently observed.
Sebastian Muth 215

located; furthermore, embassies, headquarters of Moldovan and foreign


companies as well as Western-style chain stores and fast-food joints
can be found in its vicinity. Around this area, Romanian was visible
on approximately 70 per cent of all signs and as such by far the most
frequently used language, virtually everywhere in front of shops, restau-
rants, offices or as part of advertisement banners or placards. Signs that
only displayed Romanian were seen on almost 28 per cent of displays of
written language, mainly used by prestigious clothing shops, fast-food
outlets and shops selling local artwork. Nevertheless, on such a promi-
nent location as bd. Ştefan cel Mare, language use on signs is not only
determined by the choice of individual shop owners and corporations
but also governed by municipal laws that require the shop’s name to
be written in Latin script which obviously excludes Russian (cf. Ciscel,
2008, p. 111). This policy was adhered to by almost all establishments
on bd. Ştefan cel Mare and within Centru in general, but often English
was used instead of Romanian, especially in cases where Russian was the
otherwise dominant language as in Figure 12.1. Nevertheless, in the case
of Moldova this particular regulation is probably the only case when
language ideology has an effect on the linguistic landscape and outside
Chişinău in municipalities such as Bălţi or Comrat, many shop owners
did not adhere to this policy.
Bilingual signs depicting both Romanian and Russian were most fre-
quently used by cheaper restaurants and grocery shops. In the cases where
Romanian and English were used, English-only had a symbolic function
and was used as a catchphrase, whereas on signs that depicted both
Romanian and Russian, the two languages often shared equal space and
font and conveyed the same information (cf. Muth and Wolf, 2010).
Regarding the use of Russian, the number of signs making exclusive
use of this language rises the further one moves away from the city
centre. While within the mixed commercial and residential district
of Rîşcani, located close to central Chişinău, the amount of signs in
Russian only is almost twice that of the Centru district, the number
of bilingual signs in both Romanian and Russian is actually lower. To
a certain extent this can be explained by the characteristics of our units
of analysis. Whereas in Centru a relatively large number of tokens were
shop fronts that mostly seemed to prefer bilingual signage throughout
the city, most units in Rîşcani were billboards and advertising banners
located on through roads. In addition to that, informal posters and
placards put up by individuals on lampposts or walls that were surveyed
on secondary roads or near bus stops accounted for a higher number of
signs exclusively depicting Russian. Regarding the overall status of the
216 The Linguistic Landscapes of Chişinău and Vilnius

Figure 12.1 Billboard on bd. Renaşterii, Chişinău

main minority language Russian, especially such monolingual informal


placards indicate that most individuals assume Russian to be a language
likely understood by most of the audience, regardless of their mother
tongue. In that respect, advertising banners put up by local businesses
such as in Figure 12.1 underline the status of Russian as a local lingua
franca within urban Chişinău.
Romanian is the dominant code on a commercial advertisement near
the city’s circus on bd. Renaşterii, put up by a company offering sanitary
accessories. It is used to inform potential customers what the company has
to offer and that special offers with discounts up to 50 per cent are avail-
able. Nevertheless, the banner includes a huge red overprint in Russian,
reading ПОСЛЕДНЯЯ НЕДЕЛЯ СКИДОК, which translates as the ‘last
week when discounts are given’. Here, both languages share an informa-
tive function but each language gives different information, assuming
that the readership is actually bilingual in Moldovan and Russian. Still,
Russian serves as a kind of lingua franca here as those who put up the
banner were most likely to be aware that most who speak Romanian
Sebastian Muth 217

as their first language have at least a sufficient command of Russian to


comprehend this particular phrase.
This pattern of an increased use of Russian can be observed through-
out the other two residential districts, Botanica and Rîşcani, as well. The
number of signs that depict Russian alone is equally high if compared
to Rîşcani and in Ciocana they even exceed the number of monolingual
signs in Romanian. This rather unusual observation can be explained by
a high concentration of informal signs painted on walls giving directions
to nearby shops or markets especially on secondary roads in the less afflu-
ent parts of the city north of the railway station area. The high number
of bilingual signs in both Ciocana and Botanica on the other hand can be
attributed to shops and supermarkets located in residential microdistricts
around str. N. Milescu Spătarul and bd. Dacia respectively, characteristic
of Soviet urban planning of the 1970s and 1980s.
Bilingual signage in Romanian/Russian, Romanian/English or Russian/
English was used fairly often in all four districts by shops, restaurants
and on advertising banners. By determining the dominant language on
these signs, assumptions can be made on the relative importance and
prestige a language has (cf. Cenoz and Gorter, 2006, p. 76). In order to
do that, one central and one peripheral district have been selected as
shown in Table 12.5. Determining which language is the most promi-
nent on a bi- or multilingual sign is not necessarily an easy task, as
we have to take aspects such as size, font and position into account.
Furthermore, English in particular often appeared to be the most domi-
nant language on shop signs, although it was just used as the shop’s
name or part of its corporate identity such as in Figure 12.2.
The results in Table 12.5 suggest that on bi- and multilingual signs,
Romanian was the dominant language in most instances. Although
Russian often conveyed the same information and appeared fairly fre-
quently, it was depicted in smaller print or in a less prominent position,

Table 12.5 Dominant language on all bi-/multilingual


signs (bottom-up) in two districts of Chişinău in per cent

Centru Botanica
Romanian 40.4 51.8
Russian 18.0 17.7
English 14.9 15.3
German 1.2 0
Gagauz 0.6 0
Equal 19.9 8.2
Ambiguous 5.0 7.1
218 The Linguistic Landscapes of Chişinău and Vilnius

Figure 12.2 Clothing store on str. Vasile Alecşandri, Chişinău

confirming its widely acknowledged status as a second language in the


country.

Vilnius
In our survey of the linguistic landscapes of four districts in Vilnius,
Lithuanian and English emerged as the most frequently used languages,
as indicated in Table 12.6. The city’s two minority languages, Russian
and Polish, are practically not used on commercial signs and other
displays of written language which implies that there is no relation
between the number of mother tongue speakers of minority languages
and their representation on signs within this particular context.
As in Chişinău, the national language was most frequently used on
all streets surveyed within the four districts. Nevertheless, Lithuanian
is depicted on over 80 per cent of all signs and as such more frequently
used than Romanian in Chişinău. Virtually every shop, hotel, restaurant,
advertising banner or placard depicted Lithuanian, within Senamiestis
and the northern parts of Naujamiestis around Gedimino prospektas
often together with English. Some upmarket restaurants, bars and fashion
shops did not depict Lithuanian but English, French or Italian instead,
often geared at tourists in case of English or highlighting a broader
Sebastian Muth 219

Table 12.6 Summary: Distribution of languages


on bottom-up signs in Vilnius in per cent
Vilnius
Lithuanian 58.4
Russian 1.2
Lithuanian/Russian 0.5
Lithuanian/English 22.4
Multilingual (3) 1.4
English 8.7
Other* 7.5

* This category includes signs with languages not


frequently observed.

notion of internationality or a particular affiliation with the country’s


culture as in the case of French and Italian. Russian was almost not vis-
ible on verbal signs in all of the four districts and the actual number of
fewer than 2 per cent of signs in that language is marginal and does not
mirror the ethno-demographic reality of the city with a Russian-speaking
population of about 20 per cent. Where Russian occurred it was either
graffiti or written on small placards put up by individuals announcing
rock concerts, offering language courses, piano lessons or second-hand
cars. The city’s other minority language, Polish, has been part of Vilnius’
history for many centuries, but was nevertheless not visible in public.
It only appeared on multilingual banners in front of Catholic churches.
English on the other hand is used fairly frequently especially in the city
centre and, contrary to our findings in Chişinău, its use was not only
restricted to symbolic functions. This can be attributed to the fact that
Vilnius became a popular tourist destination among Western Europeans
in recent years and most places that included words or phrases in
English were restaurants, bars, nightclubs and souvenir shops (cf. Koll-
Stobbe and Muth, 2009, pp. 143–4). In addition to this, many fashion
shops and other local businesses used catchphrases or shop names in
English, a pattern also observed in Chişinău.
Although no significant differences in the distribution of languages
regarding Russian and Polish between the four districts were observed,
the general findings for each district are actually quite diverse as
indicated in Table 12.7. This underlines the importance of both geo-
graphical location and socio-economic factors, as peripheral and largely
residential areas such as Antakalnis show significantly fewer languages
other than Lithuanian if compared to both central districts Senamiestis
and Naujamiestis.
220 The Linguistic Landscapes of Chişinău and Vilnius

Table 12.7 Distribution of languages on bottom-up signs in Vilnius by district


in per cent

Senamiestis Naujamiestis Antakalnis Šnipiškės


Lithuanian 34.3 58.6 82.4 58.2
Russian 1.5 0.0 1.4 1.8
Lithuanian/Russian 0.7 0.7 0.7 0.0
Lithuanian/English 29.5 25.1 9.5 25.5
Multilingual (3) 2.6 1.6 1.3 0.0
English 15.9 6.8 4.7 7.3
Other* 15.5 7.2 0.0 7.2

* This category includes signs in Polish and with languages not frequently observed.

Senamiestis shows the most diverse picture as it has a large number


of sights, a lively restaurant and bar scene and is frequented by foreign
tourists and locals alike. Thus it is of no surprise that English appeared
on almost half of all signs, either as a language used to address tour-
ists or as a way to express the internationality and modernity of the
establishment. Grocery shops, banks and book shops as well as other
small businesses on the other hand often used monolingual Lithuanian
signage, a pattern that also applied to the other three districts. The most
diverse linguistic landscape within Senamiestis was found on the pedes-
trian shopping street Pilies gatvė and the adjacent central square, Rotušės
aikštė. Within this area, many souvenir shops, cafes, bars, restaurants,
hostels and other businesses catering to the growing number of foreign
visitors are located that displayed a wide array of different languages:
Souvenir shops frequently used German, restaurants English, French or
Spanish, hostels English, and cafés Italian, mostly related to either their
clientele or range of products. Russian, on the other hand, was almost
only visible on informal displays of written language, mostly used on
small placards or posters. Figure 12.3 shows a tattoo studio on S. Skapo
gatvė that advertises in Lithuanian, English and Russian, the only
instance of Russian being displayed on a shop front in Senamiestis.
The main commercial area of the city, Naujamiestis, borders the old
town, and its northern part around Gedimino prospektas is home to a
large number of fashion chain stores and fast-food restaurants as well as an
upmarket shopping centre. The linguistic landscape in this particular area
mirrors the results of Senamiestis to a large extent. In contrast to this, its
southern and western parts are clearly perceived as less prestigious by locals
and the linguistic landscape of streets like Gelezinkelio and Mindaugo
resembles that of an exclusively residential area such as Antakalnis. Within
Šnipiškės, north of the city centre, both streets surveyed were located in
Sebastian Muth 221

Figure 12.3 Tattoo studio on S. Skapo gatvė, Vilnius

a mixed commercial and residential area. Lithuanian dominated while


English had rather symbolic functions, mostly displayed by shops catering
to local residents. Russian was only used as graffiti. Further to the northeast,
the residential district of Antakalnis showed the least diverse linguistic land-
scape, with over 80 per cent of signs solely written in Lithuanian. English
was used by fitness studios and fast-food restaurants while Russian again
appeared just as graffiti. Interestingly, one restaurant located on Antakalnio
gatvė offering ethnic Russian cuisine solely used Lithuanian on its front
door and outside walls, but in a font that resembled Cyrillic letters.

Conclusions

The representation of minority languages in the linguistic landscape of


Chişinău and Vilnius does not follow the same patterns in each city.
The actual number of speakers of minority languages in both post-Soviet
capitals is considerable with over 30 per cent speakers of Russian and
Ukrainian in Chişinău and an equally high number of speakers of Russian
and Polish in Vilnius, but just in Chişinău this multilingualism is reflected
in the linguistic landscape of the city. In the Moldovan capital, the main
222 The Linguistic Landscapes of Chişinău and Vilnius

minority language, Russian, occupies a wide range of domains and is


used throughout the city on displays of written language and, consider-
ing both demographic and historical background, is firmly entrenched as
a local lingua franca. On the other hand, our findings in Vilnius suggest
that neither Russian nor Polish are part of the city’s linguistic landscape.
The absence of Russian on verbal signs is unusual given the large number
of speakers of that language, but taking historical and political factors
such as the country’s shared memory of Soviet Russian oppression and
Lithuania’s orientation towards the Western world into account, the
results might seem less surprising. Two questions remain. On the one
hand it seems unclear why the absence of Russian also extends to most
informal displays of written language such as graffiti, placards or posters,
as especially such displays of written language can hardly be regulated
overt- or covertly. A possible explanation might be the rather positive atti-
tudes of speakers of Russian towards Lithuania and the fact that, unlike its
northern neighbours Latvia and Estonia, Lithuania granted all civic rights
to its Russian minority and fostered their integration into post-Soviet
Lithuania after the breakup of the USSR. Nevertheless, our findings do
point towards an underrepresentation of Russian at least in the city’s lin-
guistic landscape that, in a Western European context with a comparable
demographic makeup, would be a rather exceptional case. On the other
hand it was surprising that Polish was equally underrepresented, although
it certainly is not laden with the same negative connotations as Russian
is among many Lithuanians. Most probable reasons for that are a high
degree of cultural assimilation and integration into Lithuanian society.
Within a broader context, the results of our analysis point towards
a relation between the political and cultural orientation of a society
and patterns of language use on signs. While Lithuania is an EU member
state and a relatively stable and prosperous democracy providing con-
siderable incentives to integrate into that society, the same does not
hold true for Moldova. Urban speakers of Russian in Lithuania are espe-
cially upwardly mobile, prefer higher education in Lithuanian and feel
rather positive about using that language (Hogan-Brun, 2006, p. 126).
Contrary to that, Moldova does not offer its citizens the same incen-
tives, as its political and economic future remains unclear and a concept
of a national and cultural identity has not emerged.

Notes
1. Gagauz is a Turkic language mainly spoken in Gagauzia, an autonomous ter-
ritory in southern Moldova. It is closely related to Turkish and approximately
140,000 Moldovans claim it to be their first language.
Sebastian Muth 223

2. Census data for the Republic of Moldova was provided on personal request
by the National Bureau of Statistics of the Republic of Moldova based on the
2004 Moldovan Population Census (Biroul Naţional de Statistică, str. Greno-
ble, 106, MD-2019 Chişinău).
3. Census data for the Republic of Lithuania was provided by the Department
of Statistics to the Government of the Republic of Lithuania based on the
Population and Housing Census 2001 (Statistikos departamentas, Gedimino
pr. 29, LT-01500 Vilnius).
4. This chapter follows the conventions of Romance linguistics and considers
the language as a dialect of Romanian. In the past, the notion of Moldovan
as a language in its own right was supported by Soviet authorities and later on
by the Communist government headed by former President Vladimir Voronin
that ruled till spring 2009 as a political tool to highlight a distinct Moldovan
cultural identity. Nowadays, official pro-Western policy promotes Romanian as
the national language. As lexical and phonetic differences between Romanian
and ‘Moldovan’ are in fact marginal, the notion of Moldovan as a language in
its own right cannot be upheld from a scientific point of view.
5. Microdistrics refer to residential neighbourhoods with high-rise apartment
buildings that are characteristic of large cities in countries of the former
Eastern bloc.

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13
Multilingual Societies vs
Monolingual States: The
Linguistic Landscape in Italy
and Brunei Darussalam
Paolo Coluzzi

Introduction

Research on the linguistic landscape (LL) is starting to become


conspicuous, particularly with regard to Europe and Asia. As far as Italy
is concerned, I am aware of 14 pieces of research published so far that
have looked at its linguistic landscape, four of them focusing on the
presence of English (Griffin, 2004 carried out in Rome; Ross, 1997 car-
ried out in Milan; Schlick, 2002 carried out in Klagenfurt, Ljubljana and
Udin/Udine; Schlick, 2003 carried out in eight European cities including
Trieste and Pordenone), three on English and/or the languages of recent
immigrants (Barni, 2006; Gorter, 2009; Barni and Bagna, 2010), and
another seven on the local minority/regional languages (Blackwood and
Tufi, this volume; Coluzzi, 2009b; Dal Negro, 2009; Grazioli, 2006; Plank,
2006; Puzey, 2009; Puzey, this volume). Plank’s research was carried out
in Bozen/Bolzano (Trentino Alto-Adige) and looked at the presence of
the state language, Italian, and of the co-official language, German, on
commercial shop signs, bars and restaurants in two areas of the city, the
centre and the neighbourhood of Europa-Novacella. Dal Negro’s research
was carried out in two non-urban settings: Formazza (Piedmont), where
an Alemannic German variety is spoken, and Vilnöß/Funes (Trentino
Alto-Adige), where similarly to Bozen/Bolzano, a Bavarian variety, stand-
ard German and Italian are present. The results of Grazioli’s research on
the linguistic landscape in Kurtinig/Cortina (Trentino Alto-Adige) are
included in Dal Negro’s article (2009). Puzey’s 2009 article, on the other
hand, looks at the presence of the local minority/regional languages on
place-name signs in five European regions including Northern Italy. My
own article looked at the presence of Italian and the local minority/

225
226 Multilingual Societies vs Monolingual States

regional languages in the linguistic landscape of two northern Italian


cities: Milan and Udin/Udine, focusing on the role language planning
activities can play in forming the linguistic landscape and the necessity
to carry out sound empirical research in order to justify claims about the
vitality/visibility of a given language. For the present chapter the mate-
rial collected in Milan and Udin/Udine between June and July 2008 for
that previous article has been drawn upon.
With regard to Brunei this is the first time that research on the linguistic
landscape has been carried out; as a matter of fact, to my knowledge
no research on the linguistic landscape in the countries where Malay-
Indonesian is official has been published before.
This chapter focuses on three main issues: the language policy and the
nationalist ideology of the two states expressed particularly through the
top-down or official signs present in the linguistic landscape, the pres-
ence of minority/regional languages and the reasons for their inclusion
in or exclusion from the linguistic landscape, and the peculiar position
of English as a sort of neutral, super partes language.
The chapter begins with a general outline of both countries and their
linguistic repertoires, followed by a description of the research carried
out (methodology, results) with particular emphasis on the cases where
a minority language has been used. The second part of the chapter
includes a discussion of the results, showing what differentiates Italy
from Brunei and what they have in common. The use of English (which
is not official in either country) is also discussed.

Background information

Italy may be the richest country in Western Europe with regard to the
number of historical languages spoken within its borders. Including
both recognized minority languages and non-recognized regional lan-
guages (known as ‘dialects’) we could talk of more than 40 different
languages being spoken (and often also written) in Italy in addition
to Italian. Almost all of them are basilects in relation to Italian, the
acrolect (Coluzzi, 2009a, pp. 39–40).
With regard to the areas where the research was conducted, Milan
and Udin/Udine are two important historical and economic centres in
Northern Italy. The first is the administrative centre of the Lombardy
region, the second largest city in Italy and its main economic and indus-
trial hub. It has a population of about 1,300,000, which rises to almost
four million if the area immediately surrounding it is included (Greater
Milan). Udin/Udine on the other hand is the second largest town in the
Paolo Coluzzi 227

Friuli-Venezia Giulia region in Northeast Italy after its administrative


centre Trieste, with a population of almost 98,000.
In Milan and the surrounding area two historical languages are spo-
ken: Italian, the state language, and Milanese, which could be seen as
the most prestigious variety of Western Lombard, one of the 12–15 non-
recognized regional languages in Italy (see Coluzzi, 2007 and 2009a).
In addition, other Italian regional languages and foreign languages are
spoken by the many immigrant workers and more recent residents. In
Udin/Udine three historical languages are spoken: Italian, a Venetan
dialect that was introduced by the Venetians during their long domi-
nation of the region (1420–1797) and Friulian, one of the 12 minority
languages recognized and protected by State Law 482/1999. Similarly to
Milan, other languages are spoken in Udin/Udine by immigrant workers
and new residents.
In spite of its small size (5,765 km2), Brunei Darussalam also is
linguistically very diverse. Excluding the languages of recent immigrant
workers, 11 minority languages are spoken in the country by the local
population, though this number would be higher if the different varieties of
Chinese spoken together with Mandarin (Hakka, Hokkien, Cantonese,
Hainanese, Teochew, Foochow) were included (Coluzzi, 2010, p. 120;
Martin, 1995, 1996, 1998), in addition to Standard Malay, the official
language, and English. Almost all of the minority languages spoken
in Brunei are basilects in relation to Standard Malay and English, the
acrolects.
Bandar Seri Begawan is the capital of the country and the administra-
tive centre of the Muara district, situated in the eastern part of the coun-
try, with a population of about 130,000. The two historical languages
of the district where it is located are two Malay dialects: Brunei Malay
and Kedayan, both linguistically very close. However, since Bandar Seri
Begawan is the capital and the largest town in Brunei, members of all
the ethnic groups present in the country are found there, including the
Chinese, plus a large immigrant/expat population. English has had a
presence as the language of administration of the British protectorate
since 1888, and as the most important language together with Malay
since independence (1984).

Methodology

To collect data in Brunei the same methodology used in Italy was


employed, with some minor adjustments. This is based on the meth-
odology adopted by Cenoz and Gorter (2006) for their research on
228 Multilingual Societies vs Monolingual States

the linguistic landscape in the Basque Country and Friesland. For


my research in Italy one street in Milan and one in Udin/Udine were
selected: Corso S. Gottardo in Milan (about 540 metres long) and
Via Aquileia in Udin/Udine (about 560 metres long). Both streets are
central but lie just outside the shopping/historical centres of the two
cities, even though they may still be considered part of the commercial
area (see Coluzzi, 2009b). As far as Bandar Seri Begawan is concerned,
Jalan Sultan (about 750 metres long), one of the main streets in the
centre of the capital, was selected. This particular street was chosen
because it appeared to be the only one in the town centre to feature a
high density of shops and businesses (along its southern end) but also
a significant number of public buildings and public signs. Like Cenoz
and Gorter (2006), each shop was considered as one unit of analysis.
This means that if any writing in a shop was in a different language
from the rest, the shop was considered a bilingual/multilingual unit
of analysis. The same obviously applied to smaller units of analysis,
like posters, street signs, water outlets, and so on. In Brunei, however,
some shops contain more than one establishment or business. In this
case I counted each establishment as one unit of analysis, even though
they were physically located in the same premises. Such cases were not
found in Italy. In total 388 units of analysis were recorded in the two
Italian cities, whereas 102 units of analysis were counted in Brunei’s
capital during the field research carried out between September and
October 2009.
Unlike Cenoz and Gorter, digital pictures were only taken of multi-
lingual signs, those where minority/regional languages were used and,
as far as Brunei is concerned, signs containing the Jawi script,1 whe-
ther this transliterated Malay or other languages. As for all the other
items, they were counted just as monolingual Italian, Malay, English
(even though I did not consider English words which have become
common in Italian or Malay, as long as they were not inserted in an
English phrase) or in another language. In my reckoning the following
were included:

– any sign in the street, including signs on shop doors or gates even if
they were open, and also signs behind/on shop windows as long as
they were big enough to be easily readable from the outside. These
included also temporary signs. However, repeated signs, banners or
posters were counted only once.
– complete and easily readable posters and stickers.
– complete and easily readable graffiti (only found in Italy).
Paolo Coluzzi 229

In my counting the following items were not taken into account:

– small writings behind shop windows that were not easily readable
from the outside, like price tags or small writings on containers.
– half-erased or defaced graffiti or torn posters and stickers.
– the proper name of shops or businesses in the two Italian cities. The
decision not to take proper names into account was taken during
my research in Italy particularly because I sometimes found it very
problematic to assign one name to one language or the other. In
addition to that I felt that the use of an Italian or a foreign name
was not a choice in the case of a shop belonging to a certain chain.
However, in Brunei all names of shops I analysed were clearly iden-
tifiable as Malay, English or Chinese, partly because the name of the
shop/owner, when it was there, was almost always accompanied by
other words in the same language (often the denomination of the
type of shop/business). Those few shops/businesses which were part
of a chain and/or international enterprise, on the other hand, always
had a transcription/translation in Jawi, whose use was also part of
my research. Considering all these factors, the inclusion of proper
names in my counting as far as Brunei is concerned still allows com-
parability with Italy.

All the inscriptions collected were analysed in terms of the languages


used and whether they were separate or used together in a bilingual
or multilingual sign. In this latter case, the analysis included the order
of the languages, whether they convey the same meaning or not and
whether they are official or unofficial.

Results

For this chapter the data collected in Milan and Udin/Udine have been
put together in order to have just two sets of data to compare, that
collected in Italy and that collected in Brunei. Out of the 388 units of
analysis recorded in Italy, 315 (81.1 per cent)2 were in Italian, 66 (17 per
cent) contained Italian plus one or more other languages and less than
2 per cent were English-only (seven cases). This is shown in Table 13.1.
As for the languages employed, in 62 cases out of the 66 where one
or more languages were present in addition to Italian this language
was English (15.9 per cent of the total number of units of analysis),
in five cases (1.2 per cent) it was the local minority/regional language
(Milanese and Friulian), whereas other languages (French, German,
230 Multilingual Societies vs Monolingual States

Table 13.1 Units of analysis in the official language and other languages in Italy
and Brunei (in percentages)

Italy (Milan and Brunei Darussalam (Bandar


Udine) (n  388) Seri Begawan) (n  102)
Units in the official 81.1 20.5
language only (Italian/
Standard Malay)
Units containing more 17 62.7
than one language
Units containing 1.8 16.6
English-only

Table 13.2 Units of analysis containing more than one language in Italy and
Brunei (in percentages)

Italy (Milan and Brunei Darussalam (Bandar


Udine) (n  388) Seri Begawan) (n  102)
Official language (Italian/ 17 61.7
Standard Malay)
Minority/regional 1.2 18.6
languages
Other languages 5.1 3.9
English 15.9 62.7

Turkish, Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, Slovenian, Croatian, an


Indian language written in Devanagari and even Latin) appeared in 20
units of analysis (5.1 per cent). This is shown in Table 13.2.
If we now consider each single bilingual or multilingual inscription
appearing in these units of analysis, there were only 17 of them in
total. All of them but one had the same text written in the different
languages, that is all the translations from Italian were duplicating
or homophonic (the translation reflected the original text closely)
(Backhaus, 2007, p. 91–3). The only sign that did not have the text
translated directly from Italian or English was a sign with the name of
the street in Udin/Udine, written in Italian and Friulian. In this case, in
fact, the original Friulian name of the street is completely different from
the present Italian one, which can therefore be considered a complemen-
tary or polyphonic sign (Backhaus, 2007, pp. 91, 97–8).
If we now look at the order in which these languages appeared in these
bilingual signs, Italian was first in 14 cases, whereas German, French and
Friulian appeared first in one case each. English was never first, even
though seven English-only signs were recorded, as shown before.
Paolo Coluzzi 231

As far as the distribution of top-down (official) and bottom-up


(unofficial) units of analysis is concerned, as the focus of my research
in Italy was on bilingual signs and those using the local languages,
I did not record their proportions. Most of them were in Italian only
and were subsumed under the monolingual units of analysis employing
Italian. In fact, in only six cases languages different from Italian were
employed in official units of analysis, and English was included in all
but one (the one where English did not appear was the name of the
street in Udin/Udine mentioned earlier). None of them contained
Milanese and only two, the name of the street and a tourist sign in
Udin/Udine, contained Friulian.3
Out of the 102 units of analysis counted in Bandar Seri Begawan, 21
(20.5 per cent) were in Malay only (with or without Jawi), 64 were mul-
tilingual, with or without Malay (62.7 per cent), while 17 were monolin-
gual in English (16.6 per cent). This is shown in Table 13.1.
Of these 64 multilingual units of analysis 63 contained Malay, whether
written in Jawi and/or Roman scripts (61.7 per cent of the total number
of signs), all of them included English (62.7 per cent), 19 (18.6 per cent)
had Chinese written in Chinese characters and only 4 (3.9 per cent) had
other languages in them (Arabic, French, German, Spanish, Italian and
Thai). This can be seen in Table 13.2.
Basically all combinations of these languages are found; however, the
most common combinations are Jawi and English (27 out of 103 single
bilingual inscriptions), Malay written in Roman characters and English
(23), Jawi, Malay and English (22) and Jawi, Malay, English and Chinese
(15). If we look at the order in which they appear, the most common
one is Jawi on top (written in a size twice as big as the Roman script),
Malay underneath and then English, or, in the case of businesses owned
by Chinese, Jawi on top, then Malay, Chinese and finally English. If
the sign does not have Jawi, then normally Malay comes first. Clearly
Jawi dominates the LL, both for the sheer number of signs containing
it and for its prominent position and size, both in public, but even
more in private signs. This is because of official regulations on its use in
the linguistic landscape; in fact, a circular from the Office of the Prime
Minister issued on 19 July 1988 (n. 21/1988) clearly states:

It is hereby declared that all Ministries and Departments should


observe and enforce the use of the Jawi script in addition to the
Roman script on signs on Government buildings and on private
businesses, including name signs, letterheads, notice boards, posters,
advertisements, banners, names and street signs and so forth. The
232 Multilingual Societies vs Monolingual States

Table 13.3 Languages (including the use of Jawi) used in official and unofficial
units of analysis in Brunei (in percentages)

Total Official Unofficial


Jawi 65.6 8.8 56.8
Malay (Roman script) 65.6* 15.6 50
English 79.4 15.6 63.7
Chinese 18.6 — 18.6
Other languages 3.9 — 3.9

* Even though the percentage of signs in Jawi and Rumi is the same, they did not always
appear together on the same sign.

