Linguistic Landscapes and Educational Spaces 9781788923873

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Linguistic Landscapes and Educational Spaces

NEW PERSPECTIVES ON LANGUAGE AND EDUCATION Founding Editor: Viv Edwards, University of Reading, UK Series Editors: Phan Le Ha, University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA and Joel ­Windle, Monash University, Australia. Two decades of research and development in language and literacy education have yielded a broad, multidisciplinary focus. Yet education systems face constant economic and technological change, with attendant issues of identity and power, community and culture. What are the implications for language education of new ‘semiotic economies’ and communications technologies? Of complex blendings of cultural and linguistic diversity in communities and institutions? Of new cultural, regional and national identities and practices? The New Perspectives on Language and Education series will feature critical and interpretive, disciplinary and multidisciplinary perspectives on teaching and learning, language and literacy in new times. New proposals, particularly for edited volumes, are expected to acknowledge and include perspectives from the Global South. Contributions from scholars from the Global South will be particularly sought out and welcomed, as well as those from marginalized communities within the Global North. All books in this series are externally peer-reviewed. Full details of all the books in this series and of all our other publications can be found on http://www.multilingual-matters.com, or by writing to Multilingual Matters, St Nicholas House, 31–34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK.

NEW PERSPECTIVES ON LANGUAGE AND EDUCATION: 98

Linguistic Landscapes and Educational Spaces Edited by

Edina Krompák, Víctor Fernández-Mallat and Stephan Meyer

MULTILINGUAL MATTERS Bristol • Jackson

DOI https://doi.org/10.21832/KROMPA3866 Names: Caprez-Krompàk, Edina, editor. | Fernández-Mallat, Víctor, editor. | Meyer, Stephan, editor. Title: Linguistic Landscapes and Educational Spaces/Edited by Edina Krompák, Víctor Fernández-Mallat and Stephan Meyer. Description: Bristol, UK; Blue Ridge Summit : Multilingual Matters, [2022] | Series: New Perspectives on Language and Education: 98 | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “The educational turn in linguistic and semiotic landscapes studies is advanced through this volume’s broad and detailed analyses. Empirical examinations of interconnections among language, signs, space and practices combine with action research on mobilising linguistic landscapes as pedagogical resources to address scholars and practitioners alike”—Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2021034913 | ISBN 9781788923859 (paperback) | ISBN 9781788923866 (hardback) | ISBN 9781788923873 (pdf) | ISBN 9781788923880 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Language and education. | Semiotics—Social aspects. | LCGFT: Essays. Classification: LCC P40.8 .L555 2022 | DDC 410.71—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021034913 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN-13: 978-1-78892-386-6 (hbk) ISBN-13: 978-1-78892-385-9 (pbk) Multilingual Matters UK: St Nicholas House, 31–34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK. USA: Ingram, Jackson, TN, USA. Website: www.multilingual-matters.com Twitter: Multi_Ling_Mat Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/multilingualmatters Blog: www.channelviewpublications.wordpress.com Copyright © 2022 Edina Krompák, Víctor Fernández-Mallat, Stephan Meyer and the authors of individual chapters. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. The policy of Multilingual Matters/Channel View Publications is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products, made from wood grown in sustainable forests. In the manufacturing process of our books, and to further support our policy, preference is given to printers that have FSC and PEFC Chain of Custody certification. The FSC and/or PEFC logos will appear on those books where full certification has been granted to the printer concerned. Typeset by SAN Publishing Services.

Contents

Acknowledgements Contributors

vii ix

1 The Symbolic Value of Educationscapes – Expanding the Intersections Between Linguistic Landscape and Education Edina Krompák, Víctor Fernández-Mallat and Stephan Meyer

1

Part 1: Assessing the Linguistic and Semiotic Landscapes of Educational Spaces

2 Linguistic Landscapes and Constructions of Space in a Learning Club for Young Refugees in Vienna Sabine Lehner

31

3 Landscape Design for Language Revitalisation: Linguistic Landscape in and beyond a Māori Immersion Early Childhood Centre 55 Leona Harris, Una Cunningham, Jeanette King and Dyanna Stirling 4 Italian Linguistic Schoolscape: Neo-plurilingualism in an Age of Migration Carla Bagna and Martina Bellinzona 5 Displaying Care: The Neoliberal Semiotic Landscape of Psychological Health Service Posters on a University Campus in Hong Kong Corey Fanglei Huang

77

104

6 Promoting Indigenous Language Rights in Saami Educational Spaces: Findings from a Preschool in Southern Saepmie Boglárka Straszer and David Kroik

127

7 Blackboard – A Space Within a Space: Visible Linguistic and Social Practices in Swiss Primary Classrooms Edina Krompák

147

v

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Part 2:  Linguistic Landscape as a Pedagogical Resource

8 Institutional Educationscapes for New Speakers in Flanders: Language Learning Campaigns and Linguistic Integration Mieke Vandenbroucke

173

9 Using Participatory Linguistic Landscapes as Pedagogy for Democracy: A Didactic Study in a Primary School Classroom Kirk P.H. Sullivan, Christian Waldmann and Maria Wiklund

193

10 ‘Go in Practice’: Linguistic Landscape and Outdoor Learning July De Wilde, Johannes Verhoene, Jo Tondeur and Ellen Van Praet 11 Linguistic Landscape Signs in First-Language Learning Materials: From Passively Illustrative Function to Meaningful Learning Experiences Solvita Burr (Berra in Latvian, née Pošeiko) 12 Cultural Authenticity in the Linguistic Landscape: Developing Additional-Language Learners’ Critical Intercultural Understanding Yu Li

214

232

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13 Linguistic Landscapes in Educational Contexts: An Afterword 277 Durk Gorter and Jasone Cenoz Index 291

Acknowledgements

First and foremost, we would like to thank all the contributors who graciously shared their knowledge with the broader community through this volume and who collaborated tirelessly with the editors through several cycles of revision. In particular, we are grateful to Durk Gorter and Jasone Cenoz for accepting our invitation to enrich the collection with their expertise and for their very valuable comments on our introduction. Each chapter underwent a double-blind review by two reviewers knowledgeable in sociolinguistics and/or education. In addition, the entire volume was reviewed by two specialists in the field. We would like to express our immense gratitude to all reviewers for their interactive and rigorous feedback, which made it possible for the authors to further enhance the quality of the contributions. We appreciate the constructive feedback of our critical friend, Amelia Lambelet, on an earlier version of this introduction. Thanks are also due to Alexa Barnby for the accurate and elegant language editing of the chapters and to the Schaffhausen University of Teacher Education for financial support in the final project phase. We would also like to thank Anna Roderick as well as Laura Longworth from Multilingual Matters for their valuable support during the entire publication process and for their interest in our initial concept, which allowed this project to take off. And finally, we thank our families and friends for their patience and support during the publication process.

vii

Contributors

Carla Bagna is Associate Professor in Educational Linguistics at the University for Foreigners of Siena. Her main research interests are second language acquisition, teaching and learning of Italian as foreign language (in Italy and abroad) and immigrant languages in Italian linguistic landscape. Martina Bellinzona is a postdoctoral researcher at the University for ­Foreigners of Siena. Her PhD thesis, completed in 2020, concerns language policy and linguistic schoolscape in the Italian school context. Her research interests include educational linguistics, multilingualism, migratory flows and linguistic landscape. Solvita Burr (Berra in Latvian, née Pošeiko) is a senior researcher at the University of Latvia and guest lecturer at the University of Washington. Her scientific research interests focus on a comprehensive study of cityscape (linguistic, onomastic, semiotic, cultural landscapes), and on the interactive possibilities of teaching language and sociolinguistic topics using cityscape texts. Her interests also include language and language education policies, language management, and commercial naming strategies and glocalization. Jasone Cenoz is Professor of Research Methods in Education at the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU and President of the Education Science Committee of the Spanish Research Council (AEI). Her research focuses on multilingual education, bilingualism and multilingualism. She has published extensively and has presented her work at numerous international conferences and seminars. Una Cunningham is Professor of English language education at Stockholm University. She has worked in the field of language education for many years and has conducted research in Sweden and New Zealand on multilingualism at home, at school and in early childhood education. She is the author of Growing up with Two Languages: A Practical Guide for Multilingual Families and Those Who Support Them (4th edn, Routledge, 2020). July De Wilde is assistant professor in the Department of Translation, Interpreting and Communication at Ghent University, Belgium. Her research focuses on multilingualism, intercultural communication in professional settings, public service interpreting and the use of (digital) tools ix

x  Linguistic Landscapes and Educational Spaces

as communication support during face-to-face interactions. She has published in various international peer-reviewed journals, including Multilingua, Journal of Language and Politics, Meta and Translator. Corey Fanglei Huang is a postdoctoral fellow in the Faculty of Humanities at the Education University of Hong Kong. In 2020, he received a PhD degree in Sociolinguistics and Education at the University of Hong Kong. His research interests include sociolinguistics, critical discourse studies, multimodality and linguistic/semiotic landscape studies. He has been ­producing publications based on his PhD research which examines the semiotic landscape of a university campus in Hong Kong from a critical sociolinguistic and social semiotic perspective. Víctor Fernández-Mallat is Assistant Professor of Spanish linguistics in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Georgetown University. He has broad interests in sociolinguistics and language attitudes. His work on linguistic landscapes is mainly on evaluative responses to the presence of varying languages in the public sphere. He is currently developing a line of research which aims to explore the intersection between the presence of language variation in signs and language literacy development in educational contexts. Durk Gorter is Ikerbasque research professor at the University of the Basque Country, Spain. He is the head of the Donostia Research group on Education And Multilingualism (DREAM) and the editor-in-chief of the journal Language, Culture and Curriculum. He conducts research on multilingual education, European minority languages and linguistic landscapes; topics on which he has published widely. Leona Harris is a PhD graduate from the University of Canterbury. She was a lead research assistant during her study, researching in a cross-disciplinary team within New Zealand’s National Science Challenge, A Better Start. Her research, which is discussed in various publications, focuses on the linguistic landscapes (physical and virtual) of young emergent multilingual children in Aotearoa New Zealand. Jeanette King is a professor in Aotahi: School of Māori and Indigenous Studies at the University of Canterbury and she also heads the bilingualism theme of the New Zealand Institute of Language, Brain and Behaviour. Her recent work examines Māori language in Māori immersion education settings and intergenerational transmission of minority languages and she has published widely in the field of language revitalisation. David Kroik is a PhD candidate in Language Teaching and Learning at the Department of Language Studies, Umeå University, Sweden and a lecturer in South Saami at Nord University in Norway. His current PhD project is an ethnographic study involving a collaboration with Saami teachers in order to strengthen the position of Saami at a specific South Saami school.

Contributors xi

His licentiate in Linguistics approaches South Saami from the perspective of theoretical linguistics. Edina Krompák is an educational scientist and Head of Research and Development at the Schaffhausen University of Teacher Education. She is a researcher in the field of educational linguistics with a focus on multilingualism and linguistic ethnography. Her current research interests encompass linguistic landscapes in educational contexts, linguistic identity, translanguaging and multilingual play in early childhood. Sabine Lehner is a PhD candidate in Applied Linguistics at the University of Vienna and a board member of VERBAL (The Austrian Association of Applied Linguistics). Among other things, she worked on a project on the discursive construction of national identities. Her PhD project was supported by a fellowship from the Austrian Academy of Science and the IFK (International Research Center for Cultural Studies, University of Art and Design Linz, Vienna). In her PhD project, she deals with the border and boundary experiences of asylum seekers in Austria. Her research interests include language ideologies, discourse studies, border and boundary studies, language and space, (linguistic) ethnography, multilingualism and qualitative methodologies. Yu Li is Assistant Professor of Chinese at Loyola Marymount University, in the United States. Her current research focuses on the visual and social semiotics of the Chinese writing system and on integrating linguisticlandscape research in the teaching of Chinese as an additional language. Stephan Meyer is Deputy Director of the Language Centre at the University of Basel, Switzerland, where he teaches English as an academic lingua franca and develops interventions for the promotion of multilingualism in higher education. His interests include academic writing and speaking, multilingualism, social theory and, more recently, linguistic landscapes. He has edited special issues and books on some of these topics. Dyanna Stirling (Ngāti Hāmoa) is Kaihautū for the Nōku Te Ao Māori Immersion Early Childhood centres in Christchurch. She has taught in the Māori medium for over 25 years and is currently undertaking a master’s study at the University of Canterbury. Boglárka Straszer is Associate Professor in Swedish as a Second Language and teacher trainer at Dalarna University, Sweden, with 25 years of experience teaching foreign languages, second languages, mother tongue and sociolinguistics. Her research interests include the sociology of language, linguistic ethnography, multilingualism at the family, group and society level, translanguaging, language identity, attitudes, linguistic schoolscaping and education in various immigrant and minority language settings.

xii  Linguistic Landscapes and Educational Spaces

Kirk P.H. Sullivan is Professor of Linguistics at Umeå University, Sweden. His research interests lie at the nexus of linguistics, cognition and education, and include writing processes, sociolinguistics and democracy. He recently co-edited Perspectives on Indigenous Writing and Literacies. Jo Tondeur is a professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. His research is situated within the field of educational innovations. Most of his research focuses on the integrated use of ICT in pre-service teacher training and compulsory education. Mieke Vandenbroucke is a tenure track research professor at the University of Antwerp. She obtained her PhD at Ghent University and was a Fulbright scholar at UC Berkeley in 2016–2017. Her research focuses on the sociolinguistics of urban multilingualism and the pragmatics of categorisation. She is the Adjunct Secretary General of the International Association of Pragmatics (IPrA) and has published in, among others, the Journal of Sociolinguistics, Language in Society and the Oxford Handbook of Language in Society. Ellen Van Praet is an associate professor and coordinator of the Research Centre for Multilingual Practices and Language Learning in Society (MULTIPLES) at Ghent University in Belgium. She has published in Multilingua, Journal of Pragmatics, Text & Talk. Johannes Verhoene completed his teacher training in primary education and his master’s degree in pedagogical sciences at Ghent University. After his studies, Johannes started working as a software trainer at Televic Education. He helps organisations to use technology to educate and test students and co-workers. Christian Waldmann is Associate Professor of Scandinavian Languages at Linnaeus University, Sweden. His research interests include linguistics, sociolinguistics and educational aspects of language development and support, writing and indigenous languages. Maria Wiklund is a doctoral student at Umeå University in Educational Work and a qualified upper secondary-school teacher in Swedish literature and history. Her research interests include teaching spaces and physical learning environments in higher education, with a focus on the sociocultural aspects of teaching, materiality and the transformation to increasingly technology-enhanced humanities, and the role of languages in democracy.

1 The Symbolic Value of Educationscapes – Expanding the Intersections Between Linguistic Landscape and Education Edina Krompák, Víctor Fernández-Mallat and Stephan Meyer

Introducing the Educational Turn in Linguistic Landscape Studies

Traditionally, when thinking of languages in school, our mind’s eye would race directly to reading and writing. Given time, a whole landscape of classrooms and corridors may unfold, leading to assembly spaces, playgrounds and pitches; all of these peopled by pupils, teachers and principals doing their thing. We might even pause at signs on doors, designating spaces for staff or students to work and for boys and girls to congregate; at writing on the board commanding us to be silent or inviting us to speak; and at placards and posters on the walls in which pictures combine with various languages to inform, instruct or influence us. Absorbed into this maelstrom, we have become participant observers of the interconnections between the languages, signs, spaces and practices that constitute the linguistic and semiotic landscapes of an educational space. This volume illustrates the potential of applying the central tenets and multiple methods of linguistic and semiotic landscape studies to the specific domain of education. A central theme of inquiry into linguistic and semiotic landscapes relates to the way the writing and signs we put on walls both shape and saturate the public spaces we create and how we behave in them; and how this writing and these signs, in turn, are shaped by our behaviours and the spaces they inhabit. Applying the educational 1

2  Linguistic Landscapes and Educational Spaces

turn to insights from linguistic and semiotic landscape studies, the findings collected here illuminate the ways in which linguistic and other signs shape our educational spaces and practices within those spaces, and vice versa. In doing so, they also advance our understanding of the relevance of these multiple relations to multilingualism and multilingual equality in education (for their account of multilingual inequality, see Gorter and Cenoz’s contribution to this volume). Focusing on linguistic and semiotic educationscapes, the contributors to this volume describe, analyse and theorise the ways in which, in their everyday linguistic practices, stakeholders negotiate the meanings of languages, signs and spaces. In this context, linguistic and semiotic educationscapes may be defined as the mutually constitutive material and social spaces in which linguistic and symbolic resources are mobilised for educational purposes. Linguistic and semiotic educationscapes are thereby demarcated as a specific field within the broader domain of linguistic and semiotic landscape studies. Placing linguistic landscapes and educationscapes adjacent to semiotic landscapes and educationscapes reflects the continuities between these concepts while also acknowledging the differences between them. While linguistic resources include written text and oral practices, symbolic resources include these linguistic resources and extend beyond to symbolic systems such as music, mathematics and images. This adjacency also reflects the fact that, as visualisations of language, written linguistic signs necessarily have semiotic components such as colour, size and placement of the text. Accordingly, they belong to both the linguistic and semiotic educationscapes. However, the converse does not apply: Non-linguistic signs belong only to the semiotic educationscapes. While this distinction is valuable in some contexts, in others, it fades into the background. In linguistic landscape studies, even as the objects of inquiry expanded beyond linguistic signs to non-linguistic ones, the programmatic term ‘linguistic landscape’ has endured and is at times used interchangeably with the more general semiotic landscape. This usage may reflect the fact that in multimodal communication particularly, linguistic and semiotic signs are often inextricable. Opting for the historical and more focused term linguistic landscapes, the title of the present volume signals that the contributors treat language as their primary interest and/or point of departure. This focus on language notwithstanding, some of the studies collected here enrich our understanding of linguistic educationscapes by also venturing into the broader domain of the semiotic educationscapes into which they are interwoven. The studies presented here are each in their own way entangled in the broader social, linguistic and educational issues of our times. Within contemporary critical theory, justice has been described as a complex, comprising recognition, distribution and parity of participation (Fraser & Honneth, 2003). Ongoing struggles for justice signal wide-ranging and persistent inequalities and exclusions related to difference and diversity

The Symbolic Value of Educationscapes  3

(e.g. Adichie, 2014; Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʾo, 1986). Directly or indirectly, some of these struggles for justice play out in contestations over globalisation, migration and cosmopolitanism, or multiple and alternative modernities (Appadurai, 1996; Benhabib, 2008; Breckenridge et al., 2002; Vertovec, 2019). Others play out in greater preoccupation with identities of all kinds, and the implications of such preoccupations for the possibility of society to function at all (Alexander, 2007; Appiah, 2018; Benhabib, 2018). These struggles for justice and against social inequality also exist around language and education. Linguistic justice is, likewise, a complex, involving issues such as language recognition (De Meulder et al., 2019; Wells, 2019), the distribution of material and symbolic resources related to language (Civico & Grin, 2020) and participation (Grotlüschen et al., 2020). In particular, mobility and immobility, as well as internationalism and nationalism, contribute to new multilingualisms – various constellations of local, migrant, national and indigenous languages in the same space. Justice through multilingualism raises various questions related to mono-, bi- and multilingual realities, from language policy to language rights, language hierarchies and language use (Piller, 2016; Skutnabb-Kangas et al., 2009). The diversity and linguistic inequalities among users of these languages confront institutions – from the education and administrative systems of the state to civil society organisations – with complex challenges. How to balance the benefits and disadvantages of mono-, bi- and multilingualism? Specifically, what language or languages to use and promote, and for what purposes, be that in state institutions, civil society and private interactions? And how can language education facilitate or hinder linguistic justice? Educational policy, institutions and practices too are involved in struggles for justice comprising recognition, redistribution and participation (Huttunen, 2007; Keddie, 2012; Power, 2012). Some of the concrete contestations in which these struggles are played out concern decolonial curricula and knowledge (Jansen, 2019; Posholi, 2020), the digitisation of education (Schmidt & Tang, 2020) and language. Addressing linguistic diversity and inequality is central to social justice in language education (Piller, 2016). This stretches from the frontstage, such as the linguistic landscape of educational institutions, to the backstage (Goffman, 1956), which includes the hidden language policies of schools and classrooms, as well as administrators’, teachers’, students’ and even parents’ beliefs about multilingualism (Krompák, 2021). For example, while linguistic diversity in society is widely recognised, educational institutions still adhere to a monolingual habitus – monolingual education that collides with superdiverse societies (Gogolin, 1994) – or to monolingual mindsets (Clyne, 2005) that idealise lingua francae such as English (see Krompák, 2021). The extent to which these actors follow a monolingual habitus or mindset may influence their recognition of languages additional to the languages of instruction. This predisposition may also influence their reasoning and

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decisions regarding the visibility of various languages, the number of ­languages to be represented and the prominence they receive in the schoolscape. Against this larger social, linguistic and educational backdrop, an early interest in linguistic schoolscapes has recently surged into an educational turn in linguistic landscape studies (for a survey of the development from linguistic landscape to schoolscape studies, see the section below). Researchers, practitioners and policymakers in linguistics and education may come to the present volume, like other publications on linguistic and semiotic educationscapes, with various questions and interests. For some, the volume will be of interest because of the ways in which it engages with the mentioned broader issues of justice, language and education through the specific lenses of linguistic and semiotic educationscapes. Some will be interested in the ways it seeks to fill lacunae in existing linguistic landscape studies. Others will find the volume pertinent because it brings into view educational aspects that enrich future linguistic landscape studies, as well as, conversely, sociolinguistic aspects and methodologies that will enrich educational studies on language learning and teaching. And yet others may be interested in the conversations it facilitates among different stakeholders such as educators, policymakers, students and their parents or how the various studies cross the divides that hamper both research and everyday practice. The first intersection that the volume expands is that between educational practices on one hand and theoretical concepts and empirical research in linguistics on the other. It thereby contributes to educational linguistics, understood as ‘a problem-oriented discipline, focusing on the needs of practice and drawing from available theories and principles of many relevant fields including many of the subfields of linguistics’ (Spolsky, 1975: 347). Countering siloisation, the present volume integrates two approaches to linguistic landscape and education. Motivated by an interest in language vitality and multilingualism, early linguistic landscape studies have ventured into schools as one of the key institutions in the reproduction of the symbolic order (Foucault, 1971). Focusing on writing in various languages in school buildings (Brown, 2005, 2012), these early studies on linguistic schoolscapes extended the questions and methods of linguistic landscape studies into a crucial life domain. The second intersection that this volume expands is that between educational linguistics and linguistic landscape, focusing on topics such as language policy, multilingual (in)equality and (language) learning in educational spaces. In exploring how written and other signs shape our educational spaces and experiences and vice versa, this volume establishes a dual direction of investigation between linguistics and education on a theme that is beginning to receive increased attention. This new direction focuses on the mobilisation of the linguistic landscape as a pedagogical tool to teach and learn additional languages (Badstübner-Kizik &

The Symbolic Value of Educationscapes  5

Janíková, 2018; Gorter, 2018; Pütz & Mundt, 2018), as well as to pursue broader pedagogical goals such as examining inequality and developing civic responsibility (Malinowski et al., 2020; Niedt & Seals, 2020). With its specific focus on the intersections between linguistic landscapes and educational spaces, the present volume, thirdly, seeks to advance our understanding of the significance of institutions that mediate between public and private linguistic and semiotic landscapes. This focus on institutions adds an element to earlier linguistic landscape studies that centred on public spaces, especially streets (Landry & Bourhis, 1997). Drawing on the double meaning of school as both building and institution sheds light on two aspects of the continuities between public and private linguistic landscapes, such as homescapes (Krompák, 2018, 2021). Firstly, educators and learners engage with the linguistic and semiotic educationscapes on both the inside and outside of school buildings. Secluded though they are from the pedestrian gaze from the street, the insides of schools are nonetheless semi-public spaces (rather than private ones) in which public institutions are powerfully present. Secondly, as institutions, schools mediate between the public and the personal. The dispositions of the selves (both repressive and emancipatory) that educational institutions reproduce are intimately related to the broader symbolic and social orders within which these institutions operate (Bourdieu, 1982). By examining the inside and outside of educational buildings, as well as the educational institutions that contribute to the construction of socially compatible selves, the present volume seeks to advance our understanding of institutions as mediators between public and private linguistic and semiotic landscapes. Finally, an enhanced understanding of practices – including how similar practices are mobilised in diverse spaces – increases our understanding of the relations between language and space. Taking educational practices as an example, once we observe them on their home turf, such as schools, we are better equipped to also notice them in other spaces beyond schools, thereby allowing us to conceptualise and study the broader field that we call educationscapes. In addition to covering the complete range of the formal educational trajectory (from preschool to higher education), such a broader perspective adds educational spaces annexed to and serving these formal institutions (e.g. a learning club). This broader perspective goes even further: it illustrates how spaces that may have other primary functions could include layers or moments that are mobilised for instructional purposes. This includes spaces of state institutions (e.g. public health institutions and records offices) in which the linguistic and semiotic landscapes are mobilised to instruct, educate and govern people with language. As such, the examination of the practices in one specific domain like educationscapes suggests ways to explore other domains such as ­linguistic and semiotic lawscapes, museumscapes and healthscapes (for emerging work on the latter, see Niedt & Seals, 2020).

6  Linguistic Landscapes and Educational Spaces

The book is arranged as follows: two synthesising chapters – the present and the afterword, which develops a model of multilingual inequality in public spaces relevant to educational contexts – frame the 11 detailed empirical studies. The two perspectives on the relationship between linguistic landscape and educational spaces are reflected in the two parts of the book: Part 1 examines the interactions of languages and signs with educational spaces and practices; Part 2 examines the use of the questions and methods of linguistic and semiotic landscape studies as a pedagogical resource. The remainder of this chapter is structured as follows: the next section sketches the contributions of the linguistic, material, visual and spatial turns to the emergence of linguistic and semiotic landscape studies. This is followed by an account of how linguistic landscape studies paved the way for linguistic schoolscape studies, and how linguistic landscape and schoolscape studies facilitated inquiries into the semiotics of educationscapes. The section that follows offers a descriptive survey of current and emerging lines of inquiry opened by the empirical contributions on linguistic and semiotics educationscapes that make up the body of the volume. This chapter closes with possible avenues for future inquiry that could further advance the educational turn in linguistic landscape studies. Paving the Way for Linguistic and Semiotic Landscapes Studies: The Contributions of the Linguistic, Material, Visual and Spatial Turns

Linguistic and semiotic educationscapes become perceptible and can be examined because of very specific configurations of questions and methods. This section begins by showing how specific alignments of interests in language, materiality, the visual and space made linguistic landscapes perceptible, allowing for linguistic landscape studies in education to emerge as an area of inquiry. This prepares the reader for the various ways in which the contributions to this volume align and interweave these interests and methods in diverse ways, and thereby bring into focus various aspects of linguistic and semiotic educationscapes while shifting others to the background. The first element in the configuration that brings linguistic and symbolic landscapes in educationscapes into view and provides tools for their analysis is the linguistic turn. Drawing on Romantic (Taylor, 2016) and early 20th century analytic philosophy of language (Rorty, 1992), as well as rational accounts of communication (Habermas, 1981) and poststructuralist accounts of discourse (Foucault, 1971), various methods of linguistic and discourse analysis are now applied in the social sciences, humanities and education studies. Building on this, the symbolic order more generally and language especially as a very specific part of the

The Symbolic Value of Educationscapes  7

symbolic order have become established as both object and method of analysis. One of the many areas in which this interest manifested itself was in the analysis of everyday writing in public space. The second element in the configuration that brings to light linguistic and symbolic educationscapes as a domain of inquiry has been the interest in materiality in the social sciences and humanities. The material turn potentially promised an expanded view of language that connects its abstract dimensions, such as meaning and structure, to the full scope of its material features, such as writing and speech. Such a comprehensive approach also covers the materialisation of mind and meaning in the form of script (Assman, 1994) and waves of vibrating particles (Tiwari, 2012). In theory, written language came into its own in grammatology (Derrida, 1998); in applied linguistics, linguistic landscape studies centred attention on written language in public space. The third element in the configuration that gave prominence to the written linguistic landscape may well be connected to the general prominence attained by visual culture in the 20th and 21st centuries. A particularly conspicuous development has been the proliferation of multimodal images and technologies for their reproduction. This includes the proliferation of technologies to reproduce written language for the purposes of display in public space. With its broad interest in ‘all manifestations of optical experience, all variants of visual practice’ (Jay, 2002: 42), the visual turn in the social sciences and humanities (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 1996; Pink, 2021; Rose, 2006) addressed questions and made methodologies previously limited to art history and criticism available to language in its visually materialised written mode. Drawing on, amongst others, Sartre’s (1943) notion of the gaze as reification and Foucault’s (1975) notion of the gaze as surveillance, questions were asked regarding the ‘complicity between power and images’ and ‘the ways in which visual experience can resist, transgress, and contest the status quo’ (Jay, 2002: 42; for an illustration of this dealing specifically with the linguistic landscape, see also García et al., 2013). While the visual turn enhanced our awareness and understanding of the visual materialisation of language in public space, linguistic soundscapes remain largely unobserved (for a few exceptions, see Backhaus, 2015; Pennycook & Otsuji, 2015a, 2015b; Scarvaglieri et al., 2013). The fourth element in the configuration that facilitates the visibility of linguistic and symbolic educationscapes is the spatial turn. In the social sciences and humanities, the spatial turn (Arias, 2010; Foucault, 1975) introduced an anthropocentric understanding of space as a confluence of matter, action and meaning for individuals (Heidegger, 1927/1984) as well as society (Lefebvre, 1991). This has enhanced our understanding of the interactions between space on one hand and action, social structure, policy and culture on the other. This, in turn, has drawn attention to how space, as a social product that facilitates both thought and action, is

