Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. An Introduction to Mediterranean Linguistic Landscapes The city as space, place, and symbol Origins of public signage LL studies and our contribution Naming languages Terms used in the course of this book Methodology Organization of the book Contents Copyrighted material-978-0-230-29098-3 Copyrighted material-978-0-230-29098-3 viii Contents 3 Peripherality in the Border Areas: Trieste and Northern Catalonia Introduction Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Trieste: a historical overview Friuli-Venezia Giulia: a sociolinguistic overview The surveys Slovenian in the LL Triestino in the LL Northern Catalonia: a historical overview Northern Catalonia: a sociolinguistic overview The surveys Catalan in the LL Castilian in the LL Conclusions 4 Insularity in the Linguistic Landscapes of Sicily, Contents ix 6 Cosmopolitan Linguistic Landscapes of the Mediterranean English and the construction of cosmopolitan identities 178 Italy France 'English' in the LL 'English' in the Italian LL 187 'English' in the French LL 195 Conclusions 7 Conclusions: The Transformative Power of Emplaced Language The city as space, place, and symbol In his classic work The City in History, Mumford reconstructs the development of the idea of the city from 'a city that was, symbolically, a world' to 'a world that has become, in many practical aspects, a city' (Mumford, 1961, p. xi). Along different lines, Lefebvre (1970, p. 7) predicted the 'complete urbanization of society' in so far as the urban would eventually envelop all ways of being, thinking, and acting. If on the one hand this remains a working hypothesis, on the other hand the dissemination of urban culture is pervasive and influential. By urban culture we mean a process, typical of late modernity, which emanates from the city but is also the result of the relationship between the wider culture and the city and of how urban culture impacts on the city itself. Studies examining such aspects have been at the centre of sociological and anthropological research (Redfield and Singer, 1954; Harvey 1973, 1989, 1996, 2006) but we position this book in relation to debates that have been percolating through sociolinguistics over recent decades. We exploit representations of the city which have moulded the collective imagination whereby the city as symbol is the epitome of social breakdown, anonymity, loneliness, forms of marginalization, and crime. However, it is also a privileged site of encounter and mobility, a laboratory of social and cultural activity, and a magnet for human energy. It is the repository of political and economic power and a container of crowds engaged in a wide variety of actions and with shifting boundaries. Dynamism is a constitutive feature of the city, a happening space, but so is its inherent fragmentation. Urban Linguistic Landscapes (henceforth LL), which are at the centre of this book, are constantly involved in the construction of urban cul...