Jawi script must be twice as big as the Roman script and should be
placed on top.
(Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka Brunei, 2009,
p. 19. My own translation from Malay.)

Finally, with regard to official and unofficial units of analysis, 24 of


the first kind were recorded. In top-down units of analysis only two
languages and two scripts are used, English and Standard Malay, the
latter appearing both in Roman and Jawi scripts. Their distribution is as
follows: nine units where Jawi is used (8.8 per cent of the total number of
units of analysis), 16 where Malay in Roman script is used (15.6 per cent)
and another 16 where English is used (15.6 per cent). As far as bottom-
up units of analysis are concerned, 58 out of the 78 recorded contain
Jawi (56.8 per cent), 51 Malay in Roman script (50 per cent), 19 Chinese
(18.6 per cent), 4 other languages (3.9 per cent) (mentioned before) and
as many as 65 English (63.7 per cent). This is shown in Table 13.3.

The signs in the minority languages present in Italy and


Brunei

As shown in the previous section, only five cases were found where
Italian minority/regional languages were present. In Milan it was a
sticker that had been placed on the door of a perfume shop. It said: ‘Se
parla anca el milanes’ (Milanese is spoken as well) (Figure 13.1).
In Udin/Udine four signs were found where Friulian was used on its
own or together with Italian (and English in one case). Two were stick-
ers that had been placed on the doors of two shops. One was on the
door of a restaurant and it said: ‘Jo o feveli furlan’ (I speak Friulian)
Paolo Coluzzi 233

Figure 13.1 Sticker in Milan (Milanese is spoken as well)

(Figure 13.2), the other one was on the door of a shop selling household
goods and it said that the door should be pushed, in Friulian ‘sburtait’.
Another sign containing Friulian was a tourist sign produced by the
Province of Udin/Udine in front of a church, giving a brief historical
outline of the church first in Italian, then in Friulian and finally, in
a slightly smaller font, in English. Finally, above the sign with the name
of the street in Italian (Via Aquileia) another sign of a different colour
had been placed with the former name in Friulian (Borc d’Olee) on
a wall at the beginning of the street.
As far as Brunei is concerned, none of the autochthonous Austronesian
minority languages are found in any signs. However, Chinese appears
in many bottom-up units of analysis, where 30 single signs were
recorded using Chinese (29.1 per cent of the total number of single
bilingual/multilingual inscriptions), in almost all cases accompanied
by a complete and accurate translation/transliteration in Malay and/or
English (homophonic signs). It is interesting to notice that, unlike the
English version of the Chinese writing, the Malay version in almost all
signs containing a Chinese name translated that name literally into
Malay, so that for example Sing Lee is translated as kemenangan, which
literally means ‘victory’, namely what the Chinese name means. This
234 Multilingual Societies vs Monolingual States

Figure 13.2 Sticker in Udine (I speak Friulian)

is probably to keep the Malay version ‘pure’ and totally Malay looking,
whether in Roman script or Jawi. Figure 13.3 shows two examples of
the signs containing Chinese that were recorded: the upper sign reads
Shèng Lì yáng fú in Mandarin, meaning ‘Sing Lee taylor’, ‘kedai jahit
kemenangan’ in Malay (as explained previously kemenangan is the
literal translation of Sing Lee), whereas the sign below reads lìdì mĕifà
mĕiróngyuàn, translation of the English ‘Lady Fine hair and beauty
salon’; the Malay version again is a literal translation from English:
‘salun rambut elok dan kecantikan perempuan’.4

Discussion

The data provided in the previous section show that Italy and Brunei
feature very different linguistic landscapes. The LL in Italy is basically
monolingual (81.1 per cent of the units of analysis are in Italian only)
(see also Blackwood and Tufi, this volume) whereas in Brunei the great
Paolo Coluzzi 235

Figure 13.3 Chinese shop signs in Bandar Seri Begawan

majority of units of analysis (79.4 per cent) contain more than one
language. In addition to that, whereas the LL of Italy is unigraphic (if
we exclude the rather rare signs in Chinese, Devanagari, etc.), that in
Brunei is multigraphic with three scripts in common use ( Jawi, Roman
and Chinese), adding to the impression of high diversity.
English is also much more common in Brunei than in Italy (found
in 79.4 per cent of all units of analysis in the first country against
17.7 per cent in the latter), whereas more signs in other foreign lan-
guages can be found in Italy than in Brunei. With regard to minority
or regional languages, Chinese shares a rather large percentage of the
linguistic landscape, whereas the presence of these languages is almost
negligible in Italy in spite of the official status that has been granted to
some of them, like Friulian, by State Law 482/1999 and other regional
laws (see Blackwood and Tufi, this volume; Coluzzi, 2007, 2009b).
236 Multilingual Societies vs Monolingual States

As Landry and Bourhis (1997) and many others after them have rightly
stated, the linguistic landscape never or hardly ever reflects the ethnolin-
guistic composition of the local inhabitants, but rather the prestige the
different languages enjoy and/or the language policy of the state/region
where they live. In fact, while about 30 per cent of the people living
in Milan and the surrounding area can speak Milanese (Coluzzi, 2007,
p. 260), the presence of their local language in the linguistic landscape
of Corso S. Gottardo amounts to only 0.5 per cent (one unit of analysis
out of 188). As for the presence of Friulian in Via Aquileia, while about
half of the local population can speak it, only 2 per cent of the units
of analysis observed (four units out of 200) contain Friulian (Coluzzi,
2009b, pp. 300, 307). It is quite clear that these languages enjoy low
prestige and their actual sociolinguistic vitality in society is not reflected
in the linguistic landscape (see also Blackwood and Tufi, this volume).
As far as Brunei is concerned, no local Austronesian minority language
is present in the linguistic landscape, while, as we have seen, Chinese is
quite visible in unofficial signs. Clearly enough, as the official languages
of the two countries, Standard Malay and Italian enjoy a status that no
other languages in the two countries possess, which is helped by official
language policies that support these languages vigorously, through their
public use and, as far as Brunei is concerned, through regulations like
the earlier-mentioned that require shopkeepers to display Jawi on the
main signs in their shops and businesses. Jawi, apart from being closely
associated to Malayness, indexes Islam as well, the official religion of
the country.
Chinese is in a way an anomaly. It is not recognized as a minority
language but still enjoys enough prestige to be used in the linguistic
landscape extensively. Various reasons can be given to explain this and
why other minority languages, some of which are still spoken by a rela-
tively large part of the population, are totally invisible. First of all, most
of these local Austronesian languages have never been used as written
media and they are seen as oral languages related to a past that many
want to leave behind. Secondly, they do not enjoy any kind of support
and most of their speakers are not really aware of the language shift that is
taking place. These considerations apply to Italian minority and regional
languages as well, with the important difference that many of these local
languages, like Western Lombard or Friulian, have been codified (even
though some, like Western Lombard, are not fully standardized and tend
to have two main writing systems in competition with each other (see
Coluzzi, 2006, 2007, 2008)), feature vast and interesting literatures, and
enjoy the support of at least some groups and associations. In the case
Paolo Coluzzi 237

of Friulian, the main reason for the language sharing a larger percentage
in the LL than, for instance, Western Lombard, is that it is protected by
national and regional laws. In fact, half of the signs in Friulian are there
thanks to these laws (Coluzzi, 2009b).
With regard to Chinese, the main reason for its large presence in
the LL of Brunei is its high prestige among the Chinese, who, in spite
of their number (about 15 per cent of the population), are on the whole
the economically strongest and most entrepreneurial ethnic group in
the country, with a high ethnolinguistic vitality (see Dunseath, 1996). The
high prestige of Mandarin is aided by the fact that it is now the most widely
spoken and one of the most important languages in the world,5 used in
countless publications in mainland China and abroad, with one of the
most ancient literatures. Mandarin is also taught in a few Chinese schools
and as an elective subject at the University of Brunei Darussalam; the new
educational reform SPN 21 has also made provision for its introduction
as an elective subject from year 7 to year 10 of compulsory education
(Curriculum Development Department, 2009). Last but not least, written
Chinese uses ideograms and not a phonetic alphabet, which allows it to
be used for any of the many ‘dialects’ of Chinese that are still widely used
in Brunei. This means that Hokkien or Cantonese, for instance, which are
quite different from Mandarin, are written in the same way.
The other language that is an important part of the written and spo-
ken repertoire of Brunei (and, to a much lesser extent, of Italy as well)
is English, the international language par excellence, the language of
globalization, modernity and glamour. Almost 80 per cent of all units
of analysis in Jalan Sultan contain English, and some quite extensively.
There are various reasons that account for this remarkable presence,
which is actually almost the same as that of Standard Malay, the official
language. Three main reasons can be put forward for that. The first is
obviously historical: Brunei was a British protectorate until as late as
1983, where English was the language of administration and power. The
second is the same reason why English has become so popular all over
the world: ‘English is the language of success, profit and international
acceptability’ (Dougill, 1987, p. 33). The third, clearly related to the
other two, may be actually the most important: English in Brunei is felt
as more useful and prestigious than Standard Malay by the majority of
people in Brunei (see Ozóg, 1996). This is perhaps the main difference
with Italy, where English is the most common foreign language used in
the LL but to an extent that is not comparable with Brunei. Obviously
Italy has never been a British colony or protectorate, but probably
more important than this is the fact that Malay has not developed as
238 Multilingual Societies vs Monolingual States

a national language, particularly in Malaysia and Brunei, to the extent


to which Italian in Italy has. Italian has been a prestigious written lan-
guage since the Middle Ages, with a very important corpus of literature.
The majority of Italians nowadays use it all or most of the time, and,
most importantly, a good level of Italian is an important pre-requisite to
get any good job in Italy, whereas English is required only for some spe-
cific jobs, and rarely is fluency important. Standard Malay, on the other
hand, is only used in one out of the three dailies published in Brunei,
the other two being in English, the vast majority of books in bookshops
are in English, and those few in Malay are often solely love stories or
religious books. In education Standard Malay occupies an important
position only in primary school, then the subjects taught in English
increase in number to overtake those taught in Malay, until one enters
the main university in the country where the main language of instruc-
tion is English. Clearly Malay is losing importance at the expense of
English in Brunei and the chances of advancement in society are limited
for those who do not speak good English (see Ozóg, 1996).
What is interesting to observe, however, is that the importance that
English is given in Brunei by public institutions is covert. English is
not official. It rarely comes first or is the most prominent language in
signs, but still it is everywhere. It is in the streets, on television, in the
newspapers, in the education system to a larger extent than Standard
Malay. On the other hand public support for Standard Malay is clearly
overt: not only are there regulations for its use (one of which has been
already pointed out), but one can even find signs in the streets and
inside buildings urging people to use Malay.

Conclusions

In the previous sections the rather big differences between the LL in


Italy and Brunei have been highlighted, but what is there in common
between these two countries (and, I would add, most other countries
in the world)? The data collected show that what they share is the
monolingual tendency of the state and the multilingual tendency of
the people, namely the tendency to use more than one language in
everyday interaction.
Whereas some countries in the world have slowly started to accept
the idea of a multilingual state, both Italy and Brunei seem still to be
anchored to the old nationalistic rhetoric of ‘one country, one people,
one language’, and their official language policy clearly shows this.
It is this rhetoric that prevents English from enjoying official status
Paolo Coluzzi 239

in Brunei, in spite of its substantial presence. Minority and regional


languages, on the other hand, play a very marginal role in the two
countries beyond the family and the small community, apart from
Chinese as we have already pointed out. Obviously the fact that some
of them have been officially recognized by the Italian state is what
accounts for their presence in the local LL, particularly in top-down sig-
nage. This presence, however, as the case of Udin/Udine clearly shows,
is in most cases very limited (see also Dal Negro, 2009 and Blackwood
and Tufi, this volume).
English in both countries plays the role of a language super partes:
‘a neutral linguistic resource’ as Ben-Rafael et al. remark in their article on
the LL in Israel (2006, p. 25). As long as it is not too much in evidence,
then it can be used and even fostered without jeopardizing national
unity and identity. English in the LL is both informational and symbolic
in Italy. It appears both on top-down and bottom-up signs, but its pres-
ence on bottom-up signs indexes glamour and modernity and in most
cases it is there simply to attract potential customers, even if they can-
not speak English, which is often the case.6 In a way, it is a ‘decorative
language’, using an expression coined by John Dougill for his article on
the LL in Japan (1987). In Brunei, while retaining its aura of a prestig-
ious and international language, it is used to convey different kinds of
information, to foreigners but especially to locals, most of whom can
speak English, particularly younger people. The presence of English is
so strong in Brunei that, many fear, it is slowly ‘minoritizing’ Malay,
whose overall presence and visibility are shrinking in spite of its official
support on the part of the state (see Coluzzi, 2011).
If minority languages had a notable presence in the LL, this would
help to raise their status and maintain them (see Cenoz and Gorter,
2006 and Landry and Bourhis, 1997). However, this cannot be done
if the language does not have a literary status, like all Austronesian
minority languages in Brunei, or, even more importantly, if nobody
knows how to read and write them (see Spolsky, 2009),7 namely when
they are not part of the school curriculum, which is the case both in
Brunei and in Italy as far as the non-recognized regional languages are
concerned. Therefore languages that are not written need to be stand-
ardized and a writing system must be devised for them (corpus plan-
ning). On the other hand, allowing Chinese to appear in at least some
top-down signs as well would be a good way to show respect for the
linguistic rights of the minority who speak it.
Obviously research on the linguistic landscape based on three streets
in three cities only is necessarily limited and more data from other
240 Multilingual Societies vs Monolingual States

areas both in Brunei and especially in Italy is needed to confirm the


inferences made or to fine-tune them. This may be a starting point for
the possible development and implementation of language policies for
the protection of minority and regional languages that recognize the
importance of their presence in the linguistic landscape for their future
maintenance and development.

Notes
1. Jawi is the Arabic-derived alphabet that was used to write Malay until the end
of the nineteenth century when Rumi, the Roman script, was introduced and
quickly took over. It is still in use today in Brunei for specific functions.
2. Only the first decimal is shown.
3. No other autochthonous minority or regional languages from other parts of
Italy were recorded, even though many immigrants speaking them live in the
two cities.
4. I would like to thank my colleague Min Shen for her invaluable help in trans-
lating and analysing the Chinese writings.
5. http://www.ethnologue.com/ethno_docs/distribution.asp?by=size.
6. According to the latest ISTAT survey (2006), 43.6 per cent of the interviewees
(over six years of age) declared they could speak English. However, only 5.7 per
cent of the interviewees declared they were fluent in the language (ottima cono-
scenza), whereas 23.6 per cent declared they could get by (buona conoscenza).
7. See Puzey (this volume) about misspelling on official street nameplates in
Northern Italy.

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14
Using Linguistic Landscape to
Examine the Visibility of Sámi
Languages in the North Calotte
Hanni Salo

Introduction

This chapter1 focuses on a study of Sámi languages in the linguistic


landscapes (LL) of four rural villages in the North Calotte area. Most of
the previous studies and theoretical and methodological writings which
have made use of the LL as a concept, have investigated urban places,
where the political or sociolinguistic profiles have been changing
rapidly mainly due to globalization (Backhaus, 2006; Ben-Rafael et al.,
2006; Cenoz and Gorter, 2006; Coupland, 2009; Huebner, 2006). In this
chapter, the linguistic landscape is viewed in a peripheral context where
endangered indigenous languages are part of the area’s new globalized
multilingual economy. Although some previous studies have focused
their investigation on minority languages (e.g. Cenoz and Gorter, 2006;
Puzey, 2007), endangered indigenous languages and multilingualism in
rural areas has not been the focus of investigation until recently.
The data is part of a larger study in the context of Northern
Multilingualism Project,2 and it comes from four villages located above
the Arctic Circle in the four countries of the North Calotte region:
Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. The LLs of these villages are
taken as ‘symbolic construction of the public space’ (Ben-Rafael et al.,
2006), and by undertaking a study of these LLs the aim is to examine
languages as they are used in the signs, as well as the ‘representation of
the languages, and the ideas and ideologies concerning multilingual-
ism’ (Shohamy, 2006). Multilingualism is understood as relationships,
ideologies and policies concerning the languages that are present, or
for some reason missing, in the public space of the area. This chapter
aims to describe the language economy of the four villages and how it
is represented in the LL. Particular focus is given to indigenous Sámi

243
244 Sámi Languages in the North Calotte

languages: where and how they are used, and what happens to the
endangered indigenous language when it is used in different contexts?
In other words, what message does the LL deliver about the local language
economy, multilingualism, and the functions of the various Sámi lan-
guages (Shohamy and Gorter, 2009)?
Following a short introduction to the historically shaped linguistic
economies, the local and national dynamics of language relations
and values of respective linguistic resources, of the four villages and
countries in question (Karasjok in Norway, Kiruna in Sweden, Inari in
Finland and Lovozero in Russia), a description of the empirical study
is provided. The results are presented through a discussion on multi-
lingualism in the LLs of the four villages, as well as a more detailed
description of the use of the Sámi languages in three different contexts,
in which the focus is on how Sámi is used and the functions it has in
the signs. This chapter concludes with a discussion of the interestingly
shifting roles and functions of the endangered Sámi languages, as well
as the problems and possibilities of using LL in studying multilingual-
ism and endangered indigenous languages in rural peripheral contexts.

Linguistic economy of the four villages

The North Calotte is a rural but historically multilingual region (Lehtola,


2000; Lindgren, 2000) that spans the northernmost parts of four states:
Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. The North Calotte region, also
known as Sámiland (Sápmi), is a self-evident geographical focus for
this study, as it is the traditional homeland for the Sámi peoples, even
though nowadays over half of the Sámi live outside the area (Lindgren,
2000). It offers an interesting context for studying multilingualism as
its linguistic economy has gone through major changes in the past, for
example, changing national borders and cultural practices, the division
and relocation of communities and, more recently, growing flows of
tourism (Pietikäinen et al., 2010).
As a result of these large-scale changes, also the indigenous languages,
including Sámi, have undergone substantial (re)formation in their soci-
etal positions, roles and value (Pietikäinen et al., 2010). Globalization has
brought new opportunities and challenges for linguistic resources that
have resulted in a change in the hierarchies of languages present in the
area (Pietikäinen, 2010). For example, in tourism, English has become
more visible but also the endangered indigenous languages have gained
a new kind of value in for example, marketing authenticity. Media is
another domain where English and other global languages have a major
Hanni Salo 245

role, but it also offers new possibilities for the indigenous languages.
This has resulted in multilayered multilingualism with indigenous
minority languages, national and neighboring majority languages, and
global tourism languages all visible in the linguistic landscape of the
four villages.
The history of Sámi peoples and languages is colored with assimilation,
destabilizing and marginalization, due to the modernist ideology of the
homogeneous nation state (cf. Aikio-Puoskari, 2009; Lindgren, 1999;
Pietikäinen, 2008a). One of the main reasons for the weakened position
of Sámi and other minority languages in the Nordic countries and in
Russia was the process of modernization and the construction of homo-
geneous nation states after the wars, which meant different assimilation
policies. The national majority languages (Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish
and Russian) became the main working language in education, media and
administration and the Sámi languages, together with other minority
languages, were marginalized and even stigmatized, and for many indi-
viduals this resulted in a total language shift from Sámi to the respective
majority language (for more detailed history, see, for example, Huss, 2008;
Laihiala-Kankainen and Potinkara, 2009; Pietikäinen et al., 2010).
These drastic changes led to the present situation, where all indig-
enous Sámi languages are endangered and subject to many language
maintenance, revitalization and documentation activities. However, at
the same time a movement to strengthen the position of Sámi started as
the idea of linguistic human rights gained ground among the Sámi and
other minorities. This movement has grown from local attempts into
internationally unified Sámi organizations and bodies, including Sámi
Parliaments in Karasjok, Norway; Kiruna, Sweden and Inari, Finland; the
Sámi council and the non-governmental organizations working in all
four North Calotte countries (Kulonen, Seurujärvi-Kari and Pulkkinen,
2005). The first Nordic meeting of the Sámi was held in 1917 in Norway
(the date now being celebrated as the Sámi National Day). However it
should be noted that the Russian Sámi started to organize themselves
quite a lot later, and it was not until the end of 1980s that contacts
between Sámi from Russia and the Nordic countries were established.
Russian Sámi have participated in the work of Sámi council since 1992,
and joint revitalization projects with different countries are ongoing
today (Laihiala-Kankainen and Potinkara, 2009).
It is extremely difficult to present numbers of Sámi language speak-
ers in the four nations and villages, because counting practices and
potential speakers’ reporting differ greatly. Estimations of Sámi popula-
tion vary between 50,000–100,000 people, out of whom half are said to
246 Sámi Languages in the North Calotte

be Sámi speakers with skills in one or more of the nine (or at present
eight3) Sámi languages. None of the Sámi speakers are monolingual
(Aikio-Puoskari, 2001; Kulonen et al. 2005; Pietikäinen et al., 2010). Of
the Sámi population about 10,000–20,000 live in Norway, 15,000–20,000
in Sweden, 7000–7500 in Finland and over 1800 in Russia (out of whom
1600 are in the Kola Peninsula).
According to the Saami Encyclopaedia (quoted in Kulonen et al., 2005)
there are 30,000 North Sámi, 350 Inari Sámi and 300 Skolt Sámi speakers.
In Russia, the Sámi languages include Skolt, Kildin, Ter and Akkala Sámi.
The last reported Akkala speaker died in spring 2004 and there are only
a few Ter Sámi speakers left. Skolt Sámi is spoken by a few dozen people
in Russia (and a few hundred more in Finland). Kildin Sámi is the most
widely spoken variety in Russia, with about 600–800 speakers, most of
whom live in Lovozero (Laihiala-Kankainen and Potinkara, 2009, p. 38).
One important way of protecting the endangered languages is through
legal recognition and support. The formal instruments, such as language
laws, recommendations and declarations have been moulded through
history and are still being developed. More recently there have been
numerous international regulations (Huss, 2008; Pietikäinen et al., 2010)
that have affected the situation of the Sámi languages. Presently, the offi-
cial situation for indigenous Sámi languages differs somewhat in the four
North Calotte countries due to different language laws, and even between
the different Sámi languages within a country. In Norway, Sweden and
Finland, Sámi language education and use with the authorities and
in public domains are secured, but only in the traditional area of the
Sámi (North Calotte area), although a considerable part of the Sámi has
moved to southern centres. In Russia, the Sámi have a weaker position
and they are not distinguished from the other minorities, unlike their
Nordic counterparts. The Sámi are recognized as indigenous people in
the Murmansk region, but the language has no special official position.
While the Nordic countries have Sámi Parliaments, the Russian Sámi do
not have cultural self-determination (Laihiala-Kankainen and Potinkara,
2009; Pietikäinen et al., 2010). Currently, the situation generally is that
people’s skills in Sámi vary considerably (Pietikäinen et al., 2008). In gen-
eral, older people speak Sámi but do not write it and children who have
gone through revitalization programmes write it but do not really use it
outside the school environment (Pietikäinen and Dufva, 2006).

Sámi in the four villages


Each of the four villages has a somewhat different linguistic economy
where the position of the Sámi languages varies in the local linguistic
Hanni Salo 247

hierarchy. Next, a short introduction of the sociolinguistic situation of


each village is provided.

Karasjok
Karasjok is located in Finnmark county in northern Norway, close to the
Finnish border. The official website of Karasjok (Kárásjohka) advertises
the municipality as ‘the Capital of Sápmi’ (Vuolab, 2006), which indi-
cates the strong position the Sámi have in Norway and especially in ‘the
Sámi areas’ (Hirvonen, 2008, pp. 18–19), which include Karasjok. There
is a Sámi curriculum and also non-Sámi children learn Sámi at school
(Hirvonen, 2008; Puzey, 2007). The municipality of Karasjok is the second
largest in Norway and has about 2870 (2005) inhabitants, out of whom
most live in the village of Karasjok and as much as 80 per cent percent are
reported to be Sámi speakers (Vuolab, 2006). The village is the cultural and
social seat of Sámi in Norway, and is the domicile for the Sámi Parliament,
Sámi media and several other public and private Sámi institutions. Sámi
and Norwegian (Bokmål) have been officially equal as administrative
languages in Karasjok since 1992 (Puzey, 2007; Vuolab, 2006). The Place-
Name Act 1990 (revised in 2006) emphasizes the spelling rules of Sámi
and the importance of place-names for cultural heritage (Puzey, 2007).