8  Linguistic Landscapes and Educational Spaces

implicated in power and domination (see, for instance, Jaworski & Thurlow, 2010; Malinowski, 2015; Yao & Gruba, 2020) and how dedicated and safe spaces (Conteh & Brock, 2011) as well as spatial exclusion and inequality are produced, be that in education or elsewhere (Ellis & Goodyear, 2016; Grosso Correia, 2021; Gulson & Symes, 2007). Currently, the exploration of linguistic landscapes has been moving beyond urban spaces to analyses of ‘x-scapes’ (Jaworski, 2019; Thurlow & Gonçalves, 2019) that include refugeescape (Moriarty, 2019) and the linguistic landscape of Instagram (Lyons, 2019). This extension of the term ‘space’ beyond mere matter accounts for some of the variations and ambiguities in its use. Sometimes treated as material, sometimes as social and sometimes as a combination, the term ‘space’ slides between something specific and an all-encapsulating metaphor. This diversity and slipperiness is also evident in the present volume, in which the authors rely on diverse, at times incompatible, understandings of space in general and educational spaces in particular. With this diversity, the volume neither starts nor finishes with one fixed definition of space: Mostly authors prioritise social understandings of space (such as school as an institution) over physical ones (such as school buildings); sometimes they focus on the process of the construction of space, and sometimes they focus on space as an a priori starting point for, or as a product of, action. With its variety of spatial analyses, this volume is thus part of the ongoing process of refining our understanding of space, in particular as space relates to linguistic and other signs and to the individuals who engage with these languages and signs. From Linguistic Landscape to Linguistic Schoolscape Studies

With linguistic landscape studies rapidly coming of age, a volume such as the present one can draw on considerable groundwork by previous scholars who have already extended the field in many directions. The much-cited programmatic definition of linguistic landscape, which sparked considerable productivity, also delineated the scope of the initial object of interest, namely, written signage visible to the naked gaze of people in public spaces primarily in urban settings. In the familiar words of Landry and Bourhis (1997: 25), ‘[t]he language of public road signs, advertising billboards, street names, place names, commercial shop signs, and public signs on government buildings combines to form the linguistic landscape of a given territory, region, or urban agglomeration’. From the outset, the interest in the linguistic landscape was coupled with an interest in diversity and difference – linguistic, social and geographic. This concern with diversity contributed to the expansion of the field in various directions, as announced in one of the early collections Linguistic Landscape: Expanding the Scenery (Shohamy & Gorter, 2009). Accordingly, the first issue of the international journal Linguistic

The Symbolic Value of Educationscapes  9

Landscape lists the elements of linguistic landscape as follows: ‘single words with deep meanings and shared knowledge, colourful images, sounds and moving objects, billboards, graffiti as well as a variety of text types displayed in cyber space’ (Shohamy & Ben-Rafael, 2015: 1). In terms of social space, metropolitan urbanity and urban agglomerations have remained particularly prominent in linguistic landscape studies. These range from book-length studies on cities such as Tokyo (Backhaus, 2007) and suburbs such as Berchem in Antwerp (Blommaert, 2013) and Chinatown in Washington, DC (Lou, 2016), to volumes with chapters on cities such as Bloemfontein/Mangaung in South Africa and Kyiv in the Ukraine (Shohamy et al., 2010). Interest also developed in the direction of smaller, less globalised settlements such as rural South Africa (Kotze & Du Plessis, 2010). In the opposite direction to cities, interest extended to larger areas such as national and transnational regions (e.g. Blackwood & Tufi’s (2015) study of coastal cities along the Mediterranean). The close connection between linguistic landscape research and multilingualism is reflected, firstly, in the ever-expanding diversity of languages that draw researchers’ attention. From, amongst others, Chinese, English, French, Italian, Japanese and Korean in the mentioned studies, the range expanded to a bilingual collection in English and French (Hélot et al., 2012) and the historical perspective on the linguistic landscape of Seville in Spanish (Pons Rodríguez, 2012). Secondly and more importantly, the close connection between the linguistic landscape and multilingualism is also evident in the explicit focus on multilingual signage, as in Gorter’s (2006) collection, which introduced linguistic landscape studies specifically as a new approach to the study of multilingualism. The original interest in one modality, namely the written sign, soon spread to the oral/aural modalities of language, and even beyond that to all manner of signs and sensory experiences. This shift from language more specifically to the broader range of signs examined in semiotics (Cobley, 2009; Eco, 1986; Peirce, 1991) was already evident in Shohamy and Gorter’s (2009) overview of the field, before the term ‘semiotic landscapes’ itself was coined (Jaworski & Thurlow, 2010) and applied to schools (see Poveda, 2012). There are some open questions regarding this new term, as well as what constitutes an appropriate account of the semiotic landscape. For some, linguistic and semiotic analyses of landscapes have become a continuous body of knowledge that even extends to soundscapes (Backhaus, 2015), skinscapes (Peck & Stroud, 2015) and smellscapes (Pennycook & Otsuji, 2015a, 2015b). In addition to the focus on each of these modalities on their own, there has been a growing awareness of the multimodal nature of linguistic and semiotic landscapes and appropriate ways to study the interactions among modalities (e.g. Kress, 2019; Lou & Jaworski, 2016; Pütz & Mundt, 2019; Song, 2020). Not only have the spaces and objects of study become more diverse, so too have the approaches to them. Some of the more influential

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developments have been associated with the emergence of new research questions, often arising within or requiring an expanded theoretical horizon and associated methodological innovations (e.g. Shohamy & Gorter, 2009). Going beyond close analysis of the signs themselves, interest mounted in the stories beyond the signs and the current and historical contexts of signs (e.g. Blommaert, 2013; Pons Rodríguez, 2012). This included the relationship between linguistic landscapes and identities (Blackwood et al., 2016), a greater awareness of the significance of space (Malinowski, 2015) and how people create meaning to use and occupy linguistic landscapes (Peck et al., 2019). Yet another dimension of this greater context includes the communication networks within which signs are produced (Malinowski, 2009) and perceived (Fernández-Mallat, 2020a; Garvin, 2010; Krompák & Meyer, 2018). What was initially considered the data of linguistic landscape studies, namely static signage consisting largely of written text, had its corresponding methodology. An initial interest in language vitality and diversity was reflected in quantitative analysis in which visibility was quantified in terms of the number of languages and the frequency with which they appeared (Franco-Rodríguez, 2008; Lüdi, 2007). Given the specific objects and interest in them, still photographs of signs proved to be an appropriate way to gather data and quantitative analysis was considered as an adequate way to interpret it. However, as interest expanded to moving signs and sounds, additional techniques to capture data gained traction, such as audio and video (Jakonen, 2018; Lou, 2016). To address the greater range of questions and interests, diverse analytical tools from various disciplines have been used, such as content and discourse analysis and ethnography (Albury, 2018; Fernández-Mallat, 2020a, 2020b; Hornsby & Vigers, 2012). Yet a further development in this direction has been the emergence of mixed-methods studies (Van Mensel & Darquennes, 2012), which combine quantitative and qualitative data that mutually enrich each other. The field has become increasingly multi- and interdisciplinary (Marten et al., 2012), with growing recognition of the relevance of linguistic landscape for economics (Onofri et al., 2008), political science (Sloboda, 2009), tourism (Bruyèl-Olmedo & Juan-Garau, 2015; Kallen, 2009), language learning (Badstübner-Kizik & Janíková, 2018; Scarvaglieri & Salem, 2015) and education in general (Krompák, 2018). Of particular relevance to the present volume is the combining of sociolinguistics with education to investigate linguistic signs in educational spaces. This generated a new specialist area – the field of linguistic schoolscape studies. Initially, the linguistic schoolscape was defined in physical and social terms (Brown, 2005: 79) as the ‘physical and social setting in which teaching and learning take place. It is the vital, symbolic context in which the curriculum unfolds and specific ideas and messages are officially sanctioned and socially supported in the school’. In subsequent research, the

The Symbolic Value of Educationscapes  11

definition was extended to ‘the school-based environment where place and text, both written (graphic) and oral, constitute, reproduce, and transform language ideologies’ (Brown, 2012: 282). It thus now included the macro context in which schools are embedded and the different linguistic and symbolic means through which ideas and messages are (re)produced and/or (de)legitimised in schools. More recently, Szabó has highlighted the combination of ‘the visual and spatial organisation of educational spaces’ in the constituting linguistic schoolscapes, specifically emphasising inscriptions and images, and also extending it to ‘the arrangement of the furniture’ (Szabó, 2015: 24). A significant trend in linguistic schoolscape research is the investigation of language policy, with a focus on minority languages (Brown, 2005, 2012; Laihonen & Tódor, 2017; Szabó, 2015), language use (Fresnido Astillero, 2017), translanguaging (Straszer, 2017) and bilingual and immersion programmes (Dressler, 2015; Gorter & Cenoz, 2015; Pakarinen & Björklund, 2017). The impact that the change from a monolingual to a multilingual schoolscape had on language policy was investigated by Menken et al. (2018). Other studies that follow the spatial turn and investigate social space examine the representation of heteroglossic space in a bilingual Austrian school (Purkarthofer, 2016) and of transnational space in a heritage language and culture classroom in Sweden (Straszer et al., 2020a); or they compare the spatial structure of Chinese and Russian universities (Liu et al., 2019); or the learning space in two primary schools in Malta and Switzerland (Krompák et al., 2020). Some of the studies use significant discourse categories (Gorter & Cenoz, 2015; Scollon & Wong Scollon, 2003) to examine discourses in the schoolscape of a secondary school in Germany (Androutsopoulos & Kuhlee, 2021) or to analyse the social discourses in the messages and images on the bathroom stalls in a US university (Amevuvor & Hafer, 2019). Schoolscape can also include the social and communicative action within which these symbols operate, as in Jakonen’s (2018) inquiry into the bilingual classroom which investigated the orientation of the teachers and students in and to the surrounding material environment. Future trends include the investigation of virtual schoolscapes such as Keles et al.’s (2019) study of the representation of English and Turkish on the website of a Turkish university. Arguably, one of the most significant interests to emerge has been the use of linguistic landscapes as a pedagogical tool to teach and learn languages (Gorter & Cenoz, 2008), also in higher education (Chesnut et al., 2013; Hancock, 2012; Malinowski, 2015; inter alia) and to foster the language awareness of children (Dagenais et al., 2009) and students (Camilleri Grima, 2020; Scarvaglieri & Salem, 2015). The added value of linguistic landscape as a pedagogical tool has been widely discussed in recent publications (Krompák, 2018; Laihonen & Szabó, 2018; Malinowski et al., 2020; inter alia). In addition to its use as a pedagogical tool to learn and teach languages, attention has also broadened to other aspects of

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language, such as communicative competence, awareness of linguistic diversity and critical language awareness (for an overview, see Gorter, 2018). In a similar vein, Marten and Saagpakk’s (2017) collection discusses linguistic landscape as a pedagogical tool, focusing on the spotGerman-approach in which learners explore German in the linguistic landscape of a non-German-speaking space. Similarly, Badstübner-Kizik and Janíková’s (2018) edited volume includes linguistic landscape studies for language, cultural and literature pedagogy. More recently, linguistic landscape and language learning have expanded to the transformation of language curricula and learning spaces, critical social awareness and language students as researchers in the linguistic landscape (Malinowski et al., 2020). Moreover, explorations of spaces in which linguistic landscapes can be studied have been extended beyond classrooms to urban spaces such as museums, public health institutions and travel hubs (Niedt & Seals, 2020). As in the larger field of general linguistic landscape studies, methodologies in schoolscape studies have diversified in accordance with research questions. This is evident in the expansion of data collection through photography and ethnographic approaches (Brown, 2005, 2012) to a broader range of data capturing technologies, such as audio and video (Jakonen, 2018; Straszer et al., 2020a). While early linguistic landscape studies prioritised the perspective of the researcher, who collected and interpreted images on their own, participative approaches have been gaining significance. These include adopting methods established in other areas of linguistics such as interviews with teachers (Brown, 2005, 2012) and focus group discussions with students (Pakarinen & Björklund, 2017), as well as novel methods such as the tourist guide technique in which insiders such as principals take researchers on a guided tour of the schoolscape (Straszer et al., 2020b; Szabó, 2015). The next section outlines the knowledge that emerges from further diversifying and specialising the areas of research discussed above. It surveys the most recent inquiries – brought together in this book – into the multidirectional relationships between linguistic and semiotic landscapes on one hand and educational spaces on the other. Current Directions in Linguistic and Semiotic Educationscapes

The survey of the current knowledge brought together in this volume presents two angles (Part 1 and 2) on the relationships between linguistic and semiotic landscapes and educational spaces. Below we limit ourselves to a descriptive overview of these studies, focusing on topic, question, method and main findings; for a synthesising interpretation of these studies and how they relate to their concept of multilingual inequality in public spaces, see the concluding chapter by Gorter and Cenoz.

The Symbolic Value of Educationscapes  13

Part 1: Assessing the Linguistic and Semiotic Landscapes of Educational Spaces

This section intentionally begins on the fringes of formal school, namely, a learning club for young refugees in Vienna, Austria. It thereby stages two central aspects of our argument in this volume: firstly, it illustrates the value of considering the linguistic and semiotic landscape of educational spaces beyond school; and secondly, it is a reminder of the relevance of social phenomena such as migration to both education and the sociolinguistic tradition in linguistic landscape research. Accordingly, in Chapter 2, Lehner examines the linguistic landscape of a learning club in Vienna for refugees of high school age. Against the backdrop of trauma pedagogy, she shows the meaning and function of this educational space from the perspective of the multilingual teenagers and staff. For this longitudinal linguistic ethnography, Lehner collected about 320 photographs and conducted a one-day photo workshop with 12 teenagers and two adult staff members, with the aim of including the perspective of the agents in readings of the schoolscape. Her analyses shed light on the frontstage (mostly visible) and backstage (mostly invisible) practices of the learning club. Owing to this dynamic, the teenagers perceive the club as a safe place that offers them not merely learning but also relevant social networking possibilities. In Chapter 3, drawing on Bronfenbrenner’s (2005) bioecological systems theory, Harris, Cunningham, King and Stirling investigate the role of the linguistic and semiotic landscapes in an immersion early childhood centre (ECC) in New Zealand in the revitalisation of Māori in that country. Applying ethnographic approaches, the authors conducted semistructured interviews with staff members and parents to determine the role the linguistic landscape of the centre played for children, educators and families in their language revitalisation practices. Visual data for the study included digital photos and short videos of the ECC, as well as screenshots of online digital environments. The data show the significance of the ECC as a safe space where both children and their caregivers are encouraged as language learners. This study illustrates the importance of the connections between the centre and the home for revitalising Māori. And it shows that the contribution of analogue and digital linguistic and semiotic landscapes is forging these connections. In Chapter 4, Bagna and Bellinzona present a multisite study of the everyday life of schools in Italy, where Italian, the official language, coexists with local dialects, migrant languages and subject languages. Their mixed-method study draws on both quantitative and qualitative data to examine the (in)visibility of the students’ linguistic diversity in the linguistic schoolscape of 12 secondary schools in various parts of the country. Their extensive data set includes 605 answers to a questionnaire collected in a total of 37 classes in 11 of the 12 schools visited, photographs of 1981

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visual signs and 17 interviews conducted with the principals and/or intercultural managers of the schools. Although the authors observed more than 40 different languages in the schoolscape, Italian clearly dominated. Accordingly, the authors argue, the mere occurrence of these languages does not do justice to the depth and scope of the multilingual nature of the student body. Indeed, the authors’ main conclusion is that Italy’s local dialects and migrant languages are underrepresented in the schoolscape of the investigated secondary schools. Nevertheless, the qualitative analysis sheds light on the fact that the school-based language micro-policies offer a different perspective on the neoplurilingualism of the Italian schoolscape, one in which the presence of languages other than Italian, even if marginal, is not to be underestimated. In Chapter 5, Fanglei Huang scrutinises the interrelationship between mental well-being and discourse in the neoliberal institutional and social context of the University of Hong Kong. Drawing on critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 1992, 1995) and the affordance-based approach to multimodality (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 1996; Machin, 2016), he offers a close reading of an English-language poster campaign by the University’s counselling services, which he reinforces with interviews with three senior staff members and four students. He shows how the University’s neoliberal agenda – which shifts accountability for students’ psychological health onto the students themselves – is manifested in the linguistic and semiotic space of higher education. He also gives certain initial insights into some students’ responses to this. In Chapter 6, Straszer and Kroik examine the revitalisation of an indigenous language, Saami, in a preschool in northern Sweden, and the creation of Saami educational spaces in this context. The authors provide a multifaceted picture of the distribution of languages and symbols across different spaces within one school by complementing material ethnography and quantitative analysis with interviews with two teachers and the Saami coordinator for the region. Their results show that, in addition to Swedish, the most frequently used languages in the schoolscape are South Saami (the local Saami language), Lule Saami (the Saami language spoken in the Saepmie region), English, Norwegian and Finnish. Further analyses show that the use of Saami is primarily symbolic and that its distribution is limited to certain areas in the school. The authors conclude that, while the symbolic use of South Saami allows children to develop their cultural identity, it does not reflect an ongoing process of language revitalisation. Part 1 of the book concludes with a return to one of the most conventional schoolscape settings – the classroom – and, within that, the iconic but often overlooked space of the blackboard. In Chapter 7, Krompák investigates the linguistic and semiotic landscape embedded in social practices in a Swiss primary school; specifically, the display, materiality and function of the blackboard with its more or less ephemeral inscriptions. Drawing on Lefebvre’s (1991) theory of social space and the concept of

The Symbolic Value of Educationscapes  15

heterotopia (Foucault, 1997), Krompák focuses on social practices and the role of the blackboard in conceived, perceived and lived spaces. She combines analyses of visual data comprising more than 400 images with participatory methods that give voice to the children and the teachers, such as audio-recorded photo-elicitation interviews with learners in the second, fifth and sixth grades and their teachers. This leads her to conclude that the blackboard is a heterotopia (Foucault, 1997), that is, a space within a space, with defined and ritualised functions. Finally, the author notes that the schoolscape represents the classroom community with its own practices and rules. Part 2: Linguistic Landscape as a Pedagogical Resource

Emergent research on the use of linguistic landscapes for teaching purposes focuses on aspects of language learning in primary and secondary school. The contributions in Part 2 include, but also go beyond, educational institutions. They include the use of linguistic and semiotic landscapes to teach language. And they go even further, exploring how linguistic and semiotic landscapes are used as pedagogical tools in instilling values such as democracy and social justice, appreciation of diversity, critical awareness of multiculturalism, as well as behaviours such as linguistic integration. Combined, they offer the beginnings of a methodology for linguistic and semiotic landscape instruction. By the same token, they alert us to the involvement of the pedagogy of linguistic and semiotic landscapes in the dialectic of education as both emancipation and domination. Echoing Part 1, Part 2 begins with what may initially seem marginal to the current inquiry, but on closer inspection reminds us of two of the central points undergirding this volume: it firstly transports us to institutions beyond the school where linguistic and semiotic landscapes are mobilised for instructional purposes; it secondly squarely locates such pedagogical use of the linguistic landscape in the larger social context of the management of the social superdiversity associated with migration. In Chapter 8, Vandenbroucke explores the way in which Belgian authorities use a language integration campaign called Nederlands oefenen, ik doe mee! ‘Practising Dutch, I’m in!’ to construct and police adult migrants as learners of Dutch. Using a mixed-methods approach (analysis of posters and flyers pertaining to this language campaign, and previous analyses of gatekeeping encounters between migrants and public servants in institutional settings where these posters and flyers were displayed), she examines the use of linguistic landscapes in educational interventions beyond school. The mobilisation of the linguistic and semiotic landscapes for educational purposes, she argues, is not limited to schools in a narrow sense; rather, it extends to other spaces of state institutions such as police departments, courthouses, health centres and offices of vital

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records. She also shows that the extension is not only physical but also ideological, in the sense that these spaces aimed at integration are sites that reproduce ideologies believed to be limited to more traditional educational spaces such as schools. In Chapter 9, Sullivan, Waldmann and Wiklund present a linguistic landscape intervention in a lower primary school in Sweden, a country in which Swedish and its speakers share the linguistic and sociopolitical space with other national languages and their speakers such as the Sámi. Their action research takes an opposite direction of inquiry to that in the chapters from Sweden and New Zealand in Part I, in that it examines teachers’ use of an activity related to the multilingual linguistic landscape to foster the learning of the concept of democracy and its application to real-life situations. Sullivan et al.’s results are inconclusive regarding the extent to which the activity developed students’ sense of democratic values and understanding of Sweden’s language-based power relations, perhaps because these participants were only aged 12. Nevertheless, their analysis shows that the proposed activity did ignite the students’ interest to the extent that they discussed their views with their classmates and improved their comprehension of Sweden’s multilingualism and its social implications. The authors conclude that their linguistic landscape activity could constitute a starting point for a more comprehensive learning of democracy at later ages. In Chapter 10, De Wilde, Verhoene, Tondeur and Van Praet report on a linguistic landscape project conducted with 56 master’s students at the University of Ghent. Based on the theory of outdoor learning (Priest, 1986), the authors designed a linguistic landscape project that aimed to familiarise students with the linguistic landscape and the methods to study it in order to raise students’ linguistic awareness and to foster their autonomy. During their fieldwork, the students collected photographs and conducted interviews in order to explore the perspectives of the users of the space. Afterwards, the students discussed the results of their fieldwork in a video presentation. Applying quantitative and qualitative methods, the authors sought to determine how much the linguistic landscape project fostered outdoor education, how much the students learnt and how satisfied they were with the project. The evaluation of the rich data, consisting of preand post-fieldwork assignment surveys, focus group discussions, Twitter messages and recordings of three students wearing digital video glasses, showed the high satisfaction of the students with the outdoor activity. Further achievements of the project include an improvement in students’ critical and multimodal literacy skills and the development of their pragmatic competence. The authors also discuss the challenges of this type of student research, such as the difficulty in supporting students with qualitative research and the use of technology for pedagogical purposes. In Chapter 11, Burr examines the presentation of the linguistic landscape in language learning textbooks, makes suggestions for such

The Symbolic Value of Educationscapes  17

presentations and proposes tasks to be included in a textbook that uses the linguistic landscape to facilitate language learning. Drawing on notions of edusemiotics (Semetsky, 2010, 2017) and multiliteracy, the author conducts a content analysis of 58 textbooks used to teach Latvian published between 1991 and 2018. Her findings highlight the mainly illustrative function of the presentations of the linguistic landscape and the absence of authentic examples that include local languages such as Latgalian, Russian and Livonian. The author offers a series of recommendations to meaningfully incorporate authentic linguistic landscape signs in teaching materials, which she illustrates with examples from her Latvian textbook A Guide for Exploring City Text. By doing so, she offers new perspectives on the investigation of the linguistic landscape as a pedagogical tool. Part 2 of the book closes with an instance of action research on the use of linguistic landscape to develop and enhance awareness of cultural diversity and understanding of the notion of authenticity. In Chapter 12, Li offers a longitudinal examination of the evolution of this awareness and understanding among US-based college students taking a Chinese language and culture course. Drawing on Lefebvre’s (1991) well-known spatial triad, Li guides her students through perceived, conceived and lived readings of the linguistic and semiotic landscape of Atlanta’s Chinatown. Her results show the change in the students’ views on cultural diversity and authenticity, as they are encouraged to read this landscape critically from relatively narrow and static to sophisticated, nuanced and dynamic. This is thus further proof of how studying linguistic and semiotic landscapes can promote the examination and understanding of cultural diversity (which is inherent to bi- and multilingual spaces), and how action-oriented research can positively contribute to more equitable and culturally inclusive environments, both at the institution level (e.g. a college) and at the community level (e.g. the society in general). The book concludes with Gorter and Cenoz’s synthesising chapter, which focuses on advances in theory and research methods that emerge from the empirical chapters in this volume. At the theoretical level, these authors note that by simultaneously including and moving beyond the typical school context, the contributions to this volume expand our understanding of the concept of schoolscape. As noted above, we include schoolscape under the notion of educationscape, which we defined as the mutually constitutive material and social spaces in which linguistic and symbolic resources are mobilised for educational purposes, regardless of whether this occurs within the walls of a prototypical educational institution (e.g. an elementary school) or not. By doing so, Gorter and Cenoz note, the chapters included in this volume contribute to reducing the distance between educational studies and linguistic landscape studies, whose origins are strongly embedded in the fields of sociolinguistics and applied linguistics.

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At the methodological level, these authors point out, the field’s conceptual expansion is facilitated by the fact that the chapters that constitute this book complemented their analyses of still photographs – a common endeavour in this strand of research – with a number of methodological tools from other disciplines, including interviews, field notes, participatory video-recording and the like. As Gorter and Cenoz note, by incorporating these tools, the authors who contribute to this volume enhance readings of the linguistic educationscape by, for example, making visible different views on the same signs and even raising awareness of the fact that the interpretations of one linguistic landscape may change through the subjective perspective of different researchers. In any case, what stands out in Gorter and Cenoz’s afterword is that, based on the contributions of the chapters herein to the theoretical and methodological advancement of the field of linguistic landscapes in general, and educationscapes in particular, they offer a model for an integrative description of the writing and signs that surround us: the model of multilingual inequality in public spaces. While a full account of this model is beyond the scope of our introduction, it is worth mentioning that it allows for an analysis of our linguistic landscape through the lens of an iterative cycle of elements that mediate between the way in which signs are made (language policy determination, actual sign-making process, etc.) and the manner in which this influences the experiences, even the behaviour, of the individuals who interact with these signs. Gorter and Cenoz close their contribution by pointing out that the study of digital screens as they are used in educational contexts is a welcome avenue for further investigation. This is because they provide the opportunity to tie together offline and online linguistic landscapes. At this point, and given the relevance that the ‘online’ gained during the Covid-19 pandemic, especially in education, one can only hope that such studies are being carried out. Closing Remarks

This chapter set out to introduce and examine the educational turn in linguistic and semiotic landscape studies. More specifically, it has shown how emerging research expands what we know about the range of interconnections between linguistic and semiotic landscapes, educational spaces and practices, as well as the implications of these interconnections for more than just multilingualisms. We also argued that various alignments of the linguistic, material, visual and spatial paradigms have shaped what we consider to be the linguistic and semiotic landscape, thereby raising the question of how linguistic and semiotic landscape studies might look if some of these overlooked aspects, such as spoken language and also time, received greater attention. We noted that while the term linguistic landscape alludes to all aspects of language, linguistic landscape studies tend to

The Symbolic Value of Educationscapes  19

prioritise written over spoken language, which may contribute to truncating our understanding of the written linguistic landscape. By highlighting the relevance of oral practices in mediating the relationships between visual signs and educational spaces, some of the studies in this volume (Harris et al., Vandenbroucke, Krompák) suggest avenues for future inquiry into the interconnections between oral and written language and other signs in space that are likely to enhance our understanding of linguistic and semiotic landscapes. We further noted that the spatial turn has arguably drawn attention away from the significance of time to the linguistic and semiotic landscapes. Some of the studies in this volume indicate the relevance of time, be it in changes in the linguistic and semiotic landscapes themselves or changes in actors’ interpretations of the linguistic and semiotic landscapes (Li). Further investigation into the significance of time for linguistic and semiotic landscapes could advance our insights into fluctuations in multilingual (in)equality, people’s attitudes to this and the development of multilingual and transcultural competences. Focusing on one institution, namely education in its broader sense, the studies in this volume seek to build on existing understandings of the significance of institutions for linguistic and semiotic landscapes. In-depth studies that cover other institutions in their broad scope will shed light on how each of these institutions impact on and are in turn affected by their specific linguistic and semiotic landscapes. Moreover, an integrative perspective on studies of various institutions will enhance our understanding of the relevance of institutions in general to the linguistic and semiotic landscapes with which we interact through our practices (Lehner, Vandenbroucke). Overall, the current volume contributes to the recent educational turn in linguistic landscape studies by raising questions on the intersection of education and sociolinguistics. Accordingly, some of the studies in this volume focus on the revitalisation of indigenous languages (Straszer & Kroik; Harris et al.), on linguistic diversity in the classroom in particular and in society more broadly (Bagna & Bellinzona), and on the way in which neoliberal ideologies are manifested in the educationscape (Fanglei Huang). By operationalising the linguistic landscape as a pedagogical resource, the learners are actively engaged with the exploration of the urban space (Sullivan et al.; De Wilde et al.) or with the authentic representation of this space in teaching materials (Burr in this volume). Additionally, the educational turn in linguistic landscape studies not only contributes to a responsive pedagogy but also raises awareness of the implicit and explicit visible educational ‘messages’ in different social spaces. An exhaustive, representative or nuanced inquiry into various multilingualisms in linguistic and semiotic educationscapes requires coverage of territories and languages exceeding the modest scope of this volume. With contributions on diverse languages (e.g. Chinese, Dutch, English,

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Flemish, German, Italian, Latvian, Māori, Sámi/Saami and Swedish) and territories (e.g. Hong Kong in Asia; the United States of America in North America; Austria, Belgium, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland in Europe; and New Zealand in Zealandia), this volume merely suggests avenues of inquiry into such an undertaking.1 As the list of languages and regions in this volume shows, there is an especially pressing need for research on languages and parts of the world beyond the Global North and with fewer material resources. Conceptualised and completed before the pandemic, the studies in this volume are silent on what many are presently experiencing as a watershed moment that is reshaping, amongst other things, the relationships among languages, signs, spaces and practices. As we morph out of digitally saturated communication, carrying with us an acute awareness of distance, proximity and isolation, and having witnessed educational trajectories compromised by disease, it awaits to be seen to what extent the contributions to this volume will be a historical repository of unfulfilled promises or a prelude to a new order of inequality. To what extent will linguistic and semiotic educationscapes expand even deeper into the digital? To what extent will digital formats shorten or widen the distances between private homescapes and educational spaces? And what will be the consequences for multilingual linguistic and semiotic educationscapes? These seem to be some of the most pressing questions the field is currently facing. Note (1) A study on Arabic in two Khartoum schoolscapes was impeded by the civil war.

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2 Linguistic Landscapes and Constructions of Space in a Learning Club for Young Refugees in Vienna Sabine Lehner

Introduction

Recently, the number of displaced people has risen to 79.5 million worldwide, 40% of whom are underage (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 2020). For various reasons, millions of displaced minors are excluded from having the same educational opportunities as their non-refugee peers (UNHCR, 2019: 11). In their ‘host countries’, newcomers face various challenges due to their interrupted or irregular educational paths (Atanasoska & Proyer, 2018), insecure (legal) status and poor living and learning conditions (Stewart & Martin, 2018). Given these challenges and inequalities, organisations such as the UNHCR call for additional support and better inclusion of displaced children and adolescents. The Austrian education system, for instance, has taken in many new pupils since the increase in displaced people in 2015 and 2016. Apart from the aforementioned challenges, newcomers also need to acquire the language of instruction (German) and the additional languages taught in the Austrian curriculum, such as English, French and Latin. However, the Austrian school system fails to provide sufficient systematic support. This chapter1 investigates a Vienna-based learning club that seeks to address this problem. The ‘UniClub’2 offers, inter alia, a place to learn, computer access and tuition-free tutoring by student teachers for pupils with migration and refugee backgrounds. During my participatory observation, I noticed the varied and constantly changing linguistic landscape (LL) in the UniClub. This contribution explores the LL of the UniClub and pupils’ constructions of the learning club against the backdrop of the many challenges young refugees face.

