Shared places, unshared identities: vernacular discourses and spatialised constructions of identity in the linguistic landscape of Trieste

Abstract

Language as it appears in the public space is at the centre of investigations into linguistic landscapes. Language agents immersed in a given geo-historical context contribute to the construction of spatialised meaning and to the transformation of space into place. The visibility of a language in a linguistic landscape does not just index a reality, i.e. the use of one or more languages within a community, but contributes to the symbolic construction of a given space. The current study aims to investigate the peculiarities of place-making and -marking of the Slovenian-speaking community in the area of Trieste via an analysis of written signs displaying the minority language. The paper will show that the tension resulting from achieved equality in the legal status of Slovenian and the perception of unequal power relations between different ethnic groups is reproduced in the construction of the local linguistic landscape. The final part of the discussion will suggest that public use of the Slovenian language is central to the performance of a material border.

Regional language vitality in the linguistic landscape: hidden hierarchies on street signs in Toulouse

“…1 However, the evolving language management activities at municipal, regional, and national levels indicate that the Toulouse signs are of major importance in the analysis of Occitan status. The unfavourable position of the French State towards RLs is welldocumented (Adamson, 2007;Judge, 2007, among others), and the actions of numerous governments since the Revolution encourage the consensus that France, to borrow from 1 See, for example, discussions on street signs in Israel (Spolsky & Cooper, 1991), the Basque Country (Gorter, Aiestaran, & Cenoz, 2012),Wales (Hornsby & Vigers, 2012), Scotland (Puzey, 2012), Italy (Tufi, 2013), Ukraine (Pavlenko, 2012), the Czech Republic (Sloboda, Szabó-Gilinger, Vigers, & Šimičić, 2010), Belarus (Sloboda, 2009), Ireland (Kallen, 2010), Argentina (Coupland & Garrett, 2010), and France (Blackwood, 2010). Spolsky (2004: 63), is the 'paradigmatic case' for aggressive and successful language management.…”

Quantitative 2.0: Toward Variationist Linguistic Landscape Study (VaLLS) and a Standard Canon of LL Variables

“…In this strand, discrete elements of a given LL are selected and discussed individually, and are not typically compared with other items in that space or elsewhere in terms of quantitative distributional patterns. In the years that have followed the mostly qualitative approaches in the 2009 volume, further such examples have been provided by Coupland and Garrett (2010), Kallen and Ní Dhonnacha (2010), Marx and Nekula (2015), Muth (2015), Pavlenko (2010), Rasinger (2014), Screti (2015) and Tufi (2013), among others. Throughout all these and more, the emphasis is on specific aspects of a given area, language group, or society, with examples from the LL used to provide illustrations of these realities in situ.…”

A layered investigation of Chinese in the linguistic landscape

“…Current views of collective identity attribute the use of established language and semiotic norms in the community to the allegiance to religious, ethnic, and cultural groups (Ben-Rafael, 2009;Manan et al, 2014). Although we know that sign owners may employ languages and other semiotic resources to display a kindred national identity with their communities (Taylor-Leech, 2012), we anticipate that the promotion of a collective identity could be seen in a negative light and thus exclude potential consumers who are "outsiders" from gaining information and making purchases (Tufi, 2013). When considering collective identity as the motivation for sign making, both inclusive and exclusive orientations need to be considered in any developing framework.…”