Kiruna
Kiruna is situated in the northernmost county of Sweden, Norrbotten.
It is a small mining town4 with a little over 18,000 inhabitants. It is the
home of three traditional cultures and languages: Swedish, Sámi and
the Tornedalen Finnish (Meänkieli), and Sámi is one of the administra-
tive languages in the municipality (Hannu, 2009). The Swedish Sámi
Parliament and Sámi Radio are located there, as well as a Sámi Museum;
however, the previous two do not have their own buildings, as they do
in other countries. There has been an architectural competition for a
new Sámi Parliament building in 2005–6, but the construction of the
Parliament has been delayed indefinitely (Sametinget, 2009).
About one-third of the population gets their income from the mining
business, but tourism is a growing industry. The Heritage Conservation
Act (1988) regulates that when place names are to be established in
multilingual areas, they must be produced in the languages spoken in the
region. Sámi languages spoken in Sweden are North Sami, Lule Sami and
South Sami. However, as Sweden does not compile official statistics on
people’s ethnic belonging, apart from their citizenship and country of
birth, there are no official statistics on the amount of Sámi speakers
(Huss and Lindgren, 2005).
248 Sámi Languages in the North Calotte

Inari
Inari is the capital village of the Sámi in Finland. It has approximately
780 inhabitants (year 2007; see Posiva, 2009) out of whom about half
are Sámi. In Inari there are three Sámi groups: North, Inari and Skolt
Sámi, each with their own cultural background and language. North
and Inari Sámi are taught in the local elementary school as well as
in the language nests. Skolt Sámi is taught in a school that is located
in the nearby village of Sevettijärvi in the Inari municipality. Inari’s
economy is moving from traditional livelihoods and forest industry to
tourism, which has become the main source of livelihood in the area.
The Finnish Sámi Parliament, Sámi Radio, Sámi museum Siida and other
Sámi institutions are located in Inari village (Inari, 2009).

Lovozero
Lovozero is the central place of Sámi culture in the Kola Peninsula and
the whole of Russia, as most of the Sámi were relocated there due to the
industrial development and a policy of concentrating the people and
services in Kola Peninsula, in the 1960s (Kulonen et al., 2005). Out of
the little over 3,000 inhabitants (2003) about 700 are Sámi. There is also
a significant Komi population and other minorities living in the village
(Laihiala-Kankainen and Potinkara, 2009). Despite the aboriginal status
that the Sámi have been granted, there are no official establishments or
organs for Sami administration in Lovozero. However, there are three
Sámi associations in the village, for example. a cultural centre for Komi
and Sámi, run by the municipality, as well as the Kola Sámi Radio,
although at present, they are in a precarious position. Sámi is used as a
‘working language’ by the reindeer herders on the tundra, but the most
common language is the only official language, Russian. The basics of
Kildin and North Sámi can be studied at kindergarten, boarding school
or at the vocational school or in various language courses, as an elective
or optional subject (Laihiala-Kankainen and Potinkara, 2009).

Methodology

The data were collected in 2008 in four villages in the North Calotte area,
as team work.5 The study was designed to capture the variety of languages
and language combinations that are displayed in the LL of the North
Calotte, in villages that are central for indigenous minority language
groups, and locations that are relevant for language use. Rather than try-
ing to record everything in a certain area in each village, we chose to look
at language use in sites for different activities. Using an ethnographic
Hanni Salo 249

approach, the research team defined 20 locations that we thought


were relevant for the local language economy of the respective villages,
including central domains for Sámi languages and tourism. The locations
include sites for ‘local activities’, for example, an elementary school, gro-
cery shop, notice board, bank; sites for ‘tourism related activities’, such as
souvenir shops and tourist attractions; and sites for ‘minority language
activities’, like the Sámi Parliament, media and cultural museum, as well
as sites for official language policies, that is, public regional signs such as
street names and road signs. Pictures were taken in each of the 20 loca-
tions (or as many of them that existed in the respective village) from all
the signs that were visible outside the buildings.
Because ‘public space’ and the LL is somewhat different in small rural
villages with a few hundred inhabitants than it is in a big metropolis, and
the size of the villages differs considerably, instead of trying to capture
the relationship of languages quantitatively we chose to focus on the
variety of languages displayed in the villages. Therefore, we included in
our data and coded only one sign per language combination per genre,
in each location. We categorized five genres for sign that had written
language, and defined them according to the function of the signs. These
are: name-signs, notices, adverts, street names, and road signs.
We defined sign as one textual entity. We coded each sign in reference
to our research interest and questions, including: location, producer,
languages in order, genre, notes of visuality, and identification codes. In
this study we follow Landry and Bourhis’ (1997, p. 26) model of defining
public and private signs: public signs are those produced by authorities
and regulated by laws, and private signs are those produced by single
individuals or organizations or corporations that are less regulated.
Signs in Sámi Parliaments and media in Karasjok, Kiruna and Inari are
counted as publicly produced as they are governed by law and operate
under national governments with public funding. The Kola Sámi Radio
in Lovozero is not public in the same way as it has a weaker position offi-
cially. Hence, its signs are regarded as private. This differentiating/sorting
between public and private signs (often termed ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-
up’) is used and found useful in multiple earlier studies (e.g. Backhaus,
2006; Ben-Rafael et al., 2006; Cenoz and Gorter, 2006; Coupland, 2009;
Huebner, 2006; Puzey, 2007).
To summarize, we chose 20 locations in four villages, and the data
covered here is composed of photographs of all language combinations
in all these locations in the five defined genres. After going through
and coding the data, we ended up with 171 coded photographs of signs,
which form the data of this study.
250 Sámi Languages in the North Calotte

Results

The data have been collected as a way to map the diversity of languages
and language combinations in the four villages. It was not collected to
be analysed quantitatively. However, in order to give an overview of
the villages LLs, the percentages of language distribution in the signs
are shown in Table 14.1. The numbers on the table should not be read
as representing the whole LLs of the respective villages. They do, how-
ever, show the relational differences that were observed in the diversi-
ties of the multilingual LLs of the chosen locations. Because of limited
space, only a short overview of the languages displayed in the LL of the
villages will be given, after which the focus will be on three examples
of the use of Sámi.

Language combinations used in the four villages


The distribution of the four countries’ respective majority languages,
Sámi languages and other languages (most often English) in the LLs
of the four villages quite clearly reflect the official language policy in
the area as well as the local language economy (see Table 14.1). First
of all, the respective majority language is visible in almost all of the
public and private signs in all villages, which indicates that it is the
most used resource that all inhabitants know. Apart from Karasjok,
where Norwegian is absent in 13.2 per cent of the coded public signs,

Table 14.1 Amounts (on top) and percentages (below the number) of language
display in public and private signs. Total number (100 per cent) of signs includes
both public and private signs of the respective village

Karasjok Kiruna Inari Lovozero


NORWAY SWEDEN FINLAND RUSSIA
N  53 (100%) N  40 (100%) N  53 (100%) N  25 (100%)
Pub Priv Pub Priv Pub Priv Pub Priv
Majority 18 22 18 19 26 22 16 8
language 34.0% 41.5% 45% 47.5% 49.1% 41.5% 64.0% 32.0%
Sámi(s) 14 13 4 3 18 9 0 3
26.4% 24.5% 10.0% 7.5% 34.0% 17.0% 0.0% 12.0%
Other 9 13 3 13 10 18 0 3
language(s) 17.0% 24.5% 7.5% 32.5% 18.9% 34.0% 0.0% 12.0%
Total no. of 25 28 18 22 25 28 16 9
signs per 47.2% 52.8% 45.0% 55.0% 47.2% 52.8% 64.0% 36.0%
village
Hanni Salo 251

the variety of languages is greater in the privately produced signs: the


majority language is more often absent than in public signs, and other
languages are more prevalent in the private signs. The LLs seem to have
the basic informative function to mark the official geographical territory
inhabited by a given language community (Landry and Bourhis, 1997).
All but Lovozero had a bilingual road sign with the village’s name on
it on the outskirts of the village, showing the majority language and
minority Sámi.
In Karasjok, Sámi has a strong position in both public and private
signs, which might indicate on the one hand the relatively strong
situation of North Sámi compared with other Sámi languages and on
the other hand the strong position Sámi has in the school and other
public institutions. During fieldwork, the strong position of Sámi was
experienced most in Karasjok where for example all street names are
monolingual in North Sámi.
In Kiruna the presence of Sámi was surprisingly meagre. It was observed
only in seven signs altogether. The role of tourism in the economy was
clearer, which is reflected in the private signs of which a third have
another language, most often English, displayed. Official signs all had
Swedish and most of them were monolingual. Only a few official signs
had Sámi or English. Only one sign with the highly endangered South
Sámi and Lule Sámi were observed. Unsurprisingly it was located in
the Sámi Parliament building, and they were used with North Sámi,
Swedish and English.
In Inari, the Sámi languages have a strong official and institutional posi-
tion, and as much as one-third of the coded public signs had Sámi. Sámi
was also used in relatively many private signs. The role of other languages
is conversely as big as the indigenous Sámi. In the diversity of language
display, over one third of private and close to a fifth of public signs had
English and/or other non-regional languages visible. This indicates the
importance of tourism in the area, and perhaps also the rather significant
role that Sámi culture has in the tourism business. In Inari, as in the other
villages, North Sámi is used more than the less widely spoken Sámi lan-
guages. However, a few signs with Inari and or Skolt Sámi were observed,
typically located in institutions relevant to Sámi language and culture.
Lovozero was by far the most monolingual village. The weak role of
Sámi in the LL seems to reflect the language policies that differ from the
Nordic countries. Russian is the de facto majority language in Lovozero
(Laihiala-Kankainen and Potinkara, 2009) which means it is very rare to
hear or see any other languages there, and it was the only language used
in public signs. Some indicators of the Sámi population and perhaps the
252 Sámi Languages in the North Calotte

first touches of globalization were observed in the few individual signs


that had Kildin Sámi or English displayed.

Where and how Sámi is used


In the following, three examples of signs with Sámi are presented. They
represent the three prevailing practices of Sámi languages use, and are
examined with a more detailed description of the use of the Sámi lan-
guages in the three contexts. The main focus is on how Sámi is used and
the functions it has in the signs.
The most obvious and common site for Sámi in the LLs were institu-
tions that had a connection to Sámi languages and culture, for example
schools, the Sámi Parliament and Sámi media. The first example (see
Figure 14.1) comes from the Kola Sámi Radio in Lovozero.
These institutional signs are often multilingual, as is the example in
Figure 14.1. The order of the three languages from left to right is: Kildin
Sámi, English and Russian, although the order could be interpreted
otherwise as well, with English on top. Often these institutional signs
do not have visual symbols, but this sign does. The image symbolizes
multiple things. The hut in the centre can be an index of Sámi culture

Figure 14.1 A name sign of Kola Saami Radio in Lovozero, Russia. (Photo: Sirkka
Laihiala-Kankainen)
Hanni Salo 253

but also a more general index of the Northern culture, as Sámi were not
the only people who used to live in such dwellings. It can also represent
the media building itself, as it has the same shape. There are arches on
both sides of the hut, which may represent the sound waves that are
sent from the radio. The arches are coloured red, green and blue (unfor-
tunately not visible in the black-and-white picture), the traditional Sámi
colours, a detail which carries a clear message at least to those who are
familiar with the symbolism of these colours.
These institutional signs are most likely produced, or at least ordered
by Sámi language professionals; people who work with and for Sámi.
These signs not only promote the visibility of the least widely used Sámi
languages, often absent elsewhere, by establishing authenticity and
ownership of these resources, but also make a political stand in showing
that these endangered languages spoken by a few tens or hundreds do
exist. The order of the languages makes this political stance even clearer
as Sámi languages come first (normally from the most widely used to
the least widely used) and the national language after, sometimes with
English. These sites for ‘language activism’ are the only signs in our data
that include also the least widely used Sámi languages.
Tourism related locations are a second rather lively domain for visible
Sámi language. Sámi language resources seem to have clear economic
value in tourism. However, they are mostly used in a decorative style
in close connection with visual Sámi symbols. Most often the actual
information is offered in the relevant majority language and English
and perhaps other tourist languages, as is the case in the second exam-
ple (Figure 14.2). This is most likely a question of audience and efforts
to serve its needs, as it can be assumed that not many tourists under-
stand Sámi. At the same time the visibility of Sámi gives an authentic
and perhaps exotic flavour to the tourist location or souvenir shop in
distinguishing it from the competitors. The lack of instrumental Sámi
use in privately produced signs can be partly explained by the limited
written Sámi resources of most Sámi people.
The second example is a photograph taken outside a handicraft
shop in Kiruna, Sweden. It has the shop’s name in North Sámi, but all
the informative text is in Swedish and English. The North Sámi has
a small informational role in the sign, and it seems to be more part
of the visual expression than actual written language with linguistic
functions. This reading of the role of Sámi in the sign is strengthened
when the position of the Sámi in relation to the visual images are taken
into account. With hut-like symbols on both sides of the text and the
layout completely symmetrical the use of Sámi seems to form more
254 Sámi Languages in the North Calotte

Figure 14.2 A sign of a handicraft shop in Kiruna, Sweden (Photo: Hanni Salo)

of a decoration than ‘real’ language. This raises a question of what


becomes of the endangered indigenous language with a strong oral
history in these multilingual and commercial signs. At this stage there
are more questions than answers. To whom is this still language and to
whom is it just visual semiotics? And does it matter, if the function of
the language shifts from instrumental to emblematic or from linguistic
to decorative? I will return to these questions in the conclusion.
A similar way of using Sámi can be found in a couple of advertisements
for music or cultural festivals in the notice boards of Inari, Finland. In
these adverts too, Sámi has decorative and visual functions, but the
use of Sámi as part of hybrid multilingualism seems also to symbolize
some sort of identity or belonging to a certain group. The third and
final example (Figure 14.3) is a photograph of a music festival advert
in the village notice board in Inari, Finland. What makes this instance
of hybrid multilingualism different from the previous case is that the
audience is not (just) tourists, but locals. These youth culture related
signs can be taken as a new and creative way of using different kinds
Hanni Salo 255

Figure 14.3 An advert for a music festival at a notice board in Inari, Finland
(Photo: Sari Pietikäinen)

of linguistic and semiotic resources in a mixture, in creating fresh


and interesting advertisements for cultural events that are appealing
to younger people. As these endangered languages are mostly spoken
by the old population and young children who have participated in
revitalization programmes, the young adults are often left out. At the
same time this generation is grown in a new type of multilingualism
where especially English plays a major role.
Even though Sámi is only used in the names, name of the festival, names
of some of the performers, and through the visual Sámi sun symbol, shaped
in a new fashion to facilitate the rock music context, its use does imply that
perhaps these artists do more with the minority language than just use it in
their name. It also indexes a new kind of interest and value that Sámi has
for youth through its presence in popular culture domains (regarding the
popularity of Sámi hip-hop artists in and out of North Calotte, see, for
example, Dufva and Pietikäinen, 2009; Pietikäinen, 2008b).

Conclusion

Using linguistic landscape in examining the display of languages and


especially the functions that the endangered Sámi languages have
256 Sámi Languages in the North Calotte

in public space, offers interesting viewpoints to the hierarchies of


languages in multilingual communities, but also raises many pertinent
questions about language use and even the concept of language. The
overview of our data, shown in Table 14.1, indicates that language laws
and regulations play a major role in how much visibility these indig-
enous minority languages get in the public space of a village or town.
However, there are many other factors and actors that contribute and
affect the ever changing linguistic landscape of a particular place.
Shohamy and Gorter (2009, p. 1–2) raise many interesting and perti-
nent questions in the Introduction of their book ‘Linguistic Landscape:
Expanding the Scenery’, which also came to the fore within the current
context. Can images and language be separated? What kind of reality
does LL create and shape? What motivates people to display language?
Which types of languages are being created in the public space?
In relation to the second example (see Figure 14.2), the relationship
between image and language becomes essential. If an endangered lan-
guage seems to become more of a decoration than a linguistic item,
what consequences does it have for the vitality and revitalization of
these endangered languages? Is it a step forward to have these (parts
of) languages visible in new domains (tourism) with perhaps new kinds
of value (economic) or does it perhaps diminish the repertoire of func-
tions for these indigenous languages and move them even further down
in the local, national and global hierarchy of languages? I believe that
both things happen at the same time. However, further data analysis is
required to even to start to answer these questions.
The motivation of people displaying languages publicly, and the types
of language that are being created in the process, are essential questions
in relation to the last example (Figure 14.3). The example suggests that
perhaps hybrid multilingualism and new genres offer new possibilities
for the endangered indigenous languages, and the younger generation
is more daring in putting their limited resources in use in these contexts.
The way Sámi is used in these two examples may not revitalize the use
of the Sámi languages in other domains, but they are examples that the
endangered language, with perhaps new kinds of functions, does exists
elsewhere, too, and not just in institutions.

Notes
1. This chapter in based on a paper given at the Linguistic Landscape Colloquium
at the International Conference on Minority Languages (ICML–XII) in Tartu,
Estonia, 29 May 2009.
Hanni Salo 257

2. The paper is part of a larger study that investigates the linguistic landscape
(LL) of the North Calotte region that has been conducted in the context of
Northern Multilingualism Project, directed by Prof. Sari Pietikäinen, and
funded by the Finnish Academy (www.northernmultilingualism.fi).
3. The last documented speaker of Akkala Sámi died on 29 December 2003
(Rantala & Sergina, 2009, quoted by Pietikäinen et al., 2009).
4. Kiruna is notably bigger than the other locations in focus, and is more of a
town than a village. However, for convenience, when all locations are dis-
cussed, they are referred to as villages.
5. The data were collected in 2008 by the author, Sari Pietikäinen (Department
of Languages, University of Jyväskylä, Finland) and Sirkka Laihiala-Kankainen
(Department of Applied Linguistics, University of Jyväskylä, Finland), in the
context of Northern Multilingualism Project.

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Part IV
Fresh Perspectives on Linguistic
Landscape
15
Discourse Coalitions For and
Against Minority Languages
on Signs: Linguistic Landscape
as a Social Issue
Eszter Szabó Gilinger, Marián Sloboda, Lucija Šimičić
and Dick Vigers

Introduction1

Everyday passers-by, regular residents, as well as municipal officers may


have a mental image and a set of discourses about the multilingualism
of a linguistic landscape (LL) of their city which can be quite different
from what scholars working with LL would ‘see’ and think. That is why
we undertook our investigations about the perception of the linguistic
landscape and wanted to shed light on how discourses on this perception
can be instructive about social issues in the lives of urban residents. We
hypothesized that the presence of a minority community in a town will
engender discussion about the identification of this community (both
from the inside and the outside) and about the perceived value of this com-
munity, its language, its customs or its culture. In order to trigger discussion
and discourse data to analyse, we used people’s perception about LL as our
departure point. Hence, elicited and naturally occurring oral and written
data were collected on people’s opinions about local LL in four multilingual
European locations with important minority communities. The analysis
which follows documents our attempt at providing another snapshot of
how LL and minority languages (and their speakers) shape each other.
Our chapter sets out to use fundamental ideas, categories, and
concepts of, on the one hand, the advocacy coalition framework (ACF)
as developed and disseminated by Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith (1999)
and Sabatier and Weible (2007), and, on the other hand, discourse
coalitions theory as elaborated by Hajer (1993) and Fischer (2003) in
the analysis of discourses on the perception of language management
actions in connection with signs in our four fieldwork locations.

263
264 Discourse Coalitions

Theoretical and methodological approach

Agreeing with the title of Gorter (2006), we also believe that the study
of LL offers a valuable opportunity to gain insight into the multilingual
practices of a given community since it is ‘a prism of languages embed-
ded in societies’ (Shohamy and Waksman, 2009, p. 314). LL should not
be seen as a static phenomenon, nor can it exclusively be expressed in
a set of numbers referring to certain variables without any reference
to the people who are responsible for those signs and those who read
them. It is a changing and dynamic space that interacts with all those
who perceive it and with the space around it: it gives information on
the geographic location or the expected language proficiency (Backhaus,
2007, p. 145) and it can be used as ‘a powerful tool for documentation
and inquiry’ (Shohamy and Waksman, 2009, p. 314). Moreover, signs
in the LL index and perform ideology (Sloboda, 2009a, p. 176) resulting in
the possible ‘acquisition of particular ideological social practices by indi-
viduals’ (Sloboda, 2009a, p. 176). The relationship between the signs
themselves and their context is therefore bidirectional in terms of mean-
ing (Cenoz and Gorter, 2006), and also in terms of power (cf. Huebner,
2006, p. 32).
Cenoz and Gorter (2006, p. 78) point out that the particular language
policy of a certain country or region is a strong determining force in
terms of the local LL, or, in other words, ‘language policy is made imme-
diately apparent’ (Dal Negro, 2009, p. 206). At the same time, as a result
of bidirectionality and the dynamic, interactive nature of the relation-
ship between the consumers of signs and the signs themselves, changes
to and on (official or personal) signs reflect decisions and ideologies
of residents and the signs trigger opinions, alignments, actions and
struggles for power (Boudreau and Dubois, 2005, p. 188). This in itself
gives rise to a fascinating intertwined array of groups and interests in a
monolingual city (if one indeed exists), let alone in multilingual cities
where historically several languages have coexisted or where several
languages were forgotten or discovered. Language choices, decisions on
location, meaningful contents, colour and size all are interpreted in spe-
cific contexts in specific verbal interactions, allowing for the discourse
and allowed by discourse to construct ‘us’ and ‘them’, tourists, majority
people, or minority groups (cf. Boudreau and Dubois, 2005, p. 213).
The languages in signs have been called symbolic and indexical as
well (Malinowski, 2009, p. 110; Scollon and Scollon, 2003, p. 119;
Sloboda, 2009a, p. 175). This whole idea of interpreting signs as sym-
bols and/or indexes becomes even more interesting in connection with
Eszter Szabó Gilinger, Marián Sloboda, Lucija Šimičić and Dick Vigers 265

minority languages, or in traditionally multilingual towns because the


prospective readers or consumers and presumed writers can be expected
to have certain shared values or ideologies along ethnic and/or linguis-
tic lines.
We propose to use ACF as a primary background for the analysis of
discourse on the linguistic landscape of public signs. Advocacy coalitions
are sets of people or groups of people who ‘share a set of normative and
causal beliefs and engage in a nontrivial degree of coordinated activity
over time’ (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith, 1999, p. 120). Firstly, language
management actions referred to in our data are treated as sources for
ACF analysis, since we use the fundamental categories proposed by ACF.
In policy processes ‘heuristic guidance’, or in other words belief systems
navigate actors through the process (Kübler, 2001, p. 624). Deep core
beliefs identify the ‘ontological axioms’ (Kübler, 2001, p. 624) and they
are very difficult to change (Sabatier and Weible, 2007, p. 194). Policy
core beliefs are ‘casual perceptions’ and ‘basic strategies’ running deep
(Kübler, 2001, p. 624), whereas secondary beliefs have a narrower scope
and they are more likely to be changed (Sabatier and Weible, 2007,
p. 196). To understand policy processes, it is essential to comprehend not
only how deep and manifest beliefs are, but also what available and desir-
able resources play a role in the process. Formal legal authority, public
opinion, access and control of information, the availability of mobiliz-
able troops and financial resources, and finally whether skilful leadership
characterizes the coalition, constitute the list of resources to which coali-
tions can have recourse (Sabatier and Weible, 2007, p. 202–3).
A common understanding of how ethnic and linguistic lines overlap
and divide local communities is that minority languages are spoken
by all the members of the minority and by them alone, so the minority
community is therefore defined fundamentally by its language use. As
a consequence, at the heart of this ideology is the idea that the local
LL is important because it imparts a feeling of home and personal and
communal safety (Sloboda, 2009b, p. 30). Even though a distinction
is usually made between public and private spheres in the percep-
tion of LL, both are understood to be playing their part in the overall
interpretation of LL. The differences between the intensity and nature
of debates may be explained by the presence or absence of a strong
advocacy coalition possessing powerful resources, for example, access
to authority or control of certain venues.
Secondly, we rely on discourse coalitions as another category of advo-
cates and enemies. Discourse coalitions are defined by Hajer as ‘a group
of actors who share a social construct’ (1993, p. 45) and this concept is
266 Discourse Coalitions

used by Fischer (2003) as a response, or rather as a criticism of the ACF


model. Fischer claims that the ACF as described by Sabatier and Jenkins-
Smith (1993) does not leave room for strategic political interaction and
social choice (Fischer, 2003, p. 97). In Hajer’s understanding, history
and the historical context are fundamental as they play an important role
in constructing discourses about certain topics using story lines (1993,
p. 47). Discourse coalitions are made up of story lines, actors and prac-
tices, ‘all organized around a discourse’ (Hajer 1993, p. 47). Even though
ACF is extensively critiqued by Fischer (2003), for example, we draw on
both frameworks. The fundamental idea that coalitions are larger, wider,
and, at the same time subtler than the regular analyses that politics or
journalism offer is a fruitful perspective. Also, looking at the potential
resources as defined in ACF gives us a more complete mosaic of how
and where interests are sought and battles are fought. At the same time,
we are looking for evidence of coalitions and resources in the discourses
of the actors we have identified. From our own perspective discourse,
just like LL (mentioned before), is not only socially constructed as Hajer
suggests, but is also constructive, and actors construct reality through
discourse (cf. Van Dijk, 2003, p. 353). We therefore wish to ask questions
about how discourse on LL ‘is used to construe’ a certain situation and
how that situation ‘gives meaning to’ that discourse (Gee, 2005, p. 110).

Our data

Our research was carried out in 2008 and 2009 in Békéscsaba (Hungary),
Llanelli (Wales), Pula (Croatia) and Český Těšín (the Czech Republic); (see
Figure 15.1). Our data consist of interviews with local people of different
levels of engagement in the towns’ social lives, ethnographic observa-
tions, and the online and offline media coverage of local linguistic land-
scape (LL) and local language management. Altogether we carried out
87 interviews, studied over 40 newspaper articles, followed 14 internet
discussions, visited 15 websites and took more than a thousand photo-
graphs. Our locations were a town in a region with a well-developed insti-
tutional infrastructure for a linguistic minority in Wales and three towns
in countries that underwent comprehensive socio-economic transitions
after the fall of communism. These four locations are similar in that
they are all well-developed (post-) industrial towns with autochthonous
(numerical) minority communities and they are also (inter)national and
regional places of interest to varying degrees. They are at the same time
obviously very different from each other not only because of the differ-
ent social and cultural histories of the four countries, but also because of
Eszter Szabó Gilinger, Marián Sloboda, Lucija Šimičić and Dick Vigers 267

the differing local histories and the resulting different situations in terms
of language rights and language policies.
Český Těšín is a border town on the eastern frontier of the Czech
Republic, close to Poland, separated from the Polish town Cieszyn by
the river Olza. The border, which currently is the river, was established
in 1920 after an armed conflict between Czechoslovakia and Poland.
The ethnic make-up today is 75 per cent Czech, 16 per cent Polish and
4 per cent Slovak out of a population of 26,429 (2001).2 The city acts as
the cultural centre for the Polish ethnic minority in the Czech Republic.
Several genres of the public signs in the city are bilingual and to some
extent, because of the proximity of Poland, some commercial signs as
well. However, in our research we found an explicit wish to introduce
more Polish on public signs in the city.
Pula is similar in some respects, even though it is not a border town,
but it is situated close to Italy and it also had several different rulers

Figure 15.1 The four research locations: Llanelli, Pula, Český Tĕšín and
Békéscsaba
268 Discourse Coalitions

during the course of its history. Today Pula has a population of 58,594
inhabitants (2001)3 with Croats forming the majority (72 per cent),
while Serbs (6 per cent) and Italians (5 per cent) are the most numer-
ous minority groups. However, Italian is by far the most widespread
minority language (5 per cent) as only 2 per cent declared Serbian as
their first language. Croatian and Italian are the official languages on
the regional as well as on the municipal level. Visual bilingualism,
namely the use of Italian besides Croatian in the LL as well as the form
thereof has been explicitly defined by the statutes of the Istrian Region
and Pula. The Italian minority members have generally been satisfied
with its implementation, although a certain amount of improvement
in that respect is still deemed as necessary by some members of the
community.
Békéscsaba can be placed in the same category, as all three towns were
at some time or another part of Austria-Hungary. However Békéscsaba
(a town of 67,968, with 6 per cent Slovak and 94 per cent Hungarian
population4 is not a border town, and since the ancestors of the Slovak
residents in the city moved there at the beginning of the eighteenth
century to repopulate the town deserted after the expulsion of the
Turks, the presence of non-autochthonous Slovaks is very unlikely
there. Even though Békéscsaba has the reputation of being the cultural
centre for Slovaks in Hungary, the linguistic landscape does not bear
witness to this apart from a couple of bilingual public signs.
Our last location, Llanelli, is the odd one out from the list for many
reasons. The situation of Welsh and English in Wales is historically,
politically and culturally radically different from the other situations we
studied because Welsh is not the dominant official language of a neigh-
bouring country like Polish, Italian and Slovak respectively for our other
research locations. In the town of a population of 44,4755 with 30 per
cent claiming to speak Welsh, and altogether 47 per cent to have some
Welsh language skills (2001) the visibility of Welsh does not seem to be
the issue. Instead, its declining use as a result of decreased intergenera-
tional transmission and its competition with immigrant languages are
at the fore of public debate and discussion.