31

32  Part 1: Assessing the Linguistic and Semiotic Landscapes of Educational Spaces

The research questions are as follows: (1) What does the LL imply about the UniClub as an educational space dedicated to offering learning assistance to young refugees? (2) What does this place mean for the pupils? What functions does this learning space have for the pupils and what kind of needs are served? First, this contribution sketches the theoretical background of linguistically informed theories of space, educational spaces and LL, with an additional focus on the topic of displacement and migration. 3 The next section presents the data collection process and analysis methods. Following the description of the context of the UniClub, the chapter presents the results of the analysis of the LL and the pupils’ perspectives. In a next step, I will explore possible interconnections between the two strands of analysis. Along with a final discussion of the main findings, the chapter concludes with a critical reflection on certain methodological aspects. Theoretical Background and Concepts: Space, Linguistic Landscapes and Displacement in Educational Contexts

Following scholars of spatial theory such as Lefebvre (2006 [1991]), Löw (2001) and Massey (2006), I define space as socially produced, contested, multiple, relational and dynamic. Highlighting the social dimension of the production of space directs attention towards the actors involved in this process. Furthermore, it sheds light on how space is governed and how it produces inclusion and exclusion (Busch, 2013: 127–156; Lefebvre, 2006 [1991]: 26). Since the possibilities of participating and appropriating space are distributed unevenly among actors and the use of space varies, there may be multiple, divergent or even contradicting views on the same space (Massey, 2006: 90). Moreover, Lefebvre’s holistic understanding of space, as constituted by physical, mental and social dimensions (Lefebvre, 2006 [1991]: 11), combines various qualities of space (e.g. abstract and material), thereby offering myriad entry points for the ethnographic and linguistic investigation of the construction of space, studied via (linguistic) practices, discourses, material artefacts and the like (see Krompák and Gortner & Cenoz in this volume). Linguistic approaches to space often take up these assumptions and focus on the linguistic dimension of space production (Busch, 2013; Jaworski & Thurlow, 2010; Vigouroux, 2009). In this view, space and linguistic practices constitute each other: ‘language display (e.g. the choice of a language variety over another in the case of multilingual repertoires) shows how people construct their space, while in turn, the latter also defines the display itself’ (Vigouroux, 2009: 62). Scholars in the field of LL and schoolscapes take the visibility and use of different languages in public or semi-public spaces to be indicative of the sociolinguistic situation (Gorter, 2018; Jaworski & Thurlow, 2010; see

Linguistic Landscapes and Constructions of Space in a Learning Club for Young Refugees  33

Krompák, Fernández-Mallat & Meyer in this volume for an overview of similar terms). Szabó defines schoolscapes ‘as a reference to the visual and spatial organisation of educational spaces, with special emphasis on inscriptions, images and the arrangement of the furniture’ (Szabó, 2015: 24). In this chapter, the focus is on linguistic signs as parts of the LL. Linguistic artefacts (i.e. elements of a given LL) are anchored and received locally, but always also refer to bigger structures or macro-categories, such as discourses and (language) ideologies (Kerschhofer-Puhalo, 2018; Pennycook, 2010; Szabó, 2015: 24; Vigouroux, 2009). Given their local and individual reception, the meaning of signs is not fixed but emerges in interaction and is, as a result, highly contextual and user-dependent. These assumptions have concrete implications for the analysis since the investigation of these signs can only explore potential meanings (Blommaert, 2013; KerschhoferPuhalo, 2018). Research in the field of displacement/migration and education highlights the special needs of pupils with refugee backgrounds, given that they have often suffered trauma or other stressful experiences (Stewart & Martin, 2018; UNHCR, 2018). According to the UNHCR’s guidelines and other current recommendations by scholars (as proposed by trauma pedagogy), schools are advised to be constructed as safe spaces and to support the development of resilience (UNHCR, 2018: 32–38). Apart from potential trauma, children and adolescents with refugee and migrant backgrounds face other challenges in the ‘host country’ that constitute their learning conditions; these include insecure legal status (pending asylum procedures or having only subsidiary protection), poor housing conditions, missing family members, struggling with the language of instruction and navigating a new education system and society (Stewart & Martin, 2018; UNHCR, 2018). Moreover, people with an actual or ascribed migration/refugee background might face a hostile environment. This is reflected in the negative representation of refugees, asylum seekers, ‘migrants’ and Muslims in public discourses (Lehner & Rheindorf, 2019) and is manifest in the rise of reported anti-Muslim and racist incidents (ZARA, 2021), as well as increasingly restrictive ‘integration’, immigration and asylum laws in Austria. Research has shown that, in Austria, educational success generally depends on parents’ socioeconomic and linguistic background and (in) directly discriminates against pupils with a diverse linguistic background (Atanasoska & Proyer, 2018; De Cillia & Wodak, 2006: 55; Schrodt, 2014). Although many pupils in Austria speak languages other than German at home, comprehensive approaches to tackling their educational needs are inadequate. Equally, no comprehensive, long-term state-­ organised inclusive support measures have been instituted to successfully integrate newcomers whose language repertoires do not fit into the monolingual German-speaking education system. The situation for adolescents

34  Part 1: Assessing the Linguistic and Semiotic Landscapes of Educational Spaces

(with a refugee background) older than the age of 15 is especially difficult; since education after this age is not compulsory, they frequently drop out of the formal school system (Atanasoska & Proyer, 2018), thus demonstrating unequal access to education. These shortcomings became even more visible in 2015 and 2016 when a high number of displaced people arrived in Austria and many new pupils entered the national education system. Methods and Data

The study is part of a linguistic ethnography (Copland & Creese, 2015) of the UniClub that ran from October 2017 until the autumn of 2019. The study combined various methods, including discourse analysis, participant observation, linguistic landscaping, participatory photo interviews and qualitative interviews. The participant observation was facilitated by my role as a ‘buddy’ (see next section), which allowed me to interact with various actors in the field and to investigate prevailing spatial and linguistic practices. To study the LL of the UniClub, I collected photographs of this educational space that I complemented with field notes. The images were annotated in MAXQDA 2018, a software program facilitating the categorisation and analysis of data (VERBI Software, 2018). For analytical purposes, I adopted a narrow definition of LL and included every language-related sign visible on the UniClub premises. I initially included all photos taken during my fieldwork over the course of 1.5 years (more than 320 pictures). Then, the corpus was downsized by eliminating redundant pictures4 and elements such as books that were difficult to analyse owing to picture quality. 5 Since many pictures contain more than one artefact, the selected pictures (107) were subdivided into smaller units of analysis (458 segments). In a further step, these segments were coded, based on predefined and inductively developed categories (e.g. Pakarinen & Björklund, 2018: 7; Purkarthofer, 2016: 131–139).6 It should be emphasised, however, that such categorisations and separations of inscriptions were made for analytical purposes and do not correspond to their actual multimodal composition. Again, given the subjective reception of spaces, any analysis can only be momentary and partial, providing potential meanings (Kerschhofer-Puhalo, 2018: 170; Löw, 2001: 223). Whatever the case may be, the following categories were analysed: • • • • • •

materiality communicative function/s language/s topic/s producer/s and addressee/s.

Linguistic Landscapes and Constructions of Space in a Learning Club for Young Refugees  35

Generally, the UniClub’s LL changes every week: New items are added, old ones are removed and some items are moved around or disappear temporarily. In some cases, copies of the same item are posted in different places at the same time; in such cases, every item was counted separately in the analysis. Accordingly, the quantitative analysis of the data serves merely to identify general tendencies. To elicit the adolescents’ perspectives on the institution, I conducted a one-day photo workshop in February 2018 with 12 pupils (six female and six male pupils, aged between 15 and 19, with various linguistic and social backgrounds) and two staff members of the UniClub. This included adolescents taking photos and participating in a group discussion (28 minutes, in German), which was recorded and transcribed. Photo elicitation methods provide valuable insight into the life world of participants (Kolb, 2008; Stöckl, 2015) and allow for a synthesis of purposes: Participants creatively explore spaces and produce data. After a theoretical introduction to various aspects of photography, the adolescents were invited to form (five) small groups, explore the UniClub together and try out different devices and cameras that I made available. They were asked to take pictures of places in the UniClub that were important to them, upload the five most important pictures (per group) and complete a worksheet explaining the meaning of each. In another step, they split up into two groups and received the same set of 25 pictures. The task was to categorise the pictures and present the results to the other workshop participants. Since the group discussion – as will be discussed later – did not offer enough space for detailed elaborations on the meaning of the UniClub, results of two in-depth interviews with pupils of the UniClub were included. The first interview with Sadaf (18 years old) was conducted on 8 February 2019 and lasted one hour. The second interview with Nara (19 years old) was held on 27 March 2019 and lasted one and a half hours. Both interviews were conducted in German. In the content analysis of the transcripts of the interviews and the group discussion, I focused on segments in which the participants talked about the meaning of the UniClub, as well as their spatial practices and needs related to the UniClub. Context of the Institution Institutional context

The UniClub forms a part of the Children’s Office of the University of Vienna, which offers a broad range of educational programmes for children and adolescents. The UniClub was founded in 2015 as a response to the rising number of newly arrived children and adolescents entering the Austrian education system from the then war-driven and unstable conditions in countries such as Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

36  Part 1: Assessing the Linguistic and Semiotic Landscapes of Educational Spaces

Agents

The agents who co-construct the UniClub as a learning space include pupils, student teachers, volunteers and permanent team members. The pupils all have migration and refugee backgrounds and are aged between 13 and 19. They have various social and linguistic backgrounds, attend different schools and come to the UniClub with varying degrees of regularity. Some are classmates, others either became friends in the UniClub or still do not know each other very well. Many of them have been a part of the UniClub for years, but some have only recently joined. The staff members are constant mentors and offer help with questions and problems in various matters. They are trained to be sensitive to the potentially challenging situations for adolescents with refugee and migrant backgrounds and offer – among other support measures – ­psychological support and educational counselling. In addition to the staff members, buddies participate in the UniClub and assist pupils in various school-related tasks (see below). Among the group of buddies, there are student teachers who usually participate in the UniClub once a week as part of a seminar that they attend for their teacher training. At the beginning of each semester, students who need to take this seminar can choose among various educational institutions to gain work experience. As such, the UniClub is a learning space for both the pupils and the student teachers. After the completion of the obligatory number of hours, some buddies continue to volunteer at the UniClub. In addition to the student teachers, there are other volunteers (including me) who participate as buddies (but do not attend any course). Buddies are encouraged to reflect on their experiences after every session in a group reflection as well as in the seminars (for student teachers). Furthermore, buddies are regularly informed about additional content-specific education programmes on topics such as trauma, pedagogical tools, language training and asylum law. On average, 35 to 40 adolescents and 10 to 15 buddies attend the UniClub each session. Activities and goals

As mentioned before, the UniClub provides, inter alia, a place to learn, free access to computers and free tutoring. Pupils are assisted in all kinds of subjects and tasks, such as preparing presentations, revising for exams, writing essays and learning vocabulary. Furthermore, some adolescents turn to buddies or team members regarding personal problems or educational counselling. Officially, the UniClub is open twice a week, but it is also accessible for one-to-one-lessons between pupils and their learning buddies outside of opening hours. Apart from the tutoring, a rich social programme is provided with excursions and workshops on various topics. On its website, the UniClub

Linguistic Landscapes and Constructions of Space in a Learning Club for Young Refugees  37

presents itself to potential members as a place to learn and improve one’s German. However, depending on the target audience, there are differing conceptualisations of the UniClub found on the website (Kinderbüro Universität Wien, s.a.): The migration and refugee background of the adolescents is mentioned in the description of potential supporters or new buddies but is absent in the description of the adolescents. As we shall see later, this differential framing is characteristic of the UniClub. Spaces

The UniClub is situated in a residential building in a densely populated district near the city centre. It offers five rooms of different sizes as well as furniture (in two adjacent flats) for learning (and other) purposes: Four rooms are equipped with tables and chairs; one serves as a break room and is also used by some adolescents as a place to learn. Three rooms also have sofas. Two of the biggest rooms provide PC workstations that are all connected to a printer. Each room provides a unique learning environment according to their location and the equipment available (e.g. books, learning materials, PC workstations).7 Findings

The next sections present the findings regarding the analysis of the LL and the pupils’ perspectives on the UniClub. Linguistic landscapes (as documented during ethnographic research)

As mentioned, the results of the following categories will be presented: materiality, communicative function/s, language/s, topic/s, producer/s and addressee/s of the signs. Materiality

The most frequent materials are leaflets or sheets (see Figure 2.1 and Table 2.1), followed by cards (see Figure 2.1), posters and flyers. While some elements are more lasting items of the LL inventory (e.g. portraits), which are reused and reorganised, others are more temporary and not fixed (e.g. flyers). Figure 2.1 is a picture of the pinboard that contains all the portraits of present staff members and buddies, as well as leaflets. It is used as an organisational tool to visually present people and the subjects they can help with. At the beginning of each session, each buddy and staff member pin their individual(ised) card on the pinboard. So, the pinboard changes its appearance every session. This finding corresponds to the overall observation that the LL of the UniClub consists – with a few

38  Part 1: Assessing the Linguistic and Semiotic Landscapes of Educational Spaces

Table 2.1  Materiality Material

Number

Percentage8

Leaflet

191

41.7

Card

117

25.55

Poster

60

13.1

Flyer

34

7.42

Flipchart

18

3.93

Brochure

13

2.84

Other

25

Total

458

5.46 100

exceptions such as books – of non-permanent items, further pointing to the dynamics of spaces (Löw, 2001). In its function to coordinate/facilitate the participation and use of the space by bringing together buddies and pupils for educational purposes, the use of the LL reaffirms the abovecited conceptualisation of schoolscapes ‘as a reference to the visual and spatial organisation of educational spaces’ (Szabó, 2015: 24).

Figure 2.1  Pinboard with the portraits of the present team members (buddies and staff) and leaflets (names and pictures were pixelated, except for my portrait) in the back flat. The picture was taken on 29 January 2019 by Sabine Lehner

Linguistic Landscapes and Constructions of Space in a Learning Club for Young Refugees  39

Communicative function

The posted signs have miscellaneous topics and perform various communicative functions (such as informing or inviting). According to Jakobson (1960: 353–358), communication generally performs six functions simultaneously: referential, conative/appellative, phatic, expressive/emotive, poetic and metalingual. However, at least one function is usually more salient than the others (Jakobson, 1960: 353). Applying Jakobson’s model, the foregrounded communicative function/s were identified9 (see Table 2.2). Overall, the majority of artefacts are referential and can be broadly categorised as offering some kind of information (e.g. on future or past workshops, trips). In these kinds of messages, appellative functions are also often realised, addressing the reader more or less explicitly, such as in the announcement of an English group: ‘English group. Every Thursday … Practice your English with us!’ Usually, the two functions occur together: Adolescents are informed about a programme and are (explicitly) invited to participate. The phatic function of the signs (serving a social, bonding purpose, establishing interaction) is exemplified in phrases such as ‘Welcome to the Austrian school’ or ‘Happy Holidays’. A few signs (11) such as motivational sayings fulfil a predominantly poetic function. The metalingual function (in a narrow understanding) of the signs is never foregrounded in the corpus, which might be due to the absence of a co-presence of the producer and addressee in written communication of this kind. Interestingly, there is not a single prohibition or rule expressed in the LL of the UniClub (as they often occur in public spaces (Blommaert, 2013: 39) and schools (Gorter & Cenoz, 2015), which corresponds with the UniClub’s stance not to set any explicit rules.10 Offering information and inviting pupils to participate in various educational or leisure activities exemplifies the production of the UniClub as an inclusive space. Languages

German is by far the most visible language in the UniClub’s LL (85.59%), followed by English (10.92%) and French (2.18%, see Table 2.3). Table 2.2  Communicative function Communicative function

Number

Percentage

Referential

425

92.79

Appellative/conative

204

44.54

Phatic

42

9.17

Expressive/emotive

36

7.86

Poetic

11

2.40

Metalingual Total

0 718

0 /

40  Part 1: Assessing the Linguistic and Semiotic Landscapes of Educational Spaces

Table 2.3  Languages Languages

Number

Percentage

German

392

85.59

English

50

10.92

French

10

2.18 1.53

Arabic

7

Arabic/Farsi (indeterminable)

6

1.31

Farsi/Dari

3

0.66

1

0.22

Turkish Total

469

/

Apart from these languages (which represent school subjects), there are only a few inscriptions in Arabic or Farsi/Dari, two of the most frequently spoken languages among the adolescents. This dominance of German seems to be at odds with the adolescents’ multilingual repertoires that are audible in the UniClub’s soundscape. German proves to be the established lingua franca between the various actors. Interestingly, English is explicitly topicalised as a learning subject, whereas learning German never appears as a topic (although there is a vast number of German as a second language textbooks). This situation can be better understood by referring to the history of the UniClub: Because it was founded as an immediate reaction to offer support and a learning space for newly arrived pupils, German as the language of instruction in schools was then of immediate importance. In the meantime, the acquisition of German has become less of an immediate need, although some pupils still mention that they struggle with German. The need to acquire English and, more recently, other languages taught in the Austrian curriculum (e.g. French, Italian, Spanish and Latin) is considered more current. Furthermore, the head of the UniClub told me in an interview that there has been a deliberate decision by the staff not to include more languages in the LL (and the library in particular) in order not to accidentally exclude speakers of non-­represented languages (15 June 2018, 58:00; 2:28:30).11 This illustrates the UniClub’s complex historicity of linguistic power relations that comply with the ­language regime of the school system, clearly favouring German over the pupils’ languages. Accordingly, the UniClub’s LL proves to be indicative of the broader sociolinguistic situation in the educational field (see Gorter, 2018; Jaworski & Thurlow, 2010). Topics

We find a broad range of topics represented in the UniClub’s LL (see Table 2.4). Most frequently, the signs (partly or entirely) concern the UniClub (69%), for example, they show its opening hours or workshops.

Linguistic Landscapes and Constructions of Space in a Learning Club for Young Refugees  41

Table 2.4  Topics Topic

Number

Percentage

UniClub

316

69

Trips, workshops and activities

132

28.82

Other topics

102

22.27

Education and training

56

12.23

Language learning

42

9.17

Migration/displacement

18

3.93

4

0.87

Languages Total

670

/

The topic of education is comparatively less represented in the LL, as in education and training (12.23%) and language learning (9.17%). Interestingly, there are few instances of displacement (i.e. issues concerning migration, ‘integration’, asylum, etc.) in the LL of the UniClub (18 times or 3.93%). This observation further corresponds to the everyday life in the UniClub, where this topic is rarely addressed. However, the buddies (and staff) are trained for and sensitised to these matters (e.g. of re-traumatisation) and are able to (re)act accordingly. The head of the UniClub chooses the content carefully and also modifies the linguistic form of messages to create understandable texts. Therefore, the context of displacement and migration serves as a filter (backstage) that influences the production of the texts in the LL. One rare exception to this result is informational material about education programmes for asylum seekers, refugees and people with subsidiary protection (see Figure 2.2). The editing and planning of the LL further exemplifies the UniClub’s efforts to create a specific, namely a safe, space, where pupils are addressed primarily as adolescents irrespective of their migration/refugee background. Many information sheets about workshops and other events are framed by the corporate logo of the UniClub (see Figure 2.3), creating the UniClub as a social space and frame for common experiences. The leaflets in Figure 2.3 (from left to right and top to bottom), for instance, concern the holiday opening hours, information on school enrolment, an invitation to a UniClub plenary and a vote on the film for the common film evening. The poster at the very bottom is about a programme for female students in science. Past events are also displayed in the LL, usually with a picture of the group. Thus, these signs refer to and re/produce the UniClub and have a representational purpose or symbolic function (Gorter & Cenoz, 2015). Producer/s

As shown in Table 2.5, adolescents produced signs in only 23 instances, i.e. 5.02% of the time. These results correspond to the abovementioned

42  Part 1: Assessing the Linguistic and Semiotic Landscapes of Educational Spaces

Figure 2.2  Information brochures on the education system in Austria in the front flat. The picture was taken on 29 January 2019 by Sabine Lehner

observations that signs often concern information or workshops provided by the UniClub or other institutions. This imbalance is even stronger when we consider that it is primarily the team members who post the signs, indicating a distinctive distribution of certain spatial practices, routines and rights (to choose and post information) in the UniClub, which also manifests the different institutional roles (staff, buddies, adolescents) and proves to be characteristic of educational spaces (Gorter & Cenoz, 2015). These findings further illustrate that power relations are inherent in all spaces: ‘as a result of the fact that it is conceptualized as created out of social relations, space is by its very nature full of power and symbolism, a complex web of relations of domination and subordination, of solidarity and co-operation’ (Massey, 1993: 153). Addressee/s

The category ‘addressee/s’ refers to the targeted audience addressed explicitly or implicitly (via context and content). Table 2.6 shows that 43.45% of the signs are directed at a general (unspecified) audience (i.e. without explicitly addressing anyone), such as the portraits of the team members and buddies (Figure 2.1), which only state the person’s name and the subjects they can help with. Precisely, 30.13% (implicitly or explicitly) address the adolescents of the UniClub, such as in an invitation to a movie night, asking

Linguistic Landscapes and Constructions of Space in a Learning Club for Young Refugees  43

Figure 2.3  Pinboard in the front flat. The picture was taken on 29 January 2019 by Sabine Lehner

potential participants: ‘Which movie would you like to see? Tell us your suggestions’ (my translation). Given the context of the invitation (including the UniClub logo, its location on the premises of the UniClub and directly addressing potential participants via the second-person singular), the adolescents of the UniClub are (implicitly) constructed as the addressees. Signs by external institutions (see above) offering programmes for adolescents usually Table 2.5  Producer/s Producer

Number

Percentage

UniClub-team

175

38.21

External institutions

118

25.76

Buddies

99

21.62

Unclear

35

7.64

Adolescents

23

5.02

Other

20

4.37

Total

470

/

44  Part 1: Assessing the Linguistic and Semiotic Landscapes of Educational Spaces

Table 2.6  Addressee/s Addressee

Number

Percentage

General audience (unspecified)

199

43.45

Adolescents of the UniClub

138

30.13

Adolescents (in general)

58

12.66

Female adolescents

16

3.49

Unclear

15

3.28

UniClub team

13

2.84

Newcomers

10

2.18

Buddies

7

1.53

Adolescents with refugee/migrant background

4

0.87

3

0.66

People with refugee/migrant background Total

463

/

address their target groups in a general manner (i.e. adolescents in general; 12.66%), for example, in an advertisement for a hotline providing free consultation for adolescents: ‘Emergency service for children, adolescents and attachment figures. If you have a problem, you can call the number 147’ (my translation). Some signs address multiple addressees such as the following example: ‘Theatre for girls and young women … 20 [female] participants with or without refugee background can participate’ (my translation). Following the above-stated omission of the topic displacement, people and adolescents with a refugee or migrant background are equally rarely addressed explicitly (0.66% and 0.87%, respectively), such as in a brochure on the education system in Austria: ‘Tips and info for asylum seekers, people granted subsidiary protection, recognized refugees’ (see Figure 2.2). Ultimately, the primary target audience of the LL is adolescents of the UniClub, which re/produces clear institutional as well as interactional roles as elaborated in the last section: team members as producers and adolescents as addressees/recipients. Pupils’ perspectives (photo workshop and interviews)

As mentioned earlier, during the workshop, the pupils formed five groups to take pictures and choose the five most important ones. The groups understood the task in different ways: while some groups (solely) took pictures of themselves or members of their group, one group exclusively took pictures of places. Some groups recreated usual scenes and actions in the UniClub (e.g. reading or sitting on the sofa). Another group invented and performed scenes in various places in the UniClub. The five (varyingly completed) worksheets show a more detailed understanding of the individual meanings of the UniClub and a broad range of needs. Among the given explanations, the most frequent topics

Linguistic Landscapes and Constructions of Space in a Learning Club for Young Refugees  45

Figure 2.4  (Extract of the) categorisation by Group I: Library, Tables, Sofas and Computers (in the front flat). The picture was taken on 24 February 2018 by Sabine Lehner

concern the acquisition of knowledge, for example, reading/books, discovering new things and learning. The PC workstations provided were mentioned by some adolescents as able to be used for educational purposes and during their leisure time in the UniClub: ‘before we pounce on our homework, we relax by watching something on the internet’12 (Group 4, my translation). Furthermore, the adolescents referred to the UniClub as an opportunity to make new friends. The group discussion revealed that the two groups applied different approaches to the task of categorising the pictures: While one group categorised and tried to find appropriate titles (Figure 2.4), the other group creatively reinterpreted the task and produced coherent stories based on the photos (Figure 2.5). In the presentation, they integrated both the ‘real’ use and importance of some places within the UniClub as well as their invented stories.13 In the discussion, some adolescents (who proved to be more confident and talkative) allocated varying importance to the different items depicted in the pictures. They debated the significance of the sofas, books, computers, food and eating together. For example, one adolescent (Walid, 17 years old) contested the importance of the books that were photographed multiple times: Walid: I think that the books are important, ah but not for everybody for example. And as to the computers, they are really important to us, because we always and really have presentations erm that’s why we need

46  Part 1: Assessing the Linguistic and Semiotic Landscapes of Educational Spaces

Figure 2.5  (Extract of the) creative composition by Group II (in the front flat). The picture was taken on 24 February 2018 by Sabine Lehner.

to do this with PowerPoint and Word, actually. And for me, the computer is important too, because I work with Photoshop. Well, that costs very much, in fact, and I can’t buy this and in the UniClub, I can always try it. (my translation,14 group discussion, 24 February 2018, 17:59–18:30)

Walid emphasised that computers are crucial for school tasks or his personal interests. Other participants mentioned dictionaries and atlases as important resources but later stated that they would rather read at home or borrow books from the UniClub’s library and focus on their homework at the UniClub. Apart from these learning and reading-focused elements, other debated items were fun and the use of the sofa: Soraya: This is the library, these are the tables, there are the computers, sofas. Yes, sofas, are really popular things that everyone uses, especially erm at 3 pm, when the UniClub is not open yet, but some adolescents already come and just lie down, it’s also a part of it (laughs) and then we just have fun. (my translation,15 group discussion, 24 February 2018, 05:10–05:38)

This excerpt shows that fun and relaxation (and their respective equipment) also represent important elements of the UniClub. This statement by Soraya (18 years old) led to another (opposite) reaction from Walid, challenging the practice of sleeping at the UniClub; for Walid, sleeping

Linguistic Landscapes and Constructions of Space in a Learning Club for Young Refugees  47

and sofas belong to the home environment and not to the UniClub. Two participants opposed this statement by referring to the UniClub as their ‘second home’, thus legitimising the presence and use of the sofa. These disagreements further reveal differing individual spatial practices and educational and social needs and speak to the multiplicity of spaces (Massey, 2006). Furthermore, they exemplify the complex construction of space, combining material/physical, social and mental dimensions, thus echoing Lefebvre’s notion of space introduced above (Lefebvre, 2006 [1991]). Additionally, some participants speculated that the books were frequently photographed because they are beautiful. With this statement, they switch to the meta-level by reflecting on the practice of exploring and taking pictures; this offered valuable supplementary information. The participants further realised that the team members and buddies crucially constitute the UniClub for them but were missing in the pictures, illustrating the participation of various social actors in the making of spaces (Lefebvre, 2006 [1991]). Furthermore, the workshop and group discussion added to a better understanding of the UniClub as a result of its deviance from usual spatial practices (not to learn but explore the premises, cook and eat together). This kind of meta-discussion (just like the debate on the importance of the books) proved to be crucial to the meaning of the UniClub and exemplified the need to additionally ask for the meaning of the photos. The workshop offered interesting insights into the pupils’ own interpretation of the UniClub, into their activities and into the photographed items. However, the workshop’s limitations are clear since the group discussion (and worksheets) did not lead to detailed statements as to the meaning of the UniClub. This might be due to the social and formal setting (speaking in front of others), the setup of the discussion and visible recording device, or the lengthy duration of the workshop. In contrast, individual interviews with two pupils allowed me two gain more extensive elaborations on the meaning of the UniClub. Both interviewees, who regularly attended the UniClub, highlighted the status and crucial positive impact of the UniClub. Sadaf (18 years old) had fled to Austria with her family a couple of years prior to this interview. After a year of elementary school in Austria, she caught up rapidly and was able to switch to a gymnasium (German term for secondary school) and was soon to graduate. In our interview, Sadaf described the UniClub as her ‘rescue’, since her parents could neither provide the necessary support nor they could afford tutoring (8 February 2019, 16:30–18:30). Sadaf lived with her family in a very small flat where she did not have a desk or any other place to learn; due to noise and household duties, she also did not have the necessary atmosphere to learn. She was very fond of the UniClub and appreciated the help of the buddies. Similarly, Nara (19 years old), who came to Austria when she was 15 years old, described the UniClub as a crucial

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space in her life, where she went every day after school to eat, sleep and recover from her exhausting everyday school life before she continued studying in the afternoon (27 March 2019, 1:30; 8:00). When she came to Austria, Nara – like many other adolescents – was not immediately allowed to go to a regular school because she exceeded the age of compulsory education (see Atanasoska & Proyer, 2018). After some time in German courses and transitional classes, Nara managed to go to a gymnasium, although she knew it would be challenging (25:00). Like Sadaf, Nara was soon to graduate. Without the help of the UniClub, as Nara puts it, she probably would not have come so far, since her parents could not offer this kind of support and she could only study after everyone else in the family had gone to bed (25:35). Nara appreciated getting assistance in every subject (40:30) and having a good, barely hierarchical relationship with the buddies, which made her feel comfortable asking questions (59:00). In another article about the UniClub, accounts by pupils (and buddies) were collected that confirm this evaluation; pupils mention that they were supported in their homework and presentations, received feedback on their orthography, became more motivated and learnt how to concentrate better (Vetter et al., 2018: 3–4). During the regular sessions, I also often witnessed pupils directly thanking their buddies for support, usually after getting a good grade or successfully giving a presentation. At the end of the school year, many pupils proudly show their school reports to the UniClub staff and to their buddies and thank them for their support. Accounts such as these illustrate how the UniClub apparently contributes to the school success of the adolescents. Finally, two questions may be raised regarding (1) the connection between the LL and the subjective meaning of the UniClub, and (2) the extent of awareness/reception of the LL by the adolescents, especially since the workshop participants and interviewees barely referred to any elements of the LL. Overall, the two data strands clearly manifest a discrepancy between the adolescents’ and the researcher’s (my) gaze with regard to the LL. The participants’ photos, comments and statements foreground the personal, educational and social relevance of the UniClub, while elements of the LL remain unmentioned. However, this does not mean that they are unnoticed in everyday life. By way of exploring this salient contrast, I would like to offer the following three considerations. First, adolescents are informed and reminded about the posted information via various channels (the LL, text messages, email, handouts, Facebook and orally). Therefore, they might already be aware of the information and not pay much attention to it. Additionally, during the sessions, the adolescents are usually busy learning on their own or with a buddy – if they leave their desk, they are likely to pay little attention to other things. The head of the UniClub, who puts a great deal of effort into the production and posting of the LL, told me that she also wondered whether the

