Multilingual repertoire management and illocutionary functions in Yiddish signage in Manchester

Using smartphones to document linguistic landscapes: the LinguaSnapp mobile app

“…LinguaSnapp has the potential to trigger a re-thinking of the ways we approach LL in research. Matras et al (2018) show how LinguaSnapp is a useful tool for qualitative, ethnographically anchored discourse analysis of the use of multilingual repertoires, showing that LL analysis is not just about identifying power relations expressed in the public sphere, but also about new patterns of inter-community interaction and community formation in linguistically diverse settings.…”

“…In this way it offers an effective tool to involve a variety of users in the documentation task and to capture images spontaneously when the opportunity arises. The app has been employed to collect and archive data for research (Gaiser and Matras 2016a;Matras et al 2018) and for student projects as part of University teaching. Students at The University of Manchester have used LinguaSnapp for comparative studies of LL across neighbourhoods, to explore LL of businesses and the commodification of language on signs, to study the use of multilingual topdown signs, and more.⁴ In collaboration with local schools, we have used the app to engage pupils with the use of online digital tools through the prism of community languages (see Figures 17 and 18).…”

“…Studies have dealt with the way in which language signs, in interaction with other semiotic resources, can play a role in organising and regulating space (Leeman and Modan 2009;Jaworski 2014). There has been an increasing focus on ethnographically oriented approaches (Blommaert 2013) with recent work exploring language choice in the LL as a reflection of multilingual repertoire management (Matras et al 2018).…”

A Panorama of Linguistic Landscape Studies

“…Essentially, a sign that says 'Keep out' performs the speech act successfully, if it prevents people from entering. Likewise, Matras et al (2018) applied a pragmatics perspective in their study of the linguistic landscape of a neighborhood in Manchester. The neighborhood has a large Yiddish-speaking Hasidic-Haredi community, a so-called ultra-Orthodox Jewish population.…”

Defining the position of ‘community’ in the study of linguistic landscapes

“…They are public and permanent, and, since they identify the home owners, ostensibly there to serve fluid encounters of a transactional and instrumental nature with unfamiliar individuals; yet appearing exclusively in Hebrew script, they in fact perform an emotional bond with those who participate in similar rituals and religious institutions, and their spatial clustering amounts to a collective projection of shared cultural belonging onto a shared place. By contrast, illustrated Welcome notes in Hebrew, Yiddish and English that address returning family members and are displayed on the doors of private homes facing the street are nonpermanent fixtures but anchored in a habitual practice that is similarly inwardslooking in that it explicitly targets members of the household, but also there to perform to neighbours and passers-by who share values and rituals (see also Matras, Gaiser & Reershemius 2018). Both types of signs, despite differences in content, material, multi-modal composition, relationship to addressees, and positioning, share certain elements of interpersonal engagement and affective performance of belonging.…”