scholarly journals Whose French is it anyway? Language ideologies and re-emerging indexicalities of French in Flanders

2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 407-432 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mieke Vandenbroucke
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Linguistic Landscape ◽  
Private Language ◽  
The Public ◽  
Ideological Debate ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Language Laws

AbstractIn this article I address a number of recent controversial language-related incidents and ideological statements regarding the use of French in the public sphere by Flemish nationalist aldermen in two Flemish towns. By drawing on interviews with different stakeholders (shop owners, aldermen, and passers-by), I address the different perceptions and ideological indexicalities of French shop names and signs in these Flemish contexts. In the data, the indexical field (Eckert 2008) of French in Flanders emerges as both polyvalent and indexically ordered, while the Flemish nationalist interpretations involve rescaled and historically recursive indexical meaning that can only be understood vis-à-vis the historical language ideological debate in Belgium. Language use in the public sphere has thus become a tool to impose monolingual ‘doxic logics’ (Bourdieu 1977) in Flanders, in spite of the fact that commercial and private language use is not regulated by language laws in Belgium. (Flemish nationalism, language ideologies, linguistic landscape)*

Taalgebruik op de Werkplek

1996 ◽  
Vol 54 ◽  
pp. 63-69
Author(s):  
Agnes Verbiest
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Communication Training ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere

Male/female communication training offered by enterprises to their company executives starts mostly from common sense ideas about sex-based differences in language use. The corresponding guidelines for women as newcomers in the public sphere as well as for men, often derived from one or more out of three well known theories, are shown to necessarily lead to deceptions because of their gender blindness. A gender approach to differences in language use between men and women cannot produce direct guidelines for language users but may help them to benefit from the fact that all language users, newcomers included, are norm subjects in interaction.

Linguistic Landscape of Ethiopia

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Lanza ◽  
Hirut Woldemariam
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Language Policy ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Linguistic Landscape ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
The Public ◽  
Latin Script ◽  
Growing Economy ◽  
The Public Sphere

The linguistic landscape (henceforth LL) has proven to be a fruitful approach for investigating various societal dimensions of written language use in the public sphere. First introduced in the context of bilingual Canada as a gauge for measuring ethnolinguistic vitality, in the 21st century it is the focus of a thriving field of inquiry with its own conference series, an increasing number of publications, and an international journal dedicated exclusively to investigating language and other semiotic resources used in the public arena. The scholarship in this domain has centered on European and North American geographical sites; however, an increasingly voluminous share of studies addresses the LL of sites across the world through both books and articles. African contributions have added an important dimension to this knowledge base as southern multilingualisms bring into question the very concept of language in that speakers and writers draw on their rich linguistic repertoires, avoiding any compartmentalization or separation of what is traditionally conceived of as languages. The LL of Ethiopia has contributed to this growing base of empirical studies in the exploration of language policy issues, identity constructions, language contact, and the sociolinguistics of globalization. A new language policy of ethnic federalism was introduced to the country in the 1990s following a civil war and through a new constitution. This policy was set to recognize the various ethnolinguistic groups in the country and the official use of ethnic/regional languages to satisfy local political and educational needs. Through this, languages previously unwritten required a script in order for speakers to communicate in them in written texts. And many regions have chosen the Latin script above the Ethiopic script. Nonetheless, some languages remain invisible in the public sphere. These events create an exciting laboratory for studying the LL. Given the change of language policy since the late 20th century and the fast-growing economy of Ethiopia (one of the poorest countries on the continent) the manifest and increasingly visible display of languages in the LL provides an excellent lens for studying various sociolinguistic phenomena.

