Linguistic Landscapes Beyond the Language Classroom

Greg Niedt, Corinne A. Seals

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781350125377
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Sociolinguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Linguistic landscapes can play an important role in educating individuals beyond formal pedagogical environments. This book argues that anywhere can be a space for people to learn from displayed texts, images, and other communicated signs, and consequently a space where teachable cultural moments are created. Following language learning trajectories that 'exit through the language classroom' into city streets, public offices, museums and monuments, this volume presents innovative work demonstrating that anyone can learn from the linguistic landscape that surrounds them. Offering a bridge between theoretical research and practical application, chapters consider how we make sense of places by understanding how the landscape is used to express, claim and contest identities and ideologies. In this way, Linguistic Landscapes Beyond the Language Classroom highlights the unexpected potential of the informal settings for learning and for teachers to expand their students' intercultural experience.

Part One

Other Forms of Language Classroom

1

From Part of the Scenery to Curricular Resources: Authentic Signs as Portals to Cultural Practices within a Residential German Language Immersion Program

Justin Quam and Heidi E. Hamilton

Introduction

Traveling along Hauptstraße into the small village of Waldsee, visitors drive by many signs: one directs drivers to watch out for children at play (Achtung! Spielende Kinder) on the adjacent soccer field; another warns of the possibility that toads might be crossing the road (Vorsicht! Krötenwanderung) within the surrounding nature preserve (Naturschutzgebiet). Turning right onto Ruppstraße, one passes by the official town sign, just before coming to an indication that one needs to stop to clear customs (Zoll/Douane). Guided by a one-way street (Einbahnstrasse) sign, one arrives at a parking lot marked by signs that demarcate reserved parking spots (Privatparkplatz) from those available to employees (Mitarbeiter), visitors (nur für Besucher), and to those planning to stay only a short time (Kurzparkzone).

Exiting the car, one’s eye is captured by the assortment of signs on the nearby soccer field, one simply labeling the area (Fußballplatz); others in the form of large colorful posters displaying grammatical rules and sample sentences that demarcate the soccer field as a “language area” (Sprachzone Fußballplatz); and still others in the form of hand-painted signposts (see Figure 1.1) that contain questions related to soccer, such as “What is the score?” (Wie ist der Spielstand?) and “How long have you been playing soccer?” (Wie lange spielst du schon Fußball?). Turning back across the parking lot toward a large official-looking building, one notices a large number of signs in close proximity, indicating a bus stop (Autobus); giving directions to Erlach and Jolimont-Gampelen; providing the name of the dedicatee of the building’s clock tower (Albert Hohmann Turmuhr) (see the website for Figure 1.2: Bahnhof from Parkplatz); listing pick-up times for letters dropped into a yellow mailbox (Briefkastenleerung); declaring “You are leaving the American sector” in four languages (English, Russian, French, and German); and announcing “All are welcome here” (Alle sind hier herzlich willkommen) on rainbow-colored paper, among many others.

Figure 1.1 Photo of question signs along the road leading to the Bahnhof building

This highly unusual collection of signs indexing disparate times and places comprises a segment of the linguistic landscape (LL) of Waldsee, the sixty-year-old¹ German language and cultural immersion program of Concordia Language Villages located in the wooded lake country of northern Minnesota (USA). Consisting of thirty-five buildings spread across 46 acres of land, Waldsee emulates a full-fledged village, as well as being accredited both as a residential summer camp (through the American Camping Association) and as an educational institution (through accrediting agency AdvancEd) at the elementary and secondary levels. Waldsee shares with all fourteen² Language Village programs the mission of “inspir[ing] courageous global citizens”; in the service of this mission, Waldsee provides its participants with a wide range of opportunities to learn and practice German; to directly experience cultural practices and products of German-speaking Europe; and to explore issues of relevance to the world at large, such as the environment, war/peace, justice, literacy, health, and human rights.

Waldsee’s focus on living life in the target language within a village outside the classroom might remind some readers of the “language learning in the wild” initiative by Johannes Wagner and colleagues (Clark et al., 2011); in that program, adult migrant learners in Nordic countries are encouraged to navigate the disconnect between the content of classroom instruction and the requirements of everyday communicative needs by engaging with employees of cafés and other nearby small businesses who have been specially sensitized to the linguistic and cultural needs of these learners. In contrast to the actual neighborhoods that surround the classrooms of these learners, the village of Waldsee was intentionally designed and built as a village that could serve as a decentralized learning environment for its residents. It is the role of physical signs within this constructed village that centers our attention in this chapter.