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adolescents actually read them. However, I did witness some adolescents reading and looking at some of the posted information during the break. The assumption that the adolescents do pay attention to the LL is also reflected in a worksheet where a group comments on a photo on one of the message boards: ‘Messages. It is important for us to be informed’16 (Group 3, my translation). In addition, the pinboard with the portraits (see above) is used by team members and buddies to organise the learning session. Therefore, this part of the LL represents a useful tool that makes a positive impact on the immediate learning experience, potentially resulting in long-term positive effects (by bringing together the buddies’ resources and the adolescents’ needs). Second, the absence of references to the LL might be due to the chosen modes of elicitation, which apparently favour a specific exploration of the premises and forms of representation (of oneself and the UniClub) and do not reveal much about other aspects of actual everyday life in the UniClub. Third, irrespective of this absence in the workshop and the interview data, the investigation of the LL offered important insights into the ideological and socio-pedagogical framing and construction of the institution (as a safe learning space), which evidently corresponds to the adolescents’ needs as expressed in the workshop and interviews. Ultimately, however, since we do not know about the actual status and relevance of the LL for the adolescents, it remains for future research to look more closely at its reception and at the interaction with it. In this context, it is worth reiterating Pennycook’s call for greater attention to be paid not only to the production but also to the reception of signs: ‘A focus on the reception of signs would help us see how they are read and interpreted. If Althusser was interested in how language interpellated us into particular ideological formations, an understanding of linguistic landscapes as interpellations would help us understand how particular subjects are called into being’ (Pennycook, 2008: 310). Discussion and Conclusion

The first part of this contribution investigated what the LL implied about the UniClub as an educational space dedicated to offering assistance to young refugees (Research Question 1). The analysis revealed an interesting relationship between the backstage practices (and considerations) and the frontstage practices and visible LL (see Goffman (1956) for the notions of frontstage and backstage). At the frontstage, the UniClub proves to have an LL that is similar to other educational spaces such as schools (see Gorter & Cenoz, 2015): Announcements are almost exclusively produced and attached by team members in order to inform pupils about excursions, (language) learning opportunities and other activities in a top-down manner. The posted artefacts contain many self-references (to the UniClub) and display shared experiences, exemplifying the social

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dimension of the UniClub and contributing to the construction of a community. But unlike school contexts, the UniClub’s LL does not include any instructions, prohibitions, norms of behaviour or teaching values (as documented in Gorter & Cenoz, 2015). Although the pupils speak more than 30 languages and varieties, the LL predominantly represents two (learning) languages: German and (less frequently) English. On one hand, this discrepancy is partly due to the fact that German is the established lingua franca in the UniClub. On the other hand, the overall dominance of German in the LL can be interpreted as linked to a macro-discourse from the monolingual Austrian education system that requires a profound knowledge of German in order to succeed (Atanasoska & Proyer, 2018; De Cillia & Wodak, 2006: 55; Schrodt, 2014). Therefore, the language regime as manifested in the LL seems to reproduce the existing monolingual policy of the regular school system (see Pakarinen & Björklund, 2018: 5; as well as Bagna & Bellinzona and Krompák in this volume for similar findings). Given that the pupils’ refugee backgrounds constitute the frame of the institution, it was surprising that the topics of migration and displacement are omitted (or rarely present) at the frontstage, although they remain implicit in the everyday (learning) practices and unaddressed in the LL and workshop data. Nonetheless, the composition of the LL is highly influenced by topics related to displacement and is the result of careful preparation and (constant) staff reflections on appropriate content (at the backstage). This identified absence corresponds to the institution’s (trauma) pedagogical stance, in which the UniClub is purposefully conceptualised as a safe space offering a friendly learning environment that does not overemphasise the pupils’ refugee (or migrant) background. In contrast to the non-salience of this concept at the frontstage (visible in the LL or routine practices), the members of the core team (constantly) deal with this topic at the backstage (outside of opening hours, where the conceptual work is done, which ultimately shapes the visible LL and practices at the frontstage). The second part of this chapter further addressed the questions of what the UniClub means for the pupils, the functions this space has for them and the kinds of needs that are served (Research Question 2). The adolescents’ perspectives in the photo workshop showed that they do not just come to learn but also seek relaxation or to meet friends. By offering a safe learning space, the UniClub successfully provides the necessary (infra)structure to enable adolescents with a refugee and migrant background to meet their immediate (e.g. learning for an exam) and long-term educational needs (being able to finish school) (UNHCR, 2019). The UniClub thereby exceeds purely educational functions and represents also an inherently social and much-needed space, or – in quoting the pupils’ words – ‘a second home’. On a methodological level, this chapter showed that the investigation of spatial practices in an educational space such as the UniClub requires a

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multiperspective approach. Apart from quantitative approaches to LL, various elicitation modes (such as workshops and interviews) and ethnographic approaches are required to grasp the dynamic and interactional dimension and situatedness of spatial, educational and linguistic practices (Blommaert, 2013: 49). As argued above, future research into the reception of LL is desirable to better understand the relationship between the content and the targeted addressees on one hand and the actual interaction, reception and impact on the addressees (or rather actual receivers) on the other hand (Pennycook, 2008). Additionally, a comprehensive understanding of LL in educational settings requires the consideration and investigation of the complex indexicalities towards global/macroscale phenomena such as dominant linguistic, educational and political discourses and ideologies that shape the institution (Kerschhofer-Puhalo, 2018; Szabó, 2015: 24; Vigouroux, 2009). In this vein, this chapter exemplified that local phenomena (Pennycook, 2010) such as the UniClub’s LL and spatial practices are interconnected with the pupils’ individual, educational and social needs, as well as with institutional ideologies (the trauma pedagogical stance) and macro-discourses (German as language of instruction). Notes (1) I would like to thank the UniClub, the DOC Fellowship Programme of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Ruth Wodak, the editors of this volume and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions, as well as Kathleen Painter for her help with a previous revision of this chapter. (2) The head of UniClub allowed me to mention the institution’s name in this chapter. Personal information is made non-attributable, and all names are pseudonymised. (3) By the term ‘displacement’, I refer to various forms, experiences and consequences of (forced) migration. This includes, inter alia, questions of ‘integration’, othering processes, administrative procedures (e.g. concerning residence status) and uneven access to various resources and rights (e.g. education, citizenship). (4) The diachronic development of the LL is not investigated in this study. (5) Only clearly visible items and their visible linguistic features were counted. (6) Therefore, pictures usually consist of several segments and multiple codes. (7) It should be noted that the UniClub premises have been enlarged (offering more learning space) since I submitted this chapter. Owing to word restrictions, I cannot elaborate on these changes. (8) The percentage is calculated as follows: number of occurrences divided by 458 (the total number of all segments) and multiplied by 100. Therefore, the percentage – in all cases – describes how often a certain feature is represented in the 458 segments. (9) Therefore, multiple functions were coded, as visible in the total numbers. Still, the percentage is always calculated based on the 458 segments, not the number of the given codes. (10) There are, however, as in every social group, some shared norms and expected forms of social behaviour (e.g. respectful communication on equal terms, contributing to a quiet learning environment). These are mainly established through routines and practices, and less often communicated directly. New members (adolescents and student teachers) are introduced by team members and become familiar with the

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(implicit) rules and norms practised in the everyday interactions at the UniClub. In addition, the tendency not to set any explicit rules corresponds with the UniClub’s non-­h ierarchical approach, which is also reflected in regular plenaries, offering space for common reflection and suggestions for improvement. (11) The interview was conducted in German on 15 June 2018 and took three hours. (12) The original text (in German) says: ‘Bevor wir uns auf die Hausaufgaben stürtzen, entspannen wir uns in dem wir uns etwas im Internet anschauen’. (13) Due to space restrictions, the pupils’ categories and invented stories cannot be presented here. (14) The original transcript (in German) is as follows: ‘Ich finde, die Bücher sind wichtig, ah aber nicht für alle[s] zum Beispiel. Und für die Computer für uns ist wirklich sehr wichtig, weil wir haben immer und wirklich Referate ähm deswegen das müssen wir mit PowerPoint und Word machen eigentlich. Und für mich Computer ist auch wichtig, weil ich arbeite mit Photoshop, also das kostet sehr viel eigentlich und ich kann das nicht kaufen und im UniClub probier ich das immer’. (15) The original transcript (in German) is as follows: ‘Das ist die Bibliothek, das sind die Tische, da ist Computers, Sofas – ja Sofas, ist auch sehr belie beliebige Ding, die jeder benutzt, vor allem äh bei so um fünfzehn Uhr wo UniClub noch nicht offen hat, aber manche Jugendliche kommen schon und legen sich einfach hin, gehört auch dazu ((lacht kurz)) und dann haben wir einfach Spaß’. (16) The original text (in German) says: ‘Mitteilungen. Es sind für uns wichtig informiert sein’.

References Atanasoska, T. and Proyer, M. (2018) On the brink of education: Experiences of refugees beyond the age of compulsory education in Austria. European Educational Research Journal 17 (2), 271–289. Blommaert, J. (2013) Ethnography, Superdiversity and Linguistic Landscapes: Chronicles of Complexity. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Busch, B. (2013) Mehrsprachigkeit [Multilingualism]. Wien: Facultas. Copland, F. and Creese, A. (2015) Linguistic Ethnography: Collecting, Analysing and Presenting Data. Los Angeles: SAGE. De Cillia, R. and Wodak, R. (2006) Ist Österreich ein ,deutsches’ Land? Sprachenpolitik und Identität in der Zweiten Republik [Is Austria a ‘German’ Country? Language Policy and Identity in the Second Republic]. Innsbruck, Wien: Studien-Verlag. Goffman, E. (1956) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Social Sciences Research Centre. Gorter, D. (2018) Linguistic landscapes and trends in the study of schoolscapes. Linguistics and Education 44, 80–85. Gorter, D. and Cenoz, J. (2015) The linguistic landscape inside multilingual schools. In B. Spolsky, M. Tannenbaum and O. Inbar (eds) Challenges for Language Education and Policy: Making Space for People (pp. 151–169). New York, NY: Routledge. Jakobson, R. (1960) Closing statement: Linguistics and poetics. In T.A. Sebeok (ed.) Style in Language (pp. 350–377). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Jaworski, A. and Thurlow, C. (2010) Introducing semiotic landscapes. In A. Jaworski and C. Thurlow (eds) Semiotic Landscapes: Language, Image, Space (pp. 1–40). London: Continuum. Kerschhofer-Puhalo, N. (2018) Multimodalität und Multiliteralität in der Leseförderung. Der Beitrag der Pädagogik der Multiliteracies und der New Literacy Studies zur Förderung (multi)-literaler Kompetenzen [Multimodality and multiliterality in the promotion of reading skills. The contribution of the pedagogy of multiliteracies and

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new literacy studies to the promotion of (multi)literal competences]. In S. Kutzelmann and U. Massler (eds) Mehrsprachige Leseförderung. Grundlagen und Konzepte [Multilingual Promotion of Reading Skills. Basics and Concepts] (pp. 163–176). Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto. Kinderbüro Universität Wien (s.a.) Info. See http://www.uniclub.at/info/ (accessed February 2019). Kolb, B. (2008) Involving, sharing, analysing: Potential of the participatory photo interview. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung 9 (3), Art. 12. Lefebvre, H. (2006 [1991]) The Production of Space. Malden, Oxford: Blackwell. Lehner, S. and Rheindorf, M. (2019) ‘Fortress Europe.: The construction of borders in EU press releases and Austrian media. In G. dell’Orto and I. Wetzstein (eds) Covering Europe’s Refugee Crisis: Journalistic Practices, News Discourses and Public Debates in Austria, Germany and Greece (pp. 40–54). New York, London: Routledge. Löw, M. (2001) Raumsoziologie [The Sociology of Space]. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Massey, D. (1993) Politics and space/time. In M. Keith and S. Pile (eds) Place and the Politics of Identity (pp. 139–159). London, New York, NY: Routledge. Massey, D. (2006) Space, time and political responsibility in the midst of global inequality. Erdkunde 60 (2), 89–95. Pakarinen, S. and Björklund, S. (2018) Multiple language signage in linguistic landscapes and students’ language practices: A case study from a language immersion setting. Linguistics and Education 44, 4–11. Pennycook, A. (2008) Linguistic landscapes and the transgressive semiotics of graffiti. In E. Shohamy and D. Gorter (eds) Linguistic Landscape: Expanding the Scenery (pp. 302–312). New York, London: Routledge. Pennycook, A. (2010) Language as a Local Practice. London, New York, NY: Routledge. Purkarthofer, J. (2016) Sprachort Schule: zur Konstruktion von mehrsprachigen sozialen Räumen und Praktiken in einer zweisprachigen Volksschule [School as a Linguistic Place: The Construction of Multilingual Social Spaces and Practices in a Bilingual Primary School]. Klagenfurt: Drava. Schrodt, H. (2014) Sehr Gut oder Nichtgenügend? Schule und Migration in Österreich [Very Good or Not Enough? School and Migration in Austria]. Graz: Molden. Stewart, J. and Martin, L. (2018) Bridging Two Worlds: Supporting Newcomers and Refugee Youth – A Guide to Curriculum Implementation and Integration. Toronto: Ceric. Stöckl, E. (2015) Fotopädagogische Projektarbeit mit jugendlichen Flüchtlingen [Photopedagogical Project Work with Young Refugees]. Soziales_ Kapital. Wissenschaftliches Journal Österreichischer Fachhochschul-Studiengänge Soziale Arbeit 13, 2–17. Szabó, T.P. (2015) The management of diversity in schoolscapes: An analysis of Hungarian practices. Apples: Journal of Applied Language Studies 9 (1), 23–51. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) (2018) Flucht und Trauma im Kontext Schule: Handbuch für PädagogInnen [Escape and Trauma in the School Context. A Handbook for Teachers]. Wien: UNHCR. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) (2019) Stepping Up: Refugee Education in Crisis. Geneva: UNHCR. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) (2020) Figures at a glance. See https://www.unhcr.org/figures-at-a-glance.html (accessed May 2021). VERBI Software (2018) MAXQDA 2018 [Computer Software]. Berlin: VERBI Software. Vetter, E., Lhotzky-Willnauer, R., Marzoch, D., Kugler, I. and Atanasoska, T. (2018) Der UniClub – Lernraum für Jugendliche mit Fluchterfahrung und Lehramtsstudierende [The UniClub – A learning space for adolescents with refugee backgrounds and student teachers]. Erziehung und Unterricht 7–8, 1–10.

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Vigouroux, C.B. (2009) A relational understanding of language practice: Interacting timespaces in a single ethnographic site. In J.P. Collins, S. Slembrouck and M. Baynham (eds) Globalization and Language in Contact: Scale, Migration and Communicative Practices (pp. 62–84). London, New York, NY: Continuum. ZARA – Civil Courage and Anti-Racism Work (2021) Racism Report 2020: Analysis of Racist Attacks and Structures in Austria. Vienna: ZARA.

3 Landscape Design for Language Revitalisation: Linguistic Landscape in and beyond a Māori Immersion Early Childhood Centre Nāu te rourou, nāku te rourou, ka ora ai te iwi With your food basket and my food basket, the tribe will benefit Whakataukī – Māori Proverb

Leona Harris, Una Cunningham, Jeanette King and Dyanna Stirling

Interconnecting Linguistic Landscapes

Early definitions of linguistic landscape (LL) have been extended in a number of directions. More than a decade ago, Shohamy and Gorter (2009) suggested that objects present around us, including buildings, are part of the LL. They further pointed out the growing importance of virtual spaces. Linguistic spaces such as schoolscapes (Brown, 2005; Gorter, 2018) are increasingly engaging in the digital world (DW), defined here as the digital environments accessed via digital technology (DT). Engagement in the DW and digitally mediated communication links language environments across geographically distinct settings (Biró, 2018; Ivkovic & Lotherington, 2009). Here, we examine interlinked LLs through the lens of Bronfenbrenner’s (1979, 2005) bioecological systems theory. Our main research question is ‘How does the linguistic landscape of the early childhood centre (ECC) influence children, educators and families?’ The LL of educational spaces and the evolving digitalisation of learning have significance for language learning of various kinds.

55

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This work is concerned with the potential role for Māori language revitalisation of the LL in a Māori immersion ECC in New Zealand and associated home environments. These environments are linked by linguistic practices in the DW as well as by physical meetings between caregivers and educators. Early childhood education (ECE) is relatively new in the field of LL research, although other types of schoolscape have been extensively studied (Gorter, 2018). The ECC in this study is further unusual in offering immersion ECE in an indigenous language. Language immersion schooling has earlier been studied from the perspective of the schoolscape in Swedishimmersion primary school education in Finland (Pakarinen & Björklund, 2018), but this is the first LL study we are aware of where the focus is on language revitalisation in ECE. The incorporation of Māori terms in this chapter reflects the way they are used in the speech of our participants and intentionally enriches the LL of the chapter. For the convenience of the reader, a glossary of terms is provided at the end of the chapter. In the history of Māori language revitalisation, ECE has proven to be a primary environment for bilingual language development, particularly since many Māori parents have not grown up speaking the language. Educational spaces then become the main language learning environment for both adults and children (King, 2018). However, it has long been clear that the home environment also needs to be involved for language revitalisation to be successful (Fishman, 1991). Theoretical frameworks

Bronfenbrenner’s original ecological systems theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) was developed to help understand the interactions between young children and their environments over time. The later development of the bioecological framework and the Person-Process-Context-Time model (Bronfenbrenner, 2005; Bronfenbrenner & Evans, 2000; Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006) is used in this study to understand the content, power, direction and form of the interactions and interconnectivity of LLs. According to the basic model, the microsystem comprises an individual’s immediate surroundings and the human relationships within. The individual is at the centre of the model (Figure 3.1). The young children in our study inhabit two environments: the ECC and the home. The relationships are those the child has with siblings, parents and other family members, as well as with classmates and educators. The mesosystem then is the interaction between the characters in the microsystem, for example, between the educators and the caregivers, while the macrosystem concerns the cultural beliefs and policies of the system members and of the surrounding society. This model positions proximal processes, defined as reciprocal interactions with people, objects and symbols in the immediate external environment (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 1998: 996), as driving development within the micro- and mesosystems of the home and

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individual microsystem mesosystem macrosystem

Figure 3.1  Interpretation of Bronfenbrenner’s (2005) bioecological model of development

educational spaces. The context in Bronfenbrenner’s (2005) refined model represents the ECC complemented by the home, and the person principle acknowledges the learner’s agency. The principle of time is relevant to all learning. DT is present across contexts, within the microsystem, in the home and the ECC environments, and in the mesosystemic communication between caregivers and educators (Johnson & Puplampu, 2008). Proximal processes occur with and through devices, in and beyond micro- and mesosystems, and potentially simultaneously across multiple systems in a bidirectional and co-evolutionary manner. The individual can influence the technology, and the technology can influence the individual (Jones, 2011). Each individual is not only a consumer of content but also a potential creator. We will return to a consideration of Bronfenbrenner’s model in the discussion of our findings. Māori language in New Zealand Treaty of Waitangi

More than 20 years ago, New Zealand law recognised that strengthening the visibility of the Māori language would facilitate its use, with visibility reflecting policy (Te Puni Kōkiri, 1999: 12). The state is responsible for the active protection of the Māori language in line with Te Tiriti o Waitangi (The Treaty of Waitangi: a founding agreement between various Māori chiefs and the British Crown, signed in 1840). In 1987, the Māori Language Act recognised that Māori was taonga (a highly valued object or natural resource) and made Māori an official language of New Zealand. A further maturity in the Crown’s relationship with tribal authorities was evidenced in 2016 with the passing of the second Māori Language Act, which would see iwi (tribal groups) driving language revitalisation at a local level, with the Crown focusing its efforts on

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national issues (Te Puni Kōkiri, 2018). As the indigenous language of Polynesian settlers to Aotearoa (New Zealand), Māori has the highest status among minority languages in New Zealand (De Bres, 2015). Māori language policy

The impact of policy on the vitality of Māori has not always been positive. When European settlers began arriving in New Zealand in 1840, Māori was spoken by all Māori. The introduction of the Native Schools Act in 1867 set in motion the dominance of English in education and public spheres. In the early 20th century, a shift occurred from raising children as speakers of Māori to speakers of English, starting in Māori communities closest to English settlements (Benton, 1991). Māori suffered a crushing cultural and linguistic loss as entire generations grew up without learning Māori. Awareness of the profound implications of this language shift led to the development of a grassroots initiative in the 1980s known as kōhanga reo (Māori immersion ECE; literally, language nests). In order to reinstitute intergenerational language transmission, kōhanga reo were structured around the model of interactions between tipuna (grandparent) and mokopuna (grandchild). The success of kōhanga reo facilitated a resurgence, which has particularly focused on the use of Māori as a language of instruction right through the education system from ECE to tertiary level (King, 2018). The central role of Māori immersion schooling in language revitalisation is demonstrated by statistics which indicate that 68% of the two to 18-year-olds who are reported to be able to speak Māori conversationally are enrolled in a Māori medium school or preschool (King & Cunningham, 2017). While in 2010 UNESCO classified Māori as a ‘vulnerable’ language (Moseley, 2010), it is evident that revitalisation initiatives have staved off a further decline. Census statistics from 2013 indicate that 21% of Māori can have a conversation in Māori about everyday things (Statistics New Zealand, 2013), and while this rate has been declining slightly over time, an in-depth cohort analysis using a range of data sources hearteningly reveals that proportions are increasing among the youngest group of speakers (Lane, 2020). Additionally, the reported rate of intergenerational transmission of Māori is 43.6% (King & Cunningham, 2017). This refers to children in households where there is at least one Māori-speaking adult who is reported as speaking Māori. Research on the LL of a typical small town in New Zealand (Macalister, 2010) indicated that only 8.8% of the language visible was Māori, with English being the dominant language (a further 4.1% was classified as ‘English and other language’, which referred to varieties of English other than New Zealand English, as well as other languages; see Macalister, 2010: 65). A similar proportion of Māori words is used in everyday English in New Zealand (Macalister, 2006). In a commissioned

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analysis of the Māori language revitalisation policy in 1998 by the New Zealand Treasury, Grin and Vaillancourt stated: Language visibility is an important policy measure because its official use and generalisation of minority language visibility have a powerful (re) legitimisation effect, which, in turn, impacts on people’s attitudes. (Grin & Vaillancourt, 1998: 83)

In contrast to the signs in the LL of small-town New Zealand (Macalister, 2010), around two-thirds of the displays in the physical landscapes of several mainstream ECCs in the same city as the ECC in this study were found to contain Māori at the time of data collection (Harris et al., 2018a). Centres also had a range of DTs, including iPads, laptops and digital screens. Interactions in the DW were managed by the educators and allowed for bidirectional communication via email, Facebook, websites and e-portfolios with caregivers. These interactions were inclusive of Māori language and enabled collaboration between the ECC and the home in ways that influenced the LL of the ECC. Māori language and the digital world

Access to LL with Māori content across digital platforms, such as YouTube, empowers people in microsystems to interact with or create content that utilises and extends their linguistic resources. The Māori Television channel (launched in 2004 and a subsequent station Te Reo (the language) launched in 2008) is now also available online for 24 hours a day streaming. As Nicholson (2012) states: Māori broadcasting, radio, television, and cyberspace, are seen as important aids in the revitalisation of the language, as they all are able to be present in the home. Māori spoken in the home is the present-day emphasis for the language in hope of ensuring intergenerational transmission. (Nicholson, 2012: ii)

In addition to enriching homes with Māori, the DW is facilitating the attainment and maintenance of relationships. Social networking sites enable Māori to (re)connect with family, tribes and sub-tribes (Greenwood et al., 2011; O’Carroll, 2013), or kinship through shared aspirations and goals, such as language revitalisation. Role of Māori in early childhood education

ECE has largely been seen as a potential driver for the revitalisation of the Māori language. Te Whāriki – He whāriki mātauranga mō ngā mokopuna o Aotearoa Early Childhood Curriculum Document (MOE, 2017) is a bilingual document that draws on traditional Māori concepts. These are interwoven into the principles and learning strands of Te Whāriki, with Māori terms and cultural design visible throughout the document. The principles are Whakamana (empowerment), Kotahitanga

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(holistic development), Whānau Tangata (family and community) and Ngā Hononga (relationships). Te Whāriki acknowledges the role of Te Tiriti o Waitangi (The Treaty of Waitangi) in education: Te Tiriti [the Treaty] has implications for our education system, particularly in terms of achieving equitable outcomes for Māori and ensuring that te reo Māori not only survives but thrives. (MOE, 2017: 3)

Relevant curriculum considerations for leadership, organisation and practice are to ensure the immediate environment is rich in signs, symbols, words, numbers, song, dance, drama and art that give expression to and extend children’s understandings of their own and other languages and cultures (MOE, 2017). The role of early childhood education to support the home

ECE plays an important role in supporting the use of Māori at home. The central role of the home in language revitalisation is well established (Fishman, 1991) and has become an increasing focus of Māori language revitalisation, particularly since the year 2000. That year, the Ngāi Tahu tribal group began their 25-year Kotahi Mano Kāika (1000 homes) language initiative which aims to have 1000 Ngāi Tahu homes speaking Māori by 2025 (O’Regan, 2018). Other tribal groupings have similar programmes, and there has been government funding available to support small-scale initiatives aimed at reinforcing and encouraging the use of Māori at home. Bronfenbrenner’s (2005) bioecological model supports this recognition of the potency of proximal processes occurring within a strongly developed emotional relationship, such as those in the microsystem within the family home. As proximal processes are drivers of development, strengthening the interpersonal relationships of children, families and educators within ECE and the home can support the transmission of Māori through the proximal processes that occur between the caregivers, the children and their LL. Research Method

The methodology of this single case study of a Māori immersion ECC (Harris, 2017), followed an ethnographic approach informed by the principles, mainly that of tino rangatiratanga (sovereignty, self-determination, governance, autonomy and independence) (Pihama et al., 2002), underlying kaupapa Māori (Māori policy or principle) practices (Smith, 1999). This blended methodology was enacted by implementing kaupapa Māori practices, in particular, practices of aroha ki te tangata (a respect for people), kanohi kitea (the seen face; i.e. present yourself to people face to face), titiro, whakarongo … kōrero (look, listen … speak), manaaki ki te tangata (share and host people, be generous), kia tūpato (be cautious), kaua e takahia te mana o te tangata (do not trample over the mana

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(power) of people) and kia ngākau mahaki (do not flaunt your knowledge) (Smith, 1999: 120). There was a high level of communication between the researcher (the first author) and the participants at all stages of the research, with attention to researcher presence and availability. In an ethnographic approach, the researcher is present in the natural environment to observe, interact and document. This supports kanohi ki te kanohi (faceto-face) engagement to achieve understanding by blending Māori and Western research methods and knowledges (Macfarlane et al., 2015) and, more generally, researcher reflexivity. This investigation required several rounds of consultation, seeking and securing ethical approval and informed consent from tribal and university authorities as well as from the research participants. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in English with three staff members and two parents. With permission from the ECC, the researcher attended the centre beginning April 2016 on a weekly basis over a period of two months, prior to data collection. During this two-month period, the researcher interacted with educators, parents and children in a participatory manner, building relationships and positioning herself as a language learner and novice in their world, being mindful of English being a minority language in this setting and respectful of Māori as the dominant language. The case of a Māori immersion ECC

This Māori immersion ECC was part of an organisation formed in 2002 by caregivers in a Māori cultural group. The building itself was constructed in 2005 and landscaped in a style to reflect a Māori world, thus itself contributing to the LL (Shohamy & Gorter, 2009). The aesthetics of the centre were designed to be an abstract reflection of a Māori pā (a fortified village), with waharoa (gateway, entrance to a pā) and native trees to establish connections to a Māori world ECC people recognise (Figure 3.2). The centre catered to children aged zero to five years. The space inside the centre was open-plan with no separation between the areas for children of different ages. This supported Tuakana Teina, a Māori methodology of reciprocal learning where the older teach the younger and the younger teach the older, similar to a buddy system (Te Kete Ipurangi, 2016). The outdoor playground (Figure 3.3) continued to reflect the Māori world with the incorporation of a pātaka (a raised storehouse on posts), a garden for mahinga kai (food gathering), uncarved pou (upright posts as a territorial symbol) and a stage to perform kapa haka (Māori performance). The centre followed the national Te Whāriki curriculum document, as opposed to the Māori immersion curriculum of kōhanga reo. The decision for this, as explained by the head of the centre, was that the centre would

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Figure 3.2  The entrance to the centre with an archway built as an abstract reflection of a waharoa, a gateway to a Māori pā (Photo: Stirling, 2015)

always be situated in an environment with English as the dominant language of New Zealand. At the time of the research, there were seven Māori-speaking educators, five of whom were considered fluent. The centre did not recruit caregivers officially as helpers, but they were always welcome to participate with their children. Forty-one of the 43 children at the centre were of Māori descent. The two parents interviewed were both learning Māori, spending time as helpers at the centre to strengthen their own proficiency.