Analysis

The reflection of policy change in the LL


Gaining (and maintaining) access to resources (financial or legal resources,
information, leadership skills, mobilizable troops, public opinion or
available venues, cf. Weible, 2007) is the result of several processes, one
Eszter Szabó Gilinger, Marián Sloboda, Lucija Šimičić and Dick Vigers 269

of them being the historical moment in which a certain coalition is


ready to act. The importance of external events is especially important
in ACF as policy change is at the core of this model and external events
are likely to have caused changes in the cases presented here. A logical
example is the change of regime in Croatia, the Czech Republic and
Hungary, as it was a major factor in radical changes in LL for minority
communities. Whereas the period following the war is perceived as a
more positive change in Pula from the point of view of the amount
of minority language signage, in the discourse of our subjects in Český
Těšín and Békéscsaba the regime change does not only represent the
end of de jure and de facto obligatory bilingual signage, but also the
shift at the same time to monolingual (majority language) signs, and
also the end of the possibility of controlling what was actually written
on signs, and the emergence of potential opponents or new coalitions.
It is also the beginning of a plethora of possibilities in legal texts with
no controlling power or financial support whatsoever.
Consider example (1):

(1) HU_01:
Before the change of the regime there were bilingual signs on build-
ings signalling workplaces. Look what is it called XX I started thinking
in Slovak. Factory units, factories had Slovak signs. Agricultural
cooperatives also and so on. So now after the change of regime these
signs lost their meaning and Slovak texts were not put on the new
signs […] It [the fact that bilingual signs were ‘compulsory’] was
based on a party decision to care for minorities. I don’t remember
any more which party congress it was, sometime in the, I have no
clue, seventies maybe, or in the sixties […] Look, as for the new signs,
only those can be obliged to do something who can be controlled. If
during the privatization process certain jobs or anything else, wealth,
property too have passed into the possession of private agents then
these people can do whatever they want with them.6

The era before the change of the regime is remembered with a certain
degree of nostalgia at least from the perspective of LL in example
(1). The abundance of bilingual signs and the lack of any real opponents
makes the Communist Party an ally on the level of policy core beliefs
(Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith, 1999). The motivation for this shared belief
is utterly different: one is self-identification and a fight for (symbolic)
visibility and the other is maintenance of harmony among comrades
and the creation of international peace.
270 Discourse Coalitions

Communicative/pragmatic value of LL
However with political change came the freedom to choose the languages
of public signs and to decide about them through a democratic process.
This in turn entailed bringing supporting arguments to the debate and
thus introducing different ideologies. One of the major underlying
beliefs that serves as a policy core belief for opponents of bilingual sig-
nage mainly in three locations out of the four is the idea that all local
minority community members speak the majority language, as in (2a)
and that public signage is not all that important, as in (2b) and (3):

(2) HU_11
(a)
It is true that the population is of Slovak origin, but everybody
speaks Hungarian, so there is no need for [Slovak public signs].
(b)
Well kind of about signs sort of well I don’t know I don’t consider
them so [laughs] important [chuckles] (.) I think it is a question of
details only.

(3) WL_13: There are more important things in life [than bilingual
road signs], isn’t there?

Our subject in example (2a) uses but to show the contradiction between
two of her propositions. The single ethnic origin, Slovak, does not entail a
monolingual proficiency in the language that could be primarily associated
with the given ethnicity. (Later in the interview it turns out that actually
a monolingual proficiency is what she was talking about: a monolingual
Hungarian proficiency because of the extent of assimilation among ethnic
Slovaks in Békéscsaba.) In this extract we can also see another deep core
belief in the making: the instrumentality of signs as their fundamental
raison d’être. If there are no prospective readers and/or receivers of the
signs, they are useless, are considered a waste of money, and, as we can
see in (2b), even questions about them might sound ridiculous, hence the
giggles and chuckles. The extract in (3) from Wales also emphasizes this
idea: signs should not be the topic of meaningful conversations, and the
spaces delimited by public signs are not of real importance.

The symbolic value of LL


It is perhaps not groundbreaking in terms of LL that we identify this
belief since it could be ascribed to the majority’s indifference to an issue
irrelevant to them. This idea though may not be the only interpretation.
Eszter Szabó Gilinger, Marián Sloboda, Lucija Šimičić and Dick Vigers 271

On the one hand, being part of the ‘indifferent’ majority community


is not easy in, for example, Békéscsaba (as another subject put it:
‘everybody has Slovaks in their family in Békéscsaba’); also, this very
subject in (2) did boast of having Slovak origins during the interview.
The question then rises, is she a majority or minority community mem-
ber? She positions herself in the interview in the us-and-them paradigm
as external to the Slovak community, as different, as majority: however,
she also accepts and assumes the minority position when talking about
her family background, making multiple identities discursively possible,
and making the either/or question about minority/majority membership
a moot point. On the other hand, whether signs are interpreted as having
an instrumental or symbolic purpose is not simply a matter of minority
or majority community identification: those who are emotionally and
politically most involved in a city’s LL, either as minority activists or
as members of the extreme right party, construct signs as symbolically
meaningful with no hesitation, as exemplified in (4) and (5):

(4) CZ_6: Horizont XIV (38), p. 6


The opinion of the reader [Name Surname], who emphasizes that in
the Polish school they taught her to use Czech and Polish well and,
therefore, she does not need the Polish signs, has aroused my interest.
As a matter of fact, she is correct. The level of the Czech language in
Polish schools in our region is not different from the Czech schools.
Whom should the Polish signs serve, then? The whole population,
I think. The bilingual street signs should show the visitors that
our region is different from other regions in the Czech Republic in
some respect; it is richer. Not only Czechs live here. The Polish linguis-
tic minority, they should be reminded that the Czech majority respects
them. […] This is, thus, not only a demand of the Polish minority – it
is a European trend, a demand of the Council of Europe, expressed in
the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.

(5) HU_01:
I believe that bilingual signs should be used not for the sake of minori-
ties but for the sake of the majority so that it could tolerate that not
everything is Hungarian.

Both subjects in (4) and (5) construct the majority as the community
actually benefiting from the bilingual or minority language signs and
not the minority community, clearly displaying a different belief from
the one exemplified in (2). The discourse in (4) is more specific in
272 Discourse Coalitions

terms of the benefits: cultural richness, a better image of the whole


region and a European reputation are used as building blocks in the
argumentation. The subject in (5) is less detailed in this instance: an
overall dissatisfaction with the current level of tolerance of majority
Hungarians is evoked, and with the fieldworker nodding and agreeing
no further explanation is offered.
Numbers and the meaning of numbers is another area around which
different core beliefs are constructed. The low number of those who are
literate in the minority language or who claim to be a member of the
minority community during censuses is understood to be the first and
foremost logical reason against signs in that language.

(6) HU_11:
They do not maintain the Slovak language so they are not a real
[linguistic] minority therefore

(7) WL_11: Well everyone Welsh is English-speaking so that’s what


they sort of don’t always argue, what the Welsh nationalists make a
big fuss about. You’d think they only spoke Welsh but they also speak
English […] To me it’s you know it’s a foreign language, it’s just, it’s
not relevant to my life at any rate.

Examples (6) and (7) contain definitions of what a minority community


can be: a community whose members can (only) speak the minority
language, and the moment they are no longer monolingual, they are
not a minority any more. Having a separate culture, history and identity
simply is not enough for this subject in this interview context. So the
higher the rate of bilingualism, the less minority status is available, LL
included. On the other hand, members of the minority community do
believe that numbers are not absolute, see example (8):

(8) HU_01:
As far as I know and this is what I think: minority rights don’t
depend on population numbers.

Rights, in this case specifically the right to bilingual signage, should be


available for the community irrespective of numbers, according to a
subject who is a minority activist. Her belief is that culture, history and
identity are enough not only for self-labelling and self-identification, but
also for legal protection. The two belief systems are, therefore, in stark
contradiction. What is fundamental for one is irrelevant for the other
Eszter Szabó Gilinger, Marián Sloboda, Lucija Šimičić and Dick Vigers 273

and vice versa. But belonging to one or another does not necessarily fol-
low ethnic lines: minority and majority membership is not based on how
one defines them, consequently where one finds allies and opponents is
more complex too. Advocates of the core belief expressed in (8) in the
Czech Republic and in Hungary act on the ideology that ethnic and/or
linguistic minorities have the right to be surrounded by their own lan-
guage on (public) signs because the signs in the minority language express
recognition and respect guaranteed by all those legal frameworks, charters
and conventions that have been signed by the national governments.
In some respects a similar idea is expressed in (9), in a different
historical perspective:

(9) Field worker: So why why do you think the signs are there? Why,
why have them anyway in two languages?
WL_01: Well, because of the Welsh nationalists years ago, wasn’t it?
They created all this and especially when I get forms from various,
hospital forms or council tax forms. It’s a pile of waste paper that.
It’s in Welsh, it’s in English. You know and I, I, I can’t read Welsh,
you know.

Welsh nationalists had been working for recognition and respect,


expressed from the other party through the installation of signs. Now
however, the fruit of their effort does not come equipped with the origi-
nal symbolism. Recognition and respect are now absent from bilingual
tax forms and it all becomes waste paper because speaking the domi-
nant language too renders the use of the non-dominant language useless
as in (10) or (11) or in (2):

(10) WL_11: To me everyone who speaks Welsh also speaks English


so it’s not a case of giving information. You can give them informa-
tion in English only and every single person would understand it.
It’s more like a minority language that they’re trying to make more
mainstream to people.

(11) CZ_15: (blog user rrrrr, 5.9.2007, 20:09, at


http://vrchovsky.blogy.novinky.cz/0709/tesinsko-vzpominky-varuji)
Although I live in the Těšín region and have Polish ethnicity,
I thoroughly disapprove of compulsory bilingual signs. I don’t mind a
shopkeeper putting up bilingual signs on his shop voluntarily but
I don’t see any reason whatsoever to do this compulsorily. The inci-
dent described previously is an artificial problem for which populist
274 Discourse Coalitions

groups of lobbyists and radicals (such as PZKO) are responsible. They


would be happiest if this region was annexed to Poland.

The argument in (11), similarly to the one in (7), uses a certain catego-
rization strategy to identify those who are on the same side in terms of
bilingual signs: populist groups, lobbyists and radicals in (11) and Welsh
nationalists in (7). These labels are mentioned to create a meaning that
is pejorative or negative, as the social/political groups usually denoted
by these nouns are not part of the political powers constructed as
mainstream, to say the least, rather they are painted as marginal and less
powerful. Their agenda, therefore, bilingual signs, must also be marginal
and without real justification within the construction of our subjects.

LL/public space – venue for political action


A completely different perspective on the value of minority languages
in public spaces and those in favour of them is revealed in (12):

(12) CZ_01: 15 October 2008, http://gazetacodzienna.pl

The Polish signs are a record of our existence in this territory. A


confirmation that we have been acknowledged as autochthonous. It
is also a testimony for visitors that we were here in the past and are
here today.

Minority language LL or a public sign can be all that: a record, an act


of recognition and acknowledgement and also a testimony. Interpreting
monolingual or multilingual items in the local LL as acts of confirma-
tion and testimony shows a belief in the importance of LL which is
derived from its potential to evoke a presence, acknowledgement and
a past through its sheer existence. According to excerpt (12), it is also a
resource, a certain symbolic capital. It is the symbol of presence, a sym-
bol of rights, and a symbol of the past. Secondly, certain signs because
of differing characters used for the different languages are in a way
indexical: a special character or a combination of letters can provide a
physical link to the ‘other’ community members even without language
proficiency in the minority language.
As a third aspect, the LL can also be interpreted as a venue for actions
to occur: the physical signs are physical spaces where the testimony, the
confirmation and the recording of minority communities take place.
Without the space, there is no testimony, with a different language
chosen a different confirmation comes about and with no minority
language sign, nothing can be recorded. All these are mental and verbal
Eszter Szabó Gilinger, Marián Sloboda, Lucija Šimičić and Dick Vigers 275

acts, executed by coalition advocates and opponents alike, but the two
arrive at different conclusions at the ends of these acts. The former
evaluate them as positive, to be sustained and continued, the latter
may find them as something to fight against, therefore again for both
groups the spaces are venues for action: objects of pride to be multiplied
or objects of contempt to decrease and/or to deface (e.g. paint over). So
the spaces are venues for action in ACF terms.
When we understand signs as space, then size, order and prominence
become meaningful. Although in the case of Pula, the size of letters is
mentioned in the Statute of the Istrian County (Statut Istarske županije,
2009, Art. 25), none of the Statutes defines the order in which languages
should appear. The uniformity of pattern, Croatian preceding Italian,
can imply to readers that the order is presumed on the basis of the rela-
tive size of the readership of such signs. This interpretation has led to
some interviewees complaining about the freestanding street sign-posts
in Pula that have street names written in Croatian on the front, and
Italian on the back, as in (13):

(13) CR_01:
I remember one sign, I don’t know where exactly. […] The translation
in Croatian was on the visible part, and Italian was backwards. So,
such are the errors.

The position of the two languages vis-à-vis each other is evaluated


as an error in (13) having in mind an ideal situation with a reverse
situation (Italian visible, Croatian invisible) or a completely different
distribution (e.g. one below the other). The solution mentioned in (13)
is a clear act of hiding or silencing: using the space to conform to the
regulation of the Statute but at the same time to render less visible or
even invisible a language in such a way that would make it difficult to
change, legally speaking.
A very important point to keep in mind, however, is that regardless
of the number of complaints Italians in Pula might have, they are still
well aware of the fact that their rights are respected much more than
they used to be years ago and much more than it is the case of Italians
in Slovenia, Slovenians in Italy or many other minorities in other EU
countries, as our subject expressed in (14a, b):

(14) CR_02: a)
You see, represented enough is a very relative term. In view of our
formal rights, it is not represented enough. In view of our real
numbers, it is represented enough.
276 Discourse Coalitions

b)
It is the destiny of a, say, Slovenian [minority] in Trieste, which is
perhaps in an even worse position (.) It is true that a lot more can be
done. It is true that a lot of time was wasted in (.) neglecting this inherit-
ance. But say, in the last ten years, actually back in ninety-two, which
means that sixteen years have passed, not ten, a lot has been done.

This idea expressed in (14a) about numbers and rights is quite contrary
to those we could see in (8). Both subjects see a connection between
the size of the minority population and the (language) rights it should
receive, but their level of satisfaction is very different. What is more
interesting is that the same idea, the size of a community, is used in the
discourse about LL constructing a certain picture about the relationship
between the majority and the minority. Size is not at the core of the
picture, something else is. The subjects in (2) and (14) live in different
contexts where they experience that their minority identities are threat-
ened and acknowledged, respectively. The threat and the acknowledge-
ment are then given meaning through the evocation of numbers.
Being threatened or being respected are not the only feelings our
subjects talked about in the interviews.

(15) WL_01: a) Ydw, wy’n siarad Cymraeg, (Yes, I speak Welsh) in as


much that a stranger coming into Wales, that he sees a couple, doing
thirty miles an hour, he can’t read, the first is in Welsh, he’s lost, he’s
passed the sign, he doesn’t know where he is.
b) I’ve nothing against the Welsh signs but they do confuse motor-
ists. If you were driv(ing) travelling at ten miles an hour you might
be able to to catch it but you don’t go at that speed when you’re
driving, don’t you?

(16) HU_11:
Well yes because even if a tourist comes in here and asks for the
Munkácsy Museum then we tell them [it is in] Széchenyi street and
then they write it down, so this now or translating everything into
English and German, I think [...] yes because it would cause chaos in
the cityscape if the museum were to have a five language sign on it.

(17) Fieldworker: Do you think that other minorities should have


the same right?
CR_05: No, no … I don’t think they should. It’s enough to have
Croatian and Italian (.) I mean, if there are more languages, there are
only more problems.
Eszter Szabó Gilinger, Marián Sloboda, Lucija Šimičić and Dick Vigers 277

The feelings of confusion in a multilingual context expressed in


(15) to (17) are quite similar to that expressed by other respondents in
Llanelli. Some respondents, including some Welsh speakers as in 15,
believed that bilingual road signs with Welsh uppermost made decision-
taking while driving more difficult due to the greater length of text
and, for English speakers, the inability to recognize Welsh versions of
place names. However, although the tests commissioned by the Bowen
Committee of Inquiry into Bilingual Road Signs (1972) demonstrated
that bilingual signs did indeed take longer to read, the committee
opined that the difference was not significant enough to affect their
overall conclusion that the signs were safe.
So the position illustrated in (15) probably reflects more an overall
dissatisfaction with the bilingualism policy, or something more specific,
not revealed in this interview. On the other hand, in (16), a hypothetical
reference to multilingual signs with five languages is made with a quite
cynical tone. First, the word used for translation, ‘fordítgat’ contains a reit-
erative suffix (-gat) that gives it a belittling meaning, and, second, even
though two languages are actually mentioned, English and German, the
speaker refers to chaos wreaked by five languages in the sign for the local
museum. The hyperbole creates a cynical tone that positions the topic of
multilingualism in the realm of the unreal and ridiculous. The speaker in
(17) is quite straightforward: more than one language means problems.
In our final example, the idea that there are two sides in the matter
of minorities and majorities is referred to:

(18) CR_03:
Look, there’s this two-sided relation: there are those members of
national minorities who claim that there is not enough bilingual-
ism in practical life, which I can partly agree with, but there are also
those who claim that Italians as a national minority have too many
rights and too much money because they receive substantial means
from their country of origin. I don’t think that either of these groups
is right at the moment.

Very explicitly, our subject in (18) presents the situation as a two-sided


case, very similarly to what we have seen so far in all our locations. The
two sides introduced here can be differentiated from one another on
the basis of their negative or positive evaluation of the current minor-
ity rights situation. Being (dis)satisfied with or being annoyed by how
the rights of minorities are respected in a certain location divides peo-
ple, and in the discourse about minorities, people are categorized into
278 Discourse Coalitions

these two categories. Even though the subject in (18) admits to the fact
that no side of these two is right, the fundamental differentiating axis
remains. Commenting on the quantity and quality of minority rights
is an important topic for public discussion by political groups because
of this distinction: people are expected to have a clear-cut opinion on
the issue. However, when asked, in most of our street interviews people
didn’t offer such a position on minority language signs, and most of
them didn’t even invoke the language rights discourse. It is possible
thus that minority rights are used as a discursive index: political groups
and coalitions (advocacy or discourse) are construed as being on one of
the two sides, associated with a broader political stance.

Conclusions

Our research was conducted to gain insight into what alignments can be
detected in minority language communities if the discourses of various
people on the LL are studied. What the present analysis has revealed is
that the public discourses about the LL treat signs explicitly as either
instrumental objects or as symbolic spaces. In a more implicit way,
however, signs are also indexical.
The instrumentality of signs is evaluated most readily as positive or
negative according to the parameters used for the evaluation. The size
of the minority community or the perceived stage of language shift are
the essential factors. Those who seek reinforcement and visibility in
signs for the minority community use small numbers of speakers and a
high degree of assimilation as pro-arguments for the installation of more
bilingual signs, whereas those who do not consider a more homogeneous
local population as something to be avoided, use the same arguments as
justification for reducing visual bi/multilingualism.
Signs are treated as symbols, as well. That is why certain coalitions
fight for more and certain others paint over them or campaign against
them because for these coalitions, signs carry values. On another level,
signs are also constructed as symbols as people shape their discourses
about LL in terms of inclusion and exclusion, as us and them.
Linguistic landscapes have thus turned out to be major triggers of
discourses on multilingualism and the coalitions approach has led to
meaningful conclusions.

Notes on transcription

(.) pause
XX incomprehensible passage
Eszter Szabó Gilinger, Marián Sloboda, Lucija Šimičić and Dick Vigers 279

[] remark
[…] deleted passage

Notes
1. The chapter is based on research carried out under the auspices and financ-
ing of LINEE (Languages in a Network of European Excellence), a consortium
of European universities co-funded by the Sixth Framework Program of the
European Commission (CIT4-2006-28388).
The authors would like to thank the reviewers and editors for their valuable
comments.
2. Source: http://www.czso.cz/sldb/sldb2001.nsf/obce/598933?OpenDocument.
3. Source: http://www.dzs.hr/Eng/censuses/Census2001/Popis/E01_02_02/E01_
02_02_zup18.html.
4. Source: http://www.nepszamlalas.hu/hun/kotetek/06/04/data/tabhun/4/
load01_11_0.html.
5. Source: http://www.seasideassociation.org.uk/documents/MicrosoftWord-Llan
elliiswithintheLlanelliparliamentaryconstituency.pdf.
6. Extracts from our interview data are marked with HU for data from
Békéscsaba, WL for Llanelli, CZ for Český Těšín and CR for Pula. The number
is an internal number for identifying subjects. Due to considerations for
brevity, we only provide extracts in English, either as original transcriptions
or translations. All translations are ours and all original extracts are available
from the authors on demand.

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16
The Linguistic Landscape of
Educational Spaces: Language
Revitalization and Schools in
Southeastern Estonia
Kara D. Brown

It has been there all along, but now that it is respected,


it has come out of hiding.
Kindergarten teacher on the presence of Võro
in her school (Interview, June 2008)

That a language can ‘come out of hiding’ or, as another teacher put
it, ‘have a renaissance’, (Interview, June 2008) invites one to consider
the material expression of emergent multilingualism in the school
environment. This chapter is an empirical exploration of the intersec-
tion of place-claiming and language revitalization in school space.
Using qualitative data collected over a decade of research in the region,
I examine the deliberate reintroduction of a lesser-used language into
the schoolscape (Brown, 2005) and its material presence in kindergar-
ten and elementary schools. In particular, I consider the meanings and
explanations used by those directly involved in the rewriting process,
teachers and administrators, to understand better the possibilities for
radically transforming schoolscapes to be inclusive of lesser-used lan-
guages and their advocates. I incorporate theoretical perspectives from
critical cultural geography, place-based education, and linguistic ecol-
ogy to advance linguistic landscape research in schools. In the following
pages, I argue that language plays a role in the emergent pedagogy of
place as reflected in the linguistic landscape of schools.
This chapter comprises: first, a discussion of key concepts culled
from critical cultural geography, place-based education, and linguistic
ecology that guide my analysis of school-based linguistic landscape
research; second, a contextual background to this southeastern Estonia
study and an overview of research methods; third, a summary of the
281
282 The Linguistic Landscape of Educational Spaces

major findings from the research concerning the reclaiming of place


in the three distinct ‘niches’, the foyer, the classroom, and the school
museum; and fourth, a discussion and conclusion.

The linguistic landscape of schools: Schoolscapes and


theoretical contributions

The state-funded school, a central civic institution, represents a deliberate


and planned environment where pupils are subjected to powerful mes-
sages about language(s) from local and national authorities. Despite the
centrality of schools in perpetuating and disrupting language ideolo-
gies, linguistic landscape research has yet to focus extensively on school
buildings as a key site for inquiry. The research in this chapter aims to
contribute to scholarly efforts to explore the ways the material deploy-
ment of language in schools reinforces or disrupts prevailing language
ideologies (Dagenais et al., 2008; Heller, 2006; Mor-Sommerfeld, 2009).
The concept of the ‘schoolscape’ is central to this qualitative inquiry.
I use schoolscapes in this chapter to refer to the school-based environment
where place and text, both written (graphic) and oral, constitute,
reproduce, and transform language ideologies. Schoolscapes project ideas
and messages about what is officially sanctioned and socially supported
within the school. The material use of languages in schoolscapes can
be understood as a ‘transformation[s] of social and political ideologies
into physical form’ (Duncan and Duncan, 1988, p. 126). Moreover,
schoolscapes constitute an important part of what Vaclav Havel has
dubbed ‘the panorama of everyday life’ (Havel, 1985, p. 32) for pupils,
teachers, headteachers, and parents. The presence and absence of particu-
lar languages in this material environment help to perpetuate linguistic
preservation and decline. As such, schoolscapes function in a similar way
as other cultural landscapes that are ‘implicated in the social reproduc-
tion of everyday life’ (Schein, 2009, p. 819).
Part of this reproductive function of schoolscapes has led to a vir-
tual erasure of lesser-used and regional languages from formal school
environments worldwide. Landry and Bourhis (1997, p. 28) recognize
the damaging consequences of privileging the use of certain languages
in the public domain: the ‘[e]xclusion of the in-group language from
public signs … conveys the notion that the in-group language is of
little use for conducting public affairs, thus reinforcing a diglossic situ-
ation to the advantage of the dominant language’. In Estonia, schools
have largely relegated regional languages to the periphery in the service
of promoting and valorizing Estonian and favoring the instruction of
prestigious global languages like English (Brown, 2005).
Kara D. Brown 283

Despite the constitutive and reproductive power of schoolscapes,


cultural geographers remind us of the potential of human agency to
transform environments. Schein (1997, p. 664) argues that individuals
engage in potentially ‘empowering’ experiences when they realize ‘that
discourses themselves, in all their manifestations, textual, material,
ideological, are humanly created, and our myriad individual acts of
inhabiting the landscape are part of the ongoing reformulation of those
discourses’. Attention to human agency and the material evidence of
this transforming discourse is a crucial element in understanding the
linguistic landscapes of educational spaces.
School-based linguistic revitalization represents a potentially power-
ful transformative effort. While state-funded schools worldwide have
an extended history of perpetuating the dominant language both sym-
bolically and substantively, language activists, teachers and parents have
increasingly turned to schools to aid in language revitalization. This
‘turn to schools’ has accompanied the recent language-revitalization
campaign of Võro, a regional language spoken by approximately 50,000
people in Southeastern Estonia. The importance of schools to this revi-
talization effort is echoed in the comment of a Võro-speaking kindergar-
ten teacher, who noted that ‘the parents don’t really speak it anymore,
only the grandparents do and that is why the parents want Võro in
school. Many can’t speak themselves – the school is a life preserver’
(Interview, June 2008).
One of the central reformulations of discourse in southeastern
Estonian schools surrounds notions of place. Place-based education
(PBE) serves as a useful framework to consider the powerful influence of
geography, or ‘place’, in shaping individual and community meaning-
making in schools. ‘Place’, used synonymously with ‘community’ in
much PBE literature (Nespor, 2008, p. 478), connotes a person’s immedi-
ate surroundings. Place-based education is a deliberate curriculum that
promotes learning rooted in the history, culture, and environment of
the community. PBE theorists argue that communities and local places
remain largely invisible in contemporary education and need to be
reclaimed in order to enhance local understanding and environmental
stewardship. The critical turn in place-based education recognizes that
this reclaiming disturbs the balance of power since ‘relationships of
power and domination are inscribed in material spaces’ (Gruenewald,
2003, p. 5). Võro-language teachers embrace this pedagogy unevenly
and, in some cases, unwittingly, in southeastern Estonia as they trans-
form or reproduce the schoolscape.
The sociolinguistic conception of a linguistic ‘niche’ within the school
helps to clarify the uneven emergence of the local language in particular
284 The Linguistic Landscape of Educational Spaces

school places. Schools are institutions that host their own ‘linguistic
ecosystems’ that constitute and reproduce surrounding ideologies at the
micro and macro levels. Within this school-based ‘linguistic ecosystem’,
the ‘ecological niche’ of a language is ‘constituted by its relations with
other languages … i.e. by its functions and by its relations with the
environment’ (Calvet, 2006, p. 24). Attention to the textual aspects of
these niches sheds light on the relationships of power within schools
and the way power intersects with language.