Given the complexity associated with this hybrid community, we were guided most profoundly by the perspective of historically informed deep ethnography as articulated and illustrated by Blommaert (2013) and Scollon and Scollon (2003). Following this approach, we aim to exemplify how linguistic landscape research may provide a concrete way to understand abstract philosophies that underlie decentralized language education, i.e., to help us discern order out of the “genuine jungle of signs” (Ben–Rafael, Shohamy, & Barni, 2010: xv). Because Waldsee is neither an actual German village nor a traditional school, our resulting study of its linguistic landscape displays characteristics of both “cityscape” (Aiestaran, Cenoz & Gorter, 2010; Gorter, 2006) and “schoolscape” (e.g., Dressler, 2015; Gorter, 2018; Joselit, 2019; Savela, 2018) research.

Using both quantitative and qualitative methods, we identify and examine patterns and semiotic processes related to the 722 physical signs visible within the public areas of Waldsee to illuminate how these signs function to constitute this highly unusual community of practice. In what follows, we situate our work in relation to previous research; characterize the sociolinguistic context of the Waldsee German Language Village; and describe our decisions regarding the demarcation of our research area, our definition of “sign,” and our cataloguing practices. We then report on our three-tiered analysis: first, we provide an inventory with quantitative details related to the signs’ languages, locations, and functions; next, we characterize the overlapping discourses that form what Scollon and Scollon (2003: 168) call the “semiotic aggregate” of the scaffolded “playworld” (Hamilton & Cohen, 2004) for Waldsee’s learners; and finally, we illuminate “in-place meanings of signs and discourses, and the meanings of our actions in and among those discourses in place” (Scollon & Scollon, 2003: 1) through a focus on two specific (types of) imported signs. By integrating insights from foundational work on intertextuality³ (Bakhtin, 1986; Bauman & Briggs, 1990; Blommaert, 2013), we illustrate in these case studies how accessible, authentic texts in the village “scenery” (Paesani, 2018) can be seen as portals to understanding cultural practices and geopolitical-historical events.⁴ We then close by considering how the language learning opportunities promoted by these signs are connected to the World Readiness Standards (the 5 C’s) developed by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (The National Standards Collaborative Board, 2015) and reflect on the implications of this study for language teachers who feature authentic signs in their own classrooms.

Background

Authentic signs (e.g., public street signs, advertising signs, commercial shop signs) have been examined over the past two decades by LL researchers in an effort to understand “what languages are prominent and valued in public and private spaces” along with the “social positioning of people who identify with particular languages” within these communities (Dagenais et al., 2009: 254). From the related perspective of geosemiotics (Scollon & Scollon, 2003: 3), any such “material object that indicates or refers to something other than itself” represents a point in time and space along a chain of discourses and actions (e.g., the discussions among communities and legislatures that lead to the design, production, and placement of an official notice) and affects future social actions undertaken “in and among those discourses in place” (Scollon & Scollon, 2003: 1). Given the light they shed on “societies, people, the economy, policy, class, identities” (Shohamy & Gorter, 2009: 2–3) and because “[s]igns lead us to practices, and practices lead us to people” (Blommaert 2013: 5), these small authentic texts can serve both as sources of insight for researchers striving to better understand a community and as highly productive sites of engagement for learners outside traditional classrooms (Malinowski, 2010, 2015, 2018).

The emphases of LL research have evolved as studies shift in focus from the relative prominence and value of certain languages to a broader investigation of signs as indexing the nature and change of community practices. Backhaus (2007) used a highly quantitative approach calculating the relative prominence of languages on signs to draw conclusions about language use and perceived value within an urban neighborhood; more recent studies have followed Blommaert (2013), who studied historical developments and people–sign interactions in order to “understand … how [signs] can inform us about social structure” (p. 55). Within this broader trend of a greater reliance on qualitative inquiry, LL studies have tended to expand the scope of the (a) items and (b) geographic areas under investigation, while differing in terms of (c) the role of interactions between and across signs and people; (d) signs’ potential functions; (e) whether the LL in question is described as a snapshot in time or traced across a continuum in space and time; and (f) the degree of familiarity of the researcher to the landscape being examined, among other factors.