Figure 3.3  The outdoor playground environment designed to reflect a Māori world (Photo: Stirling, 2015)

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To investigate the influence of the LL of the ECC on children, educators and families, the visual data collection of the LL began with two threeminute videos, taken at adult and child head height, of the ECC walls. The videos were to support the identification of photos and capture the varying perspectives of a young child and an adult. This may be an important consideration for future LL research. Digital photos (57) were taken of the displays in the ECC and at the entrance of the centre. Screenshots (19) of the publicly accessible online digital environments associated with the centre were also collected as visual data of the digital LL. Interviews were conducted with the Kaihautū (head of centre), two kaiako (teachers) and two whaea (parents). Interviews were informal, conversational and translingual (García & Li Wei, 2014), with the incorporation of Māori words and concepts. The translingual nature (García & Li Wei, 2014) of the interviews (as well as this chapter itself and cited official policy documents) can actually be contested from the perspective of the normalisation of the use of words and expressions of Māori origin in New Zealand English (Macalister, 2006). All interviews were conducted at the ECC, with the exception of one parent whose interview was conducted via Skype from her own home. Data collection on the LL at home was based on interviews only; unlike the centre data, it did not include photos of the LL within the home. Interviews were semi-structured with questions about the displays in the ECC and language and about DT policies and practices that are within the home and the centre that support children’s Māori language development. Questions included how the adults interacted with the physical and digital LL. The average duration of each interview was less than one hour, and all interviews were completed in June and July 2016. Interviews were transcribed and emailed to participants to check for accuracy and validation. No adjustments to the transcripts were made. Five displays from the LL were selected for further analysis based on prior conversations and recommendations from the participants in order to elicit the function, interaction and language, and DT practices associated with the display. After the interview transcriptions were validated, an inductive thematic analysis generated five themes. (1) Achievement and togetherness (2) Tikanga (cultural practices) and normalisation (3) Identity and belonging (4) Māori as an oral language (5) Interaction and connection. Two artefacts, the Poutama (Figure 3.4) and karakia (Figure 3.5), were selected because of their innovation and significance within the centre. These artefacts are explored in more detail below, along with the themes associated with them: Achievement and togetherness and Tikanga and normalisation.

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Figure 3.4  Poutama artefact – a display He Taonga Te Reo (language is a treasure) with photos of children and adults positioned on four coloured steps reflecting their level of Māori proficiency (Photo: Harris, 2016)

Figure 3.5  Karakia artefact which includes a child’s image, taken by kaiako, and lyrics of karakia to be shared with families to display in their own home (as indicated by the pink note attached) and support the cultural practices within the home that were interwoven into daily practices in the ECC (Photo: Harris, 2016)

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The linguistic landscape of a Māori immersion ECC

The LL of the Māori immersion ECC was rich in Māori because the educators designed and generated many of the displays using Māori and personalised them with photos of the children and their families. The majority of displays were at adult height, and there were various explanations for this, including that when the displays are low the children could rip the displays off the wall and that the language on the walls was to support the adults using the language with the children. The two whaea interviewed were themselves learning Māori. As part of the enrolment process, caregivers commit to at least one person in the home being or becoming able to speak Māori with their child. The Kaihautū was understanding of the challenges families faced with this expectation, particularly with the lack of time available for working caregivers to attend language courses. Despite having no written policy on the use of Māori, the macrosystem of the centre created an atmosphere with Māori language, cultural artefacts and cultural practices being normalised within the environment. Normalisation was a shared aspiration and was a driving force for the Kaihautū and kaiako interviewed, with Whaea B expressing a sense of comfort and support speaking Māori within the centre. ‘Because I feel such a beginner, I’ll use it around preschoolers but not the general public’ (Whaea B, 2016). Thus, a sense of social safety was created for the adults when using Māori with other adults and children in the centre. One teacher stated that the environment contributed to her growing confidence in using the language: ‘I’ve obviously got more confidence being at [the centre] and I am still more confident using it at [the centre] than I would be outside’ (Kaiako A, 2016). One whaea and both kaiako reported finding at times that it was uncomfortable to use Māori beyond the centre. The design of the LL included interweaving cultural practices in all of the proximal processes, for example, a karakia (prayer) written and displayed on the wall to read aloud with children before eating. One teacher, who considered Māori to be her strongest language, reflected on tikanga being at the heart of language use. Everything you do is always a process. It might just seem like normal dayto-day stuff but for me, I know that there is always a process to something. Tikanga is one of them. I think when we are teaching throughout the day it’s interwoven. Like I said with the normalisation of the reo [language], it’s in what we do. (Kaiako B, 2016)

Proximal processes and associated interactions within the LL strengthened the interpersonal relationships to create a socially safe space for adults to interact in Māori and participate in cultural processes. Conteh and Brock (2011) argue that bilingual learners need spaces that empower them within the relationships constructed between the teacher and

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learner. Appreciating proximal processes is significant for enhancing our understanding of the LL in educational spaces for language revitalisation from a Māori perspective of seeing people and places as interconnected. Achievement and togetherness

The Poutama, defined as a stepped pattern from traditional Māori latticework, symbolising levels of learning and intellectual achievement, was one of the most significant displays in the centre in terms of the longterm engagement with it by educators, families and children (Figure 3.4). It was displayed in the main learning area and was designed by the Kaihautū and kaiako. The Poutama included four colour-coded levels of language ability and achievement, ranging from users being able to use single words, two words, making sentences, to fluency. This can be seen as representing the macrosystem in beliefs about how language learning and use can be encouraged through motivational strategies. The mesosystem interaction is clear in the Poutama too, as photos of educators, caregivers and children were placed side by side on the levels to represent their achievement levels in Māori with additional stickers on the photos to represent microlevel achievements. The Poutama not only represented each individual’s achievements, it was also a visual representation of collective achievement. The researcher asked the caregivers and educators if displaying their image and competencies in Māori exposed vulnerabilities. However, all adults interviewed found the Poutama empowering and its use is an example of the ZePA model (Higgins & Rewi, 2014) designed to encourage speakers of Māori to move from zero to passive to active use of the language. The metaphor of the waka (Māori canoe) was used by Kaiako B to describe the underlying aims to support achievement and togetherness (being in the same boat) associated with the Poutama. It’s that one waka. We all hurt. We all feel embarrassed. We’re all learning. But we can all move faster and do things faster if we work together. Kotahi te waka [one waka], that’s it. (Kaiako B, 2016)

Many of the adults interviewed described their learning of Māori as a journey (King, 2003) and appreciated the Poutama display in that it visually positioned them alongside their children on their language learning journey. I’m quite happy for [my photo] to be up there (on the Poutama). It’s not just involving our children; it’s also getting the parents on board as well. It’s doing things as a whole. It’s not just doing it because your child goes here, it’s not just for them. It’s for everybody. (Whaea A, 2016)

This again represents the mesosystem interaction between the educators and the caregivers and brings them (or at least their photos) into the ECC. Both caregivers and educators recognised the rewards of learning alongside the children as a process that strengthened relational bonds,

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journeying together, sharing aspirations for language development for all learners and drawing on each other’s resources through the Tuakana Teina model. The Poutama was incentivised with a celebration and reward system for all those progressing to the next step. The intention of the celebration and reward was to ‘make sure they know that it’s cool to kōrero [speak] Māori and they are being encouraged and they are getting rewarded’ (Kaiako A, 2016). This reinforced the high esteem given to those attempting to speak Māori. This display was also associated with increased social safety within the centre, making it a safe place for speaking Māori. ‘It’s emphasising that this isn’t a place where you need to be whakamā [ashamed or embarrassed] and worry about what people think because we are all on that board [Poutama]. We are all there’ (Kaiako B, 2016). Tikanga and normalisation

Tikanga (Māori cultural beliefs and practices) is an aspect of the macrosystem in our interpretation of the ecology of the ECC. It is seen as crucially important for the children’s language and cultural development that the Māori language and cultural practices are present in the entire microsystem, with the home serving to reinforce what happens in the ECC. As the ECC played a significant role in supporting the language development within the home environment on both personal and practical levels, displays were often present across both the ECC and home contexts. The Kaihautū and kaiako emphasised that speaking Māori should not be a centre-only activity. Accordingly, formal processes, such as the enrolment agreement, were formalised practices ensuring that the use of Māori was supported and encouraged across contexts. If [the families] don’t [agree to one person speaking Māori at home] it becomes just a centre thing and they only kōrero when they’re here and only see it as something to be used here. Whereas that is not really ideal, you want it to be out in the public as well as in their home lives and home communities. (Kaiako B, 2016)

Each child had a profile book including photos and learning stories as an assessment record of the child’s learning and development (Carr, 2001). This profile book belonged to the child and was positioned at child height at the entrance to the main learning area, opposite the office of the Kaihautū. A questionnaire in the form of a star chart was attached to each child’s profile book, asking for example: (1) Does your child use Māori at home? (2) What do they say? (3) Do they sing? The questions were designed by kaiako to gain an understanding of how the child uses Māori in different contexts, as it sometimes varies between

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the ECC and the home environments. The questions could also be viewed as a subtle prompt to emphasise to families the importance of using Māori within the home. The profile book was written in English and Māori, based on the caregiver’s preferences and abilities in that not all understood Māori. An example of the ECC supporting the home LL was a display that used the digital image of a child along with the words of karakia (prayers) and waiata (songs) used routinely (Figure 3.5). These images, personalised for each child, were also provided to families to take home. Kaiako B, who designed and created these displays, was specific that her main drive in teaching at the centre was not only the normalisation of the language but also tikanga within and beyond the ECC. Although the display had linguistic pedagogical aims, such as teaching pronunciation, combining the child’s image with the language was expected to increase the presence of Māori language in the home. We thought it would be a good resource to have visible for them, like in the kitchen where they do karakia, three karakia throughout the day. And then having the child’s photo on there, they’re not going to throw it away. That was kind of the incentive for our whānau [families] to jump on board, which they love. (Kaiako B, 2016)

This display could connect to the child on a number of emotional levels, such as increasing their sense of ownership of the display and strengthening their identity in seeing themselves connected to the Māori language. The use of mesosystem displays that extended across contexts noticeably strengthened the children’s confidence and use of Māori within the centre; the kaiako reported that families were practising the karakia at home and kaiako could notice more children saying their karakia before eating at the centre. Linguistic Landscape of the Home Environment as Reported by Parents

Both whaea interviewed were learning Māori and were most comfortable using the language within the centre as opposed to out in the community. I probably wouldn’t use haeremai [come here] in public, at the supermarket yet. I’m not quite there. I think because I would feel like a try hard maybe. Maybe it is the community I am in, if I was in a different community where there were more reo speakers I would probably feel more comfortable. Because I feel such a beginner, I’ll use it around pre-schoolers but not the general public. (Whaea B, 2016)

Both whaea saw the centre as a resource for learning Māori, with opportunities to interact with young children and to utilise the wall displays as support. One whaea said that she found that they used Māori more within the home

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on the days the child was attending the ECC. This illustrates the role of the context in the development of those present in each child’s microsystem. The cultural beliefs (regarding the importance of speaking the target language and the value of learning together) of the macrosystem affect the interactions in the mesosystem as the educators and the children encourage the caregivers to feel comfortable speaking the language. At the time of the parent interviews, there was limited Māori language material displayed on the walls of both homes, but both recognised the potential for Māori in the DW to enrich the home language environment. Whaea A had labels in Māori on objects around the house prior to her house being renovated. Whaea B, interviewed via a Skype audio-only call, walked around her house and described visible language. One of her older children was learning Japanese so there was hiragana (Japanese writing) present in the child’s bedroom along with the English alphabet. In the rest of the home, there was art, including Japanese calligraphy. Despite the family owning a couple of books in Māori, they were not visible in the home environment. The parent concluded that the language visible in the physical landscape in her home was ‘all English’. In comparison to the LL of the centre, the home environments would seem to have very little visible language. However, both homes did contain digital devices through which caregivers and children could access the digital landscapes of the centre and elsewhere, some of which were in Māori. One home had a laptop, an iPad Air 2, a PlayStation 3 and one television. The other home had two iPhones, a Microsoft Surface and two televisions. An insight into the family language policy was that the Microsoft Surface was used for language learning by searching for songs on YouTube, finding lyrics and using online language translators. Both families viewed popular cartoons, which had been dubbed into Māori on Māori Television. Whaea B’s children would watch these cartoons and she considered it motivating for Māori language use within the home. We need to actually get one of those [programmes] back on, especially now that [child who attends the centre] is exposed to a lot more reo [(Māori) language] and they’re starting to use it. I think that also inspires her older sister to want to speak it more. We’ll get it back. (Whaea B, 2016) The Digital World to Connect Environments in the Mesosystem

The ECC engaged with family across a range of digital platforms, such as email, Facebook and websites. Māori was integrated into the communications, both with and without English translations. The centre website included images of the centre, links to informative pages and a password-protected area. At the time of the data collection, around 40% of families were registered users. The website required a login to access more private information including photos of children. The general part of the website had centre information, whereas the use of the open

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Facebook group was for communicating more immediate information, notices and updates. Given that this was an open group, there were no images showing children. The digital camera was used extensively throughout the day. Photos of children were used in children’s learning stories and displayed as a slideshow on the digital screen visible in the main learning area for caregivers to view with their children. This is an excellent example of DTs being used to create a mesosystem communicative link between two elements of each child’s microsystem: the child’s caregivers and the ECC environment. This exchange occurred at the threshold point of caregivers coming to collect their children at the end of the day. Another mesosystemic communication with the home was via mobile phones, which allowed kaiako to send digital photos of children to caregivers. This was especially helpful when young children were transitioning into the centre and photos to caregivers were particularly reassuring and facilitated this transition. The Kaihautū said the DT was not much used with the children (in the microsystem within the ECC), more to connect with caregivers (mesosystemic interaction), as young children preferred the more tactile and interactive physical learning experiences on offer at the centre. The Kaihautū sent out an electronic newsletter to families via email each month, including messages in Māori, despite some families not being able to understand the messages. The context of the emails and newsletters could support comprehension or provide a prompt for families to seek understanding. This is a reflection of the beliefs held in the macrosystem in and around this immersion ECC. [The electronic newsletter] is in English and in Māori, mainly because it is a form of communication and the most important is that they understand. But we do put a lot of reo things in there as well, as again, if they were interested and if they find out what it meant, it is good they’re getting to see their language in both. We have actually increased the amount of reo that we have put in the [newsletter], [but] we’ve not got to the point where we can do the whole thing in te reo. (Kaihautū, 2016)

There was an ongoing consideration from the Kaihautū and kaiako to maintain a level of comfort for the families with the ratio of English and Māori and the complexity of the language used within the digital communications to ensure comprehension. The level of Māori used via those communications varied at times, to ensure the families were comfortable and to continue to support them to use Māori. It’s definitely a balancing act and sometimes we go too far one way and we stop hearing the language in the centre. Then we have to go back to the other way and encourage parents to kōrero and to remind them that once they are through that gate it is an immersion centre, without making them feel uncomfortable. (Kaihautū, 2016)

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Discussion

The LLs of the ECC and the children’s homes connected in a number of ways (both physical and digital) to strengthen the presence of Māori across settings and the social relationships between the interacting people. The ECE educators, through the design of displays, created a Māori world in which Māori was normalised, encouraged and supported. For some adults, the ECC was their primary language-learning environment, where they felt safe in their interactions as language learners. This increased their willingness to communicate in Māori with young children, as mentioned by Whaea A. Māori within the centre was influential on their language use within the home, as in the case of Whaea B who used Māori at home on the days her child attended the centre. The LL of the centre, including the building itself and the outdoor environment, served to support the adults in their use of Māori, as the caregivers supported the centre through their use of Māori with their children across settings. The visibility of Māori, enhanced with the inclusion of digital images of the people connected to the language, culture and context, extended from the centre into the homes and back again in a variety of mutually enhancing ways. The LL of the Māori ECC created a Māori world in which the use of Māori was expected, normalised and supported, not only through the visible language but also through the architecture, cultural symbols, traditional materials, landscape design and processes. This can be seen as a reversal of the social context of the wider community, where Māori is less visible and less normalised (Macalister, 2006). Both educators and parents reported that there was a level of discomfort in using Māori beyond the contexts of the ECC and the home, and safety in using Māori within the ECC. To minimise this tension between social contexts and to support language revitalisation in the wider community, more safe spaces for Māori are needed, i.e. spaces that create a sense of identity, belonging, whānau and community. In this case study, digital environments were included as safe spaces. In the two home environments, Māori was less visible; however, parents and children were able to access Māori content in the DW, including online content related to the ECC. At the time of the interviews, both interviewed parents were limited to using Māori within the centre and the home, with the centre being a stimulus for language use within the home. Historical trauma and emotional vulnerabilities (Pihama et al., 2014) associated with language loss and subsequent revitalisation efforts meant that the Kaihautū and kaiako needed to be sensitive to employ what was a ‘comfortable’ level of Māori language use to maintain social safety and protect each individual’s willingness and confidence to communicate. The LL of the centre created a safe space in which adults and children could support one another in their language learning journeys, all in ‘one waka’. The expression being in ‘one waka’, together on the journey of language learning, strengthened language and relationships by

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establishing a sense of belonging within collective aspirations, such as language achievement and togetherness. This was seen in the Poutama artefact (Figure 3.4). The Poutama, one significant display in the LL of the centre, celebrated togetherness and Māori language achievements. Māori flowed in various directions and in various forms in the mesosystem, from the home to the ECC and vice versa, and in the microsystem from an expert to novice and the novice to expert in a Tuakana Teina model. The Poutama included the microsystem of the parents and the children, the microsystem of the educators and the children, as well as the mesosystem of the juxtaposition of the parents and the educators. It represented those who were learning and those who were more fluent in a display inclusive of digital profile photos that could position not only children, but in some cases parents and educators, on the early steps of language learning. Profile photos of family in displays that were developed with family participation correspond to the Māori mesosystem concepts of empowerment, holistic development, family and community. This type of co-­ constructed display aimed not only to create a sense of belonging by including the children and their families together but also to empower caregivers in their own language learning journeys. The LL of the centre served to support the adults in their use of Māori, as the caregivers supported the centre and the use of Māori with their children across settings. This was illustrated in the example of the Karakia artefact, a display created using children’s photos along with the text of a Māori prayer (Figure 3.5). This was particularly powerful as the inclusion enhanced a sense of identity and belonging and also increased the value of the display so that it would be less likely to be discarded. Educators in the centre were able to observe children’s increased skills and confidence during karakia and attributed this to the Karakia display and associated cultural practices in the home. The mesosystemic connection between the ECC and the home and the development of relationships with the families were viewed as vital for young children’s Māori language development. This was highlighted within the ECC enrolment process where families had to confirm that there was at least one person in the home with whom the child was able to communicate in Māori, ensuring that the child’s entire microsystem offered a potential for the child to use Māori. This process highlights and underpins the fact that many Māori caregivers become interested and motivated to learn Māori when they make the decision to send their child to a Māori immersion ECC (King, 2018). The ECC also utilised the DW to strengthen those mesosystemic connections and enrich the LL in the home with the use of Māori in digital communications. The DW was not a separate context, but one that connected the LL of the home and that of the ECC via email, websites and social media platforms. Both within the centre and at the home, adults accessed online resources to share with children to further enrich their linguistic environments with content created both locally and nationally.

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The multiple LLs in which people exist become influential on their perceptions of language power and subsequent language choices. In the case of the physical LL, it was important for the language practices that the people within the ECC language community felt empowered and experienced a sense of belonging and safety when using Māori. These are important considerations for LL design, both digital and physical, in the public and commercial arenas for language revitalisation. There is concern about increasing engagement with digital technologies that may be eroding the necessary empowerment and quality social relationships for continued momentum in revitalisation efforts (Harris et al., 2018b). A limitation in this research is that the digital LL data were collected in online environments that were publicly accessible. For ethical reasons, we did not explore the digital LL of the ECE centre and home environment by analysing private digital interactions such as WhatsApp messages or email conversations. Conclusion

Our research illustrates how the LLs of an ECC and the associated home environments can be digitally interconnected and mutually influencing in ways that can empower children, caregivers and educators and strengthen connections and social safety between people. However, some studies posit a risk that digital practices could disempower, weaken connections and threaten social safety in ways that may counteract revitalisation efforts in the physical world (Ivkovic & Lotherington, 2009). Nevertheless, our research has shown that the LL of this particular Māoriimmersion ECC spans both the digitally interconnected contexts of a child’s home environment and the ECC, both of which are in the child’s microsystem with their associated social processes and relationships, while the digital communication happens mostly in the mesosystem, between the educators and the caregivers. The visibility and salience of majority and indigenous languages within the interconnected home and educational environments express the relative power and status of those languages and may influence how languages are perceived and used in local and global environments (Cenoz & Gorter, 2006). The interconnectivity of landscapes that comes through digitally mediated communication may be an arena for bidirectional and/or mutual influence of languages practices and the LL (Davis et al., 2019). Connections between educational spaces and home environments through digitally mediated communication of content that is co-­ constructed, personalised and sensitive to the social relationships specific to language revitalisation in ways that combine various ways of learning and of knowing can benefit wider revitalisation efforts. While Fishman (1991) insists on the importance of the language practices of the home, he also emphasises the crucial role played by neighbourhoods and

74  Part 1: Assessing the Linguistic and Semiotic Landscapes of Educational Spaces

communities. The ECC in this study was founded around members of a Māori cultural group, thus forming a strong community base. The pedagogical implications of the mesosystemic communication between home and the centre allows the educators to support the caregivers in their own language development, and it supports the children’s linguistic development through the enrichment of the LL of the home by supplying valued materials that can be displayed at home. Ngā mihi (Acknowledgements)

Ngā mihi nui to all the participants in the study, in particular, the kaiako, whaea and supporting adults embarking on their language learning journeys for the revitalisation of Māori language. This study was part of the project ‘Eke pānui, ake tamaiti: Braiding health and education services to ensure early literacy success and healthy well-being for vulnerable children’, which was co-led by Gail Gillon and Angus Macfarlane. We acknowledge the collaborative community of researchers in our National Science Challenge, particularly our colleague Niki Davis. This research was supported by funding from the New Zealand Ministry of Business and Innovation (MBIE) Grant Number 15-02688. Leona’s MEd scholarship was funded by the University of Canterbury. References Benton, R. (1991) The Māori Language: Dying or Reviving? Honolulu: East West Center. Biró, E. (2018) More than a Facebook share: Exploring virtual linguistic landscape. Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica 10 (2), 181–192. Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979) The Ecology of Human Development: Experiments in Nature and Design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bronfenbrenner, U. (2005) Making Human Beings Human: Bioecological Perspectives on Human Development. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Bronfenbrenner, U. and Evans, G.W. (2000) Developmental science in the 21st century: Emerging questions, theoretical models, research designs and empirical findings. Social Development 9, 115–125. Bronfenbrenner, U. and Morris, P.A. (1998) The ecology of developmental processes. In W. Damon and R.M. Lerner (eds) Handbook of Child Psychology: Vol. 1: Theoretical Models of Human Development (5th edn) (pp. 993–1028). New York, NY: Wiley. Bronfenbrenner, U. and Morris, P.A. (2006) The bioecological model of human development. In R.M. Lerner and W. Damon (eds) Handbook of Child Psychology: Theoretical Models of Human Development (6th edn) (pp. 793–828). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Brown, K.D. (2005) Estonian schoolscapes and the marginalization of regional identity in education. European Education 37 (3), 78–89. Carr, M. (2001) Assessment in Early Childhood Settings: Learning Stories. London: Paul Chapman. Cenoz, J. and Gorter, D. (2006) Linguistic landscape and minority languages. International Journal of Multilingualism 3 (1), 67–80. Conteh, J. and Brock, A. (2011) ‘Safe spaces’? Sites of bilingualism for young learners in home, school and community. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 14 (3), 347–360.

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Davis, N., Harris, L. and Cunningham, U. (2019) Professional ecologies shaping technology adoption in early childhood education with multilingual children. British Journal of Educational Technology 50 (3), 1320–1339. De Bres, J. (2015) The hierarchy of minority languages in New Zealand. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 36 (7), 677–693. Fishman, J.A. (1991) Reversing Language Shift. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. García, O. and Li, W. (2014) Translanguaging: Language, Bilingualism and Education. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Gorter, D. (2018) Linguistic landscapes and trends in the study of schoolscapes. Linguistics and Education 44, 80–85. Greenwood, J., Te Aika, L.H. and Davis, N. (2011) Creating virtual marae: An examination of how digital technologies have been adopted by Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand. In Leigh, P.R. (ed.) International Exploration of Technology Equity and the Digital Divide: Critical, Historical and Social Perspectives (pp. 58–79). Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference. Grin, F. and Vaillancourt, F. (1998) Language Revitalisation Policy: An Analytical Survey Theoretical Framework, Policy Experience and Application to Te Reo Māori. Wellington: New Zealand Treasury. See http://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/ research-policy/wp/1998/98-06 (accessed January 2019). Harris, L. (2017) An ethnographic case study of the linguistic landscape of an awardwinning Māori immersion early childhood education centre. Unpublished MEd thesis, University of Canterbury. Harris, L., Cunningham, U. and Davis, N. (2018a) Language seen are languages used: The linguistic landscapes of early childhood centres. Early Education 64, 24–28. Harris, L., Davis, N., Cunningham, U., De Vocht, L., Macfarlane, S., Gregory, N., Aukuso, S., Taleni, T.O. and Dobson, J. (2018b) Exploring the opportunities and challenges of the digital world for early childhood services with vulnerable children. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 15 (11), 2047. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15112407 Higgins, R. and Rewi, P. (2014) ZePA – Right-shifting: Reorientation towards normalisation. In R. Higgins, P. Rewi and V. Olsen-Reeder (eds) Te Hua o Te Reo Māori: The Value of the Māori Language (pp. 7–32). Wellington: Huia Publishers. Ivkovic, D. and Lotherington, H. (2009) Multilingualism in cyberspace: Conceptualising the virtual linguistic landscape. International Journal of Multilingualism 6 (1), 17–36. Johnson, G.M. and Puplampu, K.P. (2008) Internet use during childhood and the ecological techno-subsystem. Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology/La revue canadienne de l’apprentissage et de la technologie 34 (1), 19–28. Jones, R.H. (2011) Cyberspace and physical space: Attention structures in computer mediated communication. In A. Jaworski and C. Thurlow (eds) Semiotic Landscapes: Language, Image, Space (pp. 151–167). London: Bloomsbury. King, J. (2003) ‘Whaia Te Reo: Pursuing the language’: How metaphors describe our relationships with indigenous languages. In J. Reyhner, O.V. Trujillo, R.L. Carrasco and L. Lockard (eds) Nurturing Native Languages (pp. 105–124). Flagstaff, AZ: Northern Arizona University. King, J. (2018) Māori: Revitalization of an endangered language. In K.L. Rehg and L. Campbell (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Endangered Languages (pp. 592–612). Oxford: Oxford University Press. King, J. and Cunningham, U. (2017) Tamariki and fānau: Child speakers of Māori and Samoan in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Te Reo 60, 29–46. Lane, C. (2020) Contrasting statistical indicators of Māori language revitalization: Conversational ability, speaking proficiency, and first language. Language Documentation & Conservation 14, 314–356. Macalister, J. (2006) The Māori presence in the New Zealand English lexicon, 1850– 2000: Evidence from a corpus-based study. English World-Wide 27 (1), 1–24.

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Macalister, J. (2010) Emerging voices or linguistic silence? Examining a New Zealand linguistic landscape. Mulitilingua 29, 55–75. Macfarlane, S., Macfarlane, A. and Gillon, G. (2015) Sharing the food baskets of knowledge: Creating space for a blending of streams. In A. Macfarlane, S. Macfarlane and M. Webber (eds) Sociocultural Realities: Exploring New Horizons (pp. 52–67). Christchurch: Canterbury University Press. Ministry of Education (MOE) (2017) Te Whāriki. See http://education.govt.nz/ (accessed January 2019). Moseley, C. (2010) Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger (3rd edn). Paris: UNESCO Publishing. See http://www.unesco.org/languages-atlas/ (accessed January 2019). Nicholson, R. (2012) Te reo Māori and a New Zealand language policy: Prospects and possibilities. Master thesis, University of Auckland. See http://hdl.handle.net/2292/19603 (accessed January 2019). O’Carroll, A.D. (2013) Virtual whanaungatanga: Māori utilizing social networking sites to attain and maintain relationships. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples 9 (3), 230–245. O’Regan, H.M. (2018) Kotahi mano kāika, kotahi mano wawata – A thousand homes, a thousand dreams. In L. Hinton, L. Huss and G. Roche (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Language Revitalization (pp. 107–114). New York & London: Routledge. Pakarinen, S. and Björklund, S. (2018) Multiple language signage in linguistic landscapes and students’ language practices: A case study from a language immersion setting. Linguistics and Education 44, 4–11. Pihama, L., Cram, F. and Walker, S. (2002) Creating methodological space: A literature review of kaupapa Māori research. Canadian Journal of Native Education 26, 30–43. Pihama, L., Reynolds, P., Smith, C., Reid, J., Smith, L.T. and Te Nana, R. (2014) Positioning historical trauma theory within Aotearoa New Zealand. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples 10 (3), 248–262. Shohamy, E. and Gorter, D. (2009) Introduction. In E. Shohamy and D. Gorter (eds) Linguistic Landscape: Expanding the Scenery (pp. 1–10). New York, NY: Routledge. Smith, L.T. (1999) Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. Dunedin: Zed Books. Statistics New Zealand (2013) 2013 Census QuickStats about Māori. See www.stats. govt.nz (accessed January 2019). Te Kete Ipurangi (2016) Te reo Māori in English-medium schools. See www.http://tereomaori.tki.org.nz (accessed July 2021). Te Puni Kōkiri (1999) Te Tūāoma, the Māori Language: The Steps that Have Been Taken. Wellington: Te Puni Kōkiri. Te Puni Kōkiri (2018) Maihi Karauna: The Crown’s Strategy for Māori Language Revitalisation 2018–2023. Wellington: Te Puni Kōkiri. Glossary of frequently used Māori terms: Kaiako (teacher/s) Kaihautū (Head of Centre) Karakia (prayer) Kōrero (speak) Poutama (stepped pattern symbolising levels of learning and intellectual achievement) Reo (language) Te reo (the language; often used to refer to the Māori language) Tuakana Teina (Māori methodology of reciprocal learning) Tikanga (cultural practices) Waka (Māori canoe) Whaea (female parent/s)

4 Italian Linguistic Schoolscape: Neoplurilingualism in an Age of Migration Carla Bagna and Martina Bellinzona

Introduction: Neo-plurilingualism in Italian Schools

‘Italy is multilingual and does not know it, nor does it much want to know it’, wrote De Mauro (in Bogaro, 2010: 12, our translation), reflecting on the lack of awareness among Italians of the linguistic diversity of their country. Although Italy has been widely considered (or rather, imagined and painted as) a monolingual country, it is in fact characterised by an immense linguistic richness that neither ideologies and beliefs, nor top-down language policies have managed to erase. Alongside Italian, the country’s only official language (in addition to German and French, in Trentino-Alto Adige and Valle d’Aosta, respectively), countless varieties coexist, of which only 12 are recognised and protected by Law 482/1999. The others, considered dialects, vary greatly, and this variability does not allow for their precise counting: it is customary to say that, in Italy, there are as many dialects as bell towers. The latest statistical data date back to 2015 (ISTAT, 2017). They show the persistent vitality of dialects although these are mostly used alternately with Italian. As far as use in the family is concerned, an estimated 45.9% of the population speaks mainly Italian, 32.2% both Italian and a dialect and 14% mainly a dialect. While the ‘traditional’ Italian linguistic space was already rich and multifaceted (De Mauro, 1980), it is even more so today. To the three dimensions, consisting of Italian, historical minorities (the 12 languages recognised by Law 482/1999) and dialects, a fourth has been added, namely languages spoken by migrants residing in the country. On 1st of January 2018, immigrants numbered 5,144,000 (8.5% of the population). This has also had repercussions in schools: in the 2017/2018 school year, enrolled students with non-Italian citizenship numbered 841,719 (9.7% of 77

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the total) from more than 200 countries. Such data give an idea of the linguistic dimension: today, it is common to refer to ‘neo-plurilingualism’ in Italian schools. School is considered a complex linguistic space, not only because it is composed of innumerable, endogenous and exogenous varieties but also because of the relationships that exist among languages. In addition to the languages that are part of students’ linguistic repertoires, in schools of any order and degree, at least one language has to be taught in addition to Italian. This could include English (if it is one) and may extend up to a maximum of three, mainly French, Spanish and German, but also Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Russian. Although surveys in limited contexts confirm this situation (e.g. Siebetcheu, 2018), there are no updated national statistical surveys that focus on the linguistic situation inside schools – the most recent survey dates back to 2014 and covers the period 2011/2012. Furthermore, the management of linguistic diversity is the prerogative of schools themselves, which have wide autonomy. This autonomy covers linguistic diversity in the official curriculum but goes beyond that as well. The latest statute governing education is Law No. 107/2015. One of its main objectives is the ‘enhancement and strengthening of language skills, with particular reference to Italian as well as to English and other languages of the European Union’ (our translation). The law makes no suggestion, however, regarding the maintenance and enhancement of students’ linguistic repertoires. Other documents, both European (Beacco et al., 2016; Candelier et al., 2011) and Italian (MIUR, 2014; 2018), which highlight the democratic dimension of plurilingualism for the development of a global citizenship, are non-prescriptive. They are merely guidelines and recommendations and are not supported by either funds or projects. Given these factors, it is natural to ask what the situation really is in Italian schools from a linguistic perspective: which languages are part of students’ linguistic repertoires, and what do they think of this diversity? Is it correct to speak of neo-plurilingualism in school or is this just rhetoric? To what extent are teachers and principals aware of this potential plurilingualism? And is the latter valued or kept hidden? These and other questions have prompted us to conduct extensive research, part of which is reported in this chapter. In particular, we reflect on the linguistic situation in Italian schools through the lens of linguistic landscape (LL), that is, by investigating the so-called schoolscape (Brown, 2012). For our purposes, we define schoolscape as the set of linguistic and semiotic objects that contributes to the visual organisation of educational spaces. More specifically, with the aim of describing the linguistic schoolscape in the peculiar Italian context, we address the following questions: • How is the schoolscape constituted from a linguistic perspective? • For what reason(s) and with what functions are languages other than Italian visible in the schoolscape?