Context

The re-emergence of a language in Estonian schools, after decades of


silencing and neglect, presents a compelling case to explore material
expression of school-based linguistic revitalization. Võro, a Finno-
Ugric language most closely related to Finnish and a variety of South
Estonian, is spoken by approximately 5–8 per cent of all ethnic
Estonians with the vast majority of Võro speakers identifying Estonian
as their first language.1 Although the language played a central role in
nineteenth-century Estonian religious, intellectual and commercial life
of southeastern Estonia, the combined result of the rise in turn-of-the-
century Estonian nationalism, the promotion of the Estonian nation-
state (1918–1940), and the protection of Estonian against intensive
Russification campaigns during the Soviet occupation (1940–1991) has
contributed to significant language loss. The potent dynamic of nation-
alism and linguistic protectionism worked elsewhere in the Baltic States
as illustrated by the shift from Latgalian to Latvian in Latvia (see the
chapter by Marten in this volume). Language decisions in the home
and schools have contributed heavily to the stripping of Võro from
the schoolscape. Just as local places were lost in the promotion of a
curriculum focusing on a homogenized nation-state (Brown, 2008), the
regional language was also written out of the schools in an effort to
secure the dominant language. During the Soviet occupation, in par-
ticular, teachers strictly forbade pupils to speak Võro in school (Valper,
2004) and a range of punishments was meted on pupils who dared to
use their home language in school including public scolding, shaming,
and placement at the back of the classroom.
Estonia’s independence in 1991 adjusted the country’s linguistic and
cultural priorities. Võro, presented by activists as an ‘enriching’ linguis-
tic source for the Estonian nation-state, has experienced a renaissance
over the last 20 years (from the late glasnost period to 2010). A late
twentieth-century Võro revitalization effort led by the state-funded Võro
Kara D. Brown 285

Institute, non-governmental organizations, artists, journalists and other


intellectuals has resulted in the creation of a standardized grammar,
dictionaries, poetry collections, fiction, a newspaper and plays in the
regional language. Although standard Estonian retains its authority as the
foundation of Estonian ethnic identity and as the country’s sole official
language, substantial community- and state-backed efforts to revitalize
Võro have begun. Despite revitalization efforts and increased enthusiasm
about the language, researchers report a sharp decrease in the daily use of
Võro across generations (Ehala, 2007) with few children speaking Võro as
their mother tongue (for an exception, see Saar, 2002).
As a result of revitalization efforts and the shifting ideas about the role
of regional languages in Estonia, the material use of Võro has dramati-
cally increased since independence. In the ten years I have conducted
research in the region (1999–2009), there has been a noticeable increase
in commercial and governmental use of Võro in signs. Although
standard Estonian continues to dominate the linguistic landscape in
southeastern Estonia and benefits from the protection of the Language
Act (Sec. 23) under which all signs must include standard Estonian,
the regional language is increasingly used in virtual and physical space
in a ‘symbolic’ capacity (Landry and Bourhis, 1997). For example, the
webpage of the Võru County government uses the regional language in
its motto ‘Our land, our language’ (‘Uma maa, uma kiil’) and provides
quasi-translations of the Estonian-language main menu options. While
the content of the county webpages remains exclusively in Estonian,
the language functions to mark the county’s distinctive linguistic diff-
erence. In Võru City, stickers declaring ‘Võro can be spoken here’ are
visible on the ticket windows of the central bus station and on the doors
of several shops. In the Võru Cultural Centre building, signs in the
regional language hang identifying the main rooms and performance
spaces. Along the county roads, official signs mark the border of historic
Võrumaa, an administrative parish boundary that was redrawn in the
twentieth century. The streets of the Võru city centre are dotted with
shops, including a second-hand shop and a liquor store that use Võro in
some capacity. And, finally, at least three local commercial enterprises
use the regional language to promote their bread, dairy products, and
meat on advertisements and product wrappings.
The schools of the region offer a contrastive glimpse into the mate-
rial expression of the Võro-language revival. Although a voluntary,
school-based Võro-language programme has operated for over a decade
in approximately half the schools in the region where the language is
spoken, the material and socio-cultural context within these educational
286 The Linguistic Landscape of Educational Spaces

spaces remains both largely supportive of and dominated by standard


Estonian. In my research, I have observed a broad range of actions con-
stituting language-teacher work against the aggressive erasure policies of
the Soviet era. Some teachers have become open advocates for a more
secure, visible place and a pronounced role for the regional language in
the school (Brown, 2010). Other teachers operate more covertly to slip
the language back into the school day in subtle ways in order for their
efforts to go unnoticed by school directors or parents and to protect the
language from dissenting parties. The results of this mixed involvement
of teachers and administrators with language revitalization are reflected,
in part, on the walls and in the halls of regional schools.

Overview of research and methods

I bring an anthropological perspective to my linguistic-landscape research.


The data for this chapter is culled from multiple research trips over the
last decade to southeastern Estonia – including my first research excur-
sion to the region in 1999, a multi-sited school-based ethnography from
2001–2003, and shorter research trips in 1999, 2004, 2008 and 2009.
Throughout this decade-long involvement in the region, I conducted
qualitative research on regional-language policy and appropriation
with particular attention to the role of Võro-language teachers in the
language-policy process. An analysis of the linguistic landscapes of
schools has emerged as one facet of this research. This research focuses
not only on the linguistic artefacts in the schoolscape, but also, when
possible, the motivations of people, from their own perspective, on
their material contribution to the schoolscape.
My methods include semi-structured interviews with over 90 per
cent (i.e. 34) of the regional-language teachers at the preschools (kinder-
gartens) and basic schools (grades 1–9) offering Võro instruction.
Interviews were conducted in Estonian, which I then translated during
the transcription process. At schools, I also observed the regional lan-
guage and culture class, and attended language-related school activities
including puppet shows, plays, poetry readings, and award ceremonies.
In addition to this multi-sited component, which helped to provide a
holistic perspective to my research, I conducted an intensive school-
based ethnography (2001–2003) at the Oak School (a pseudonym), out-
side the city of Võru. All school and teacher names used in this chapter
are pseudonyms.
In coding and analysing my data for this chapter, I have been guided
by Gorter’s assertion that linguistic landscape ‘refers to linguistic objects
Kara D. Brown 287

that mark the public space’ (2006, p. 3). The purview of material
artefacts considered in a school-based linguistic-landscape analysis dif-
fers from research in urban streetscapes and communities. Whereas
much linguistic-landscape research focuses on ‘the language of public
road signs, advertising billboards, street names, place names, commer-
cial shop signs, and public signs on government buildings’ (Landry and
Bourhis, 1997, p. 25), my school-based study includes all publicly-shared
written language including posters, plaques, texts, pupils’ work, notices,
and so on, produced both formally or informally for an educational
environment. The three photographs included in this chapter were
taken during two different trips (1999 and 2009) by the author in three
distinct school sites.

Findings

The formal schooling environment is dominated by the country’s high


status language, Estonian, typical, as Landry and Bourhis argue (1997),
of a diglossic situation. In this linguistic configuration, most permanent
and informational signs in schools are written in Estonian. The regional
language has emerged, however, in particular sites or ‘niches’ within the
interior schoolscape. In this section, I analyse the linguistic landscape of
three niches that function as crucial symbolic sites: foyers, classrooms,
and school museums. These niches are distinct ideological spaces within
the school and contribute to the formation of the broader schoolscape.

Foyers
In accordance with legal norms, Estonian dominates the external
linguistic landscape of southeastern Estonian schools (e.g. the sign
carrying the name of the school). Inside the school, however, where
socio-cultural traditions and expectations shape linguistic choices, an
array of global languages appear; the regional language can be found
in particular niches. In the foyers of Estonian schools, the material use
of select languages helps to situate the school historically and position
the institution on a national and global scale. Estonian and prestigious
European languages saturate school foyers, while the regional lan-
guage is largely absent. In my 2001–2003 general-school (grades 1–9)
site visits, the Võro language was absent from all school foyers. In the
school entrance, language intersects with geographic place in a distinct
way. The languages of national and international prestige – Estonian,
Finnish, English, and German – are used on foyer maps, plaques, awards,
and posters and serve to elevate the ideological importance of Europe
288 The Linguistic Landscape of Educational Spaces

and the Estonian nation-state. The local community is rendered invis-


ible, however, through the material absence of Võro in this prominent
place in the schoolscape.
In the foyer of my primary ethnographic site, the Oak School, a Võro-
friendly institution and longtime host of language-education classes,
three different languages were present. The school director had hung
plaques, certificates, and maps written in standard Estonian or another
European language (e.g. German or Finnish); he had not included any
material, however, in Võro. In part, the linguistic schoolscape of the
foyer documented the European linkages of this rural school; a senti-
ment reflected in the school director’s explanation of the work invested
into developing friendship links with European counterparts and the
attendant opportunities of these arrangements for pupils and staff. The
foyer also hosted messages from the state, which promoted emergent
links with the European Union and the value of Estonian citizenship. In
November 2001, a poster promoting Estonian Citizenship Day greeted
visitors in the Oak School entrance. It featured a blue Estonian passport
next to a green traffic light; above the light, in bold letters, was ‘Go!’
(written in English) followed by the Estonian text ‘As an Estonian citizen
you are on the road to Europe, where borders are only for crossing’
(Fieldnotes, November 2001). For Marje, a veteran Oak School teacher,
this foyer poster reflected the shifting historical ideologies and attendant
linguistic changes within schools, ‘Basically, all the Soviet propaganda in
Russian that was once here has been replaced with European Union stuff
in English and other languages’ (Interview, November 2001).
The educators at a rural kindergarten took a radically different
approach to the use of regional language in the main corridor (the build-
ing did not have a formal foyer). The school incorporated poetry in the
Võro language on homemade posters and Estonian texts. The wall hang-
ings, decorated with small cornflowers, the national flower of Estonia,
and a woven folk belt from the region, declared both symbolically and
literally the kindergarten’s parallel allegiance to the local community
and the Estonian nation. One poster featured the topic of ‘one’s mother-
tongue’ in the regional language: a poem written in Võro by one of the
school’s teachers opened with the line, ‘Our small land is Võroland and
our mother tongue is the Võro language’ and a statement by a popular
Estonian naturalist in Estonian about the importance of speaking one’s
mother tongue. The second corridor poster declared in Estonian: ‘The
distinctiveness of our kindergarten is in its valuing of the language
and culture of the home area and in passing them along to the new
generations.’ The prominent use of both Võro and Estonian reflects the
Kara D. Brown 289

intentionality of the schoolscape used to promote, in parallel, regional-


language use and the kindergarten, and express ideological claims about
the regional ‘mother tongue’.
Research revealed the collaborative efforts behind the creation of
this regional-language supportive corridor. One of the kindergarten’s
teachers, Helke, explained that based on professional development
and personal reflection, a couple of kindergarten staff members dis-
cussed the possibility of Võro instruction ( June 2008). The teachers
surveyed the parents about their interest in Võro instruction, and when
the results came back overwhelmingly positive, the staff and adminis-
trator decided to, as Helke explained, ‘serve our clients (i.e. the parents)
and meet their needs’ (Interview, June 2008). Part of this effort resulted
in the corridor posters and the inclusion of locally-based curricular
goals into the school’s district-approved development plan where they
state in bold the kindergarten’s motto, ‘always hold the home region’s
language and spirit in your heart’. The use of school entry space in this
case reveals a significantly different approach to place and language
than I found in the general schools. In this kindergarten, both the local
language and Estonian are utilized to trumpet the importance of the
immediate region through the message emphasizing the importance of
speaking one’s mother tongue and the locally-oriented mission state-
ment of kindergarten. The reclaiming of kindergarten space through
the material use of both languages illustrates the complex enterprise
of transforming discourse about belonging and place in contemporary
Estonia. In this case, it was clear that the transformation of the linguis-
tic landscape rested heavily on the strong support given by the teachers,
the district, and pupils’ parents.

Classrooms
Although standard Estonian dominates most of the shared school space
(i.e. foyers, entrances, and corridors), the regional language surfaces in
classrooms. The material presence of Võro can be divided into two catego-
ries: temporary and long-term. The temporary category encompasses in
both the transient written forms on blackboards and temporary signs, and
oral ones in the routine use of song and games in the language. Little evi-
dence remains by the end of the lesson or the school day from temporary
language use. In most schools I visited as part of my fieldwork, Võro had
a short-lived material role in the classroom, whereas foreign languages,
like English, were awarded a more enduring place (see Figure 16.1). In
my fieldnotes from the Pohla School, I recorded the prominent position
awarded to English vis-à-vis the transient presence of Võro.
290 The Linguistic Landscape of Educational Spaces

White sheets of paper lined the top of the blackboard in the fourth
grade class. On each piece of paper, the days of the week were care-
fully written in cursive English. Book-ending this row of sheets are
posters with conjugations of the verbs to be and to have in English
written in bold black ink. Little else was hanging in the classroom.
On the board, written in chalk, was the question in Võro, ‘What is a
pine tree?’ It would be erased at the end of class.
(Fieldnotes, May 2002)

The daily creation and erasure of the regional language suggests a dynamic
linguistic schoolscape that might be overlooked or underappreciated if
only long-term evidence of language use is considered in research.
The temporary category also includes the routine oral use of the lan-
guage through song and story telling. Price (cited in Schein, 2009, p. 812,
emphasis in the original) argues ‘landscapes would not exist as places were
it not for the stories told about and through them’. Kindergartens, in
particular, incorporate an oral rather than a written form of the regional
language. Playing Võro lullabies before naptime and singing regional folk
songs during structured outdoor games constitute a regular part of every-
day school life in a handful of regional kindergartens. One kindergarten
teacher explained that the audio resources created by the Võro Institute
have ‘created the possibility to play Võro-language music during naptime,

Figure 16.1 A temporary schoolscape. March 2002


Kara D. Brown 291

which the pupils look forward to and sing along with every day. These
songs reconnect them with our rich folk history’ (Interview, June 2008).
The oral use of language to foster connections between pupils and com-
munity is encouraged at the general-school level as well. The intimate
link between regional-language use and place constitutes a key compo-
nent to the emergent pedagogy of place in southeastern Estonian schools.
This pedagogy endorsed and crafted by the Võro Institute links language
revitalization with the reintroduction of place through the learning of
history, folklore, language, poetry and art. The regional-language teach-
ers’ guide suggests the merging of language teaching and place learning
through the use of community narratives:

You can put local studies together with language learning, if we are
talking about life in our neighbourhood and folk traditions, [or]
the singing of songs or song games of our corner of the country. Maybe
some child’s grandmother or grandfather remembers something that
would be exciting for other children to hear. Certainly some legend of
the home place could be told: the way that some place got its name or
what is there now. Then memories about one’s own home farm: who
lived there in the past, what type of old things are still there, etc.
(Reimann, 2000, p. 37–8)

Teachers also integrate written regional-language material into the


classroom with long-term intent. In close to a quarter of the general
schools I visited from 2001–2004, teachers had created a Võro-language
‘niche’ in the classroom where pupils’ written work in Võro hung. The
niche was a dedicated classroom spot for showcasing pupil-generated
language products and storing language-learning books. Anna, a rural
regional-language teacher, reflected on the deliberate use of classroom
space to display the language, ‘My classroom is a bit like a Seto [an
Orthodox Estonian] house where each corner is dedicated to a certain
purpose [religious, sleeping, eating, and cooking]. That corner [pointing
to a wall covered with about ten pupils’ stories and illustrations] is my
‘Võro corner’ for the year’ (Interview, October 2004).
Vernacular signs rather than mass-produced images, like the foyer
‘Go’ poster, dominate the classrooms. In some cases, as with the kin-
dergartens in my study, the teacher used the regional language both
for symbolic place claiming within the school and for instructional
purposes. Mari, a seasoned kindergarten teacher, explained that at the
beginning of the school year, the early childhood teachers ‘start to put
signs up like ‘thank you’, the easiest words, then we will look around
292 The Linguistic Landscape of Educational Spaces

the room and post others. We’ll put those word signs up, so the children
remember and learn Võro’ (Interview, June 2008).
As with the local-language kindergarten posters discussed earlier in the
chapter, the people connected with the place, the teachers and pupils,
crafted these classroom hangings. Through this art, they worked to
(re)claim the school space as something intimately connected with the
region. In one of the first classrooms I visited in 1999, I found telling
examples of pupil-created stories and poetry highlighting local places.
A series of poems was written around the theme of ‘my’ or ‘this’ school
(mu kuul/sjo kuul) (Figure 16.2). One fourth grader claimed the school as
a school of ‘Võrumaa’ in his poem:

This is my school.
This is your school.
This is everyone’s school.
This is a Võrumaa school.

The place-claiming extends beyond immediate geographic links to a


rooting of the institution with family across time. Another poem read:
‘This is my grandfather’s school, This is my grandmother’s school.
We can’t lose this school because it’s very young’. The school was 80
years old at the time. The pedagogy of place expressed in this example
through school-based attachment illustrates the manifold directions of
place claiming.

Figure 16.2 Classroom regional-language display with home-made books on


cabinet. June 1999
Kara D. Brown 293

Museums
The third and final regional-language ‘niche’ in southeastern Estonian
schools is the school museum. The museum, common in many general
schools, is a space dedicated to the preservation and display of school-
related historical artefacts. In most cases, the museum functions as a
way to display pride in the institution and commemorate their history,
which for many schools in the region extends over 100 years. Museums
also reiterate and reproduce the school-based material use of language.
These small rooms, or in the case of one school, the entire original
four-room schoolhouse, work, inadvertently, to recount the historical
multilingualism of Estonian schools and of the Baltic region as a whole
(Kreslins, 2003). In these school museums, history is retold via explana-
tory panels handwritten in Estonian. As one moves from one display
case to another, a range of languages appear – primary documents written
in the administrative language of the era (i.e. Estonian or Russian);
newspaper clippings in Finnish, German, Russian, and Estonian;
previously-used textbooks in Estonian and Russian; and various school
programmes (e.g. foundation day, the opening of additions, etc.) from
the twentieth century printed primarily in Estonian. The displays tend
to become more multilingual as the material focuses on the twenty-
first century. For example, one of the final exhibits in the Oak School
Museum featured three languages (Figure 16.3).
Although the museum functions as a school-based linguistic chronicle,
the regional language is, as in the foyer, generally absent. Among the
many texts, photographs of notable alumni, and portraits of the school
faculty and directors, little evidence surfaces in southeastern school
museums of the past material use of the regional language although the
language was taught between the seventeenth and nineteenth centu-
ries (Pajusalu, 2009, p. 101). To illustrate, in the Oak School Museum,
I found only one example of the regional language, the school village’s
placename in Võro included on the cover of a 1902 book. The panel fea-
turing a photograph of a 2001 visit by the Director of the Võro Institute,
who gave his talk completely in Võro, contained only Estonian texts;
the multilingualism of that event was lost in the two-dimensional
representation of the past.

Discussion and conclusion

This diachronic investigation of place and language within the con-


tested historical and contemporary environment of schools reveals the
294 The Linguistic Landscape of Educational Spaces

Figure 16.3 School museum display featuring Finnish, Estonian and English.
June 2008

uneven re-emergence of a marginalized language across and within


educational space. The research illustrates evidence of the regional
language being ‘written out’ (Schein, 2009) in many of the shared
spaces of general schools, like foyers and museums, and ‘written in’
more regularly into classrooms. In part, this research points to the con-
tinued hegemony of oral and written Estonian Standard language use
even in schools with long-standing commitments to regional-language
education (Brown, 2005). Past homogenizing language practices linger,
although new opportunities have opened to reintroduce the regional
language into schools in material form. Attention to the ‘myriad of
individual acts’ (Schein, 1997, p. 664) by regional-language teachers to
reintroduce Võro into the schoolscape reveals the gradual pace of cul-
tural change especially in schools.
This study also supports the idea that schoolscapes, like cultural land-
scapes, ‘work to articulate, mediate, (re)produce, and provide grounds
to challenge everyday life, materially, symbolically, and discursively’
(Schein, 2009, p. 815, emphasis mine). Regional-language teachers have
found and created intentional ‘niches’ in the current schoolscape as
Kara D. Brown 295

one way to reclaim school space as a place for the regional culture and
language. These language educators have begun to challenge, through
a thoughtful crafting of the schoolscape, the hegemonic presence of
Estonian. A pedagogy of place has become a means to identify new
spaces for Võro in southeastern Estonian schools. The intertwining of
place with regional-language education powerfully illustrates one way
educators have delineated new ideas about belonging in this institu-
tional environment.
The consideration of schoolscapes leads to several contributions to
linguistic landscape research. First, a qualitative approach to LL research
highlights the roles played by both temporary and long-term school-
scapes. A nationalist language ideology continues to permeate Estonian
schools, one that contributes, in part, to a privileging of the oral use
of Võro over the written form. Much of the long-term material use of
language is expressed in Estonian and other major European languages
particularly in the niches of the foyer and the museum. Attention only
to written evidence of the regional language would render invisible the
vital oral use of the regional language in some school environments and
would belie the language’s presence in the temporary schoolscape of the
classroom. The focus of linguistic ecology research on oral interaction
provides a useful broadening of the general emphasis within LL studies
on the material use of language (Hult, 2009) and invites us to consider
the spoken component of landscapes in addition to their material
counterparts.
Second, the schoolscapes of southeastern Estonia illustrate the com-
plexity of language revitalization within schools. Landry and Bourhis
argue that the material use of certain languages reflects a degree of
power; they (1997, p. 28) purport, ‘public signs in the in-group lan-
guage imply that one’s own group has gained a measure of institutional
control within key sectors of the economy, mass media, and state func-
tions such as education, health, defence, and the civil administration’.
The re-emergence of Võro in the educational sector likewise reflects an
increase of autonomy within the school environment. Yet, in this case,
where the population in question has two ‘in-group’ languages,
Estonian and Võro, the notion of ‘institutional control’ has a slightly
different configuration. Based on my research in southeastern Estonia,
three factors play into the apparent ‘control’ over the material environ-
ment: (1) the level of schooling (i.e. kindergarten vs general schooling)
and the perceived sense within a school to make a certain impression
on the ‘client’ or broader community; (2) the particular institutional
‘niche’ (e.g. foyer, classroom or museum) and teacher autonomy within
296 The Linguistic Landscape of Educational Spaces

that niche; and (3) the sense of parental and administrative support to
reclaim space for the regional language.
Third, this research suggests the possibility for place-based education
to be one possible entry point for introducing marginalized languages
into the schoolscape. Nespor highlights the critical consciousness-raising
role that schools might play in resurrecting our understanding about the
places people find important. Nespor (2008, p. 487) argues that

all of us think and care about the places we stand, but that most of
us have trouble understanding how these places have come to be or
might be changed. This is not because we are inattentive to them
or do not have good roots, but because the other places to which
they are connected, and in relation to which they are constituted,
are hidden from our view, segregated from our everyday concerns,
by circuits of communication, representations, and education. The
question, then, is not whether or not we are place-conscious, it is the
places of which we are conscious.

As my research illustrates, a key role is played by teachers and leaders


in the language revitalization movement who work with schools to raise
their place consciousness through language education and also provide
these institutions with materials to help transform the physical envi-
ronment into one more connected with the immediate community.
Finally, further qualitative research is required to expand our schol-
arly understanding of what the writing and rewriting of the schoolscape
means to those who participate in reshaping educational environments.
While the research reported on in this chapter explores the perspectives
of educators and teachers taking an active role in transforming school-
scapes, LL researchers need a deeper understanding about the way the
material use of language in school shapes the ideologies and conscious-
ness of those who study and work in these educational spaces including
pupils. Further research along this line will contribute to the broader
understanding of the role state-funded schools play in the transmission
and disruption of language policies sustaining linguistic inequity.