Linguistic Decolonization in Jamaican Radio

2015 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Westphal
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Power Distribution ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
Standard English ◽  
Discursive Practices ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Framework Conditions ◽  
Jamaican Creole

AbstractThis article illustrates the value redistributions of Jamaican Creole (JC) and Standard English (StE) in the public sphere of radio by investigating changes in the discursive practices of language use, norms and other framework conditions of radio production, as well as listeners’ perception of linguistic variation on air. JC was marginalized and stigmatized in pre- and early post-independence Jamaican radio but has subsequently acquired an important role, mainly in dialogic and informal contexts. Despite its increased value, JC has not substantially challenged the prestige position of StE, which has remained the unmarked choice for formal broadcasting. However, there has been a localization of StE on the air away from exonormative standards and towards Jamaican English (JE) while British and American influences remain in place. In this linguistic decolonization process both JC and JE have acquired new values, but remnants of an unequal power distribution linger on.

scholarly journals Linguistic Landscape-Forschung in sprachhistorischer Perspektive: Zur Entwicklung visueller Kommunikate im öffentlichen Raum der Stadt Luxemburg im langen 19. Jahrhundert

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 385-407
Author(s):  
Peter Gilles ◽  
Evelyn Ziegler
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Perception ◽  
Linguistic Landscape ◽  
Top Down ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Announcements ◽  
History Of ◽  
Landscape Research ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The City

Abstract In this article we outline how corpus-based studies can contribute to the methodology of linguistic landscape research. Linguistic-landscape research can be roughly understood as the “study of writing on display in the public sphere” (Coulmas 2009: 14). From a historical perspective, we investigate the emergence and use of the public sphere as a place of attention for official top-down communication in Luxembourg. Based on a large corpus of public announcements of the municipality of the city of Luxembourg, the history of public top-down communication is analysed by taking into account both sociolinguistic and linguistic factors. The analysis reveals that the public announcements are increasingly typographically and linguistically adapted to the conditions of public perception and self-reading in the course of time – whereby initially the multimodal embedding of the older presentation form is maintained.

Bleeping Deluxe

queerqueen ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 117-145
Author(s):  
Claire Maree
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Linguistic Performance ◽  
The Public ◽  
Late Night ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Media Censorship

Chapter 5 examines the visual and sonic mapping of excess onto the queerqueen figure through layering of censorship tropes such as redaction characters (fuseji) and pixelization onto audiovisual media. Censorship tropes index complex histories of the use of language and images in the public sphere. Manipulation of censorship tropes exposes discourses of discrimination that shape language use in the media. This chapter analyzes the use of censorship beeps in the late-night television show Matsuko no heya (Matsuko’s Room; Fuji Television Network) hosted by Matsuko Deluxe, a contemporary queerqueen superstar who gained mainstream popularity in the early 2000s. The show pivots on staged (im)politeness and a pretense of low-cost production and minimal editorial effects. In Matsuko no Heya, self-censorship edited into the footage (re)creates Matsuko’s image as a sharp-tongued, honest-speaking, entertaining personality. It simultaneously (re)creates Matsuko’s linguistic performance of gender and sexuality as that which already exceeds the limits of respectability.

War, language removal and self-identification in the linguistic landscapes of Nagorno-Karabakh

2014 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian Muth
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Linguistic Landscape ◽  
South Caucasus ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
Public Language ◽  
The Public ◽  
Demographic Shifts ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Former Ussr

The disintegration of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) resulted in demographic shifts and drew new boundaries in a once borderless region. The South Caucasus, an area that has been characterized by its linguistic diversity witnessed one of the most destructive interethnic wars in the former USSR. Fought between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, it resulted in the removal of the Azerbaijani population. Two decades later the political status of the self-declared Nagorno-Karabakh Republic remains unresolved, but apparently a new linguistic self-identity of the population takes shape. While possibilities for extensive sociolinguistic research are limited, linguistic landscape research provides insights into patterns of individual and public language use. This paper analyzes the linguistic landscapes of Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, and establishes functional domains of the languages visible. Furthermore, it traces remnants of an Azerbaijani linguistic landscape in abandoned settlements and documents patterns of language use in rural parts of the territory. The demographic situation suggests a majority of Armenians, yet the results point toward a bilingual situation with Russian as a language of wider communication. On the other hand, the study shows the link between the removal of Azerbaijani from the public sphere and the eradication of Azerbaijani culture.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document