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.

Public Space and the Public Sphere: Political Theory and the Historical Geography of Modernity

1993 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 303-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
P Howell
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Historical Geography ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Normative Political Theory

This paper contributes to the ongoing discussion of the historical geography of modernity. It is argued that the exclusive focus on social theory has detrimental effects on the appreciation of normative political concerns and that it ignores the resurgence of normative political theory. Habermas's concept of the public sphere, and its place within his theoretical and empirical studies, is, by contrast, commendably concerned with linking the social and historical work with normative political theorising, and its usefulness for geographical investigation is applauded. However, the criticisms directed from, in particular, communitarian political theorists and contextualist social researchers would seem to make his attempt to bring a ‘strong’ theory of public political life back within the remit of a reconstructed social theory less plausible. One set of responses to this criticism comes in the form of the attempt to build geography into this normative political theory, turning public spheres into public spaces; Arcndt's political theory, in conclusion, is thus held to be a significant contribution to the historical geography of modernity.

scholarly journals Indigenous journalism, media innovation, and social change: A review of previous research and call for more critical approaches

2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-206
Author(s):  
Niamh Ní Bhroin ◽  
Stine Sand ◽  
Torkel Rasmussen
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
The Public ◽  
Indigenous Voice ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Technological Affordances ◽  
Analytical Approaches ◽  
And Diffusion

Abstract Indigenous journalism can facilitate the inclusion of Indigenous voices in the public sphere, thereby contributing to social change. Contemporary Indigenous journalism is in part facilitated by the introduction and diffusion of paradigmatic media innovations, including the Internet, mobile technology, and social media. Based on a literature review, we investigate how media innovations are understood to facilitate Indigenous journalism and find that few empirical studies directly address this question. Analyses of Indigenous journalism, reaching beyond the potential for increased access to media and for amplification of Indigenous voice, are lacking. Furthermore, little research investigates how the appropriation of new technological affordances influence the production of Indigenous journalism. Our review also indicates that while Indigenous political participation can be facilitated by media innovation, these innovations can also serve to reinforce existing power relations. We submit that more critical analytical approaches are required to investigate how media innovations might facilitate the potential of Indigenous journalism for social change.

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.

Examining language policy and practices on the ground: German and French in the public space of two Walloon municipalities with language facilities

2019 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-102
Author(s):  
Raúl Sánchez Prieto
Keyword(s):  
Language Policy ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Linguistic Landscape ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
The Public ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative ◽  
Language Legislation ◽  
Different Types

Abstract Building on previous research on the new subfield of Linguistic Landscape (LL), this article adopts a comparative approach to study language policy practices that take place on the ground in East Belgium, a language contact area which is not usually considered conflictive. The research design is both qualitative and quantitative and aimed at overcoming some critical methodological issues. The taxonomy, which distinguishes different types of items in the LL of two municipalities with language facilities, Kelmis and Waimes, has led to a detailed qualitative analysis of the application of the current language legislation.

Challenges for an SNS-based public sphere in 2016

2018 ◽  
Vol 42 (7) ◽  
pp. 1106-1123
Author(s):  
Kyle John Lorenzano ◽  
Miles Sari ◽  
Colin Harrell Storm ◽  
Samuel Rhodes ◽  
Porismita Borah
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Social Networking Sites ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
Political Discussion ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Public ◽  
2016 Election ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Willingness To Use

PurposePolitical polarization and incivility manifested itself online throughout the 2016 US presidential election. The purpose of this paper is to understand how features of social media platforms (e.g. reacting, sharing) impacted the online public sphere during the 2016 election.Design/methodology/approachAfter conducting in-depth interviews with politically interested young people and applying deductive coding procedures to transcripts of the interviews, Dahlberg’s (2004) six normative conditions for the public sphere were used to empirically examine this interview data.FindingsWhile some participants described strategies for productive political discussion on Social Networking Sites (SNS) and a willingness to use them to discuss politics, many users’ experiences largely fall short of Dahlberg’s (2004) normative criteria for the public sphere.Research limitations/implicationsThe period in which these interviews were conducted in could have contributed to a more pessimistic view of political discussion in general.Practical implicationsScholars and the public should recognize that the affordances of SNS for political discussion are not distributed evenly between different platforms, both for the sake of empirical studies of SNS moving forward and the state of democratic deliberation.Originality/valueAlthough previous research has examined online and SNS-based political discussion as it relates to the public sphere, few attempts have been made understand how specific communicative practices or platform-specific features of SNS have contributed to or detracted from a healthy public sphere.