Note
1. Linguists identify two major dialect groups: North Estonian, from which
‘standard’ Estonian primarily derives, and South Estonian. Several varieties
constitute each group with the Mulgi, Tartu, Võro, and Seto varieties catego-
rized under the South Estonian umbrella.
Kara D. Brown 297

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17
The Material Culture of
Multilingualism
Larissa Aronin and Muiris Ó Laoire

Introduction1

Due to the all-embracing nature of multilingualism, it is customary


that research on multilingualism deals not only with purely linguistic
matters, but extends to the domains of psychology and sociology as a
result, creating new, specific knowledge on multilingualism. Our under-
standing of multilingualism has increased with research expanding into
various provinces of human interest such as emotions, (cf. Dewaele,
2006; Pavlenko, 2005), aging (De Bot and Makoni, 2005), economics
(cf. Cenoz and Gorter, 2008; Grin and Vaillancourt, 1997), awareness
( Jessner, 2006), dynamic systems (Herdina and Jessner, 2002), complex-
ity (Aronin and Singleton, 2008; Larsen-Freeman, 1997), affordances
(Singleton and Aronin, 2007; Aronin and Singleton, 2010), and time
(Singleton, Aronin and Carson, 2007). Researching yet another domain,
namely that of material culture or the materialities of multilingualism,
would appear to be a logical continuation of this trend in multilingual-
ism studies.
There is another rationale for turning attention to this particular
domain. Out of the three ingredients of multilingualism, speaker,
language and environment (Aronin, 2006), not all of them have been
researched equally. In fact, in multilingualism studies to date, environ-
ment is mostly understood as milieu, conceptualized usually in terms of
people, namely community, family, school and population. Some research
pertinent to material culture has been done on ‘bilingual/multilingual
classroom’ (Coady, 2004; Escamilla, 1994; Johnson, 1980) and the study
of linguistic landscape is unfolding (Gorter, 2006). Still, although multi-
lingualism is replete with artefacts that represent its past and present, the
aspect of material environment, this essential aspect of multilingualism,

299
300 The Material Culture of Multilingualism

still lacks empirical and theoretical research attention. Scollon and


Scollon (2003) have already focused on geo-semiotics, namely the key
interface between semiotics and the physical environment, constituting
an important first step in this direction. They provide a systematic analy-
sis of the way language is interpreted as it is materially found in China,
Austria, France, US and Hong Kong. We contend here, however, that
objects and artefacts of material culture tend to influence languages and
change language-related practices. Consider, for example, the change of
written norms while using mobile phones and computers. The text/sms
messages allow for writing ‘4 u’ instead of ‘for you’. Used in emails, it is
recognized as being different from other kinds of writing. Other exam-
ples of the impact of materialities on language-related activities are the
rapid development of distance language teaching which depends largely
on technology and is undoubtedly modified by the material objects of
technology. The authenticity of objects and artefacts used for language
teaching has begun to change teaching approaches, methods and the
organization of teaching-learning processes. In the case of minority
language education, for example, educators are often concerned about
the status of the minority language outside the classroom, keen that
learners become aware of the minority language embedded within
wider social agencies and domains. As school alone cannot guarantee
language proficiency in a minority language nor inspire interest in genu-
ine language use, the creation of age-appropriate, attractive materials
that have a life outside the classroom is paramount. Notable examples
here have been a CD for hockey playing related to Ojibwe youth culture
(Williams, 2002) and a bilingual colouring activity book for Welsh chil-
dren (Edwards and Newcombe, 2005). These materials give children and
their families opportunities to participate in events and daily activities
in the minority language.
This paper addresses the apparent deficit of focus on materialities in
multilingualism and introduces the concept of ‘material culture of mul-
tilingualism’. By drawing attention to the importance of exploring the
material culture of multilingualism, it is hoped to suggest yet another way
of unveiling and revealing different aspects and layers of multilingualism.
Such an exploration might be profitably applied to a range of discussions
relevant to language and society and in the first instance to minority
languages. The position of minority languages is often weak in many
domains, for example, popular culture, media and commercial life. The
materialities of minority languages (signs, books, T-shirts, websites, CDs,
etc.), for example, may have the important function of being a symbolic
marker of linguistic vitality and equality for the minority language. For
Larissa Aronin and Muiris Ó Laoire 301

the owners or users, these material artefacts identify the vitality of the
language, showing that the language has a living presence in all domains
of life in the same way as languages of wider communication. Young
speakers of Irish, for example, may take strong pride in a T-shirt with a slo-
gan in Irish in Ireland where T-shirt slogans are usually in English. Older,
traditional artefacts such as monuments, inscriptions, buildings, old dress
codes, and so on, also have crucial socio-symbolic importance of remind-
ing speakers of historical links of the minority language with a particular
location, territory or topographical feature (e.g. many topographical
features in New Zealand possess either historical or mythological signifi-
cance for the Māori). The diachronic or synchronic presence of material
culture of the minority language alongside the ubiquitous presence of
the wider used language may crucially show that the spaces and sites of
minority language speakers (i.e. homes, buildings, streets, roadways, etc.)
are contested by speakers of at least two languages (see also the chapters
by Puzey, Marten and Salo this volume). The minority language has a
physical presence in the world of the majority language and vice versa.
Thus we draw attention here to material culture. To this end we
shall: (1) outline the essentials of material culture research, (2) attempt
to show how this dimension of human life is relevant to studies and
practices of multilingualism and (3) more specifically for studies on
minority languages.

Material culture and its study in domains other than


multilingualism

The domain and subject of material culture studies


The domain of material culture, the investigation of materialities,
originated from the quest for history-connected fields of knowledge. It
was advanced by archaeology studies, historical geography and more
recently by archaeological and ethnographical studies. Recently, mate-
rial culture studies are being spread beyond the confines of history
and ethnology-related disciplines chiefly through information and
communication technologies. The value and potential of materialities
is being recognized more and more not only for their symbolic and
culture-specific value but also as being important social parameters in
themselves (cf. Rathje and Cullen, 1992).
Material culture study is the study of artefacts and objects as well as
landscapes, cityscapes, roadscapes, villages, localities, dwellings, private
households and collective homes, public spaces and ways of their
organization and use. Researchers in material culture scrutinize the
302 The Material Culture of Multilingualism

qualities of artefacts, the use and production of objects and compare


them. Close attention is paid to the position of investigated artefacts in
space and as they are located in relation to each other (e.g. left, right, on
top of the other, etc.). The artefacts are often compared with each other,
interpretations offered as to modes of use (when they are jettisoned or
preserved), and the study of human interaction with material included
in the methodology.
Rituals and events are also included in the purview of material culture
studies where materialities are seen as a reflection of identity, individual
and group values: ideas, morals, ethics and standards. Materialities of
minority languages in the past have been less in evidence than in the
languages of wider communication. In terms of printed materials, for
example, translations of the Harry Potter novels into Irish have only
recently appeared. Similarly, videogames and DVDs for children (cf.
Bob y Bilder Cynlluniau Bob in Welsh; Fios Feasa in Irish) are recent addi-
tions to the catalogue of new technologies and lesser-used languages.
Paradoxically the prototypical identity markers in minority language
contexts rooted in the past, such as festivals, folkloric rituals and tradi-
tions (e.g. the Welsh Eisteddfod, Eisteddfod Genedlaethol Cymru), where
material objects abound, are underrepresented and overlooked in
minority language research. The materialities would include domestic
utensils, national costumes, street signs, oral narratives, dances, and so
on. As Coupland and Garrett (2010, p. 12) note, the research agenda
‘needs to be more sensitive to historical processes and contexts […]
and to move beyond descriptivist and distributional approaches’ (see
also the chapter by Brown this volume). The thrust and direction of
these concerns and methodologies, both established and emergent, are
relevant and may be beneficial for multilingual identity studies, in par-
ticular so with regard to minority speakers and minority languages.
Originally material studies were aimed solely at extant objects from
previous epochs with a view to understanding the past. However, as
material culturists were influenced by the writings of Claude Lévi-
Strauss and Michel Foucault, they became gradually more interested in
the present. Furthermore, the number and scope of objects eligible for
examination in material culture studies increased with the advent of
globalization with humankind developing a new set of material condi-
tions and new contemporary events and rituals, for example, TV, com-
puters, e-mailing, Internet, newspapers and texting.
A number of definitions of material culture have been posited:
Material culture is the array of artefacts and cultural landscapes that
people create according to traditional, patterned, and often tacit concepts
Larissa Aronin and Muiris Ó Laoire 303

of value and utility that have been developed over time through use and
experimentation. These artefacts and landscapes objectively represent a
group’s subjective vision of custom and order (Marshall, 1981, p. 17).
Deetz (1977, p. 10) saw material culture as ‘a segment of man’s physi-
cal environment which is purposely shaped by him according to cultur-
ally dictated plans.’ Lawn and Grosvenor (2005, p. 7) defined material
culture as the study of objects and artefacts and ‘the ways that objects
are given meaning, how they are used, and how they are linked into
heterogeneous active networks, in which people, objects and routines
are closely connected’.
The definitions of material culture suggest the idea of alliance,
belonging, association, grouping of people and collective visions of
culture, custom and order in connection with the objects. The com-
mon premise in research on materialities is the existence of interaction,
interrelationship between objects and beliefs, objects and ways of life,
objects and human behaviour, objects and identity. Bronner (1985)
explicitly equated material culture with interaction. He wrote: ‘A craft,
a house, a food that comes from one’s hands or heart, one’s shared
experience with other people in a community, one’s learned ideas and
symbols, visibly connects persons and groups to society and to material
reality around them. That interaction is material culture […] It is inher-
ently personal and social, mental and physical. It is art, architecture,
food, clothing and furnishing. But more so, it is the weave of these
objects in the everyday lives of individuals and communities’ (Bronner,
1985, p. 129, emphasis added).
The studies of the 1970s in America considered material culture not
just a product of behaviours, but as behaviour itself (cf. Georges, 1969;
Hymes, 1972). Bronner maintained that ‘material culture research is not
merely the study of things. It is the interrelation of objects and technics
of social life. It is, at bottom, a study of people’ (Bronner, 1985, p. 129).
To summarize, material culture exploration, which paradoxically
in effect is much more about people than is seen on the surface, can
contribute to the domain of both minority language studies and mul-
tilingualism concerned with individuals and groups using and learning
different languages.

Evidential function of material studies


The essential importance of material studies is seen in their evidential func-
tion. The most prominent distinctive features of material culture evidence
are thought to include: (a) evidential precedence; (b) temporal tenacity;
(c) three-dimensionality; (d) wider representativeness and (e) affective
304 The Material Culture of Multilingualism

understanding (Schlereth, 1985b, p. 9). Three-dimensionality is common


to all material cultures although more characteristic of some artefacts
than of others. Objects such as maps, photographs, and graphics are
three-dimensional too, of course. Material evidence is seen as being less
susceptible to bias than any other kind of evidence, extending sources of
cultural information beyond written or statistical records and, therefore,
possesses a remarkably high degree of evidential veracity (Schlereth,
1985b, p. 20).
Material culture is tangible. Those dealing with rather ephemeral
aspects of multilingualism such as attitudes, preferences for languages,
text comprehension can appreciate the need for tangibility and concre-
tization. Objects and spaces are ‘solid’, since they ‘stabilize the experi-
ence’ (Schlereth, 1985b, p. 10) and this constitutes the most appealing
reason for focusing on material objects in research in that they guaran-
tee wider representativeness (Schlereth, 1985b, p. 11). Finally, material
culture has the feature of affective understanding supported by the
claim for a special sensory knowledge derivable from material culture
data (Schlereth, 1985b, p. 12) and the belief that physical data provides
us with a certain type of knowing, ‘an affective mode of apprehension’
(Prown, 1980, p. 208).
Due to the essential salient features discussed earlier, material culture
is posited as a reliable source of evidence. When material culture inter-
acts with language, it produces a composite, vibrant image of human
behaviours. The description, explanation, interpretation and counting
of artefacts can be used as supporting or supplementary evidence in
research, especially in cases that occur quite frequently in multilingual-
ism or in minority language situations where the available documentary
and statistical data for a topic are rather incomplete or fuzzy.

Other aspects of material culture research


A further analysis of scholarship in material culture reveals the agree-
ment among the researchers that object studies should place artefac-
tual contents in their appropriate cultural context. Lewis, Ames, Upton,
Pursell, Bronnel and Schlereth (Schlereth, 1985a) emphasized the value
of artefacts in their ‘original historical and cultural contexts’ (Schlereth,
1985b, p. 14) and maintain that an object cannot be removed from
where it was produced. It is believed that ‘out of site’ can mean ‘out of
sight’ without a documented context, in which case artefacts are little
more than historical souvenirs (Schlereth, 1985b, p. 14).
It is interesting to note in this chapter advocating the use of mate-
rial culture for multilingualism, that the reverse situation has taken
Larissa Aronin and Muiris Ó Laoire 305

place; that is, an insight of a material culture researcher has been taken
from linguistics. In his seminal study Folk Housing in Middle Virginia:
A Structural Analysis of Historic Artefacts (1975) Glassie, puzzled by the
variety of design in folk housing in Middle Virginia, has drawn on
Noam Chomsky’s and Claude Lévi-Strauss’s linguistic theories. In the
same way as Chomsky accounted for what he called ‘creativity’, namely
the ability of individuals to produce an infinite number of sentences
and sentence-types after a limited exposure to the language (Chomsky,
1965, p. 6), Glassie presented a structure of rules, a ‘grammar’ represent-
ing base mental concepts that underlie and order architectural form and
designing competence (Glassie, 1975). This cycle of mutual borrowing
between linguistics and material aspect of architecture demonstrates the
possibilities of cross-fertilization of distant domains of knowledge.
Perhaps, with a bit of exaggeration, Bronner expressed the ultimate
task of material studies as follows. In the backs of their minds, scholars
hope that with the patterns uncovered from objects and technical proc-
esses used in social life, they can predict future attitudes, manners, and
problems of our materialistic society (Bronner, 1985, p. 146).
When it comes to language education, materialities have already been
included into the purview of studies into representation of language in
the classroom. One of the earliest studies of material culture in educa-
tional settings was Johnson’s (1980) investigation of a rural elementary
school in the United States. Johnson referred to material culture as the
material artefacts, classroom decorations and displays that act as mecha-
nisms for socialization and enculturation. The rationale of his analysis
was based on the premise that education, either familial or within the
classroom, is a process of transmission of sociocultural norms. In small,
homogenous societies the transmission of sociocultural norms typically
entails teaching and learning traditions of the local community. On
the other hand, in large heterogeneous societies, enculturation takes on
the teaching and learning of the national society, which often belies the
local environment. For heterogeneous societies, then, there exists an
inherent structural tension between the learning and teaching of local
and national, extra-local traditions.
In Johnson’s study a wide variety of material culture in each classroom
was noted. These items included academic products, artwork, calendars,
clocks, textbooks and maps. His list also included items such as the pres-
ence of a national flag. Using non-participant observation across grade
levels, Johnson examined the extent to which material artefacts along
with school and classroom decorations socialized students into either a
local or national, sociocultural orientation. Johnson’s study concluded
306 The Material Culture of Multilingualism

that ‘public schooling disavows local sociocultural orientations and


traditions’ in favour of a national sociocultural orientation (Johnson,
1980, p. 181; see also the chapter by Brown this volume).
The second dimension of the educational lens is based on Escamilla’s
sociolinguistic investigation into the material artefacts found at Valley
Vista School, an urban elementary school located in the southwest
of the United States (Escamilla, 1994). That school had adopted a
transitional bilingual education programme, in which students were
taught through the minority language for several years before being
transitioned into English-language instruction.
Unlike Johnson’s study that did not note the language of the material
culture present in the school, Escamilla’s study specifically identified
sociolinguistic functions of language, specifically the use of Spanish
and English throughout the school. Escamilla noted a variety of con-
tradictions between the school’s language policy and language use in
practice. Despite claims that both languages were used equally in the
school, English was overwhelmingly used over Spanish. For example,
in the school’s 284-page bilingual handbook, Escamilla found that
English was used exclusively in 261 pages, while Spanish was used in
23. Escamilla also found that while Valley Vista claimed to operate bilin-
gually. English was used to fulfil high-status functions, while Spanish
was relegated to filling lower-status functions. For example, teachers
in the school used Spanish and English for instructional purposes in
accord with the school’s model of bilingual education; however, English
was the preferred language among adults. The material artefacts and
language use in the school confirmed that an asymmetric relationship
existed between English and Spanish. In short, Spanish was perceived
to be an unnecessary or extraneous language of the school; English was
the favoured language of choice. This would suggest that materialities
can be used effectively as a barometer of actual language use in bilingual
situation in which often minority languages are located.
An exploration of the material culture of the classroom was shown
in Coady (2003). This paper allows researchers and educationalists to
gauge the extent to which linguistic or educational policies are being
pursued, for example, language promotion and full language use in the
classroom. Investigating two all-Irish-medium schools (Gaelscoileanna),
using non-participant observation and reputational sampling proce-
dures, she investigated the material artefacts of Irish language and
English language in the classroom. Teaching materials, academic text-
books, student reports, boxes, book shelves, correspondence to parents
were identified and analysed. Many locally produced items, students
Larissa Aronin and Muiris Ó Laoire 307

certificates, official school papers, charts and posters were written in


Irish while many nationally produced materials, for example, flags,
visual aids, books, maps, had a heavy presence of English in them. The
investigation into material items yielded data that reflected the value
and status of the two languages in the bilingual situation of an all-
Irish medium school. These studies would suggest that an awareness of
materialities in language minority classroom is a necessary step towards
understanding the status and use of minority languages versus major-
ity languages. It is also a foundation for learners’ acculturation of local
minority norms and values.
The next section of this chapter is devoted to explaining what exactly
we can borrow from the study of materialities to benefit research on
multilingualism.

How can investigations into material culture be beneficial


for multilingualism and minority language studies?

The coexistence and overlapping of multiple languages in space and


time in a globalized world may sometimes be detrimental to minority
languages. Materialities are crucial for the preservation of the languages
of minorities. Affordances, defined as perceived opportunities for action
(cf. Gibson, 1979), properties of environment ‘that determine how the
thing could be possibly used’ (Norman, 2002, p. 9) may encourage or
discourage the acquisition and use of a language. Affordances are very
often material tangible phenomena. ‘Speech and language use are
activities that are triggered by physical objects – the speakers, physical
entities with a variety of anthropological dimensions including speech
apparatus; the air that carries the sound waves; the place where peo-
ple speak; the proximity of interlocutors; and of course the physical
objects the speakers manipulate during their life behaviors’ (Aronin and
Singleton, 2010, p. 116).
Having relevant affordances in place or providing them is important
for the promotion of minority languages. Noticing the affordances
that are already provided is no less crucial than furnishing new ones.
Hence, being aware of, and studying the linguistic landscape and deal-
ing with material culture of languages cannot be overestimated in the
case of minority languages. Thus, Siamsa Tire, an Irish language on-site
performing arts company, Glór na nGael, an Irish language promotion
organization, Gaeleagras, an organization for Irish language courses
are part of the linguistic landscape of English-Irish bilingualism and
are crucially sustained by a network of tangible material objects such
308 The Material Culture of Multilingualism

as buildings, stages, technologies, that allow the space and time for
meaningful minority language use, as well as responding to the needs
and rights of Irish language speakers and networks.
The task of applying the resources accumulated by studies in material
culture to minority language, bilingualism or multilingualism studies
necessitates a shift of focus in investigation in comparison to the focus
of general studies: selecting objects relevant to the minority language or
to multilingualism, using material culture data for the specific needs of
minority language studies as is ongoing in studies of the linguistic land-
scape and defining the main directions and priorities of investigation.

The focus of investigations into the material culture


of multilingualism

We believe that the primary focus of material culture of multilingualism


studies should be chiefly on the present, although the historical dimension
as stated earlier is of interest too. Secondly, the spotlight of investigation
should be on the use and meaning of artefacts, on how objects function for
people in multilingual society, rather than in how people design and
produce artefacts. Due to contemporary technological developments,
a considerable part of the interest of the researchers of material culture
of multilingualism will obviously lie in the domain of technology, that
is, technology-generated artefacts, events and spaces, such as CDs, cable
TV, telephones. Taking into consideration that sound is also material,
a variety of materials are of interest. Among these are multilingual sound
productions, such as audio recorders where you choose the language to
listen to explanations of exhibitions, and voice mail in organizations
(‘here is the menu for your call, for Russian – press one, for Hebrew press
two, for English press three’) and museum multilingual guide devices.
Technological development in the case of Irish, the national language
of Ireland, but a minority one in terms of its functional utility, has pro-
duced a new material culture in the language. Irish language versions of
Spellcheck, SMS texting, Irish Microsoft Office are being used daily by
Irish language speakers. Certain companies like EGT have been publish-
ing software supporting minority-language communities since 1990. All
of the Apple Macintosh system software has been translated into Irish
and software in the system folder has been localized into Irish. Special
keyboard layouts, sorting routines, and other utilities have been config-
ured specifically in support of the needs of the Irish-speaking user. These
new developments have produced an unprecedented array of materiali-
ties in multilingual and minority speakers’ environments.
Larissa Aronin and Muiris Ó Laoire 309

Selection of objects and phenomena relevant to


multilingualism

Which artefacts to consider multilingual?


(a) Certainly, those with texts, sentences, letters, hieroglyphs and various
scripts inscribed, carved, images with adjacent writings. Therefore stamps,
books, and other published production, such as billboards and paper
ads in public places, on billboards inside dwellings, as well as spaces,
dwellings, cityscapes, and even human bodies are all considered (see
Figure 17.1).
An object does not have to contain inscriptions in two or more languages to
be considered multilingual. The environment of an object has to be taken
into consideration in judging the object as multilingual. Consider the
following signs (Figure 17.2) taken in Israel, Haifa, in the city area called
Hadar which is a commercial centre with multiple small shops popu-
lated and frequented by many Russian speakers.
In these two advertisements their creators used Roman script, Russian
words and the Hebrew symbol for the currency, the shekel. The linguis-
tic environment as it is already described here is Hebrew. The advertise-
ment means: ‘Discounts: every item costs 99–199 NIS’.
The other advertisement was found at the same place, the same shop-
window. It can be translated as follows: ‘Needed: a sales person with

Figure 17.1 Handkerchief


310 The Material Culture of Multilingualism

Figure 17.2 Advertisements in a shop window in Haifa

job experience.’ In addition to characteristics shared with the previous


advertisement object, the Hebrew environment and Russian words in
Roman script, this one has a very curious addition of an English indefi-
nite article ‘a’ placed before the Russian word prodavez (salesperson),
when Russian does not have any articles at all! This is curious and unex-
pected evidence of the influence of English on the brain of the person
producing this advertisement.
Therefore, for an object to be ‘multilingual’ one (or two) language(s)
may be actually present in it, provided the environment contains yet
another dominant language. The same point is applicable, of course, to
the bilingual objects, which may have an inscription in one language
coupled with the environment of the other language.

(b) Objects which do not have anything written or inscribed in or on them


may also come within the purview of research on multilingualism. An
empty photo album can serve as an illustration of this point. An Israeli
passport, for example, is to be opened from left to right as in the case of
any book written in Hebrew or Arabic. Likewise, a photo album manu-
factured in Israel is also to be opened from its right cover, not from the
left cover, as in other countries. Nonetheless, these objects by default
require treatment, manipulation and actions according to the conven-
tions of operation in existence in a particular society/culture (including
written text conventions).
The relationship between verbal and material ingredients in a multi-
lingual object.
Having touched here on the issue of the degree of language present in/
on an object, or the absence of language on the object, it is now necessary
Larissa Aronin and Muiris Ó Laoire 311

to examine the relationship between the language and material ingredients in


multilingual material culture artefacts. Human perception of artefacts of mul-
tilingual material culture blends their ‘thing’ properties such as form, size,
material they are made of, and function with the language constituent.
Let us consider the following three examples of the unity of material
and language constituents. The first one is a ruble, the unit of currency in
the former Soviet Union.
The verbal part of this everyday material object contains words in 15
languages (Russian on top in a big font and of the indigenous languages
of the 14 republics of the former Soviet Union below). If you read the
text in several languages ‘just as a text’, it makes no sense apart from
the fact that it is really interesting to know how the phrase ‘a hundred
rubles’ is translated into Uzbek, Kirghiz, Ukrainian or Latvian. The three-
dimensionality of the banknote, however thin it is, its pragmatic eco-
nomic function, unequivocally places it into the category of things rather
than just texts, and, as such, this banknote object bears significantly
different functions other than a textual one not ‘burdened’ with material
dimension. The words on the banknote make sense only when regarded
and taken together with the material on which they are inscribed as a sin-
gle entity. The banknote itself loses its specificity without these words.
Less ‘materialistic’ than a currency banknote are the two follow-
ing illustrations of the fact that multilingual objects are not reducible
neither to the object itself nor to the linguistic message or signs it bears.
The concept of ‘writing on the wall’ embraces the words ‘mene, mene,
tekel’ created from fires which were allegedly inscribed in the air in the
palace of Balthazar (in Babylon). The Tablets of Moses were allegedly of
stone, and interpretations emphasize the material aspect of the tablets,
in particular, noting that they were standing in mid-air and that the
writing was cut completely through the tablets so that they could be
read from either side (see Coulmas, 2009).
Concluding the discussion of what can be considered to be a material
culture object and which properties this object possesses, we propose to
term such an object in a relevant way to multilingualism, as ‘a language-
defined object’. We put forward the definition of a language-defined
object as a meaningful wholeness of material and verbal components con-
sidered as a representation of its user or users, exclusively in relation to its
linguistic environment.

Use of material culture data in studies of multilingualism


In line with other domains of knowledge, the materialities of multilingual-
ism can be of use to researchers as evidence and tools for measurement.
312 The Material Culture of Multilingualism

Figure 17.3 Ruble, unit of currency in the former Soviet Union

Evidence
Materialities meet the need of multilingualism studies in ‘solid’,
unambiguous evidence. In addition to the traditional ‘soft data’ used
in investigating sociolinguistic aspects, mostly based on self-reports,
questionnaires, interviews, recollections and surveys, material objects
and artefacts, being part of everyday experience, will probe deeper into
everyday life. Multilingualism is notorious for its elusiveness, complex-
ity and difficulty to obtain strong solid reliable unbiased data. In these
circumstances, even only being aware of the presence or absence of
certain multilingual materialities gives insights into the character of
multilingualism in particular settings. By way of example, we may dis-
cuss the note from an editor and translator one frequently meets when
reading translations of foreign books into Russian:

B настоящем издании опущен библиографический очерк, главным


образом потому, что большая часть книг, включенных в него, недоступна
российскому читателю.
Larissa Aronin and Muiris Ó Laoire 313

(The bibliography given in the original is omitted in this publication,


mainly because most of the bibliography items are unavailable to a
Russian reader (translation by L.A.)) (quoted from the book by Robert
Knecht of Birmingham University translated and published in 1991 and
reprinted in 1997).
Such a testimony to the absence of some books in English is an indi-
cation of the lack of certain multilingual objects, in this instance, books.
We may assume that along with the expected opening of Russia to for-
eign languages, especially English, and the increase in foreign-language
books translation since about 1990, the material basis for further mul-
tilingualism development is probably insufficient. Therefore, we can
assume that multilingualism in Russia is more limited than, say, in a
European country where libraries and shops better provide readers with
a material basis for multilingualism.
Awareness of the ‘language-defined’ material objects will help us to
distinguish between multilingualism in various countries with more preci-
sion. Interpretation of evidence, also in connection with other data, is bene-
ficial, as artefacts are recognized as ‘a mirror of culture, a code from which
the researcher can infer beliefs, attitudes, and values’ (Bronner, 1985, p. 131)
and, we may add, economic and political needs. The material objects reflect
not only interests and needs, but also skill sets, wider community ideolo-
gies, the individual’s assumptions, beliefs, and habitual behaviours. The
things we surround ourselves with and use daily or, by contrast, items we
use only for holidays, or only within the family but not with guests or vice
versa, display to the outside world our inward selves at once.

Measuring multilingualism
It is common knowledge that the traditional measurements of mul-
tilingualism are to a large extent approximate and often problematic
to administer. If one concerns oneself with the sociolinguistic aspect
of multilingualism, one finds useful data on the number of multilin-
gual countries, multilingual people and languages used and mastered
by an individual, collected by researchers or in governmental surveys.
Unfortunately, the estimates are mostly approximate to the extreme,
for example, the figures on the current number of languages in the
world differ tremendously – between less than 3000 and 14,000, while
the figures for the number of speakers of English as a Foreign Language
(EFL) range from 100 million to 1000 million (see, for example, Crystal,
1997, p. 61; Gnutzmann and Intemann, 2005, p. 3). In applied linguis-
tics, exact quantification is simply impossible when looking into bilit-
eracy and multiliteracy, automaticity, ease and fluency in two or more
314 The Material Culture of Multilingualism

languages, levels of mastery of a language, and so on. Other phenomena


are equally not clear-cut and unsuitable for precise measurements. In
such circumstances the addition of material culture measurements,
even as imperfect as they may be, seems to be more important to lessen
or diminish uncertainties. Measurement is particularly welcome in the
study of the linguistic landscape to extract essential information com-
ponents from the voluminous database of photographs collected from
many parts of the world. This could include, for example, counting
and comparing the numbers of multilingual objects in an apartment or
quantifying how many object of various categories are found in a par-
ticular context, say in a monastery, for example, 300 books, four glasses
with inscriptions, ten embroideries in three languages and so on.
How can we approach more exact measurement? Measurement may
entail registering the occurrences and the mode of use of objects rel-
evant to multilingualism noting the degree of involvement of particular
multilingual objects in a certain place, or usage within a time period in
an individual’s or group’s life. These variables are measurable in princi-
ple in their capacity for objectified human feelings, customs, and ideas
and speak volumes to the interested researcher. The notion of ‘density
of artefacts’ can be of practical help. The potential of mapping, com-
paring the density of same or similar forms in certain localities, seems
promising in ‘having one’s finger on the pulse’ of multilingualism and
understanding variation across space and change in time.