Early LL research typically restricted its focus to outdoor municipal and business signs in public spaces (Landry & Bourhis, 1997). Early studies also focused on urban spaces that were accessible to the public; most of these counted only outdoor signs, although some (e.g., Ben–Rafael et al. 2006; Shohamy et al., 2010) included public-facing signs visible inside public buildings. For feasibility’s sake, researchers on urban linguistic landscapes typically counted all signs within an arbitrarily chosen geographic region. Blommaert (2013), remaining within the context of urban research, defined signs based on their purpose and accessibility rather than their location, expanding his scope to “publicly visible bits of written language: billboards, road and safety signs, shop signs, graffiti and all sorts of other inscriptions in the public space, both professional produced and grassroots” (p. 1). Later studies, including those of indoor “schoolscapes,” moved more intentionally inside buildings to include classroom and hallway signs that constitute students’ learning environments (Gorter & Cenoz, 2015; Pakarinen & Björklund, 2018; Savela, 2018).

All LL studies of which we are aware introduce qualitative distinctions of some kind among signs. Even Backhaus’s (2007) early highly quantitative inventory not only noted the language of each sign but also considered its manufacturer, installer, and intended audience, as well as implications for a neighborhood’s development that could be inferred from the sign. Later LL studies moved beyond categorizing the language of given signs to include function and authorship (Gorter & Cenoz, 2015).

A central insight of more qualitative LL research holds that signs participate in dialogue with each other and with their audiences; in interpreting a sign, a reader draws not only on the text of the sign itself but on their experience with other such signs and on shared cultural understandings that govern the interpretation of public texts, a key connection to the intertextual perspective referenced above. Bringing humans as sign-interpreters into LL research helps us to move beyond simple facts related to the intersection of languages and placement of signs. As exemplified by Cenoz and Gorter (2008), signs have a host of potential functions: “Street signs function to identify a place by name, placards inform the reader of the significance of the objects to which they are attached, graffiti are examples of transgressive discourse and other signs give indications to regulate actions and movements” (pp. 275–6). They may label the spaces in which they are installed or mandate, regulate, or encourage behavior among their readership (Dressler, 2015; Gorter & Cenoz, 2015). Signs in educational spaces are often didactic in nature (Hanauer, 2009). Even signs that appear fairly straightforward—e.g., place names, labels, opening hours—may also have symbolic functions. The very presence or relative prominence of a particular language (especially a minority language) can imply the relative value placed on that language by the local community (Cenoz & Gorter, 2008; Landry & Bourhis, 1997).

LL research today continues to explore the explanatory potential of signs broadly defined (including a greater range of mobile and mutable texts), and many LL researchers have called for an expansion of the field into additional sites of interaction (Van Mensel et al., 2016), particularly in educational contexts (Dagenais et al., 2009). In this study, we apply the LL lens to a new context and explore the value of the ethnographic approach favored by more recent research.

Methods

In what follows, we characterize Waldsee more fully, describe how we delineated our geographic research space, provide our definition of a “sign,” and characterize the process we undertook as participant-observers over the course of six weeks at Waldsee.

Sociolinguistic Context: Waldsee German Language Village

Waldsee’s thirty-five buildings and additional outside spaces (including sports fields, outdoor cafés, parks, nature trails, campfire circles, outdoor stages, and beach) spread across a 46-acre tract of land on a lake in northern Minnesota (USA) (see the website for Figure 1.3: Aerial map of Waldsee). From the moment the learners arrive on the first day, they acquire a new “identity” that they will be enacting as they “live the language.” They arrive at the border of the “new” country, show their “passports,” and go through customs. They choose a new name, find the new “city” (cabin) they will be living in, and open a bank account; they are surrounded by German language, music, and signs.

The physical setting and the participants come together to create a kaleidoscopic playworld (Hamilton...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents 
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part 1 Other Forms of Language Classroom
• Part 2 Structured Spaces Becoming Classrooms
• Part 3 LLs as Activist Education
• Index
• Imprint