Exploring the perceptions of passers-by through the participatory documentary photography tool PhotoVoice

Research in the linguistic landscape (LL) field underscores the need for investigating the passers-by’s perspectives. To explore how the passers-by perceive LLs, researchers often use questionnaires or interviews. This article suggests the use of an innovative research tool named PhotoVoice (Wang, Burris & Xiang, 1996), to shed light on the perception of signs by Israeli-Arab college students in their ideologically-laden area. After familiarizing the students with PhotoVoice and guiding questions for examining LLs, they were asked to capture photos of signs within their localities, analyze the messages embedded within, and write commentaries voicing their reflections. Thus, students themselves became both the data collectors and the analyzers. One of the highlighted categories was the absence of Arabic from commercial signs produced by Arab business owners. Students’ “PhotoVoices” within this category reflected not only the linguistic reality of the commercial signs within Arab localities, but also the ways such space was experienced by them as local inhabitants. Such findings demonstrate how, through PhotoVoice, LLs can become a stimulus for profound cognitive and emotional reflections of passers-by toward the LL.