Defining the main directions and priorities


Research on material culture can be performed in various aspects of
multilingualism such as sociolinguistics, linguistic landscape, didactics,
pedagogy, applied linguistics and psycholinguistics. It will merge with
the existing investigations on text authenticity, teaching aids, class-
room culture, and extent of acculturation. The first priority is a descrip-
tive study of objects; this, in turn, informs subsequent phases which are
analysis, classification, and comparative studies.
The avenues of interest suggested here include:

– language-defined materialities and their classifications: ranging from


more to less tangibles, from sound, air waves, to stone carvings, build-
ings, the human body, the Internet or virtual materiality.
– multilingual material culture in dwellings: including private households
and public places such as schools, community halls, universities.
– multilingual material culture of places: these would embrace cityscapes,
roadscapes, villages, localities, linguistic landscapes.
Larissa Aronin and Muiris Ó Laoire 315

– multilingual urban environments: particularly extensive multilingual


visibility in cityscapes.
– material culture of learning: dealing with artefacts and places of learn-
ing and teaching, such as class material culture, the ‘authentic’ texts
and vocabulary, learning aids and so on.
– studies on historical perspectives might be interested in detecting the
changes in the artefacts and objects used at various time periods as
well as the attitudes to the presence or absence of these changes.
– attitudes to the facts of presence or absence of multilingual language-
defined materialities, in places, dwellings, or during processes.
– interpretation of individual and collective identities, including beliefs,
attitudes, and identity as reflected via material objects artefacts and
proxemics.

The previous list is of course neither comprehensive nor exhaustive.


The domain of material culture of multilingualism awaits its researchers.

Conclusion

In this chapter, we suggested opening an additional avenue in multi-


lingualism studies, that of material culture. We advocate focusing on
the study of contemporary artefacts, objects and spaces especially those
related to the new technologies, language and written and aural produc-
tions. To define a multilingual material culture item, we propose the
term ‘language-defined objects/artefacts’. A language-defined object is
understood as a meaningful wholeness of its material and verbal com-
ponents considered as a representation of its user or users, exclusively
in relation to its linguistic environment. Material culture studies can
contribute to investigation of multilingualism in the following ways:

1. serve as being essentially representative evidence;


2. offer additional opportunities of measurement;
3. provide new vistas for insights and approaches beyond the tradi-
tional ones.

Complementing present approaches to the understanding of the ecol-


ogy of the multilingual environment in linguistic landscape research, a
study of materiality as a representation of its users may be of considerable
benefit in minority language situations also. By focusing on the expand-
ing and unprecedented technologically enabled materialities of minority
languages, the minority language is mapped alongside the language of
316 The Material Culture of Multilingualism

wider communication. Since speakers of minority languages need more


often than not to be multilingual (Cenoz and Gorter, 2009, p. 6), a focus
on the material culture underlines need to understand the changing
interface of minority/multilingual interactions and environments.

Note
1. An earlier version of this chapter was presented as a paper at the Fifth
International Conference on Third Language Acquisition and Multilingualism,
University of Stirling, Scotland, UK, 3–5 September 2007.

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18
Minority Languages through the
Lens of the Linguistic Landscape
Luk Van Mensel, Heiko F. Marten and Durk Gorter

When we first started the project of looking at minority languages


through a linguistic landscape lens, we felt that the visibility of minority
languages in public space had been insufficiently dealt with in
traditional minority language research. A linguistic landscape approach,
as it had developed over the last years, would constitute a valuable
path to explore, by looking at the ‘same old issues’ of language contact
and language conflict from a specific angle. We were convinced that
fresh linguistic landscape data would be able to provide innovative
and useful insights into ‘patterns of language […] use, official language
policies, prevalent language attitudes, [and] power relations between
different linguistic groups’ (Backhaus 2007, p. 11). The linguistic land-
scape approach, as presented by the different authors in this volume,
has clearly proven to be a heuristic appropriate and relevant for a wide
range of minority language situations. More specifically, the ideas and
analyses in the different chapters do contribute to a further understand-
ing of minority languages and their speakers. They deepen our compre-
hension of language policies, power relations and ideologies in minority
language settings.
In the introductory chapter we asked a number of pertinent ques-
tions about this type of research. Looking back at those questions it
will not come as a surprise to the reader that in many cases no simple
and straightforward answer can be formulated. As usual, there are more
new questions raised than answers given. All chapters point to the com-
plex nature of linguistic landscape phenomena. Many authors discuss
dynamic processes of language practices and the interplay of different
levels of society in the way languages are displayed on the signs.
Take, for instance, the question as to which arguments are used in
on-going debates about the increase of minority language visibility
319
320 The Lens of the Linguistic Landscape

in the linguistic landscape. From the study by Szabó Gilinger and her
colleagues (Chapter 15), it appears that sometimes both camps use
exactly the same arguments to advocate in favour of or against the use
of more bi/multilingual signs. If there are limited numbers of speakers,
this fact will be used by some persons as a reason against having signs
in that language. But for others, the fact of a small number of speakers
will be used as an argument in favour because it leads to increased
visibility and may strengthen revitalization of the minority language.
So rather than only an enumeration of the various arguments, perhaps
the question should become: ‘Why does a certain actor use this specific
argument in these particular circumstances, and how effective is the
argument in obtaining the desired effect?’
The interplay between language policies and the actual manifestations
of the words on the street as displayed through the linguistic landscape
is also an important issue. Language laws and regulations appear to have
a large impact on signage in the public sphere. Chapter 9 by Gorter,
Aiestaran and Cenoz provides an insight into the conscious shaping of
the linguistic landscape in Donostia-San Sebastián by local authorities.
The relation is shown to be dynamic, complex and bidirectional. The
linguistic landscape reflects and influences language policy, or as Puzey in
Chapter 8 coins it, the relationship is one of ‘two-way traffic’. However,
Blackwood and Tufi (Chapter 7) found that the regional languages they
considered in France and Italy contribute to the construction of the
respective linguistic landscapes in different ways and independently
of policies or non-policies. Moreover, in some contexts there seems to
exist a certain vagueness with respect to the compliance with linguistic
legislation; though arguably this is mainly the case when dealing with
languages such as Russian, German, French or Spanish, which are not
lacking prestige in other contexts. Pavlenko (Chapter 3) labels the prolific
use of Russian in Kyiv as a tacitly accepted transgression of the official
state language policy, a situation similar to the one in Chişinău reported
by Muth (Chapter 12). In Chapter 10 Van Mensel and Darquennes discuss
the pragmatic attitudes of local actors towards language regulations con-
cerning the use of German and French in eastern Belgium. Long and
Comajoan (Chapter 11) illustrate how the display of Catalan, Spanish
and English can vary between different neighbourhoods in the same city,
although all are ruled by the same regulations of the linguistic landscape.
English as a global language has a special place in the linguistic landscape
because its use is generally not regulated (cf. Gorter, 2006).
Many of the chapters also point to the importance of other actors and
factors that contribute to and have an effect on the linguistic landscape.
Luk Van Mensel, Heiko F. Marten and Durk Gorter 321

The importance of public visibility of a minority language, though


it may be an essential step towards the recognition of the language,
should thus not be overestimated when it comes to its direct influ-
ence to strengthen language revitalization. Rather, the effects appear
to be indirect, for instance through its influence on the self-esteem
of minority language speakers such as attested in the contribution by
Brown (Chapter 16; see also the linguistic insecurity towards the use
of Latgalian that Marten talks about in Chapter 2), or as a catalyst
of public debate for challenging negative stereotypes as discussed by
Puzey. However, as suggested by Hornsby and Vigers (Chapter 4), these
debates can easily turn into a ‘minefield’ because they are bound to be
fraught with tensions from the differing ideological stances involved.
Research on the various discourses surrounding minority languages in
the linguistic landscape may thus prove an interesting path for future
research. The chapter by Szabó Gilinger and her colleagues in this vol-
ume may serve as a starting point, as it explicitly discusses ideological
alignments within minority language communities and shows that the
linguistic landscape can be a successful trigger for discourses on multi-
lingualism. One of the loci for such debates is of course the linguistic
landscape itself. In Chapter 5, Moriarty convincingly shows how lan-
guage ideologies are not only reflected but also indexed and performed
in the linguistic landscape, which makes the latter an ideal tool to
unveil the ongoing social construction and negotiation of language
ideologies. Brown’s observations on the continuous transformation of
the Võru schoolscape can be seen in the same light.
Another observation made in different contexts is the use of minor-
ity languages for the purpose of tourism or local culture. This may lead
to some increased public visibility but it also leads to ambiguity of
the benefits for its speakers. The tokenistic or folkloric use of minority
languages is considered to give an authentic or exotic flavour, a way of
‘branding’ an area in order to sell it as a product to prospective visitors.
It is thus often initiated and supported by official agencies as a top-
down activity. Several examples are discussed in this volume, among
others for the Genoese or Neapolitan regional languages by Blackwood
and Tufi; for Gaelic by Hornsby and Vigers; for Irish by Moriarty; for
Sámi by Salo (Chapter 14) and for the Walloon dialect by Van Mensel
and Darquennes. Whether this development, apart from being a clear
example of language commodification within a globalized context, can
have an impact on the sustainability of the spoken language remains
to be seen. In this we agree with Salo that it requires further research.
She thinks an increased presence of the minority language related to
322 The Lens of the Linguistic Landscape

tourism or popular culture can have both positive and negative effects
at the same time. On the one hand, it can be a step forward in the rec-
ognition of the language by showing that it is part of the modern world.
In that way, it goes against the delegitimization of a minority culture
as anti-modern (Fishman, 1991, p. 383). On the other hand, by reduc-
ing the language to tokenism, it may provoke a further diminution of
the functional repertoires available to its speakers and the language
becomes part of folklore.
Not surprisingly, often a monolingual ideology of ‘one nation, one
language’ is reflected in the linguistic landscape as well as in the dis-
cussions surrounding it. This became clear in the comparison between
Brunei and Italy which Coluzzi provided in Chapter 13, as well as in the
French cities reported on by Blackwood and Tufi. Interestingly, some
recent majorities that were minorities not so long ago appear to be quite
successful in conveying a monolingual state ideology. It can be clearly
seen in the case studies on the three Baltic states (Latgalian vs Latvian in
Marten; Võro vs Estonian in Brown; and Polish or Russian vs Lithuanian
in Muth). In this sense, these case studies are yet another proof of how
the negotiation of symbolic power over hegemony between ‘old’ and
‘new’ majority groups becomes tangible in the linguistic landscape.
They are also illustrations of how rapidly the label ‘minority language’
may change contents, depending on political shifts or from whose
mouth it comes and which interests are to be defended. The concept of
minority language itself has become a diffuse designation which is lack-
ing in clarity. It has blurred outlines and is a floating signifier, void of
meaning. Shohamy and Abu Ghazaleh-Mahajneh (Chapter 6) draw the
consequences of this step when they explicitly question the use of the
term ‘minority language’. They show how the concept conveys nega-
tive values about the language and its speakers and thus goes against
the interests of the minority speech community. According to them we
should look at communities of practice rather than groups of people
when defining minority languages, and they argue for more research on
what happens in micro-spaces. For us it is clear that if we want to look
at the interplay between global, national, regional, and local languages,
this does not take place at some abstract level. Hierarchical orders
between them are established, maintained, or contested through indi-
vidual stances and embedded practices. And, to quote May (2003, p. 118),
‘it is exactly these contingent, socially embedded, and often highly
unequal practices, that have so disadvantaged minority languages, and
their speakers.’ The careful description by Brown of linguistic landscape
practices along with subjacent ideologies in different ‘niches’ of the
Luk Van Mensel, Heiko F. Marten and Durk Gorter 323

schoolscape, provides a fine example of how this type of research can be


done. It demonstrates how useful it can be to dissect the various factors
and complexities that play a role in language revitalization. One of the
particular advantages of the linguistic landscape approach to study
these situated practices would seem the materiality of its research data,
something of which Aronin and Ó Laoire remind us in their pledge for
the study of a material culture of multilingualism (Chapter 17).
We can conclude that the chapters in this volume have clearly shown
the usefulness of looking at minority languages through the linguistic
landscape lens. One of the main strengths of the approach lies undoubt-
edly in its ability to incorporate methodologies and theoretical stances
borrowed from various other disciplines (cf. Gorter, 2006, p. 88), and
then apply them to tangible research data. In this sense, the approach
provides a framework that is able to connect real bottom-up data to more
abstract research on minority languages, such as policy-oriented, legal,
or traditional sociological research through questionnaires and language
censuses. The link between both indeed becomes salient when looking
at written language in the public sphere, as has been amply illustrated
in the preceding pages, and will hopefully be the object of continuing
future research.

References
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Multilingualism in Tokyo. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Fishman, J. A. (1991) Reversing Language Shift. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Gorter, D. (2006) ‘Further possibilities for linguistic landscape research’. In
D. Gorter (ed.) Linguistic Landscape (A New Approach to Multilingualism).
Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
May, S. (2003) ‘Rearticulating the Case for Minority Language Rights’. Current
Issues in Language Planning, 4, 2, 95–125.
Index

Abu Dis, 76 authority, 86, 133, 165, 265, 285


Abu Ghazaleh-Mahajneh, M., 2, 10, authorship, 11, 127–8, 142–3
89–106, 322 autochthonous, 5–6, 167, 172, 174,
Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 42 233, 240, 266, 268, 274
activism, 32–3, 86, 103, 111, 144, Azerbaijan, 39
158, 253
advertisements, 29, 44–5, 48, 50, 52–3, Babylon, 311
59, 137, 142, 168, 177, 187, 189, Backhaus, P., 3–4, 45, 75, 114, 116,
215–6, 231, 254–5, 285, 309–10 162, 168, 173, 211, 230, 243, 249,
advertising, 3, 7, 26, 46, 48, 50, 52–3, 264, 319
64, 114, 116, 120, 123, 128, Bagna, C., 189, 197–8, 225
135–6, 187, 204, 211, 214–8, 287 Baines, P., 133
Advocacy Coalitions Framework Baltic states, 8, 19, 21, 26, 284,
(ACF), 263, 265–6, 269, 275 293, 322
affordances, 307 Bandar Seri Begawan, 12, 225–42
Agnihotri, R. K., 213 Barcelona, 2, 8, 12, 183–203
Aiestaran, J., 8, 11, 148–63, 320 Barni, M., 3, 189, 197–8, 225
Aikio-Puoskari, U., 245–6 Bas-Lauriol law, 113
Ajaccio, 123 Basque (language), 6, 11, 75, 148–63,
Akkala Sámi (language), 246 183, 188–9, 197–98
Amara, M. H., 90, 92 Basque Country, 2, 11, 148–63, 183,
An Daingean / Dingle, 10, 74–88 197–8
Arabic (language), 10, 89–106, 149, 159, Bastardas, A., 200
184, 188, 193, 195–201, 231, 310 BBC Alba, 135–7
Arambaşa, M., 207 Békéscsaba, 13, 263–80
Areler Land, 165 Belarusian, 21–3, 26, 37, 210
Aronin, L., 13, 299–318, 323 Belgium, 2, 6, 11, 164–80, 320
artefacts, 4, 13, 168, 175, 177, 286–7, Belina, B., 207
293, 299–318 Ben Gurion, 92
assimilation, 222, 245, 270, 278 Ben-Rafael, E., 3–5, 57, 89, 92–3, 116,
attitudes, 1, 9, 11, 19–35, 58, 68, 89, 118, 128, 151, 199, 201, 204, 239,
94, 99, 110, 124, 129, 132, 144, 243, 249
160, 168, 175–8, 205, 304–5, 313, Bertl, J., 167, 179
315, 319, 320 Besters-Dilger, J., 41–4
Austro-Hungarian Empire, 37, 41, 268 Bilaniuk, L., 37, 39, 41–4, 47
authenticity, 79, 86, 118, 175, 177, balanced bilinguals, 78
244, 253, 300, 314–15, 321 bilingual areas, 68, 139, 166
authorities, 23, 32–3, 38, 43, 45, 47, bilingual city, 45
58, 63–4, 69, 84, 91, 100, 103, bilingual classroom, 299
121, 128–9, 131, 136–7, 139, bilingual education, 306
141–2, 144, 148, 152, 155, 158, bilingual education programme, 306
160, 162, 169, 175, 185, 223, 246, bilingual inscription, 230, 231, 233
249, 282, 320 bilingual labelling, 119

324
Index 325

bilingual landscape, 71 Cardiff, 57–73


bilingual logo, 119, 132 Carmarthenshire, 66–7
bilingual name, 80, 130 Carson, L., 299
bilingual nation, 63 Castilian, see Spanish
bilingual printed materials, 64 Catalan (language), 6, 12, 75, 109–26,
bilingual road signs, 60, 132–4, 136, 160, 183–203, 320
142, 251, 270–1, 277 Catalonia, 12, 109–11, 119, 123, 160,
bilingual schools, 40 183–203
bilingual signs, 47, 61–5, 68, 70, 72, Catholic church, 21
119, 123, 130–3, 135–6, 141, 143, Cazo, M., 187, 196
152–3, 157, 158, 187–8, 192–3, Celtic, 58–9, 67, 134
198, 212, 215, 217, 229–31, Cenoz, J., 4, 5, 8, 11, 26, 75, 122, 127,
268–9, 271, 273–4, 278 148–63, 168, 173, 189, 192,
bilingualism, 42, 44, 46, 50, 53, 64, 197–8, 204, 211–2, 217, 227–8,
68–9, 136, 179, 268, 272, 277, 308 239, 243, 249, 264, 299, 316, 320
billboards, 3, 44–5, 50, 53, 136, 192, census, 23, 38, 41–2, 77, 205, 209,
204, 215–6, 287, 309 223
Billig, M., 141 Český Tĕšín, 13, 263–80
bivalent signs, 46, 48 Chinese (language), 12, 159–60, 184,
Blackledge, A., 95 188–90, 225–42
Blackley, M., 136 Chişinău, 2, 12, 204–24, 320
Blackwood, R., 10, 109–26, 225, 234–6, Chomsky, N., 305
239, 320–2 Church Slavonic, 37
Boemer, M., 179 Ciscel, M. H., 207, 215
Boix, E., 188, 200 citizenship, 93, 247, 288
Bosch, J. L., 188 classroom, 281–98, 299–300, 305–7
bottom-up, 58, 71, 128, 130, 136, Coady, M., 299, 306
213–4, 217, 219–20 Coluzzi, P., 2, 12, 115, 141, 225–42, 322
Boudreau, A., 264 Comajoan, L., 2, 11, 183–203, 320
Bourdieu, P., 77, 109 commemorative plaque, 22, 30, 46–7
Bourhis, R. Y., 3, 57, 75, 82, 109, 114, commercial sign, 45, 48–9, 51, 218,
122, 144, 183, 198, 204, 236, 239, 254, 267
249, 251, 282, 285, 287, 295 commodification, 59, 75, 86, 321
Bowen Committee, 68, 277 Constitution, 42, 77, 84, 111, 113–4
Bowring, B., 43 Contingent Valuation Method, 152
Branchadell, A., 200 Corsica, 109–26
brand names, 114, 116, 118, 159 Corsican (language), 109–26
Bravacka, D., 31 Costantini, L., 138
Bronner, S. J., 303, 305, 313 Coulmas, F., 311
Brown, K. D., 13, 21, 281–98, 302, Council of Europe, 134, 271
306, 321–2 Coupland, N., 243, 249, 302
Brunei, 2, 9, 12, 225–42, 322 Creese, A., 95
Bulajeva, T., 208 Crimea, 39, 41, 52
Croatia, 13, 263–82
Cagliari, 109–26 Croatian (language), 230, 263–82
Caithness, 133–4 Crystal, D., 313
Calvet, L. J., 284 Cullen, M., 301
Canada, 62, 114 cyberlandscape, 127
Cantonese (language), 227, 237 Cyrillic, 46, 206, 212, 221
326 Index

Czech (language), 263–80 Duncan, J., 282


Czech Republic, 13, 263–80 Duncan, N., 282
Dunseath, K., 237
Dagenais, D., 282
Dal Negro, S., 139, 225, 239, 264 Eastern Belgium, 2, 164–80
Darquennes, J., 11, 164–80, 320–1 ecology of language, 74, 281, 295
Darte, A., 175, 179 Edelman, L., 27
Davies, J., 64 Edinburgh, 60, 127–47
De Blasi, N., 112 education, 5, 7, 13, 21, 24–5, 32–3,
De Bot, K., 299 38–9, 43, 54, 63, 78, 91, 96, 101,
De Mauro, T., 113 104–5, 113–4, 124, 165–6, 185–6,
De Pelsmaeker, T., 173, 179 208, 211, 222, 237–8, 245–6,
Deetz, J., 303 281–98, 300, 305–6
delegitimization, 104–5, 124, 322 Edwards, J., 7–8, 162
demographic changes, 38, 185, 196 Edwards, V., 300
demographics, 1, 43, 185, 189, 191, Ehala, M., 285
196, 198, 200 endangered languages, 6–7, 13, 58,
demolinguistics, 186 246, 253, 255–6
Deridder, L., 173, 179 English (language), 10, 12, 22, 26–7,
Dessouroux, A.-S., 179 32, 34, 45–6, 48, 52, 53, 59–71,
Devanagari, 230, 235 91–34, 96–7, 100–1, 113, 118,
Dewaele, J. M., 299 120–1, 131–36, 149–52, 157,
dialects, 6, 10, 21–2, 24, 76, 110–4, 159–60, 170–71, 174–7, 183,
120, 122–3, 127, 132, 137–44, 188–89, 193, 195–6, 198–201,
174–5, 177, 209, 223, 226–7, 237, 211, 213–15, 217–21, 225–40,
241, 296, 321 244, 250–3, 255, 268, 272–3,
Dingle / An Daingean, 10, 74–88 276–7, 279, 282, 287–90, 294,
Discourse Coalitions, 13, 263–80 301, 306–8, 310, 313, 320
Dixon, C., 133 Escamilla, K., 299, 306
domain, 1, 7–8, 11–2, 27, 31–2, 44, establishment, 4, 142, 155, 159, 173,
58, 61, 91–2, 112–4, 123, 134, 177, 185, 188, 192–6, 198, 211,
136, 141, 149–50, 159, 162, 215, 220, 228, 248
167–8, 222, 244, 246, 249, 253, Estonia, 2, 6, 13, 21, 222, 281–98
256, 282, 299–301, 303, 305, 308, Estonian (language), 27, 281–98, 322
311, 315 ethnolinguistic survey 20–1, 25, 33
functional, 204–5, 212 ethnolinguistic vitality, 6, 109, 144, 237
dominant language, 10, 45, 64, 100, Etienne, D., 167, 170
103, 124, 149, 151, 153, 162, 176, Eupen, 164–180
187, 194–5, 199, 215, 217, 273, European Charter for Regional or
282–4, 310, 316 Minority Languages, 24, 134, 271
Donostia-San Sebastián, 2, 11, 75, European Union, 288
148–63, 188–9, 197–8, 320
Dorian, N., 59 Farràs, J., 188
Dougill, J., 237, 239 fieldwork, 47, 58, 60, 72, 109, 114–6,
Drew, P., 179 251, 263, 272, 276, 289
Dubois, L., 264 Filipino (language), 190, 197
Duchêne, A., 178 Finland, 6, 12, 243–59
Dufva, H., 246, 255 Finnish (language), 243–59, 281–98
Dumbrava, V., 207 Finnmark, 129, 247
Index 327

