Linguistic landscape (LL) refers to the language(s) used in public signs. The main purpose of the field is to investigate questions such as: who puts up what sign where, in what language(s), and why (p. 5)? Minority languages in the linguistic landscape is the first book to situate minority languages within the field of linguistic landscape studies. This is an effective way of studying minority languages, as the working of both power and resistance—two of the main topics of research—are efficiently demonstrated using LL studies. This edited volume includes cutting-edge chapters primarily devoted to various languages spoken in Europe (e.g. Czech, Gaelic, Latgalian, Ukrainian), but it also includes two outside studies: Arabic in Israel and multiple minority languages spoken in Brunei.
The principal goals of this book are to better understand minority languages and their speakers via LL studies, to support minority groups and the survival of their languages, as well as to further develop the field of Linguistic Landscape and its theories. The editors divide the eighteen chapters of the book into four sections, each examining a different approach to the intersection of linguistic landscape and minority languages. The first part surveys language ideologies; the second part involves language policy; the distribution of languages is explored in the third part; and finally the fourth part reveals innovative theoretical and methodological approaches to linguistic landscape research. The book effectively puts into dialogue authors of a range of case studies and analyses of LL.
Each of the three editors contributes a chapter. Durk Gorter, Ikerbasque research professor at the University of the Basque Country in Spain, along with colleagues Jokin Aiestaran and Jasone Cenoz, discusses how the revitalization of Basque is reflected in the LL of Donostia-San Sebastián. Heiko F. Marten, researcher and lecturer in linguistics at Tallinn University in Estonia, studies the language attitudes revealed in Eastern Latvia's linguistic landscape. Luk van Mensel, researcher at the University of Namur in Belgium, contributes a chapter regarding language contact between French and German in Belgium, in collaboration with Jeroen Darquennes.
An essential addition to the fields of both linguistic landscape and minority language studies, this volume views LL from both a qualitative as well as a quantitative standpoint. Moreover, it demonstrates how LL research has a variety of applications in several related fields such as culture studies, translation, and language demographics, ideologies, and policies, but also in other fields such as economics, political science, and tourism.
This volume is an excellent resource for researchers and students alike who wish to further their knowledge of minority languages used in the public space, or for those who are interested in language ideologies, policies, and power relations in the domain of minority languages.