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• To what extent does the schoolscape reflect the official curriculum and the linguistic repertoires of students? Why are languages from students’ linguistic repertoires present or absent in the schoolscape? To answer these questions, data from 12 secondary schools throughout the country were examined using the LL methods. Similar studies elsewhere appear to justify the use of signs from the schoolscape as primary indicators of plurilingualism (real and potential); language policies, practices and attitudes; and students’, teachers’ and principals’ ideologies. Linguistic Landscape and Schoolscape: Literature Review

The study of the linguistic schoolscape arises within the broader reflection on the visibility of languages in the urban environment, the socalled linguistic landscape (Gorter, 2006). This line of study has proved to be a versatile and interdisciplinary field (see, for example, Jaworski & Thurlow, 2010; Pütz & Mundt, 2019; Shohamy et al., 2010): more than 20 years of research in this area have made it possible to explore LL in all continents, especially in certain city districts, highlighting common and divergent characteristics connected to global and local phenomena. The LL is the place where language policies and practices dynamically interact, dictated not by chance, but by beliefs and ideologies on languages and by communicative needs (Shohamy & Gorter, 2009). By transferring LL methods, approaches and lines of research to the schoolscape, it is possible to investigate overt and covert language policies (Shohamy, 2006), school curricula (official and hidden), ideologies and language attitudes, as well as repertoires and agencies of the different actors who live and attend school. Recent studies on the subject confirm (Gorter, 2018; Malinowski et al., 2020) the value of the schoolscape for understanding school dynamics in relation to the promotion of bilingualism, a suggestion proposed by Dressler (2015) in her analysis of a German– English bilingual elementary school in Alberta, Canada. Similarly, examining the distribution of languages on texts and signs with different functions offers insight into school policies concerning minority languages (Gorter & Cenoz, 2014) and into competition between languages (Amara, 2018). Numerous studies have investigated the schoolscape, considering it as a symbolic space in which values and ideologies (not only linguistic) find their place and where official and hidden curricula are reflected. This is the case of Brown (2012: 282) who, in defining linguistic schoolscape for the first time, described it as ‘[the] school-based environment where place and text, both written (graphic) and oral, constitute, reproduce and transform language ideologies’. Also emphasising ideology, Tódor (2014), in analysing three schools in Romania with a strong Hungarian minority, describes the schoolscape as a visual expression of official language

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ideologies and their local interpretations. Seals (2020), in turn, looks at the translingual changes in the LL at an Early Childhood Education centre in New Zealand and how these have speeded up the acceptance of translanguaging in classrooms. Some of these aforementioned studies captured only visual data, that is, photographs of signs in the schoolscape, which they analysed according to the languages visible and/or the function of the signs (Gorter & Cenoz, 2014; Savela, 2018). Others, instead, have integrated more qualitative data, such as observations, focus groups or interviews (Harris et al., this volume; Lehner, this volume). This is the case for Laihonen and Tódor (2017), whose study, through photos, ethnographic observation, field notes and interviews, examined the change in the schoolscape of a Romanian school following the 1989 revolution. Finally, Szabó (2015) compared the schoolscape of four schools in Budapest, both public and private, identifying different types of organisational culture. He uses the tourist guide technique, which consists of the simultaneous collection of visual data of the schoolscape and interviews with the teachers who guided the researcher in the school spaces. The study presented here owes much to these experiences which provided the basis for the development of a complex and innovative research method. As will be illustrated in the next section, in fact, the research not only presents a strong quantitative approach, in which the linguistic aspect is only one of the components, it also combines this approach with qualitative tools and data, thus offering deep and multifaceted insights into the nature of the schoolscape in general, and of Italy in particular. Research Methodology

Mixed methods were used to answer the research questions, adopting a triangulation design (Creswell et al., 2003) and combining both quantitative and qualitative tools. These included visual schoolscape data, field notes, interviews and questionnaires. These were used in the various sample schools investigated as multiple case studies (Stake, 2005). Since the size of the schools was relatively limited, complete documentation of all schools was possible: data were collected both inside the buildings, in classrooms, the atrium, corridors, gyms and, if present, bars, laboratories and libraries, and outside in the immediate external spaces such as courtyards and gardens. Traditional methods of LL studies were followed to collect visual data: the researcher conducted linguistic walks inside the school buildings, observing the schoolscape and documenting the signs with photographs. This was combined with a survey using the tourist guide technique (Szabó, 2015) in which the researcher was guided by a teacher, who determined the route and indicated the artefacts to be analysed. During the tour, chance encounters with other teachers, students and school collaborators prompted questions on the purpose of the research

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and offered additional perspectives on specific signs. What was discussed during the tour was summarised in field notes, written by the researcher, relating to the comments of the guide and the other informants. A quantitative analysis was conducted of the data collected. Such a quantitative analysis is considered a prerequisite for LL studies (Blackwood, 2015) to identify trends and avoid generalisations based on preconceptions. The theoretical framework of geosemiotics was used (Scollon & Scollon, 2003) and, consequently, signs were analysed by considering their concrete and material emplacement and their visual and multimodal characteristics. The quantitative analysis was followed by a qualitative content analysis. To analyse the signs, it was essential to summarise the data in an analytic grid, drawing on the contributions by Gorter and Cenoz (2014), Barni and Bagna (2009), Savela (2018) and Bellinzona (2018). Using the grid, 5 thematic areas and 21 indicators were distinguished (Table 4.1). In addition to visual data, semi-structured interviews were conducted with the principals (n = 8) and/or intercultural manager (n = 9), that is, teachers officially responsible for managing and organising intercultural activities. Semi-structured interviews were deemed appropriate and were based on an interview guide which identified key topics (Marshall & Rossman, 2011) but allowed flexibility and provided an opportunity to get to the bottom of the topics covered. The interviews (n = 17) were audiorecorded for a total of 402 minutes and transcribed in their entirety. These interviews focused on school language policy and the uses of schoolscape and were analysed with a mixed methodological approach, which includes a synthesis between qualitative content analysis (Mayring, 2004) and the principles of Grounded Theory (Charmaz, 2006), using NVivo 12 Pro. This chapter does not report on the analysis of the interviews. Where excerpts from the interviews are reported, this will only be to better describe and interpret what was observed in the schoolscape. For privacy reasons, pseudonyms will be used to refer to informants. Finally, to obtain an overview of the schools’ linguistic diversity, questionnaires were administered to a sample of students. This complemented the data obtained from the interviews and documents provided by principals and intercultural managers, which will be discussed in the next section. This chapter draws on some of the data collected using the questionnaire to determine the degree of linguistic diversity within schools (Siebetcheu, 2018; Vedovelli, 2010). Questionnaires were distributed and completed during school hours in the presence of the researcher and then analysed via SPSS. In total, n = 605 questionnaires were collected in a total of 37 classes in 11 of the 12 schools (for organisational reasons, questionnaires could not be collected in School 6). Of the total number of informants, 52.1% were female (n = 316), 46.6% male (n = 282) and 1.3% preferred not to declare gender (n = 7); 29.1% informants were between 11 and 13 years old (n = 176), 34.5% between 14 and 16 years old (n = 209), 33.9% from 17 to 21 years old (n = 205) and 2.5% did not complete the field (n = 15).

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Table 4.1  Analysis grid Thematic Areas

Variables

Short Description

Informative

Identification no.

Photograph identification number

Date

Date on which sign was captured

School

School name

Location

Atrium, auditorium, bar, canteen, classroom, corridor, courtyard, gym, laboratory, library

Sign text

Transcription of the text (if present) on the linguistic sign

Annotation

Additional information

Dominant language

The language (or semiotic elements) in which the main part of the message is delivered

L2

Second language

L3

Third language

NL

Number of languages on the sign

Arrangement

Duplicating, fragmentary/overlapping, complementary (Reh, 2004)

Media type

Type of sign, such as billboards, calendars, flyers, leaflets, models, plates, posters, walls, etc.

Semiotic elements

Colours, drawings, font, icons, paintings, symbols, etc.

Function

Informative, mixed, symbolic (Gorter & Cenoz, 2014)

Category

Advertising, decoration, education, management

Genre 1 and genre 2

School management, classroom management, didactics, values, intercultural, graffiti, advertisements, event announcements, commemorative plaques, certificates, decorations

Topic

School subjects (art, languages, history, geography, mathematics, Italian), extracurricular activities (sports, theatre, conferences, travel, entertainment), identity (scholastic, personal), values (active citizenship, human relations, personal growth), etc.

Author

Who made the sign?

Issuer

Who issued it?

Addressee

To whom is it addressed?

Linguistic

Multimodality

Purpose

Agency

Research Contexts

Second-grade secondary schools, that is, lower secondary schools (for children between 11 and 14 years of age) and upper secondary schools (for students from 14 to 19 years), respectively, throughout the country were analysed and triangulated. For the study, 12 Italian secondary schools were considered. For privacy policy reasons, school names will not be

Italian Linguistic Schoolscape: Neo-plurilingualism in an Age of Migration  83

provided in this work. Several problems arose both during the design phase, that is, when choosing the schools in which to carry out the survey, as well as during the recruitment stage. Regarding school choice, the field was restricted to secondary schools because of the greater variety of languages proposed in the curriculum of such schools. However, it was decided to diversify the selection by choosing schools of first and second grade, in order to obtain an overview of uses of the schoolscape potentially influenced by the age of the students. At that point, the schools already visited during the pilot study were selected (Bellinzona, 2018) in order to have comparable data from a diachronic perspective. Likewise, schools that had one of the following characteristics were sought: high percentages of pupils with migrant backgrounds, ongoing intercultural projects and teaching of non-European languages. The choice further depended on the diversity of the following factors: location (region – city centre, suburbs and small town), users characteristics (socioeconomic characteristics and students’ origin) and curriculum. Once 30 schools were identified, an email was sent in which the purpose of the research was explained and the official request for authorisation was attached. The schools that agreed to take part in the survey were then contacted by phone to organise our visit. Only eight schools were recruited following this method. As we did not consider this sample adequate for the purposes of the research, the LEND association (Lingua e Nuova Didattica, https://www.lend.it/eu/index.php) was contacted because their associates are language teachers throughout Italy. Thanks to these contacts; four additional schools agreed to participate in the survey and, once informal consent was obtained, the request for official authorisation was sent by email. It was thus possible to have access to schools located in 9 of the 20 Italian regions and to collect a large corpus of data; to the best of our knowledge, one of the largest schoolscapes datasets. As mentioned, the schools differ greatly in terms of location (Figure 4.1), grade and users, and this heterogeneity constitutes an important feature of this study, giving room for a great variety of analyses, of which only a small part is reported in this chapter. Table 4.2 shows grade, region, number of students enrolled, percentage of pupils with non-Italian citizenship, languages studied as part of the curriculum and date of survey. Although the percentage of immigrant pupils and the linguistic curriculum can give a first impression of the potential plurilingualism, it is not enough to account for how many and which languages students know and use in different domains. The answers provided in the questionnaire offer a more precise overview in this sense. Figure 4.2 shows the number of languages that informants declared having in their linguistic repertoire. Of the informants, 2.3% (n = 14) declared that they knew (at any level) only one language. Reduced absolute numbers are also observed for the other extreme values, with 5.6% of informants (n = 34) reporting two

84  Part 1: Assessing the Linguistic and Semiotic Landscapes of Educational Spaces

Figure 4.1  Location of schools (Google maps, 2020)

languages in their repertoire, 8.4% of students (n = 51) who claimed to know six languages and 4.8% (n = 29) up to seven. Most informants declared, instead, having between three and five languages in their repertoire, with 17.5% of students (n = 106) having three languages, 36.5% (n = 221) four languages and 24.3% (n = 147) five languages. Table 4.3 shows the top 10 languages reported as part of students’ repertoires. The first column shows the order of frequency with which a language, whose name is indicated in the second column, was specified by the informants. The third and fourth columns, respectively, indicate the absolute number and the percentage of times in which these languages were highlighted as part of the students’ repertoires. As expected, Italian was the most widely used language, indicated by almost all of the 605 students who participated in the survey (n = 599; 99.3%). Next, we find English, reported by more than 90% of informants (n = 546), followed closely by French (n = 409; 67.8%), Spanish (n = 273; 45.2%) and German (n = 84; 13.9%). It is interesting to note that more than half, i.e. 55.3%, of the informants (n = 334) declared the presence of an Italian dialect in their linguistic space. In many cases, moreover, the

Italian Linguistic Schoolscape: Neo-plurilingualism in an Age of Migration  85

Table 4.2  Schools characteristics – Information from schools’ official documents School

Grade 1

Region

2

No. of Stud

% Migr.

Curr. Languages En.

Date

Fr.

Ge.

Sp. ✓

24–25 May 2018

✓

✓

28 March 2018

S. 1

✓

Veneto

185

29

✓

S. 2

✓

Tuscany

427

12

✓

✓

S. 3

✓

Lazio

195

30

✓

✓

S. 4

✓

Lazio

491

11

✓

✓

S. 5

✓

Sicily

180

18

✓

✓

7–8 May 2018 ✓

✓

Lombardy

1560

6

✓

✓

✓

✓

S. 7

✓

Lombardy

847

60

✓

✓

✓

✓

S. 8

✓

Piedmont

676

70

✓

S. 9

✓

EmiliaRomagna

1398

8

✓

✓

✓

S. 10

✓

Tuscany

674

21

✓

✓

✓

✓

5 April 2018 21 May 2018 28 May 2018

S. 11

✓

Marche

350

14

✓

S. 12

✓

Calabria

824

3

✓

✓

12

9

7807

9 November 2018 14–15 November 2018

S. 6

Total

Oth.

✓

23 October 2018 27 April 2018 19–20 April 2018

✓ 5

7

27–28 November 2018 1

Note: Average: 23.5%; Range: 67.

5%

8%

2%

6%

18%

24%

37% 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Figure 4.2  Number of languages that form part of students’ repertoire

86  Part 1: Assessing the Linguistic and Semiotic Landscapes of Educational Spaces

Table 4.3  Top 10 languages by frequency declared as part of students’ repertoires (n = 605) Order of frequency

Language

N

%

1

Italian

599

99,3

2

English

546

90,5

3

French

409

67,8

4

Italian dialect

334

55,3

5

Spanish

273

45,2

6

German

84

13,9

7

Arabic

58

9,6

8

Romanian

42

6,9

9

Albanian

39

6,4

10

Chinese

24

3,9

addition of the name of the known variety was observed, both in regional terms (e.g. Tuscan, Calabrian, etc.) and in terms of local varieties (e.g. Neapolitan, Milanese, etc.). Knowledge of the dialect declared is not reflected, however, in the linguistic uses of dialectal varieties in the family domain, within which ‘only’ 29.2% of the informants (n = 175) claimed to use a dialect, mostly as an alternative to Italian and/or with specific family members (grandparents in particular). Nearly half, namely, 47.1% of the informants (n = 285) indicated the presence of migrant languages in their repertoire: the first four languages indicated, in all their varieties (sometimes specified), were found to be Arabic (n = 58; 9.6%), Romanian (n = 42; 6.9%), Albanian (n = 39; 6.4%) and Chinese (n = 24; 3.9%). In addition to these, other languages were reported, each of which was known by less than 3.5% of the students, leading to a total of 48 different languages. Again, the declared knowledge is not necessarily reflected in the linguistic uses in the different domains. 70

64

60

48

50

47

44

40 30 20

30 20 19

16

17

20

42

42

32 23

21

19

13

10 0

43

12

12

14

4 School1

School2

School3

School4

School5

School7 Yes

School8

School9 School10 School11 School12

No

Figure 4.3  Distribution of the use of an additional language in the family domain according to school

Italian Linguistic Schoolscape: Neo-plurilingualism in an Age of Migration  87

Just considering home or family, 34.2% of informants (n = 207) reported using a language other than Italian and/or dialect (alone or alternating with these). Figure 4.3 shows the distribution across schools of informants who declared that they use an additional language in the family domain. Values refer to the number of participants in the survey per school. Results The linguistic structure of the schoolscape

To answer the first question, namely, how the schoolscape is linguistically constituted, 1981 signs were analysed. Italian, unsurprisingly, dominated, with languages other than the national one visible on 26% of signs (n = 508), either in monolingual texts or accompanied by Italian or other languages. Figure 4.4 depicts these languages and their prevalence. English was the most visible language (present on 55% of signs that contain texts in languages other than Italian), followed by German, French and Spanish. Chinese, Japanese, Arabic and Latin also exceed 15 occurrences, while ‘others’ included all languages present on a limited number of signs. In total, more than 40 different languages were observed. Considering the number of languages in the same text, 84% of signs were monolingual, 13% bilingual and 3% in three or more languages. Monolingual signs predominated in all the institutions examined, ranging from 50% to 97% (in School 12 and 8, respectively). Of these monolingual signs, 83% were Italian, followed by 6% English monolingual signs, 5% German, 2% French and 4% other languages which, if taken individually, do not exceed 1%. The combinations on bilingual signs, on the other hand, are represented in Figure 4.5. Bilingual signs in Italian and English are in the majority (64%), followed by signs with texts in Italian–French (9%), Italian–Chinese (4%) and Italian–Latin (4%). Fourteen percent of bilingual signs constitute of a combination of Italian with other languages, while the remaining 5% consists of texts in English plus another language (different from Italian). These percentages in themselves confirm the predominance of Italian, which appears together with other languages in 95% of cases, a point further analysis emphasises. An analysis of which language (or other semiotic system) occupies the most important position and which carries the main 300 250 200 150 100 50 0

English

German

French

Spanish

Chinese

Japanese

Figure 4.4  Languages other than Italian on signs

Arabic

Lan

Others

88  Part 1: Assessing the Linguistic and Semiotic Landscapes of Educational Spaces

5% 14%

4% 4% 64%

9%

Ita - Engl

Ita - Fr

Ita - Chinese

Ita - Lan

Ita - Others

Engl - Others

Figure 4.5  Combinations of languages on bilingual signs

part of the message shows that in 65% of the cases, the dominant language is Italian. Twenty percent of the bilingual signs see English in a dominant position, while the other documented languages are entrusted with the greatest load of information only in 9% of cases. Other graphic elements represent the dominant system in 6% of bilingual signs. Looking at the arrangement, 78% of the bilingual signs contained complementary texts (in which different parts of the overall information are rendered each in a different language), 7% contained duplicates (in which the same text is presented in full in two languages) and 15% contained overlapping texts (in which only some information was rendered in two languages). Multilingual signs (n = 58) were not observed in all schools, as can be seen in Table 4.4 where the distribution of multilingual signs according to school is reported. These signs were mostly concentrated, in absolute terms, in Schools 2 (n = 17; 9%) and 6 (n = 14; 3% ), while from a relative point of view, they also had significant weight in Schools 1 (n = 7; 5%) and 9 (n = 5; 6%). Italian was present in all the documented artefacts, in 74% of cases in a dominant position. This was followed by English, on 84% of signs (n = 49), and Spanish and French, each of which were observed on 53% of artefacts (n = 31 each). In descending order are Arabic (n = 19; 33%), German (n = 18; Table 4.4  Distribution of multilingual signs according to schools S1

S2

Absolute no.

7

Percentage

5

S3

S4

S5

S6

S7

S8

S9

S10

S11

S12

17

1

14

3

1

5

8

2

9

1

3

2

1

6

2

1

Italian Linguistic Schoolscape: Neo-plurilingualism in an Age of Migration  89

31%), Romanian (n = 12; 21%) and Chinese (n = 11; 19%). It is interesting to note that multilingual signs were combined in a complementary way in 45% of cases, in a duplicated way in 27% and in an overlapping manner in 28%. Regarding agency, texts in languages other than Italian were usually produced by subjects external to schools (44% of the total), which were mainly posted by teachers (77%). Thus, even though teachers are not personally active in the creation of artefacts in languages other than Italian (only 7% of these signs were found to have a teacher as sign maker), they appear to be the main actors responsible for the visibility of these languages in the schoolscape. This is even more true regarding student (32%) output resulting from teachers’ teaching activities, which were of course completed following the teachers’ instructions. Only 9% of signs in the schoolscape with texts in languages other than the national one were independently created by students, and only 12% of additional material (produced by external actors) was posted by students. Similarly, school authorities (in the figure of the principal or administrative staff) account for a rate of 7% in the creation of signs and for a rate of 10% as issuers. The distribution of signs inside buildings is shown in Figure 4.6. Signs in languages other than Italian (both monolingual and bilingual/multilingual, also alongside the national language) were most prevalent in classrooms (n = 252; 50%); atria (n = 80) and especially corridors (n = 134) combined accounted for 43% of the total number of signs documented, while aula magna (n = 6), courtyards (n = 17) and other areas of the school (n = 14) only accounted for 7%.

3% 1% 3% 16%

50%

27%

Classrooms

Corridors

Atria

Courtyard

Aula magna

Other areas

Figure 4.6  Spatial distribution of signs on school sites with languages other than Italian

90  Part 1: Assessing the Linguistic and Semiotic Landscapes of Educational Spaces

The function of languages other than Italian

At this point, it seems necessary to check in which contexts, or rather on what types of artefact and for what reasons languages other than Italian are visible in the schoolscape. This will allow the second research question to be answered, namely, what roles these languages play in the schoolscape. To do so, three functions and four categories were distinguished. Table 4.5 shows the distribution of signs (absolute numbers and percentage) according to school, function and category. Function refers to the communicative intentions of signs: following the distinction made by Landry and Bourhis (1997), later enlarged by Gorter and Cenoz (2014), Table 4.5  Distribution of signs according to school, function and category Tot. all signs

Function Tot.

Info.

Mix.

Simb.

Dec.

Edu.

Mang.

Pub.

TOT

1981

508

225

224

59

124

197

69

118

S.1

138

26%

S.2

189

S.3

8

S.4

136

18

178

S.6

402

S.7

129

S.8

96

81

S.10

391

S.11

75

158

44% 14

12%

24%

39%

14%

2

5

5

5

3

11%

28%

28%

28%

16%

18

12

15

34%

23%

28%

78%

53

13

36

4

28%

24%

68%

8%

10

6

4

1

6

2

1

40%

10%

60%

20%

10%

22

1

2

73%

3%

15

17%

50%

194

8 15%

107

9

6

5

30%

20%

17%

70

17

37

110

48%

55%

36%

9%

19%

46

21

19

6

15

4

36%

46%

41%

32%

9%

15

12

23%

60%

30

13%

57%

7

8

3

47%

53%

20%

15

7% 32

8%

16%

9

18

20%

39%

1

11

7%

73%

4

8

2

3

4

3

15%

33%

67%

17%

25%

33%

25%

93

43

31

19

29

21

17

26

24%

46%

33%

13 17%

S.12

2 11%

16% S.9

44%

13%

7% S.5

Category

24 15%

2 15% 5 21%

21%

31%

23%

18%

28%

10

1

9

2

1

1

77%

8%

69%

15%

8%

8%

4

13

15 62%

17%

54%

3 13%

2 8%

6 25%

Italian Linguistic Schoolscape: Neo-plurilingualism in an Age of Migration  91

signs were distinguished as informative, symbolic or mixed (informative and symbolic). Unlike Gorter and Cenoz (2014), however, the distinction was not made a priori, based on the sign genre, but was renegotiated from time to time, also and above all thanks to the comments collected during the tour. The category partly draws on and adapts the conceptualisation of the discursive categories of signs in the urban LL to the school environment (Scollon & Scollon, 2003). Educational category refers to signs that convey didactic content; advertising signs are those used to sponsor products, activities, events and services; decorative signs embellish the school, make it a more welcoming, colourful and lively place, closer to the people and less removed from external reality; while management signs guide the flow of individuals within school spaces, provide information of common interest and prescribe behaviour to be followed or avoided. The second column shows the total number of signs per school, while the third one shows the number of signs in languages other than/in addition to Italian for each school visited and the percentage of the latter compared to the total. The highest number was 194 artefacts (38%) in School 6, followed by School 10 (n = 93; 24%), School 2 (n = 53; 28%) and School 7 (n = 46; 36%). Regarding function, the total number of signs was equally divided between the informative (n = 225) and the mixed function (n = 224), both 44%. Considering the category, from a general perspective, educational signs were most prominent (n = 197; 39%), followed by decorative signs (n = 124, 24%), advertising (n = 118; 23%) and finally management (n = 69; 14%). Nonetheless, looking at individual schools, four patterns emerged. In the first pattern (Schools 2, 6, 4 and 5), the prevalence of educational signs, with occurrences in languages other than Italian, compared to other categories is confirmed. In the second pattern (Schools 11, 10 and 12), signs with a decorative purpose were most prominent. In the third pattern (Schools 7 and 8), advertising took on greater weight. Management signs were most prominent in the fourth pattern (Schools 9 and 1), although quantitatively lower than the others. The function and category of artefacts with texts in languages other than Italian varied both according to the school and, above all, according to the languages themselves. German, French, Spanish and Japanese appeared mainly on educational signs. Japanese, which occurred almost only in School 6, where it is part of the curriculum for some classes, appears in artefacts that belong to teaching activities. The same applies to German, observed in 65% of the cases on educational signs and, for the vast majority, in the classrooms of School 6. German also occurred in the other schools, where it forms part of the official curriculum (Schools 2, 10, 7, 9), although to a lesser extent than Spanish and French, whose distribution in institutions faithfully reflects the presence/absence of these languages in the study plan. Although Spanish and French both appear mainly on educational signs, Spanish was also observed on a good number of management and decorative artefacts, while French was

92  Part 1: Assessing the Linguistic and Semiotic Landscapes of Educational Spaces

observed chiefly on advertising artefacts. Promotional posters relating to the teaching of French and German provided by the Académie Française and the Goethe Institut, respectively, were present in all schools where these languages formed part of the curriculum. If the presence of French, Spanish, German and Japanese in the schoolscape reflects schools’ official curricula (albeit with significant differences among them), the reasons behind the visibility of other languages, observed across all institutes and with very different functions, must be sought elsewhere. For example, Polish, Thai, Korean, Danish and Norwegian occurred in all schoolscapes, even though these languages are not taught in those schools. Examples of the types of sign on which these varieties are found are presented in Figures 4.7 and 4.8. Figure 4.7 shows a calendar, provided by a restaurateur in the city where School 6 is located. In this case, Chinese is visible in the schoolscape, not as a language of education, nor because it is part of the students’ linguistic repertoire, but in an advertisement produced by an actor outside the school context.