scholarly journals The Linguistic Landscape of Zhuhai: A Study of the Use of English Signs in the Public Place

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (9) ◽  
pp. 77-89
Author(s):  
Yibu Luo ◽  
Junjie Ma
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Language Policy ◽  
Influential Factors ◽  
Linguistic Landscape ◽  
Public Place ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Policy Perspective ◽  
The Public ◽  
Academic Fields ◽  
Expanding Circle

As a window city for China to face internationalization, Zhuhai is quite suitable for linguists to look into Expanding Circle Countries’ English settings. Bilingual landmarks indicate the use of English in the local public sphere and the degree of the popularity of English. This study investigated the current situation of English in Zhuhai from two academic fields: linguistics landscape and language policy. The two types of language policy: the top-down model and the bottom-up mode, are used in the analysis of Zhuhai sociolinguistic phenomenon. An analysis from the language policy perspective reveals how the linguistic landscape has been interpreted from diversified dimensions as both a concept and a practice. The study evinces that the different target tourists and the various functions of facilities are two influential factors in the advancement of Zhuhai’s English signage.  

scholarly journals The Linguistic landscape of Lower Styria on Picture Postcards (1890-1920)

2019 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin Almasy
Keyword(s):  
Social Stratification ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
National Identities ◽  
Linguistic Landscape ◽  
Social Situations ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
The Public Sphere

Toward the end of the nineteenth century in the multilingual Habsburg Empire, language became an important – if not the most important – ethnic marker in the construction of different national identities. In the linguistically mixed regions of the Empire, language was no longer perceived as simply a tool for communication that could be chosen pragmatically depending on social situations and instead became an emblem of one’s national identity. But how much is really known about how language was actually used in bilingual regions? By using the example of the bilingual Slovene-German speaking region of Lower Styria (Spodnja Štajerska/Untersteiermark), this paper suggests that picture postcards, a rich source available in large qualities, can help shed light on the visibility of language(s) in the public sphere, the social stratification and geographic distribution of languages, the language of formal and informal communication, and also on various forms of bilingualism and language contact. In short, an examination of picture postcards from the turn of the century, a medium close to everyday life, yields insights into the linguistic landscape of Lower Styria and can paint a picture of a region characterized not just by national conflicts but also by peaceful coexistence.

The Rise of Public Opinion in the Ottoman Empire (1839–1909)

2004 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 115-154
Author(s):  
Bedri Gencer
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Crisis Of Modernity

The political crisis of modernity has given rise to a number of studies in the area of political history that are disproportionately concerned with civil society. This consequently has spawned the development of broad theoretical frameworks concerning civil society and the public sphere. One of the lesser-treated subjects within this context has been public opinion. Developed primarily by post-Enlightenment liberal political theory, the notions of civil society and the public sphere had been presented as major alternatives to the domain of the power politics of the Machiavellian tradition. In order to place public opinion on a sound theoretical basis, there arose the need to promote historical empirical studies of it across national contexts over time. . One of the most significant tasks confronting comparative historical sociologists today is uncovering the origin of public opinion, which this paper undertakes to do within an Ottoman context.

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)*

scholarly journals Landscaping an Ecuadorian neighborhood in Queens, NY

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Gubitosi ◽  
Christian Puma ◽  
Daniela Narváez
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Home Country ◽  
Linguistic Landscape ◽  
Diaspora Studies ◽  
Multimodal Approach ◽  
The Public ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative ◽  
New Space ◽  
Contextual Relation ◽  
The Public Sphere

Diaspora studies on migration communities have shown how these transnational groups appropriate the new space in the receptive country through a process of deterritorialization and reterritorialization. These processes involve a reinterpretation and reconceptualization of the linguistic relationship between the language of the diaspora group and those spoken in the new home. One of the most visible places where this contextual relation must be negotiated is in the public sphere, where language, culture and identity are inevitably interwoven (Blackwood, Lanza & Woldemariam, 2016). Using a multimodal approach and using both qualitative and quantitative methodologies, this article analyzes how an Ecuadorian-American community in Queens transformed the linguistic landscape of their surroundings to make it similar to what this community had in their home country.

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