Linguistic landscape
[1] Linguistic landscape research has been described as being "somewhere at the junction of sociolinguistics, sociology, social psychology, geography, and media studies".
[3] For example, linguistic landscape scholars have described how and why some public signs in Jerusalem are presented in Hebrew, English, and Arabic, or a combination thereof.
The field of study is relatively recent; "the linguistic landscapes paradigm has evolved rapidly and while it has a number of key names associated with it, it currently has no clear orthodoxy or theoretical core".
For example, Leeman and Modan (2010) describe the use of aestheticized Latin script in the Washington DC's Chinatown and the Arab Quarter of Granada, Spain.
In other places, it is a matter of law, as in Quebec, where signs cannot be in English only, but must include French (Bill 101, Charte de la langue française).
[23] Leeman and Modan (2009) proposed a "contextualized historical approach" to linguistic landscape that emphasizes the importance of considering how the signs came to be, and what they mean in a given context.
[24] Their example of the different symbolic meanings of Chinese and English on Starbucks signs in Washington DC's Chinatown and a Shanghai shopping mall shows that it is unwise to draw conclusions based on the relative frequency of languages in signage.
The study of language in post-war and conflict-ridden areas has also attracted the interest of scholars who applied the Linguistic Landscape approach as a method to explore how language use in the public space represents ethnic groups, reflects territorial conflicts, expresses statehood and projects ideologies and socio-cultural identities.
In fact, despite the passing of laws to implement and enforce the usage of Galician in public discourse and public space, the very form of Galician chosen is at the center of political struggles, with the official variety (oficialista), which is more similar to Spanish, chosen over the one more similar to Portuguese (Reintegrationist).
Although the legislation of the autonomous community of Galicia enforces the use of Galician in the public space, what is at stake is the form of Galician chosen for signs, banners, announcements, billboards, public road signs and toponyms, with the official form (oficialista) rejected by some activists and many (but not all) most radical Galician nationalists as too Spanishist, despite social and political elites’ efforts for constructing it so to look autonomous both from Spanish and Portuguese, and the more Portuguese one reclaimed as not only more appropriate from glottological perspective but also from a social and political perspective.
Moreover, the autonomous government and the municipal regulations from Valencia encourage private entities to use Valencian over Spanish in their efforts to raise the prestige and recognition of the language, which, despite being official, is used by minority throughout the territory.
Socially speaking, the Valencian Community is a territory with a great number of inhabitants who are either monolingual in Spanish, or bilingual in Spanish-Valencian, and it is a strongly touristy region.
As described by Bruyèl-Olmedo and Juan-Garau, "among the number of languages featured on signs, shop fronts, billboards and the like, English enjoys a privileged position when it comes to addressing a multilingual, heterogeneous readership" [34] The Basque Country has invested in the protection of bilingualism, with particular regard to the introduction of measures aimed at ensuring the normalisation of the Basque language in institutions and the achievement of equal rights in its use and enjoyment for citizens, which at the moment is not fully achieved, especially in the working environment.
[35]This historic concession constituted a decisive change of direction after the years of Franco's dictatorship, during which the regime had banned the use of the Basque language and attempted to erase its history and traditions.
Since then, the major intervention made is that contained in Decree 179/2019 of 19 November 2019, which gave to each local council the decision-making power on how to organise the use of both languages in its internal and public relations.
