Linguistic Landscape and Ethnolinguistic Vitality

Abstract

Linguistic landscape refers to the visibility and salience of languages on public and commercial signs in agiven territory or region. It is proposed that the linguistic landscape may serve important informational and symbolic functions as a marker of the relative power and status of the linguistic communities inhabiting the territory. Using the theoretical framework of ethnolinguistic vitality, it was hypothesized that the experience of the linguistic landscape by members of a language group may contribute to social psychological aspects of bilingual development. Factor analysis results show that the linguistic landscape emerges as a distinct factor separate from other measures of linguistic contacts. This factor was an important correlate of subjective ethnolinguistic vitality representing perceptions of the vitality of the in-group language in various domains. The study also found relations between the Linguistic Landscape factor and degree of in-group language use, especially in institutional settings, suggesting a 'carryover effect" of the linguistic landscape on language behavior.

The linguistic landscape of tourism: Multilingual signs in Lithuanian and Polish resorts

“…Masai 1972 andRosenbaum et al 1977; for a more detailed overview, see Spolsky 2009), but the main surge of interest in LL followed the publication of Landry and Bourhis (1997). Though LL is a relatively new field of studies, the huge interest in it has brought important developments in this diverse study field in terms of its definition, scope, applications, and analytic approaches to it.…”

“…As distinguished by Landry and Bourhis (1997), LL performs two major functions. First, it can perform the informational function and thus can mark language boundaries between adjoining communities (e.g.…”

5. Linguistic fetish: The sociolinguistics of visual multilingualism

“…Probably the most well-known and widespread approach to analysing visual multilingualism is the "linguistic landscapes" approach, developed by Landry and Bourhis (1997) and advanced by many scholars since (e.g. Shohamy and Gorter 2009).…”

“…Linguistic landscape analyses have developed considerably since the pioneering study of Landry and Bourhis (1997) (for an overview of the development of linguistic landscape research, cf. Jaworski and Thurlow 2010).…”

Studying the multilingual city: a GIS-based approach

“…Gorter 2006). In an earlier work, Landry and Bourhis (Landry and Bourhis 1997) combine the study of the linguistic landscape with a study of language attitudes and language choice in various domains. The research works mentioned above cover cities such as Montreal, Bangkok, Tokyo, Ljouwert and Leeuwarden in Friesland and Donostia and San Sebastian in Basque Country.…”