Fischer, F., 263, 266 Grosso, G. I., 188, 197–8, 200–1


Fishman, J. A., 124, 149, 322 Grosvenor, J., 303
Foucault, M., 302 Gruenewald, D. A., 283
Francard, M., 174
France, 10, 109–26, 162, 320 Haifa, 10, 89–106, 309–10
Franklin, S., 37 Hajer, M. A., 263, 265–6
French (language), 10, 22, 26, 109–26, Hamm, M., 38
159–60, 164–80, 184, 218–20, Hanauer, D., 76
229–31, 320 Hannu, U., 247
Friesland, 151 Havel, V., 282
Frisian (language), 6, 151–52 Hebrew (language), 10, 89–106, 308,
Friulian (language), 225–42 310
Heller, M., 59, 62, 175, 178, 282
Gaelic (language), 6, 9, 57–73, 127–47 Herdina, P., 299
Gaeltacht, 74–88 Hicks, D., 75, 132, 202
Gagauz (language), 12, 204–24 hierarchy, 57, 64, 69, 89, 93, 242, 252
Gal, S., 61 Highland Council, 64, 72, 133, 142
Garrett, P., 302 Highlands, 60–2, 134
Gee, J. P., 266 Hirvonen, V., 247
Genoa, 109–26 Hogan-Brun, G., 208, 222
Genoese (local language), 109–26 Hokkien, 227, 237
genre, 46, 50, 249, 256, 267 Hong Kong, 300
Georges, R., 303 Horn, J., 168, 171
German (language), 6, 11, 22, 26–7, Hornsby, M., 9, 57–73, 75, 321
91, 114, 159, 208, 220, 225, Housen, A., 164
229–31, 276–7, 287–8, 293, 320 Huebner, T., 211, 213, 243, 249, 264
Gibson, J., 307 Hult, F., 74, 76, 82, 295
Giddens, A., 59 Hungarian (language), 40, 76, 268,
GIDS-scale, 149 270–2
Glassie, H., 305 Hungary, 13, 266, 268–9, 273
globalization, 59, 159, 161, 199, 237, Huss, L., 245–7
243–4, 252, 302 hybrid multilingualism, 254, 256
Glosemeyer, L., 130 Hymes, D., 303
Gnutzmann, C., 313
Gorter, D., 1–15, 26, 75, 127, 148–63, identity, 7, 21–3, 25, 59, 60, 63–6,
168, 173, 183, 189, 192, 197–8, 71, 78, 82, 89, 93, 95, 99, 104,
204, 211–2, 217, 225, 227–8, 239, 109–13, 115, 120, 123–4, 129,
243–4, 249, 256, 264, 286, 299, 132, 134, 141–2, 144, 198, 205–7,
316, 319–23 211, 217, 222, 239, 254, 272, 285,
Gosselin, D., 179 302–3, 315
graffiti, 27, 29, 36, 45, 52, 64, 76, 80, ideological, 10, 57–8, 63, 69, 71,
82, 120, 123, 138–9, 211, 219, 74–88, 90, 103, 178, 264, 283,
221–2, 228–9 287, 289, 321
Grant, I., 63 ideologies, 9, 10, 13, 17, 19, 25, 57–63,
Grazioli, M., 225 65, 68–9, 71, 74–5, 85–6, 103, 110,
Grenoble, L., 208 113, 124, 128, 137, 175, 212, 215,
Griffin, J., 225 226, 243, 245, 264–5, 270, 273,
Grillo, R., 59 282, 284, 288, 295–6, 313, 319,
Grin, F., 299 321–2
328 Index

ideology of contempt, 9, 59, 69, 71 Jessner, U., 299


Idescat, 183–4 Jewish, 89–93, 100
illiteracy, 32 Jews, 42, 90–2, 94, 96, 105
illiterate, 38 Johansen, Å. M., 130
Inari, 244–5, 248–51, 254–5 Johnson, S., 75, 82, 299
Inari Sámi (language), 6, 246, 248, 251 Johnson, N. B., 304–5
inconsistency, 70, 133 Jones, R., 64, 141
independence, 21, 23, 39, 44, 48, 206, Joppke, C., 58
208, 227, 284–5 Judge, A., 111, 114
indexical, 13, 46, 65, 264, 274, 278 Judo, F., 173, 179
indexicality, 57, 69
indigenous, 12, 243–6, 248, 251, 254, Kallen, J., 5, 30, 78, 31, 76, 175
256, 311 Kalynovs’ka, O., 43
industrial revolution, 38 Karasjok, 244–5, 249–51
institutional bilingualism, 120 Kedayan, 227
institutionalization, 43, 47, 89 Kelly Holmes, H., 79
instrumentality, 66, 270, 278 Kharkiv, 44–5
intelligentsia, 38 Kiev, 37–9, 52, 54
Intemann, F., 313 Kievan Rus, 37
interactional norms, 44 kindergarten, 248, 281, 283, 286,
internet, 25, 69, 79, 160, 266, 302, 314 288–92, 295
interviews, 4, 10, 31, 42, 58–9, 65, 67, kiosks, 49, 214
89, 94, 96, 100, 102, 104, 134, Kirghiz (language), 311
152, 154, 165, 175, 177, 188, Kiruna, 244–5, 247, 249–51, 253–4, 257
266, 270–2, 276–8, 281, 283, 286, Kloss, H., 124
288–9, 291–2, 312 Kolasky, J., 40
Inverness, 60–1, 67 Koll-Stobbe, A., 219
Ireland, 2, 3, 30, 64, 74–88, 301, 308 Komi (language), 248
Irish (language), 10, 30, 60, 67, 74–88, Kremlin, 25
301–2, 306–8 Kreslins, J., 293
Irvine, J., 58 Kress, G., 173
Isle of Lewis, 58 Kübler, D., 265
Israel, 2, 9, 10, 89–106, 151, 239, 309–10 Kulonen, U., 245–6, 248
Istria, 140, 268, 275 Kulyk, V., 41, 44
Italian (language), 10, 26–7, 76, Kven (language), 76, 129–30
109–26, 127, 137–40, 159, 184, Kyiv, 2, 9, 36–56, 320
188, 218–20, 225–42, 268, 275–6 Kyivites, 38, 42–3
Italians, 111, 113, 139–40, 238, 268,
275, 277 L’viv, 44
Italy, 2, 6, 10–1, 76, 109–26, 127, 137, Labate, S., 179
139, 141–4, 184, 225–42, 267, labelling, 118–9, 185, 272
275, 320, 322 Laihiala-Kankainen, S., 245–6, 248,
Ivkovic, D., 84 251–2, 257
Laihonen, P., 179
Janssens, R., 164 Landry, R., 3, 57, 75, 82, 109, 122,
Jawi (language), 228–9, 231–2, 234–6, 144, 183, 198, 204, 236, 239, 249,
240 251, 282, 285, 287, 295
Jaworski, A., 3, 5, 57 language beliefs, 110, 124, 128, 137,
Jerusalem, 75, 93 141, 144
Index 329

language choices, 36, 44–6, 51, 53, Lawn, M., 303


204, 264 Lazdiņa, S., 5, 20–2, 25–6, 33
language competencies, 22, 51, 191 Leeman, J., 74
language contact, 7, 11, 62, 115, 164, Leeuwarden, 75, 151, 212
168, 319 Lega Nord, 137
language economy, 243–4, 249–50 legislation, 4, 8, 12, 31–2, 43, 79, 83,
language enclave, 95 110, 113–5, 120, 123, 165–6,
language erasure, 47 168–70, 177, 185, 198, 200, 320
language ideological debates, 74–88 Lehtola, V., 244
language ideologies, 9, 10, 13, 17, 19, Leprêtre, M., 187
57–8, 74, 86, 124, 175, 215, 282, Lévi-Strauss, C., 305
295, 321 Liber, G., 38
language law, 23, 25–6, 32–3, 36, 43, Liège, 164–5
46, 48, 50–1, 79, 130, 113–4, 166, Ligneuville, 167
168–74, 178–9, 184–7, 193, 196, Lillebo, S., 131
198, 200, 206, 235, 237, 227, 246, Limerick, 2
256, 320 Lindgren, A., 244–5, 247
language planning, 9, 32, 77, 86, 144, linguistic awareness, 32, 112
148–9, 154, 226, 239 linguistic behaviour, 19, 124, 167–8
language policies, 1, 3, 8–11, 23, 32, linguistic economy, 244, 246
44–7, 51, 53, 69, 75, 77, 83, 86, linguistic minorities, 1, 62, 110,
92–3, 103, 107, 109–10, 113, 113–5, 169, 212–3, 266, 271–3
115–6, 118–9, 123, 127–8, 141, linguistic preservation, 282
143, 148–9, 151, 153–5, 158–62, literacy, 1, 8, 12, 31–2, 64, 161, 313
168, 177–8, 183–7, 193, 196–8, Lithuania, 12, 37, 204–12, 218–24
200–1, 226, 236, 238, 240, 249–51, Lithuanian (language), 12, 22, 26–7,
264, 267, 286, 296, 306, 319–20 204–12, 218–24, 322
language practices, 4, 10, 47, 71, 110, Livones, 23
113–4, 124, 128, 149, 178, 184, Ljouwert, 75, 151–2, 173
294, 319 Llanelli, 13, 59, 64–70, 266–8, 277,
language revitalization, 1, 7, 13, 23, 279
58, 77, 148–63, 245–6, 255–6, local community, 25, 79–80, 83, 169,
281, 283–6, 291, 295–6, 320–1, 265, 288, 305
323 logo, 45, 48, 51, 119, 129, 132
language rights, 8, 25, 81, 83, 100, Lombard, 6, 127, 140–1, 144, 227,
110, 148, 267, 276, 278 236–7
language shift, 1, 7, 13, 65, 77, 115, Lombardy, 137, 139, 141, 226
149, 167, 236, 245, 254, 278 Long, E., 2, 11, 183–203, 320
languages in contact, 10 Lotherington, H., 84
Larsen-Freeman, D., 299
Latgale, 9, 19–35 MacGiolla Chríost, D., 77
Latgalian (language), 6, 9, 19–35, 284, Machin, D., 173
321–2 Magocsi, P., 37–9
Latin (language), 27, 131, 230 Maiboroda, O., 38, 41–4
Latin America, 184, 197 Makoni, S., 299
Latvia, 6, 9, 19–35, 222, 284 Malay, 226–34, 236–40
Latvian (language), 21–32, 210, 284, Malaysia, 238
311, 322 Malinowski, D., 128, 142, 264
Latvian Language Act, 23 Malmedy, 164–178
330 Index

Mandarin (language), 227, 234, 237 220, 225–42, 246, 251, 264,
Māori (language), 301 269–70, 272, 274, 322
marginalization, 103, 245 monolingualism, 53, 60, 160
marginalized languages, 6, 294, 296 Moriarty, M., 10, 84–88, 175, 321
Marseille, 2, 109, 111, 117, 119–20, 124 Morocco, 159, 184
Marshall, C., 42, 44 Mor-Sommerfeld, A., 282
Marshall, H., 303 Moseley, C., 148–9
Marten, H. F., 1–15, 19–35, 175, 284, multilingual cities, 198, 264
301, 319–323 multilingual classrooms, 299
Martin, P., 227 multilingual communities, 256, 265
Masenko, L., 38, 42–3 multilingual countries, 206, 208, 313
mass media, 43, 185, 187, 295 multilingual economy, 243
material culture, 13, 299–318, 323 multilingual identity studies, 302
May, S., 6–7, 42, 104, 322 multilingual inscriptions, 230, 233
McCormick, K., 213 multilingual materialities, 312
McRae, K., 59 multilingual objects, 310–1, 313–4
Meänkieli (language), 76, 247 multilingual regions, 244, 247
Mediterranean, 10, 109, 111, 115–6, multilingual signage, 160, 214
123 multilingual signs, 13, 118, 177,
Melnyk, S., 37, 39–43 194–5, 199, 212–4, 217, 219–20,
merchandising, 118 228–9, 254, 277, 320
Merriman, P., 64, 141 multilingual societies, 204–5, 225–42,
Mertens, C., 175, 179 308
methodological, 9, 13, 205, 243, 264 multilingual states, 104, 238
methodology, 2, 5–6, 33, 58, 115, multilingual urban environments,
151, 186, 189, 196, 210, 226–7, 204, 315
243, 248, 302, 323 multilingual workplaces, 161
metropolitan area, 120, 183–4, 188, 200 multilingualism, 12–3, 19, 57, 72,
Mettewie, L., 174, 178–9 75, 77, 86, 103, 151, 160, 161,
Meyer, J., 175, 179 204, 208, 221, 243–5, 255–6,
micro-language, 23 263, 277–8, 281, 293, 299–318,
micro-macro dichotomy, 77 321, 323
micro-nationalism, 8, 141 multimodal, 74, 81–2, 84
micro spaces, 102–3, 322 multinational, 104, 188
Middle East, 90–1, 103 museum, 44, 47–8, 247–9, 276–7, 282,
migration, 6, 30, 38, 206, 208 287, 293–5, 308
Milan, 12, 225–230, 232–33, 236 Muth, S., 2, 12, 205–24, 320, 322
Milanese (language), 227, 229, Myhill, J., 59–60
231–33, 236
Modan, G., 74 Naples, 109, 112, 117, 122, 125
modernity, 39, 42, 59, 62, 104, 214, national identities, 47, 142, 206
220, 237, 239 national minority, 41, 43, 115, 277
Moldova, 12, 48, 204–15, 222–3 nationalism, 8, 11, 37, 141, 284
Moldovan (language), 12, 207, 209, banal, 141
216, 223 Neapolitan (language), 110, 112, 116,
monolingual, 9–10, 12, 37, 68, 70, 74, 121–2, 124, 321
77, 79, 92, 113, 116, 118–21, 131, Nelde, P., 7, 62, 165–6
133, 141, 151, 153, 157, 166, 171, Nespor, J., 283, 296
175, 177–8, 192–3, 199, 216–7, New Belgium, 165–6, 168, 173, 177
Index 331

Newcombe, L. P., 300 peasant, 38–9, 42


newspapers, 24, 38, 50, 58, 79, 81, 83, pedagogy of place, 281, 291–2, 295
134, 238, 266, 285, 293, 302 Pedersen, P., 129–30
nexus analysis, 74–7, 82 Pedersen, A., 143
nexus of practice, 76–7, 82–3 perceptions, 5, 13, 21, 23–5, 32, 67, 94,
Nı̄tiņa, D., 21 134, 151–3, 165, 263, 265, 311
nonconformism, 64 periphery, 44, 59, 164, 210, 282
non-standard, 10, 71 permanent sign, 45, 185
Norman, D., 307 permanent signage, 48, 50
North Calotte, 76, 132, 243–259 Peru, 184
Northern Catalonia, 109, 111, 117, Philippines, 184
119, 123 photographs, 58, 84, 138, 151, 154,
Northern League, 137, 139–40, 143–4 157, 189, 192, 249, 253–4, 266,
Norway, 11–2, 76, 127, 129–32, 287, 293, 304, 314
143–4, 243–7, 250 pictures, 45, 70, 96, 104, 151, 154,
Norwegian (language), 26–7, 130–2, 155, 164–5, 167, 176–7, 204, 210,
245, 247, 250 220, 228, 249, 253, 276
Nunes, P. A., 5, 152 pidgins, 6
Piedmont, 225
Ó Giollagáin, C., 78 Pietikäinen, S., 76, 79, 244–6, 255, 257
Ó Laoire, O., 13, 77–8, 299–318, 323 place names, 7, 31, 57, 75, 78–82,
Occitan (language), 111, 124 129–33, 135, 137–9, 142, 144,
Odessa, 44–5 168, 172, 200, 225, 247, 277, 287
official language, 9, 12, 22–5, 39, 44, place-based education, 13, 281, 283,
77, 79–80, 84, 91–2, 94, 101, 105, 296
114, 148, 155–6, 164, 178, 193, Plank, B., 225
225, 227, 230, 236–8, 248–50, plaques, 45–7, 119, 287–8
268, 285, 319 Podolyan, I., 42, 44
Official Languages Act (Ireland), 79, Poland, 37, 41, 267, 274
80, 84 Polese, A., 44–5
Ohul’chanskyi, Y., 41 police, 48
Ojibwe, 300 policy core beliefs, 265, 269–70
Old Belgium, 165–6, 168 Polish (language), 12, 19, 21–2,
Olset, C., 131 26–7, 37–8, 58, 61–2, 68, 71, 205,
Oppo, A., 112, 123 208–10, 212, 218–22, 267–8, 271,
Orioles, V., 115 273–4, 322
Ozóg, C., 237–8 political action, 274
Ozolins, U., 22 political change, 270
political power, 274
Padania, 137–8 politician, 23, 81, 148, 152, 160–1
Pagliarulo, G., 140 Pollestad, E., 131
painted over, 8, 11, 155, 158, 172 Pons, E., 200
Pajusalu, K., 293 popular culture, 9, 255, 300, 322
Pakistan, 184, 196–7 Portuguese (language), 230
Palestine, 90–1 Pošeiko, S., 30
Pashto (language), 184 Posiva, 248
Paterson, K., 62 posters, 46, 50, 58, 61, 64, 122,
Pavlenko, A., 6, 9, 36–56, 299, 320 135–6, 185, 211, 215, 220, 222,
Payrató, L., 200 228–9, 231, 287–92, 307
332 Index

post-Soviet, 12, 21, 48–50, 204–6, regulations, 8, 25, 33, 102, 125, 128,
208, 221–2 131, 149, 155, 162, 169–70, 199,
Potinkara, N., 245–6, 248, 251 215, 231, 236, 238, 246, 256, 275,
power, 1, 6, 7, 10, 12, 42, 48, 64, 101, 320
103, 110, 127, 141, 165, 168, 198, Reimann, N., 291
200–1, 237, 264, 269, 274, 283–4, repertoire, 92, 111, 184, 226, 237,
295, 319, 322 256, 322
Preiļi, 30 respondents, 22, 25, 31, 42, 66,
Prı̄kuļi, 30 68–69, 112, 175–77, 179, 207, 277
primary education, 38 Reversing Language Shift, 149
primary school, 21, 38, 134, 238 revitalization, 1, 7, 13, 23, 58, 77,
private business, 128, 136, 213, 231 148, 245–46, 255–56, 281,
private signage, 36, 45, 52–3, 152 283–86, 291, 295–96, 320–21, 323
private signs, 25–6, 45, 52, 75, 151, revitalize, 12, 252, 282
160, 231, 249–51 Rēzekne, 19, 22–3, 26–30, 32–3
propaganda, 105, 288 Riehl, C., 168, 172, 174, 176, 178
proper name, 48, 156, 229 Riga, 31–2
Provençal, 111, 119–20, 124 road signs, 2, 3, 25, 46, 58, 60, 64, 68,
Prown, J., 304 75–6, 78–80, 82, 102, 111, 120,
public advertisements, 44, 52, 168 129–39, 142, 144, 168, 171–72,
public announcement, 47, 50, 169–70 211–12, 249, 251, 270, 277, 287
public bodies, 25–26, 28, 133, 143 Roman script, 133, 231–32, 234, 240,
public signage, 7, 25, 31–2, 154, 309–10
186–7, 200, 211, 270, Romance language, 110, 149, 166,
public space, 1, 4, 10, 11, 32, 45, 52, 169
57, 76, 89–93, 95, 97, 99, 102, Romani speakers, 115
104, 109, 114, 116, 127, 149, Romaní, J. M., 186–87, 196
153–4, 161, 165, 183, 200, 204, Romanian language, 149, 200, 205–7,
213, 243, 249, 256, 274, 287, 209, 212–18, 223
301, 319 Rome, 75, 137, 189, 225, 236
Puisāns, T., 21 Ross, J., 133
Pula, 13, 266–9, 275, 279 Ross, N., 225
Punjabi (language), 184 Rotondo, R., 140
Puzey, G., 11, 75–6, 115, 127–47, Rozentāls, A., 24
155, 168, 225, 240, 243, 247, 249, rural areas, 2, 21, 243
301, 320–1 Russia, 12, 37, 39, 48, 129, 205–6,
208, 243–46, 248, 250, 252, 313
qualitative data, 13, 31, 281 Russian (language), 6, 9, 12, 21–3,
Quebec, 162 26–7, 32, 36–53–4, 205–9,
Quechua (language), 184 212–23, 245–46, 248, 251–52,
288, 293, 308–13, 320, 322
radio, 25, 27–29, 31, 38, 247–249, 252 Russian Empire, 19, 37–8, 41
Raffo, E., 140 Russians, 22, 41–3, 208
Rathje, W., 301 Ruthenian, 37
regional language, 9, 13, 19, 23, 24, Ryan, M., 40
43, 109–125, 139, 179, 225–30,
232, 235, 239–41, 251, 282–91, Saar, E., 285
293–96, 320–21 Sabatier, P. A., 263, 265–66, 269
regionalism, 8, 141 Sætra, G., 130
Index 333

Salo, H., 12, 76, 243–59, 301, 321 Sibille, J., 120
Sametinget, 247, 259 Sicily, 112
Sámi (language), 2, 6, 12, 76, 127, signage, 8, 12, 25–6, 32–3, 44–8, 50,
129–32, 142–47, 243–59, 321 53, 57–9, 62, 64, 67–8, 71, 102,
San Sebastián, see Donostia 128, 130, 132–5, 143–4, 150, 153,
Sápmi, 244, 247 156–7, 165, 168, 183, 186–9,
Sardinia, 112, 115, 123–25 196–7, 201, 204, 211, 269, 320
Sardinian (language), 110, 112, 116, signage
120, 123–24 bilingual, 58, 62, 64, 66, 71, 130,
Sarov, A., 207 132–5, 152, 178, 215, 217,
Saunders, D., 38 269–70, 272
Schein, R. H., 282–83, 290, 294 commercial, 45, 48, 51, 53, 159
Schlereth, T. J., 304, 316 government, 3, 158
Schlick, M., 225 multilingual, 160, 214
schools, 7, 13, 21, 25, 38–40, 42–3, official, 45–8, 53, 127, 177
65–6, 69, 78–9, 90–93, 95–7, public, 7, 25, 31–2, 154, 186–7, 200,
100–01, 110–11, 114, 119, 130, 211, 270
134, 144, 147, 151, 159–60, private, 3, 36, 45, 52–3, 152
187–8, 191, 208, 237–9, 246–9, Šimičić, L., 13, 72, 263–80
251–2, 257, 271, 281–300, 305–7, Singleton, D., 299, 307
314, 316–7 Skvortsova, A., 206
schoolscapes, 13, 281–90, 294–7, 321, Slavonic language, 19, 37
323 Sloboda, M., 5, 13, 76, 212, 263–80
Scollon, R. and S. Scollon, 36, 74, 76, Slovak (language), 267–72
264, 300 Slovenian (language), 230, 276
Scotland, 2, 11, 58–66, 71, 75–6, 127, Smolij, V., 37, 39
132–7, 142–5, 200 Snyder, T., 37–9
Scots (language), 62, 64, 71, 134–5 Solchanyk, R., 38, 40
Scottish Gaelic, 6, 9, 58 Solé, J., 186–8
Scottish Government, 60, 62–3, Sorolla, N., 200
133–6, 142 Southern Estonia, 2, 21
Secretaria de Política Linguística, 184, Soviet authorities, 223
188, 200 Soviet education reform, 39
Selman, P., 57 Soviet era, 46–7, 286
semiotic, 14, 37, 57–71, 77, 255, 257 Soviet governments, 37–9
semiotics, 36, 254, 300 Soviet occupations, 21, 284
Serbs, 268 Soviet propaganda, 288
Shakh, S., 37, 44–6, 48 Soviet republics, 22, 30, 206
Shohamy, E., 2–4, 8, 10, 74–5, 83–5, Soviet rule, 205, 209
128, 183, 243–4, 256, 264, 322 Soviet Russian oppression, 222
shops, 3, 27, 31, 45, 48, 50, 51, 59, Soviet times, 22, 208
96, 116, 120–1, 136, 155, 168, Soviet Union, 6, 12, 205–7, 311–2
175, 177, 186–7, 194, 197–9, Soviet urban planning, 209, 217
204, 209, 211, 214–5, 217–21, Søvik, M., 45–6
225, 228–9, 232–3, 235, 236, Spain, 11, 110, 148–63, 176, 183–203
249, 253–4, 273, 285, 287, Spanish (language), 11, 22, 27,
309–10, 313 148–53, 155–62, 176, 183–84,
shop fronts, 59, 78, 211, 215, 220 186–89, 193–201, 220,
Siberia, 29–30 230–31, 306, 320
334 Index

spelling, 32, 48, 140, 158, 240 technologies, 39, 300–2, 308, 315
spoken language, 32, 161, 321 temporary signs, 45–8, 50–1, 228, 289
Spolsky, B., 3, 8, 32, 90–2, 94, 110, 113, territoriality, 65, 166
118, 124, 128, 168–9, 172, 239 texting, 302, 308
standardization, 38, 154 theory, 13, 170, 263
state language, 9, 23, 42, 44, 53, 118, Thurlow, C., 3, 5, 57
207, 225, 227, 320 tokenistic, 7, 23, 62, 129, 321
status planning, 9, 148 Tokyo, 3, 75
stereotypes, 42, 144, 321 Tolochko, P., 43
stickers, 80, 120–1, 123, 137, 228–9, Tomescu-Hatto, O., 207
232–4, 285 top-down, 3, 71, 82–3, 86, 113, 116,
street names, 3, 11, 69, 92, 119, 119, 121, 123–4, 128–30, 132,
133, 139, 141, 156, 249, 251, 135–6, 141–4, 158, 165, 168, 177,
275, 287 211, 226, 231–2, 239, 249
street signs, 153, 154, 182, 222 toponomastics, 7
Subtelny, O., 38–9 toponyms, 46
subtractive bilingualism, 91 Torkington, K., 76
Südtirol, 137, 139 Torres, J., 200
Šuplinska, I., 20–2, 25, 33 Toso, F., 112, 115
Supreme Court (of Israel), 92, 95, Toubon law, 113–4, 118, 123, 162
102–3 tourism, 5, 10, 12, 30, 62, 79, 86, 142,
survey, 41–2, 111, 116, 118–9, 122–3, 175, 213, 244–5, 247–9, 251, 253,
134, 189, 211–3, 218, 240, 312–3 256, 321–2
areas 110, 118 tourists, 33, 50, 65, 71, 78–9, 86,
Swansea, 68 142, 154, 169–70, 175, 218, 220,
Sweden, 12, 243–7, 250, 253–4 253–4, 264, 276
Swedish (language), 27, 245, trademarks, 48, 51, 118, 185
251, 253 Tralee, 3
symbols, 5, 29, 93, 133, 137, 141, transcription, 145, 229, 278–9, 286
144, 166, 252–3, 255, 264, 274, transformation, 64, 104–5, 282, 289,
278, 303, 309 321
symbolic, 6–7, 10, 23, 74, 77, 89, 91, transgression, 36–7, 44, 51, 53, 82, 320
99, 103–4, 132, 137, 159, 175, translation, 28–9, 46, 48–9, 51, 64, 69,
199, 204, 239, 243, 264, 269, 271, 80, 100, 114, 116, 118, 145, 161,
274, 283, 285, 287–8, 291, 294, 170, 175, 229, 230, 233–4, 275,
300–01, 322 277, 279, 285, 302, 312–3
symbolic function, 85–6, 198, 200–1, transnational, 50
214–5, 219, 221 Trentino, 225
symbolic spaces, 13, 278 Tromsø, 129–32, 142, 144
symbolic value, 71, 100, 111, 165, Trumper-Hecht, N., 92, 95
168, 270 T-shirts, 4, 120, 300–1
Szabó Gilinger, 13, 72, 263–80, 320–1 Tufi, S., 10, 109, 125, 225, 234–6, 239,
320–2
Tagalog (language), 197
Tamazight (language), 184, 200 Udine, 12, 225–34, 239
Tambini, D., 137 Ukraine, 9, 36–44, 46–8
Tartu, 2, 256, 296 Ukrainian (language), 9, 22, 26, 37–54,
teachers, 281–4, 286, 288–92, 294, 207, 209–10, 214, 221, 311
296, 306 Ukrainians, 23, 37–9, 41–3
Index 335

Ume el Pahem, 10, 95–7, 101 vitality, 7, 12, 89–90, 95, 101–2, 104,
UNESCO, 24, 149, 211 120, 122, 226, 236, 256, 300–1
United Kingdom, 64–5, 71, 133, 142, (see also ethnolinguistic vitality)
184 Vogel, W., 179
Universal Declaration of Linguistic Võro (language), 6, 13, 281, 283–96,
Rights, 7 322
university, 2, 48, 89, 92, 94, 96–7, Võru, 2, 285–6, 321
99–103, 105, 150, 237–8, 314 Vuolab, H., 247
university campus, 89, 95
University of Haifa, 10, 94–7, 101–3 Waimes, 165, 167–70
University of Tromsø, 131 Waksman, S., 4, 84–5, 264
Urdu (language), 184, 188, 197, 201 Wales, 13, 58–60, 63–72, 133, 141,
United States, 85, 305–6 144, 266, 268, 270, 276
Uzbek, 311 Walloon (dialect), 173–5, 321
Uzbekistan, 39 Walloon Region, 170–1, 174
Washington, 75
Vaillancourt, F., 299 websites, 4, 25, 79–80, 84–85, 112,
Valle d’Aosta, 139 138, 175, 247, 266, 300
Valper, L., 284 Weible, C. M., 263, 265, 268
Van Dijk, T. A., 266 Welsh (language), 9, 58–9, 63–71, 75,
Van Leeuwen, T., 176 268, 272–3, 274, 276–7, 300, 302
Van Mensel, L., 1–15, 164–80, Welsh Assembly Government, 63, 65,
319–23 68–9
Van Velthoven, H., 164, 166 Welsh Language Board, 64
varieties, 2–4, 6, 8, 10, 21–4, 26, 29, Western Isles, 60, 62, 133
32, 37, 41, 57–8, 76, 90–1, 111–2, Williams, S., 300
115, 120, 128, 167–8, 179, 201, Witte, E., 164, 166
225, 227, 246, 284, 296 written language, 1, 3, 4, 8, 10, 21,
Vigers, D., 9, 13, 57–73, 263–80, 31, 36, 127, 139, 149–50, 168,
321 204, 210–1, 213, 215, 218, 220,
Vik, K., 131 222, 238, 249, 253, 287, 323
Vila, F. X., 200
Vilnius, 2, 12, 204–6, 209–12, Yiddish (language), 91, 208
218–23 Yitzhaki, D., 90
visibility, 1, 7, 9, 12, 28, 66, 92, 102,
123, 132, 136, 143, 161, 183, 189, Zalizniak, H., 42
198–9, 226, 239, 243, 253, 256, Zamyatin, K., 23
268, 270, 278, 315, 319–21 Zionist movement, 91

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