Figure 4.7 Calendar of a Chinese restaurateur ‘Flavour of China’ – School 6 – Classroom (5 April 2018)

Italian Linguistic Schoolscape: Neo-plurilingualism in an Age of Migration  93

Figure 4.8  Erasmus multilingual notice board detail – School 9 – Corridor (23 October 2018)

Different but somewhat similar is the Erasmus bulletin board in Figure 4.8 (School 9), which contains English, Latin, Romanian, Spanish and Polish. The presence of these languages in the schoolscape is attributable to the school’s participation in the Erasmus student exchange project and exchanges between students in the institutions involved. Artefacts of this kind (placards, plaques, prizes), with texts in languages that are not taught at school but rather brought into the educational context following trips, language exchanges, events and sporting competitions abroad or with foreign schools, were also documented in the other schools visited. English differs from these languages with their low numbers and links to advertising and decorative uses. English was observed on 281 signs, of which 31% were monolingual (n = 88), 52% bilingual (n = 145, of which 43 had English as the dominant language) and 17% multilingual (n = 48). These signs were documented inside classrooms 38% of the time, in corridors 32% of the time, in the atrium 20% of the time and in other school areas 10% of the time. As for the function, 41% of signs were purely informative (n = 115), 15% symbolic (n = 41) and 44% both informative and symbolic (n = 125). What is most significant in this context, however, is the analysis by category, the results of which are shown in Figure 4.9. The purpose of most signs presenting an English text was advertising (31% of the total; n = 88), while those with the fewest occurrences were displayed for management purposes (16%; n = 44). In the middle were the decorative (27%; n = 77) and educational (26%; n = 72) signs. For the advertising signs, the type of arrangement was complementary in almost all cases, with Italian as the dominant language and English in a subordinate position: of the 64 signs (out of a total of 88) with complementary texts, only 16 used English as the primary language for the transmission of the message.

94  Part 1: Assessing the Linguistic and Semiotic Landscapes of Educational Spaces

16% 31%

26%

27% Adversing

Decoraon

Educaon

Management

Figure 4.9  Distribution of English according to the category of the signs

Finally, the presence/absence in the schoolscape of Italian dialects was noteworthy: in fact, of the total number of signs documented, only seven contained texts in these languages. All these signs belonged to the decorative category, and five of them were made by school collaborators, only two by students. Focus on languages used by migrants

To answer the question about the extent to which the schoolscape reflects the linguistic repertoires of students, signs containing texts in languages used by migrants were examined. These signs make up only 2.4% (n = 47) of all the signs observed. They were mostly multilingual artefacts: only 5 were monolingual, 14 bilingual and the remaining 28 presented three or more languages. Almost all were documented in just four of the institutions: School 2 (n = 13), School 10 (n = 10), School 6 (n = 9) and School 1 (n = 7). In Schools 3, 4 and 5, no occurrences in these languages were observed, while sporadic examples were found in the remaining schools. These data reflect a lack of correspondence between the number of pupils with a migrant background and the presence of their repertoire languages in the schoolscapes. The schoolscape of schools such as School 8, in which 70% of students did not hold Italian citizenship, was almost devoid of signs in their languages (n = 1). In contrast, in School 2, where the incidence of immigrant students is 12%, official signage (of the management category) is translated into at least four languages, in some cases six, in n = 5 and n = 4 signs, respectively. Among the most visible languages, we find Chinese (n = 26; 55%) and Arabic (n = 21; 45%) in the first place, followed by French (n = 17; 36%) and Spanish (n = 16; 34%). The other documented migrant languages are the following: Romanian (n = 8; 17%), Albanian (n = 7; 15%), Bengali

Italian Linguistic Schoolscape: Neo-plurilingualism in an Age of Migration  95

(n = 6; 13%), Hindi (n = 4; 9%), Portuguese (n = 4; 9%), Russian (n = 4; 9%), Senegalese (n = 2; 4%) and Turkish (n = 2; 4%), plus single occurrences of Serbo-Croatian, Pashto, Ukrainian and Urdu. Signs of mixed function made up the 82% of the total, while 14% of signs were symbolic and 4% were purely informative in function. In 30% of cases, these were signs belonging to the management category, while 28% were decorative, 25% advertising and 17% educational. Looking only at the signs of the management category, 14% had an informative function, while the function of the remaining 86% was mixed. Figures 4.10 and 4.11 provide clarity in this regard. The notice in Figure 4.10 appeared in School 10, an institution with 21% of students with a migrant background, of whom more than 50% were of Chinese nationality. Although the second generations increase annually (reported by the interviewed intercultural manager), the number of newly arrived students with parents who are not sufficiently competent in Italian remains high. The notice is directed precisely at these parents, and it is to be understood as strictly necessary for communication. The totem in the atrium of School 2 (Figure 4.11) is different. Directions appear on one side while on the other side appears the words ‘One language is never enough’ in six languages, the top one being Italian. In this case, migrant languages are not used so much for communicative purposes as for the symbolic function attributed to them, a function highlighted by the sentence on the back of the sign. Plurilingual signs such as this characterise the entire atrium of School 2, the reason for which was revealed by Maria, the principal: Maria: We have, let’s say, as a mission, let’s call it ‘foreign languages and interculturality’, understood as knowledge of other worlds, of those who are different from us, because they come from

Figure 4.10  Notice in Chinese – School 10 – Atrium (27 April 2018)

96  Part 1: Assessing the Linguistic and Semiotic Landscapes of Educational Spaces

Figure 4.11  Two sides of a multilingual totem with directions and the sentence ‘one language is never enough’ in Italian, English, French, Spanish, Arabic and Hindi – School 2 – Atrium (28 March 2018)

other cultures. This is useful to activate the emotional resources that make one accept the other, accept diversity, overcome intolerances, racisms. (28 March 2018, own translation from Italian)

Very similar signs (Figure 4.12) were observed in School 1: the principal, Antonella, had had the opportunity to visit School 2 during a conference. She had greatly appreciated the initiative in School 2 and decided to implement it in her own institute. Antonella explained that, having neither the funds to create signs with durable materials nor appropriate tools to translate the signs, they had to resort to other means: Antonella: They [the signs] are handcrafted: we made them. The nice thing is that we were not able to do this writing [in Bengali and Arabic] with computers, so the mothers [of migrant pupils] wrote them for us. (25 May 2018 – own translation from Italian)

Italian Linguistic Schoolscape: Neo-plurilingualism in an Age of Migration  97

Figure 4.12  Handwritten and printed sign, duplicated in Italian, English, French, Spanish, Arabic and Bengali – School 1 – Corridor (24 May 2018)

Turning to the authors of the signs in migrant languages, 72% was made and/or positioned by the school authority (principal and, to a lesser extent, teachers), 19% was made by students during the course of didactic activities, while only 9% was produced autonomously or transgressively by students themselves – for example, decorations or graffiti. The majority of these signs (43%) was located in school atria, therefore, in the area most frequented by students and external visitors, 23% in the corridors and 4% in the courtyard and in the library combined. Twenty-six percent of signs in migrant languages were documented inside classrooms and, of these, 58% belonged to the educational category. An example of this is shown in Figure 4.13, which displays coloured sheets on which the students in a class at School 7 had written a sentence in their mother tongue (‘who saves a life saves the whole world’). This photo was taken during the administration of the questionnaire to the students: the teacher, pointing to the signs, proudly explained how she had had these artefacts produced, considering it useful and positive to

Figure 4.13  Who saves a life, saves the whole world – text duplicated in Italian, French, Arabic, Spanish and Portuguese – School 7 – Classroom (21 May 2018)

98  Part 1: Assessing the Linguistic and Semiotic Landscapes of Educational Spaces

display the students’ mother tongues. It is even more interesting to note that the school principal, Francesca, takes a completely opposite stance. Although she wanted to point out the multicultural nature of the school, she also noted that she did not appreciate the idea of displaying signs in the languages spoken by the students of the school. Francesca: Perhaps it is more typical of primary schools. I don’t know if others do it, we don’t. It’s something that didn’t belong to us, I didn’t find it when I came, because I told you I didn’t have a great experience, I didn’t promote it because, I don’t know, I don’t like it ... But I have to say that teachers have never proposed it [to create multilingual signs] to me either, so they probably don’t believe in its validity. (21 May 2018 – Own translation from Italian)

Along similar lines, Anna, the intercultural manager for School 11, says they never thought of creating signs of this kind: Anna: We never thought of doing the opposite, that is, of making their languages visible. We mainly see Italian, because we are always trying to improve the welcoming language. (20 April 2018 – Own translation from Italian)

The situation in School 3 is also different. Here, according to the interviewees, multilingual material was very present, as it was produced during projects that lasted several years. However, due to structural interventions dictated by security reasons (related to fire regulations), this material had recently been completely dismantled. Similarly, Irene, the intercultural manager for School 5, reported the former presence of ephemeral welcome texts in several languages: Irene: But last year all the corridors were painted, so all the materials that were hung up were removed. Unfortunately, we didn’t take care to preserve them. (14 November 2018 – Own translation from Italian)

It is therefore clear that each school acts differently in making students’ multilingualism visible, not just on the basis of students’ needs, but rather based on the ideas, attitudes, sensitivities and training of the teachers and principals. From the analysis of the interviews, it emerged that while in almost all contexts a serious and in-depth reflection on the best ways to welcome immigrant students is made, a reflection that always involves the Italian language, it only rarely touches on the other languages of their repertoires. This is fairly accurately reflected in the different schoolscapes. Conclusions

In this research, an LL approach (Gorter, 2006; Scollon & Scollon, 2003) was adopted to explore secondary school spaces in Italy. The aim

Italian Linguistic Schoolscape: Neo-plurilingualism in an Age of Migration  99

was to verify to what extent there are traces of a democratic language education as promoted by national and European documents. In particular, this study examined how effectively schools are plurilingual today and, if this were the case, how and why there is a trace of this in the schoolscape. The results allow a picture to be painted in line with other studies (Siebetcheu, 2018) that investigated the neo-plurilingualism characteristic of schools. The results reflect the great diversity in the Italian linguistic space, comprising five different dimensions – the four traditional ones, namely Italian, historical minorities, dialects and languages used by migrants– plus a fifth one, that is, languages taught at school. It was observed that while both dialects and migrant languages have an important place in the pupils’ repertoires, there are few traces of these languages in the schoolscape. In fact, the schoolscape is characterised by a clear propensity for Italian monolingualism and the presence of other languages is variable and attributable to different reasons and agents. On one hand, a different trend towards plurilingualism in the schoolscape was observed depending on the school type and its linguistic curriculum. On the other hand, the presence of different languages appears to be linked to the different functions of the schoolscape itself, which coincide with the categories of signs: educational, advertising, management and decorative. Although only about a quarter of the total number of signs bore diverse languages, the number of languages was high (more than 40). Furthermore, these 40 languages came from a broad geographic spectrum, ranging from the dialects of the city to languages traditionally associated with Europe as well as languages from various parts of the world. Some of these languages find space on the school walls as a consequence of globalisation and the implicit advertising function of the schoolscape: flyers advertising Japanese restaurants and posters related to Muay Thai courses, to give just two examples, are found in the corridors and atria of the schools, echoing the linguistic diversity of the superdiverse urban LL (Gorter, 2006; Shohamy et al., 2010). Other languages, however, are observable on purely decorative signs and are the consequence of the EU’s commitment to pursuing multilingual education and cooperation between countries. These languages appear on trophies, posters and placards made by students to commemorate trips and exchanges with partner schools. A particular case is that of English, a language that is part of the curricula of all schools, which appears not only on educational signs (as a reflection of the curriculum) but also on management, advertising (Piller, 2003) and decorative signs (often in graffiti and artefacts made by students). Other languages that form part of the different curricula – such as French, German and Spanish and, in School 6, also Chinese, Arabic and Japanese – are visible on the school walls mainly thanks to the teachers, as previously observed by Dressler (2015). These languages appear more

100  Part 1: Assessing the Linguistic and Semiotic Landscapes of Educational Spaces

frequently in the analysed schools, suggesting that the schoolscape reflects the official curricula of schools. In contrast, a comparison of students’ linguistic repertoires and the visibility of the languages in these repertoires in the schoolscapes shows that these languages have little presence in the linguistic schoolscape. This is true both for migrant languages, and especially for Italian dialects, whose presence is almost zero, except for some signs placed by school collaborators, actors who have never been considered in schoolscape studies. As for migrant languages, it has emerged that the principal plays a key role in creating a school environment that enhances and either gives space to or, by contrast, rejects the linguistic diversity brought by the students. At this juncture, the schoolscape analysis has proved to be a reliable indicator of the level of attention paid to linguistic diversity in schools. Migrant languages were found mainly on signs belonging to the management category, that is, those directly subjected to the control of the principal. It is also important to underline that the presence of such languages is not directly proportional to the number of students with a migrant background. Furthermore, only a few migrant languages, Chinese and Arabic mainly, have managed to gain some space in the schoolscape, confirming what has already emerged in the urban LL (Barni & Bagna, 2010) on the lack of correspondence between sociolinguistic repertoires and visibility in the LL. Nonetheless, the linguistic dynamics inside and outside of schools are profoundly different, and this is confirmed by the different characteristics of the urban LL and the schoolscape. In the former, the presence of migrant languages on visual signs is primarily a manifestation of de facto language policies and individual practices (dictated by beliefs and ideologies, by communicative needs, economic issues, etc.). In the latter, plurilingualism is mainly the result of de jure language policies and depends on the will of managerial entities or figures. However, these are not top-down national language policies; rather, they are renegotiated school by school, class by class. Since there is no explicit top-down national policy aimed at enhancing migrant languages, the implementation of school-based language micro-policies is almost exclusively due to linguistic sensitivity, and to the ideologies and beliefs of principals and teachers. It is true that, where there are communication needs, signs were observed in the languages spoken by the students but, in most cases, the use of these languages appeared to have mainly a symbolic (or mixed) function. Before concluding, it is important to make a clarification: in this study, the data were analysed and discussed from a predominantly quantitative perspective. This is appropriate and necessary in order to have a true picture of the linguistic situation in the schoolscape examined. This analysis, as mentioned, highlighted the clear prevalence of Italian and the under-representation of other languages: Italian dialects and migrant

Italian Linguistic Schoolscape: Neo-plurilingualism in an Age of Migration  101

languages in particular. Nonetheless, looking at the data from a qualitative perspective and considering the entire school ecology, the picture that emerges is somewhat different. In a school environment, which is institutional and prescriptive by definition, the presence of even a single sign in these languages (even more so given the absence of national policies) assumes a force and a value that mere statistical calculation cannot detect, and this must be taken into account. For this reason, we believe that it is fundamental to integrate the quantitative and qualitative analysis of visual data, looking at the signs not only individually but also within the semiotic aggregate in which they are found, taking into consideration their material and symbolic emplacement (Gorter & Cenoz, 2015; Scollon & Scollon, 2003) and the point of view of the agents who come into contact with them. The use of additional research tools, such as guided tours and field notes, interviews and questionnaires, guarantees access to perspectives that differ from that of the researcher: this allows the value of these languages in the school space to be explored, thus going beyond the numerical data alone. This study combined the macro level of a national linguistic territory with the micro level of case studies and unique contexts. While there are limits to the generalisability of these findings, they open an avenue of inquiry in which data collection from whole linguistic territories is combined with detailed analyses of signs within institutions. The number of schools visited and the amount of data collected are significant and made it possible to answer the research questions formulated. In addition, it is important to underline that it is the first attempt to map the broad scope of the linguistic schoolscape of Italy and describe and analyse it in depth. Finally, this study developed and tested an analytic grid (see Research Methodology section) that can be used in further research. It is therefore not only desirable but also possible to repeat similar studies, both in the Italian context and in other countries, subject to the same challenges. Notes

For Italian administrative purposes, C. Bagna takes responsibility for the section ‘Introduction: Neo-plurilingualism in Italian Schools’ and M. Bellinzona takes responsibility for the sections ‘Linguistic Landscape and Schoolscape: Literature Review’, ‘Research Methodology’, ‘Research Contexts’, ‘Results’ and ‘Conclusions’. References Amara, M. (2018) Palestinian schoolscapes in Israel. Asian-Pacific Journal of Second and Foreign Language Education 3 (1), 7. Barni, M. and Bagna, C. (2009) A mapping technique and the linguistic landscape. In E. Shohamy and D. Gorter (eds) Linguistic Landscape: Expanding the Scenery (pp. 126–140). New York, NY: Routledge.

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Barni, M. and Bagna, C. (2010) Linguistic landscape and language vitality. In E. Shohamy, E. Ben-Rafael and M. Barni (eds) Linguistic Landscape and the City (pp. 3–18). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Beacco, J.C., Byram, M., Cavalli, M., Coste, D., Cuenat, M.E., Goullier, F. and Panthier, J. (2016) Guide for the Development and Implementation of Curricula for Plurilingual and Intercultural Education. France: Council of Europe. Bellinzona, M. (2018) Linguistic landscape e contesti educative: Uno studio all’interno di alcune scuole italiane. Lingue e Linguaggi 25, 297–321. Blackwood, R. (2015) LL explorations and methodological challenges: Analysing France’s regional languages. Linguistic Landscape 1 (1), 38–53. Brown, K. (2012) The linguistic landscape of educational spaces: Language revitalization and schools in southeastern Estonia. In D. Gorter, H. Marten and L. Van Mensel (eds) Minority Languages in the Linguistic Landscape (pp. 281–298). New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Candelier, M., Camilleri-Grima, A., Castellotti, V., De Pietro, J.F., Lorincz, I., Meissner, F.J. and Molinie, C. (2011) Le CARAP – Un Cadre de Référence pour les Approches Plurielles des langues et des cultures. France: Council of Europe. Charmaz, K. (2006) Constructing Grounded Theory. London: Sage Publications. Creswell, J.W., Plano Clark, V.L., Gutmann, M. and Hanson, W. (2003) Advanced mixed methods research designs. In A. Tashakkori and C. Teddlie (eds) Handbook on Mixed Methods in the Behavioral and Social Sciences (pp. 209–240). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. De Mauro, T. (1980) Guida all’uso delle parole. Roma: Editori riuniti. De Mauro, T. (2010) Prefazione. In A. Bogaro, Letterature nascoste. Storia della scrittura e degli autori in lingua minoritaria in Italia (pp. 11–12). Roma: Carocci Editore. Dressler, R. (2015) Signgeist: Promoting bilingualism through the linguistic landscape of school signage. International Journal of Multilingualism 12 (1), 128–145. Gorter, D. (ed.) (2006) Linguistic Landscape: A New Approach to Multilingualism. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Gorter, D. (2018) Linguistic landscapes and trends in the study of schoolscapes. Linguistics and Education 44, 80–85. Gorter, D. and Cenoz, J. (2014) The linguistic landscapes inside multilingual schools. In B.  Spolsky, O. Inbar-Lourie and M. Tannenbaum (eds) Challenges for Language Education and Policy: Making Space for People (pp. 151–169). New York, NY: Routledge. Gorter, D. and Cenoz, J. (2015) Translanguaging and linguistic landscapes. Linguistic Landscape 1(1), 54–74. ISTAT (2017) L’uso della lingua italiana, dei dialetti e di altre lingue in Italia. See https:// www.istat.it/it/archivio/207961 (accessed February 2020). Jaworski, A. and Thurlow, C. (2010) Semiotic Landscapes: Language, Image, Space. London: Bloomsbury. Laihonen, P. and Tódor, E. (2017) The changing schoolscape in a Szekler village in Romania: Signs of diversity in rehungarization. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 20 (3), 362–379. Landry, R. and Bourhis, R. (1997) Linguistic landscape and ethnolinguistic vitality: An empirical study. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 16 (1), 23–49. Malinowski, D., Maxim, H.H. and Dubreil, S. (eds) (2020) Language Teaching in the Linguistic Landscape: Mobilizing Pedagogy in Public Space. Cham: Springer. Marshall, C. and Rossman, G.B. (2011) Designing Qualitative Research (5th edn). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Mayring, P. (2004) Qualitative content analysis. A Companion to Qualitative Research 1 (2), 159–176. MIUR (2014) Linee guida per l’accoglienza e l’integrazione degli alunni stranieri. See http://www.istruzione.it/allegati/2014/linee_guida_integrazione_alunni_stranieri. pdf (accessed February 2020).

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MIUR (2018) Indicazioni Nazionali e Nuovi Scenari. See http://www.miur.gov.it/documents/20182/0/Indicazioni+nazionali+e+nuovi+scenari/3234ab1 6-1f1d-4f34-99a3319d892a40f2 (accessed February 2020). Piller, I. (2003) Advertising as a site of language contact. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 23, 170–183. Pütz, M. and Mundt, N. (eds) (2019) Expanding the Linguistic Landscape: Linguistic Diversity, Multimodality and the Use of Space as a Semiotic Resource. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Reh, M. (2004) Multilingual writing: A reader-oriented typology with examples from Lira Municipality (Uganda). International Journal of the Sociology of Language 170, 1–41. Savela, T. (2018) The advantages and disadvantages of quantitative methods in schoolscape research. Linguistics and Education 44, 31–44. Scollon, R. and Scollon, S.W. (2003) Discourses in Place: Language in the Material World. London: Routledge. Seals, C.A. (2020) Classroom translanguaging through the linguistic landscape. In D. Malinowski, H.H. Maxim and S. Dubreil (eds) Language Teaching in the Linguistic Landscape: Mobilizing Pedagogy in Public Space (pp. 119–141). Cham: Springer. Shohamy, E. (2006) Language Policy: Hidden Agendas and New Approaches. Abingdon: Routledge. Shohamy, E., Ben Rafael, E. and Barni, M. (eds) (2010) Linguistic Landscape in the City. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Shohamy, E. and Gorter, D. (eds) (2009) Linguistic Landscape: Expanding the Scenery. New York, NY: Routledge. Siebetcheu, R. (2018) La scuola del nuovo millennio: Tra italiano, dialetti e altre lingue. In E. Ballarin, A. Bier and C.M. Coonan (eds) La didattica delle lingue nel nuovo millennio. Le sfide dell’internazionalizzazione (pp. 117–134). Venezia: Edizioni Ca’ Foscari. Stake, R.E. (2005) Qualitative case studies. In N.K. Denzin and Y.S. Lincoln (eds) The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research (3rd edn, pp. 443–466). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Szabó, T. (2015) The management of diversity in schoolscapes: An analysis of Hungarian practices. Apples: Journal of Applied Language Studies 9 (1), 23–51. Tódor, E. (2014) The hidden curriculum of schoolscapes: Overview of the bilingual school context. Journal of Romanian Literary Studies 8, 529–538. Vedovelli, M. (2010) Guida all’italiano per stranieri: dal Quadro comune europeo per le lingue alla Sfida salutare. Roma: Carocci.

5 Displaying Care: The Neoliberal Semiotic Landscape of Psychological Health Service Posters on a University Campus in Hong Kong Corey Fanglei Huang

Introduction

Premised on free-market relationships, managerial values and an entrepreneurial spirit of individual selves, neoliberalism has exerted a tremendous influence on the higher education sector globally over recent decades (Block et al., 2012; Flubacher & Del Percio, 2017; Molesworth et al., 2011; Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004). This chapter examines how two sets of psychological health service posters displayed on a Hong Kong university campus discursively reflect the neoliberal ideologies that position students as service consumers and entrepreneurial selves. The chapter also intends to add to the empirical research exploring the interrelationship between language, discourse and education all as powerful ‘tools and sites’ for institutional and societal neoliberalisation (Block et al., 2012; Flubacher & Del Percio, 2017) from a linguistic/semiotic landscape perspective (Blackwood et al., 2016; Jaworski & Thurlow, 2010; Shohamy & Gorter, 2009). This perspective is adopted as linguistic/semiotic research on educational institutions has highlighted how languages, texts, signs, artefacts and buildings can imbue institutional spaces with ideological meanings in subtle but powerful ways (e.g. Brown, 2012, 2018; Laihonen & Tódor, 2017). As part of a wider study of the semiotic landscape of the University of Hong Kong (HKU) undertaken between 2016 and 2018 (Huang, 2020), 104

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this chapter focuses on two series of student service posters (Figures 5.1– 5.7) displayed on the HKU campus. HKU is a public university in Hong Kong that often boasts high regional and international rankings and ‘excellent’ performance in graduate employment (https://www.cpao.hku. hk/firstandforemost/PDF/20-2018_19.pdf). Furthermore, it has continuously updated its ‘educational aims’ for its students which revolve around such tropes as ‘academic and professional excellence’, ‘problem-solving’, ‘communication and collaboration’ and ‘leadership’ (http://www.handbook.hku.hk/ug/full-time-2017-18/important-policies/educational-aims-andinstitutional-learning-outcomes). The two series of posters that this chapter examines were published by a major student service department within the University called the Centre of Development and Resources for Students (CEDARS) (http:// www.cedars.hku.hk/), which claims to assist the University in achieving its ‘educational aims’ through various non-academic services. The posters promoted two kinds of specialised services aimed at the psychological well-being of HKU students: a one-on-one counselling service (Figures 5.1–5.3) and a professionally developed online self-assessment platform called ‘Psychometer’ (Figures 5.4–5.7). The provider of the psychological health services is an independent section of CEDARS called the Counselling and Person Enrichment Section (http://wp.cedars.hku.hk/ web/cope/) (CoPE). CoPE provides various services, resources and activities aimed at shaping students’ personal development in certain directions; these are discussed in detail in the analytic sections. The one-on-one counselling service and the Psychometer are free of charge, while the psychological health workshops may charge no more than 200 Hong Kong dollars per person. These two sets of posters caught the author’s attention because of their rapidly growing number and increasingly attentionarresting design on the HKU campus over the past few years. On the other hand, like their counterparts in many other parts of the world (e.g. Byrd & McKinney, 2012; Macaskill, 2013), Hong Kong universities have faced an escalation in mental health issues among their students in the recent decade (https://yp.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/111498/suicide-rateand-mental-health-illness-among-hk-students-are-rising). In fact, the counselling service posters (Figures 5.1–5.3) were among the materials on psychological health that were newly published on the HKU campus when Hong Kong was shocked by a series of local student suicides in the spring of 2016. Considering mental healthcare is outside universities’ conventional responsibilities for their students, it is believed that these service posters can shed light on how a contemporary university may attend to students’ mental health as part of their (expanding) educational work and services. This chapter adopts critical discourse analysis (CDA) (Fairclough, 1992, 1995) and an ‘affordance-based’ approach to multimodality (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006; Machin, 2016; van Leeuwen, 2008) to examine the

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two series of posters. The analytical process is also informed by: (1) other discursive materials of CEDARS and HKU related to the poster series, including policy documents, websites, emails and other student service materials; and (2) semi-structured interviews with several CEDARS officials and HKU students. The following section reviews some of the key discourses and ethnographic studies on neoliberalism in universities, with a particular focus on how students are (re)positioned by universities under the influence of specific neoliberal ideologies. The chapter then discusses the significance of the linguistic and semiotic landscapes of educational institutions as an ideological expression and proposes two analytic frameworks for this study. The next section presents a detailed analysis of how neoliberal ideologies are manifested in the discourses and semiotics of the posters in connection with other institutional discourses within the University. The chapter ends with a brief recapitulation of the main findings and arguments and some suggestions for future research on the linguistic/semiotic landscape of educational institutions. Re-positioning Students in Neoliberalised Universities Students as consumers: Building a service market in/for universities

According to R. Brown (2011), higher education institutions (HEIs) in many (especially Global North) countries are experiencing massive marketisation. They have increased needs for private funding and tuition fees from students owing to the significant withdrawal of public/government funds from their institutional budgets. As a consequence, they are facing intensified competition for students and financial resources, with students and funders having more power and autonomy to choose among them. Therefore, the relationship between HEIs and their (prospective and ­current) students has been shifting towards a market model in which the HEIs have become providers of educational ‘services’ and students have become ‘consumers’ who purchase those ‘services’. In such a service-­ provider–consumer relationship, HEIs are under greater pressure to ­prioritise ‘consumer satisfaction’ among the students (Furedi, 2011) over their functions of ‘intellectual-moral cultivation and socialisation’ (Ng, 2016: 59) to secure or win a good ‘clientele’. At the discursive level, publications by neoliberal(ised) universities have shown stylistic, visual and generic features that tend to position students as consumers. Targeting prospective students, student prospectuses have adopted the informal linguistic styles and promotional rhetoric commonly found in consumerist interactions (Askehave, 2007; Fairclough, 1993). They have used visual (e.g. scenic photos) and generic resources (e.g. student testimonials) strategically to express the ‘offering [of]

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innovative products to “demanding clients” on the look-out for the best possible university “experience”’ (Askehave, 2007: 739). Zhang and O’Halloran (2013) demonstrated how a Singaporean university website gradually positioned the university as a ‘global knowledge enterprise’ and its education as a lifestyle choice and part of the global ‘experience economy’ (Pine & Gilmore, 1998). This is illustrative of how universities nowadays tend to position themselves as ambitious and competitive corporations to be chosen by potential clients (Ng, 2014; Osman, 2008) and to adopt an ‘experiential marketing’ strategy (Pine & Gilmore, 1998) that projects ‘emotional and experiential fulfilment’ at the centre of the education they claim to offer their students (Ng, 2016). Students as ‘bundles of skills’ and ‘self-managers’: Building neoliberal selves

In addition to building a consumerist relationship with students, neoliberalised HEIs are also committed to a dual commodification: (1) they provide skills and qualities that add ‘value’ to students’ selves in the society, particularly in the labour market, and (2) in return, the students equipped with such socially and economically desirable ‘capital’ (Bourdieu, 1986) become their quality products that help market the HEI in different higher education markets (Morrish & Sauntson, 2013; Urciuoli, 2016). For instance, Morrish and Sauntson (2013) found two groups of British universities highlighting different ‘added value’ of their students in the mission statements. The more employment-/business-oriented new universities tended to brand their graduates as ‘employable’, whereas the more discipline-/academic-oriented traditional universities tended to brand their graduates as ‘outstanding’. Urciuoli’s (2003, 2008) ethnographic work on US tertiary education showed that students have been treated by colleges as ‘bundles of skills’ with realisable value in the professional world. She viewed the keywords circulating in the colleges’ discursive environment, including ‘skills’, ‘communication’ and ‘leadership’, as signifiers of assessable qualities that position the students as productive workers. Without a strong focus on (explicitly) profession-oriented skills, liberal arts education may aim to build students into ‘middle-class selves’ who are highly intelligent, flexible and self-controlled (Urciuoli, 2014). According to Urciuoli, HEIs’ (discursive) obsession with these particular ‘skills’ and ‘qualities’ in students originated in a ‘neoliberal imaginary’ about individual persons: Students now go to college in an atmosphere saturated by a neoliberal imaginary, a frame of mind (socially speaking) characterized by an ethic of entrepreneurial self-management. In the neoliberal imaginary (Rossiter, 2003), each person becomes his or her own product … [and] responsible for parsing himself or herself into elements whose primary

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function is productivity – making profit for oneself and/or one’s organization. (Urciuoli, 2010: 162)

This neoliberal imaginary of the self in higher education coheres with the neoliberal ideology sweeping through various domains of our contemporary social life: Individuals are expected to act as ‘neoliberal agents’ – ­self-managed/able businesses or projects orienting to certain ‘values’ and ‘markets’ (Gershon, 2011). Analysing ‘Educationscapes’ as Ideological Spaces

The linguistic and semiotic landscape of educational institutions creates the ideological expressions of various social actors and (sub)institutions within and beyond these educational spaces (e.g. Brown, 2012, 2018; Laihonen & Tódor, 2017; Waksman & Shohamy, 2016). Based on her work on Estonian minority language education, Brown (2012: 282) proposed the term ‘schoolscape’ to refer to a school-based environment ‘where place and text, both written (graphic) and oral, constitute, reproduce and transform language ideologies’. National political changes can lead to tremendous changes in local schoolscapes: Written texts, images and artefacts symbolic of the local culture can be (re)displayed for reconstructing and reasserting the school’s local identity, once suppressed by a previous regime, for its students and the outside world (Laihonen & Tódor, 2017). Therefore, Laihonen and Tódor (2017: 362) viewed schoolscapes as ‘a display or materialisation of the “hidden curriculum” regarding the construction of linguistic and cultural identities’ in an educational space. On the other hand, schoolscapes with particular linguistic features (e.g. display of minority languages) can be marketed as a ‘commodity’ for the local community to secure a satisfactory enrolment rate and the financial resources that it promises under the local, regional or state language and education policies (Brown, 2018). Therefore, schoolscapes are often simultaneously shaped by institutional, local and state language ideologies and policies, some of which are more dominant than others in the schools. Going beyond issues of bi-/multilingualism in education, Waksman and Shohamy (2016) examined how some staff and students at an Israeli teachers’ college institutionalised a discourse of social protest through a few on-campus exhibitions. The exhibitions, as they found out, created a temporary institutional semiotic landscape that maintained part of the protest agenda but at the same time adhered to the official ideology of the college by adopting institutionally ‘legitimate’ discursive themes and generic forms. Cerimaj et al. (2020) observed how two institutionalised student groups in a South African university, with conflicting interests and stances, created dynamic activist semiotic landscapes that discursively and ideologically connected the university, especially its diverse student body, to specific national and international histories and politics.

