Language Learning in the Linguistic Landscape

David MalinowskiCenter for Language StudyYale Universitydavid.malinowski@yale.edu@tildensky

An introduction for language students

Presented to: Intermediate Spanish IIColumbia UniversityMarch 29, 2016

Structure of this slideshow

1. What is the “linguistic landscape” and why is it important?

2. Language learning motivations: What can focusing on the linguistic landscape do for your language learning?

3. LL in practice: Language learning activities and approaches

1. Definitions

What is “linguistic landscape”?

“The language of public road signs, advertising billboards, street names, place names, commercial shop signs, and public signs on government building combines to form the linguistic landscape of a given territory, region or urban agglomeration”

Landry & Bourhis (1997)

What is linguistic landscape? (older definition)

“a far more dynamic account of space, text and interaction [is needed in linguistic landscape studies]: readers and writers are part of the fluid, urban semiotic space and produce meaning as they move, write, read and travel” (Pennycook 2009, 309)

“attention needs to be paid to how constructs of space are constrained by material conditions of production, and informed by associated phenomenological sensibilities of mobility and gaze.” (Stroud & Mpendukana 2009, 364-5 )

What is linguistic landscape? (newer definitions)

Urban sociolinguistics Globalization and transnational (strong Fr. tradition) flows of people, products, info

Language policyUrban studies Language planningCultural geography

Environmentalpsychology

Multimodal, spatial, material “turns” in social Proliferation of image,theory & discourse studies geospatial technologies

Some origins of “linguistic landscape”

Social semioticsGeosemioticsNexus analysis

A sampling: Research in linguistic landscape

Why is LL important?

“Language Takes Place”

But it doesn’t speak for everyone

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January 10, 2004: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/10/nyregion/ethnic-friction-over-signs-that-lack-translations.htmlLa

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August 14, 2007: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/queens/give-sign-article-1.235771

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Prior to Japanese internment in World War II, USA

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Wall Street, New Haven (Yale campus area)

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Wall Street, New Haven (Yale campus area)

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• LL is an “independent variable” contributing to a group’s “ethnolinguistic vitality” (Landry & Bourhis, 1997)

• The LL “signals what languages are prominent and valued in public and private spaces and indexes the social positioning of people who identify with particular languages (Dagenais et al., 2009, p. 254)

• Linguistic landscape reveals much about the culture, history, and politics of people in places

• Linguistic landscape is one way that people mark territory, actively including some people while excluding others

So, why is linguistic landscape important?

2. Language learning motivations

What can focusing on the linguistic landscape do for your language learning?

ACTFL National Standards for Foreign Language Education

Three of the American Council for the Teaching of Foreign Language’s “Five Cs” for language learning: • Connections - “reinforce and further knowledge of

other disciplines through the foreign language”; • Comparisons - “demonstrate understanding of the

nature of language and culture through comparisons”

• Communities - “use the language both within and beyond the school setting”

…linguistic…pragmatic…intercultural…multimodal, multiliterate…critical, sociocultural, reflective

LL as opportunity to cultivate…New vocab, new meanings & uses for “old” vocab

Grammar, metaphor, other “structures” of meaning

Analyze how language is used to do things, and make/invite/suggest people do things

many competences

Cultivate new ways of looking at, questioningand challenging “the ordinary”

3. LL in practice

Language learning activitiesand approaches

Possible activities in and with the LL

• Walking, observation, note-taking on different dimensions of the LL including the geographical situation and significance, social values, linguistic aspects (and relate these together)

• Photograph instances of the target language in everyday environments, record interviews and conversations about LL

• Print, discuss, and classify photos in class according to purpose Neighborhood descriptions and exchange of narrative texts with partner schools in other cities/regions

• Drawings of familiar or favorite places, with reflection about the languages seen and heard in these places

• Hand-drawn or digital mapping activities• Discussion, writing activities on questions of legitimacy and illegitimacy,

power and representation in neighborhood spaces• Classroom, school, community, and/or civic-based art projects, exhibits,

installations, etc. (e.g., designing & painting a new mural)

How to connect them?

Try using the language you’re learning to understand the linguistic landscape in (at least) three different ways…

1.2.

3.

Through realities that are…

1.2.

3.

Through realities that are “conceived”

Think of tools and techniques to facilitate… • contextualizing • historicizing• mapping• categorizing…and discussing, debating, representing, sharing these

Through realities that are “conceived”

Through realities that are “perceived”

Think of tools and techniques to facilitate… • observation • listening• sensing• recording …and discussing, debating, representing, sharing these

Through realities that are “perceived”

Through realities that are “lived”

Think of tools and techniques to facilitate drawing, imagining, interviewing, designing, storytelling, creating, protesting, enacting, etc……and discussing, debating, representing, sharing these

And use each to understand the others

Think of tools and techniques to facilitate drawing, imagining, interviewing, designing, storytelling, creating, protesting, enacting, etc……and discussing, debating, representing, sharing these

Think of tools and techniques to facilitate… • observation • listening• sensing• recording …and discussing, debating, representing, sharing these

Think of tools and techniques to facilitate… • contextualizing • historicizing• mapping• categorizing…and discussing, debating, representing, sharing these

Example 1: Learning from the LL on or near your campus

Example 1: Learning from the LL on or near your campus

Example 1: Learning from the LL on or near your campus

Example 1: Learning from the LL on or near your campus

Example 1: Learning from the LL on or near your campus

Example 2: Reading boundaries in your city

Example 2: Reading boundaries in your city

Example 2: Reading boundaries in your city

Example 2: Reading boundaries in your city

Example 2: Reading boundaries in your city

Application: Translate Your CityThe language(s) you see and hear around you in public places convey powerful messages about what histories, cultures, and identities are valued right where you are. Yet things didn’t and don’t necessarily have to look and sound the way they do now. What would your building, your neighborhood, or your city look, sound, and feel like if things were expressed differently, in the language you’re learning? (and are there any limits beyond which it’s hard to imagine?)

Pick a place, a theme, a kind of text, or some elements of the linguistic landscape that you might like to change or create anew, and:

• Tweet or Instagram your ideas for translating signs, marking spaces, or otherwise transforming a locale. Translations don’t have to be ‘correct’. And you can use your posts as spaces for commenting, remembering, imagining, exploring or thinking out loud—all this is part of the larger process of translation. When possible, use geo-referenced hashtags like #translateNHV (“translate”+city code) to make your posts findable, and add your location (see this page for Twitter).

• Design a larger translation project like a mural or other artistic reimagining of a place, a map or visitor’s guide in the language you’re learning, a blog or website to chronicle your explorations, or…

Thank you!

David MalinowskiCenter for Language Study

Yale Universitydavid.malinowski@yale.edu

@tildensky