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Building on these studies and Krompák, Fernández-Mallat and Meyer’s introduction to this volume, this chapter uses ‘educationscapes’ instead of ‘schoolscapes’ to capture a broad range of semiotics in educational institutions that has social and ideological functions but not necessarily instructional/pedagogical effects or implications. This chapter aims to examine how neoliberal ideologies that are spreading globally are shaping an educationscape: two series of psychological health service posters displayed on the campus of a public university in Hong Kong. These posters were photographed with notes about the physical/material environment in which they were located. They were repetitively displayed, oftentimes in collages, across a great number of bulletin boards in the public space on the HKU campus. The service posters are not just treated as a series of artefacts but as ‘discourses in place’ (Scollon & Scollon, 2003), that is, various representations of meaningmaking processes in a place that signify the material, social and ideological aspects of that place. In analysing the meaning-making processes that the posters enact, this chapter adopts Fairclough’s (1992, 1995) CDA approach that examines ‘how discourse is shaped by relations of power and ideologies, and the constructive effects discourse has upon social identities, social relations, and systems of knowledge and belief’ (Fairclough, 1992: 12). Fairclough (1992) argued that ideologies enter into all three interlinked layers of discourse: text, discursive practice (production, dissemination and consumption of text) and social practice. In particular, this chapter draws on a key analytic concept of Fairclough’s CDA framework, ‘interdiscursivity’, which refers to ‘the constitution of a text from diverse discourses and genres’ (Fairclough, 1993: 138). Modelled on the notion of ‘intertextuality’ (Bakhtin, 1986; Kristeva, 1980), this concept orients to the social and ideological implications of the linguistic, generic and discursive resources appropriated in a text or specific discourse material. These implications include the social relations and practices and ideological regimes from the historical origins of those resources. In addition to Fairclough’s language-centred CDA framework, this chapter draws on Machin’s (2016) ‘affordance-based’ approach to multimodal texts. ‘Affordance’ in this approach refers to the ideologically loaded ideas and assumptions attached to different types of semiotic material such as images and videos (Ledin & Machin, 2018). Kress and van Leeuwen (2006: 123) argued that the affordance of different modes of communication (e.g. language, image) ‘does not only depend on the intrinsic and universal characteristics of these modes of communication, but also on historically and culturally specific social needs’. Therefore, viewing semiotic modes or materials as historically and culturally developed meaning potentials, this approach examines ‘what semiotic resources are used for and by whom, and of which social practices they are a part’ (Machin, 2016: 328). For example, although it is easy to assume that

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photographs represent the ‘reality’ that they capture, they are always used in journalism in ways that intend to shape the audience’s cultural and ideological understanding of that ‘reality’ (e.g. war photography can strategically background violence and brutality) (Machin, 2016). The critical multimodal discourse analysis of the psychological health service posters is additionally informed by other official discursive materials published by CEDARS and by HKU (e.g. education policy documents, service websites), as well as semi-structured interviews with three senior staff members of CEDARS and four HKU students. Two of the three staff members were based at CoPE and the four students included two undergraduates and two postgraduates. It was hoped that the discursive materials and interviews with the staff members of CEDARS could help the author understand and interpret the (authoritative) intentions, rationale and ideologies behind the multimodal discursive designs of the posters. Interviews with the students were intended to be a preliminary exploration of how such designs might have been perceived by the target audience of the posters. Analysis and Findings Posters as advertisements: Interdiscursive links

All posters examined here constitute examples of advertising discourse in that they promote HKU’s services to its students. In line with their persuasive and promotional goals, the posters have adopted a number of linguistic strategies in commercial advertising (Cook, 2001; Leech, 1966; Myers, 1994). One such strategy has been to use a series of simple attributive adjectives that constitute a highly evaluative description of the service/product (Leech, 1966). For example, the Psychometer posters list four attributes of the assessment system in a row using four simple adjectives: ‘private’, ‘professional’, ‘free’ and ‘24-hour’. In addition, both series of posters contain a number of ellipses and incomplete sentences that truncate their text. For example, ‘Counselling helps’ in Figure 5.2 and ‘Private’ in Figure 5.4 do not indicate what or whom exactly can be helped and what is ‘private’. The text in Figure 5.3 features minimal use of subject and verb. The elided parts (e.g. ‘Psychometer’, specific mentally disturbing situations) can (easily) be supplied by the readers themselves or the posters’ non-verbal content. Myers (1994) found this discursive strategy quite common in the advertising genre, which often requires readers to actively interpret the entire discourse material. The informal or colloquial style is enhanced by the frequent use of imperatives (e.g. ‘Register in Psychometer’), interrogatives (e.g. ‘Overburdened with worries?’) and personal pronouns such as ‘you’ and ‘yourself’ that directly address or engage the audience of the posters. All of these stylistic features contribute to the posters’ ‘readability’, a standard feature of advertising language

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that is often embodied in ‘a simple, personal, and colloquial style and a familiar vocabulary’ (Leech, 1966: 28). Fairclough (1993: 141) referred to universities’ deployment of such a linguistic style in their discourse with their students as a manifestation of ‘conversationalisation’ in public discourse, ‘the simulation in institutional settings of the person-to-person communication of ordinary conversation’. Such a conversational(ised) style creates a sense of intimacy between the institution and the students viewing the posters, and thus discursively puts the two parties on a relatively equal footing. In so doing, this discursive style seems to be pushing the relationship between CoPE and the students towards one between service providers and consumers, contrary to the traditional model of the university–student relationship in which a university often asserts institutional authority over students (Fairclough, 1993). Such a traditional model is discursively manifested in the notices displayed outside HKU’s admission office which list numerous application requirements for prospective students. For example, one notice about the admission of local Hong Kong students stated: ‘In accordance with the HKSAR (Hong Kong Special Administration Region) Government’s policy, as from the JUPAS (Joint University Programmes Admissions System) cycle only applicants with valid documentation confirming they are LOCAL applications/students at the time of submission of applications will be accepted’. The use of the passive voice and the third-person pronoun and prominent nominalisation all construct the University as a serious, impersonal authority towards potential students/applicants. In addition to the linguistic features, the posters show some visual features of the advertising discourse, one of the main purposes of which is to draw attention before persuading the attracted audience to purchase or consume (Cook, 2001; Myers, 1994). Images of individual characters are given high ‘salience’ and ‘information value’ (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006) because they occupy a large proportion of space and are in a relatively central position. However, none of the images gives any straightforward information about Psychometer or the counselling service, which are the ultimate objects of the promotion. The images, therefore, perform the exact function of what Yuen (2004: 165) called ‘the lead’ in multimodal advertising which ‘arrests attention of the viewers’ based on their high salience ‘through choices in size, position and/or colour’ without giving concrete information about the advertised commodity or service. Moreover, the visual styling of the written text in the posters, through its paralinguistic features (including letter size, type face and colour), foregrounds the poetic/reflexive function of language (Jakobson, 1960) and directs the readers’ attention to the semiotic form of the written text in addition to its referential meaning. For example, many imperatives and interrogatives on the posters are very large (e.g. ‘How to manage my time to achieve my goals?’ in Figure 5.6, ‘Stressful?’ in Figure 5.3) and the text in the upper right-hand corner of the Psychometer posters is in several

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different colours and fonts. Accompanying the character images in a central position in the posters, the text representing the ‘speech’ of the characters is shown in handwritten-like letters, which visually cohere with the character images and are differentiated from all the other text in the posters (Figures 5.1, 5.2 and 5.5). These visual stylisations show a strategy of ‘code play’ in the advertising genre, which is often enacted by the purposeful use of paralanguage: ‘focusing on the substance and means of communication, rather than using them only to refer to the world’ (Cook, 2001: 233). Therefore, the strategic use of images and the visual styling of writing foreground the visuality of the posters, a semiotic dimension that is likely to attract attention but does not require much immediate interpretation or decoding. Being displayed (often in aggregates) in multiple locations, the posters also adopt a strategy of repetition in attracting the attention of students walking on campus, a strategy that commercial advertisements widely exploit (Cook, 2001). In summary, there seem to be numerous interdiscursive links (Fairclough, 1992, 1993) between the posters and advertising discourse, at both verbal and visual levels. These links usher in a market-based social relationship, like the one between service providers and consumers, in communications between the publisher of the posters (i.e. CoPE/ CEDARS/HKU) and its target audience (i.e. students whose needs the services aim to meet). Students as neoliberal selves: Building self-assessment mechanisms Counselling service ads: Detecting your own ‘problems’ and seeking expert care

According to an interviewed CoPE official, many of CoPE’s counselling posters were displayed at specific times during the academic year to accommodate students’ different psychological needs. The examples given by the official include the one shown in Figure 5.3, displayed prior to and during the exam period. Another, addressing relationship issues, was displayed just before Valentine’s Day. In addition, a significant rise in the number of counselling posters was observed after the local student suicides caught media and public attention in 2016. These arrangements show CoPE’s sensitivity to students’ specific needs when promoting its services. The counselling service advertisements (Figures 5.1–5.3) use images that represent their target audience: individual students facing specific mentally challenging situations in life. The situations are described through both images and text, including keywords and phrases such as ‘overburdened with worries’ and ‘helpless and angry’. The facial expressions and gestures of the characters depict students’ worries about the

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Figure 5.1  Counselling Poster 1

countless areas of their personal and academic lives at the same time (Figure 5.1), their multiple frustrations in life including feeling helpless and angry owing to a lack of understanding from friends (Figure 5.2) or their suffering of high levels of stress as a result of the heavy study burden (Figure 5.3). However, as the analysis below shows, the multimodal discourse in the posters focuses far more on the target students as ‘consumers’ than on the counselling services provided by the institution. Captured through ‘close-ups’ (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006) of their faces and hands, the characters in the posters appear very ‘close to’ the viewers rather than ‘in the distance’. In addition, the intended angle at which the audience views the characters is mostly at eye level and ‘frontal’ rather than ‘oblique’ (van Leeuwen, 2008), although there is no (intended) eye contact between the characters and the viewers. This kind

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Figure 5.2  Counselling Poster 2

of visual representation of social actors tends to enact an equal and indirectly engaging relationship between the represented person and the viewer, making the viewer feel that the person represented is ‘one of us’ (van Leeuwen, 2008: 138). Further, this visual representation ‘offers’ (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006) characters, which represent the target audience, for the viewers to observe or evaluate, usually with a focus on their appearance and clothing (Scollon & Scollon, 2003). In the counselling posters, the key details of the images for observation and evaluation are arguably the visual cues of distress, primarily facial expressions and hand gestures signalling the need for psychological help. At the verbal level, two of the three counselling posters (Figures 5.1 and 5.3) address the viewing audience with direct questions about their mental state.

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Figure 5.3  Counselling Poster 3

These questions contain verbal cues of distress cohering with the visual ones in the characters’ images: ‘Overburdened with worries’ and ‘Stressful’. Thus, the centralised images and the direct questions are combined to stimulate the audience to observe and interrogate their own psychological well-being. In contrast to the discourse on the mentally troubled students, the information on the counselling service provided by CoPE is visually marginalised (e.g. the small text at the bottom of the poster in Figure 5.1) or discursively minimalised (e.g. only mentioned in ‘Talk to CEDARSCoPE’ in Figures 5.2 and 5.3). This shows that the central message conveyed by the counselling posters is much more about the target audience than the counselling service. As the interviewees from CEDARS confirmed, one key objective of the posters was to show relatable images to students who might have needed mental help. These posters also use a problem–solution discourse model often used in service advertising. This model tends to use attention-grasping images to represent emotionally stirring ‘problems’ and written text that offers ‘solutions’ (i.e. the promoted services) (e.g. Mohd Don & Lau, 2018). The posters prioritise the imagined audience’s ‘problems’ over solutions, showing a stronger emphasis on the students’ detection of their own psychological chinks/issues based on self-observation and self-interrogation. The ‘self-problems’ in the counselling posters are presented through images of ‘failure’ in psychological self-management (i.e. those who need

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Figure 5.4  Psychometer Poster 1 (general)

external help to manage their psychological health conditions). The promoted ‘solution’, on the other hand, is in the form of a ‘helpful’ professional service provided by psychological health experts employed by the University. According to Giddens (1991), as a result of the continued fragmentation of identities and de-centring of traditional authorities in late modernity (e.g. church, state, public education systems), self-reflexive life management based on risk assessment and expert knowledge from diverse sources of authority has become a crucial feature of the ‘selfidentity’ of people living in contemporary society. Therefore, the ‘invitation’ for s­ tudents to use the professional counselling service actually

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resonates with how a neoliberal ‘responsible self’ should deal with failed self-management: When failures occur, the responsible self turns to an expert to learn how to choose more effectively … Experts embody an external reflexive corrective that a self can choose to remedy unsuccessful self-management (and thus continuing to be responsible for their own failures) … [E]xperts are the neoliberal preferred technology of regulation when selves go awry. (Gershon, 2011: 542)

Both Giddens’s and Gershon’s observations shed light on the counselling posters that prompt students to build such neoliberal responsible selves by knowing and/or using an ‘expert repair’ mechanism such as the University’s counselling service. Psychometer campaign: Performing calibrated self-assessment

The four Psychometer posters (Figures 5.4–5.7) were widely displayed on campus, but rarely as a complete set on one bulletin board. They adopt the same visual template, but each focuses on a different theme. In each one, there is a cluster of text along with logos and a QR code in the upper right-hand corner, a pen-and-ink cartoon character image at the centre and another cluster of text in the lower left-hand corner. The main background colour is white with another colour framing and highlighting a clause written in large white print on the lower left-hand side. As for content, the first poster (Figure 5.4) promotes the entire digital platform in a fairly general manner, while the other three posters each focuses on one dimension of a student’s psychological well-being (i.e. stress assessment, time management and goal setting, and confidence assessment) that Psychometer could assess (test), monitor (PsyTrack) and potentially intervene in (tips and feedback). Considering that the target audience of the posters was HKU students, it is not difficult to see that the characters represent them in cohesion with the texts in the same poster. For example, in Figure 5.4, the words ‘you’ and ‘yourself’ directly address an individual member of the target audience, a student at HKU. On the other hand, the act of ‘get to know yourself’ is implied through a cartoon character looking through a magnifying glass, suggesting that the looking ‘agent’ is the individual(ised) student viewer him or herself. As more in-depth/specialised ‘self-exploration’ is promoted through the other three ‘follow-up’ posters, the ‘you’ becomes ‘I’ (Figures 5.5–5.7). Here, the practice of ‘self-interrogation’ is explicitly enacted by a series of questions: ‘Am I stressed out?’, ‘How to manage my time to achieve my goals?’ and ‘How to be confident of myself?’. On the lower left-hand side of each poster, the interrogative clause is followed by an imperative that readers should use a set of tests, a bullet list of test names, an imperative that readers track their psychological health condition and a bullet list of two versions of a tracking system incorporated in Psychometer. This section of each poster embodies a sequence of

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Figure 5.5  Psychometer Poster 2 (stress assessment)

communicative acts towards readers (van Leeuwen, 2005): stimulating them to self-interrogate the specified dimensions of their psychological health, prompting them to test themselves and get feedback, offering a set of tests on specific dimensions, asking them to track their psychological health using PsyTrack (the test-based monitoring subsystem of Psychometer) and offering two different versions of PsyTrack (‘Basic Plan’ and ‘Top-up Plan’) for tracking purposes. These communicative acts are arranged by particular semiotic means more than by their vertical sequence (the intended reading path) (van Leeuwen, 2005): the interrogative clause is most visually ‘salient’ (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006) because of its size and colour (‘highlighted’ by the background colour), and each imperative has a bold font followed by an (unbolded) bullet list after a colon. Thus, the self-directed act of interrogation requires the most attention from the target students and acts as an initial self-assessment

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Figure 5.6  Psychometer Poster 3 (time management and goal setting)

mechanism, which is then detailed by the imperatives and the bullet lists. Bullet lists have the affordances of representing the listed items as ‘the fundamental, essential technical details of the particular social practice’ and ‘suggest[ing] a systematic breakdown of things into core elements that can be coordinated as in a list’ (Ledin & Machin, 2015: 470). They can, as Ledin and Machin (2015) argue, outrageously abstract, oversimplify or fragment concrete and complex social practices (e.g. teaching, research) for the sake of managerial evaluation and assessment. With such affordances, the bullet lists in the Psychometer posters itemise the tests and the two versions of the tracking system as multiple, separate but systematically organised means to the end of self-assessment (i.e. examining oneself, getting results and feedback and tracking one’s own conditions). Altogether, the four posters promote a multidimensional, deliberately sequenced and metricalised means of calibrated self-assessment.

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Figure 5.7  Psychometer Poster 4 (confidence assessment)

The ‘professionalism’ of Psychometer is constructed not only through the semiotics of ‘systematicity’ and ‘technicality’ in their advertisements but also through CoPE’s (promotional) claim that it was developed with the expertise of professional psychologists and counsellors. Therefore, by instrumentalising such expertise to meet their own needs and interests, the Psychometer posters instruct students to become their own psychological health ‘experts’. With test-based alerts and feedback, this ‘expert’ self-assessment instrument could ultimately contribute to a student’s capacity for self-management. Interdiscursive dialogicality: Higher education as care for a neoliberal personhood

Projecting images of individual students with different psychological conditions and needs, the two series of posters suggest that individual

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HKU students could use different methods to manage their own psychological well-being when faced with different situations in their personal university life. Thus, the two poster series embody the University’s ‘service customisation or individualisation’ (Pine & Gilmore, 1998) for different student ‘consumers’, demonstrating its declared care for students with different needs. However, because signs and discourses in the same space/place are always in a ‘dialogical interaction’ with each other (Scollon & Scollon, 2003), the discourse of service promotion in each poster is linked to other (institutional) materials and discourses within the University. Together with the other data sources drawn on for this chapter (e.g. policy documents, other service materials, interviews), the discourses in the two series of posters construct a comprehensive and systematic but flexible and responsive self-management ‘guide’ for each HKU undergraduate: perform regular professional and multidimensional psychological self-assessment and self-monitoring, become aware of your own psychological (health) condition and make adjustments or manage crises with knowledge and skill obtained from psychological health ‘experts’. This ‘guide’ is linked to the University’s core ‘educational values’ on students’ autonomous selves expressed in the key policy documents of the University and the service centre. HKU has created seven sets of ‘Educational Aims and Institutional Learning Outcomes’ (http://www.handbook.hku.hk/ug/full-time-2017-18/ important-policies/educational-aims-and-institutional-learning-outcomes) for its undergraduate students, including ‘pursuit of academic/professional excellence, critical intellectual inquiry and life-long learning’, ‘tackling novel situations and ill-defined problems’ and ‘critical self-reflection, greater understanding of others, and upholding personal and professional ethics’. CEDARS has claimed its commitment to assisting HKU in fulfilling these ‘aims’. More specifically, it assumes the duty of helping transform freshmen from a secondary school student to, in its own words, ‘a Free Person who is competent, autonomous and honourable’. As a result, in addition to providing practical support with housing and finances, CEDARS has been expanding its services, activities and programmes which aim to shape the personhood of students under the direction of HKU’s ‘educational aims’. This is well manifested in a wider range of student service materials examined in the PhD thesis (Huang, 2020) from which this chapter derives. In particular, the two series of posters examined in this chapter are interdiscursively linked to the University’s ‘educational aim’ of ‘critical self-reflection’, which requires that students ‘heighten awareness of personal strengths and weaknesses’, an apparent objective of self-assessment. This suggests that the ‘free person’ into which CEDARS aims to shape all HKU students is idealised based on the neoliberal belief that ‘human well-being can best be advanced by individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills’ (Harvey, 2005: 2). This belief views nothing but the self as a limit to what an individual person can achieve, particularly socioeconomically (Ng, 2019).

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This interdiscursivity (Fairclough, 1992, 1993) across the service materials and other official discourses of the University shows how a neoliberal ideology permeates different layers of texts and discursive practices within the University’s institutional ‘order of discourse’, the ‘totality of discursive practices of an institution, and relationships between them’ (Fairclough, 1993: 138). Therefore, the two series of posters materially and discursively mediate (Scollon, 2001) a practice of inculcation from the University, educating the students on how to become psychologically flexible and self-accountable individuals by (systematically) developing certain types of personal awareness, skills and practices such as calibrated self-assessment, self-monitoring and timely ‘crisis management’. However, although the posters bear an inculcative function, they were displayed in large numbers outside the conventional spaces of teaching and learning in universities (e.g. classrooms). In addition, the inculcation was disguised by the University’s discourse of service promotion based on the ideas of care and support. This suggests that the semiotic landscape of an education institution, which seems loosely connected to its conventional spaces and activities of teaching and learning, may well participate in the institution’s (ideological) inculcations towards its students. Conclusion

This chapter has demonstrated how neoliberal values and ideologies are manifested within an educationscape of a Hong Kong university campus constituted by two series of psychological health service posters for students. This landscape used multimodal means to (1) construct a market-based relationship between the University and its students using resources from the advertising genre and (2) promote a set of expertisebased self-assessment and self-management methods for the students. Further, the service offerings that the posters represented subtly adhered to the University’s self-claimed aspiration of enabling students to build a neoliberal self through its diverse (educational) practices and resources. Therefore, this particular semiotic landscape of student service promotion has become part of the University’s ‘hidden curriculum’ (Laihonen & Tódor, 2017), one that focuses on the ‘inculcation of technologies of the self’ (Urciuoli, 2008: 212), which according to Foucault, … permit individuals to effect by their own means or with the help of others a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being, so as to transform themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or immortality. (Foucault, 1988: 18)

On one hand, the ‘self’ (or self-awareness) is heavily emphasised by multiple words and images that coherently represent and engage any individual(ised) student viewing the posters. On the other hand, focusing

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on specific mechanisms of (psychological) self-management, the ‘technologies’ promoted by the multimodal content of the posters reveal the aim of neoliberal elite education: to produce students with the middleclass attributes of ‘intelligence, flexibility, resourcefulness, productivity, perception, and self-management’ (Urciuoli, 2014: 79). This shows that HKU’s educational ideal is aligning with a societally hegemonic neoliberal ideology that positions individuals as ‘entrepreneurial selves’ (Gershon, 2011; Harvey, 2005), that is, as ‘rational members of society who are asked to make a certain number of investments in their selves for their own being and for the good of society at large’ (Del Percio & Flubacher, 2017: 9). Therefore, the University’s ‘care’ that the posters display for students’ psychological well-being is a neoliberalised version of Foucault’s (1986) ‘the care of the self’, which originally orients to a person’s own ethical and spiritual fulfilment. The semiotic landscape constituted by these displayed posters reveals how the neoliberalisation process traverses the ‘societal order of discourse, the institutional order of discourse, the discourse type, and even the elements which constitute discourse types’ (Fairclough, 1992: 124). In addition, the poster campaign arguably showed the increased importance that the University attaches to the cultivation of students as entrepreneurial selves or self-managed individuals after the Umbrella Movement, a mass civil disobedience movement that took place in Hong Kong in 2014. As a large number of local university students participated in this movement, the universities in Hong Kong were under great pressure to respond to the impact of local political tensions and conflicts on their students, including mental health issues. A similar situation arose when many local university students joined the persistent citywide anti-extradition-bill protests in 2019. To a certain extent, the educationscape that this chapter has examined has foregrounded the University’s neoliberal agenda of helping students become psychologically and socially self-managed individuals during times of local socio-political crisis. Nevertheless, there may be a paradox between the ‘marketing’ objectives of the poster campaign and its reception by students. When asked to comment on the posters, the four student interviewees all reported that they found them a little ‘childish’ or ‘patronising’, depicting all students as immature and vulnerable teenagers. They also found the posters hard to grasp and uninformative. Ironically, this may point to the poster campaign having resulted in ‘consumer dissatisfaction’. Viewed from another angle, such responses seem to show a resistance towards the neoliberal model of ‘the care of the self’ (Ball & Olmedo, 2013) that the University prescribes to students through the posters. On the other hand, this chapter shows that research on schoolscapes or educationscapes should also pay attention to institutional semiotic landscapes that do not seem directly connected to the conventional agenda, discourses, spaces and activities of teaching and learning.

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The examination of such landscapes can potentially provide insights on how educational institutions socialise their students into particular cultures and ideologies by deploying varied linguistic and discursive strategies and resources across different spaces (e.g. Brown, 2012; Laihonen & Tódor, 2017). This chapter also advocates a further expansion of the focus of future schoolscape or educationscape research to themes other than multilingualism and language education (e.g. Gorter, 2018), such as changing educational values and the socio-political agency of students and teachers, because schoolscapes or educationscapes manifest a much wider range of practices, discourses and ideologies than those about language. Acknowledgements

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6 Promoting Indigenous Language Rights in Saami Educational Spaces: Findings from a Preschool in Southern Saepmie Boglárka Straszer and David Kroik

Introduction

Sweden recognises five national minority groups: Swedish-Finns, Tornedalers, Jews, Romani and Saami. In addition to being a national minority, the Saami are also an indigenous people whose land, Saepmie,1 overlaps the national borders of Sweden, Norway, Finland and Russia. Saami encompasses several languages: in Sweden, South, Ume, Pite, Lule and North Saami are spoken (Sammallahti, 1998). These historical national minority languages are protected by the Language Act (SFS 2009:600, 2009), as well as the Act on National Minorities and National Minority Languages (SFS 2009:724, 2009). The special minority rights protection bestowed on Saami languages applies especially in the socalled administrative areas. This means that the Saami have both the right to use their languages with authorities and, since 2019, to receive a ‘substantial part’ of their preschool education in Saami. Furthermore, Saami children are to be given opportunities ‘to develop a cultural identity and their minority language’ (Act 2009:724; see also SFS 2010:800, 2010). However, research and reports highlight a gap between law and policy and their implementation in Swedish municipalities (e.g. SOU 2005:40, 2005). To explain this gap, we examine the extent to which law and policy on Saami indigenous language rights are applied in a preschool by studying its linguistic and cultural schoolscape. This chapter reports on a case study of the visibility and salience of national and indigenous languages and cultural artefacts in a preschool in northern Sweden. Focus is on indigenous language rights and the construction of Saami educational spaces. We explore how such spaces are 127

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created and formed, and how they feature in the preschool’s linguistic landscape. Furthermore, we discuss language rights and their implementation in this particular preschool. Our analysis begins with a presentation of national and local law and policy on Saami education. Thereafter, the focus is on the visible linguistic and cultural signs and artefacts inside the preschool, the functions of these and the ways that Saami languages and culture feature in the preschool. Finally, we present the reflections of the sign creators on how Saami educational spaces are created in the preschool by including Saami languages, culture, signs and artefacts. We define the linguistic schoolscape in accordance with Brown (2012: 282): a ‘school-based environment where place and text, both written (graphic) and oral, constitute, reproduce, and transform language ideologies’. For our purposes, Saami educational spaces are preschool spaces that, in line with Scheller and Urry (2004) and Pietikäinen (2014), are ‘located in relation to material environment and objects as well as to human interaction’ where Saami languages and culture have an emergent role (see Pietikäinen, 2014: 480). We thus work with Brown’s definition of a schoolscape, but widen it to include more than oral and written text; we see the physical space of our selected preschool as a whole that includes different material ethnographies of place (see Stroud & Mpendukana, 2009). In this context, objects, artefacts and materials have an emergent role because, in Saami culture, tradition and life, reindeer herding, handicrafts, Saami clothes and the Saami flag are crucial and manifest a Saami identity (see also Hermanstrand et al., 2019). As Mæhlum (2019) states, reindeer husbandry and the South Saami language are cornerstones of the South Saami identity. In accordance with Landry and Bourhis (1997) and Gorter and Cenoz (2015), we analyse the distribution of named languages (see Otheguy et al., 2015 for a problematisation of the concept) that is apparent in the individual rooms of the schoolscape. Further, we apply parts of the material ethnography (Stroud & Mpendukana, 2009) to investigate the context of the language where signs are apparent. We attach importance to the larger context and discuss the role of signs in relation to minority language policy at the municipal level. In this way, we acknowledge that signs – rather than being understood in isolation – are understood in relation to the environment, artefacts and society that surround them. As Blommaert (2013: 3) notes: Physical space is also social, cultural and political space: a space that offers, enables, triggers, invites, prescribes, proscribes, polices or enforces certain patterns of social behavior; a space that is never no-man’s land, but always somebody’s space; a historical space, therefore, full of codes, expectations, norms and traditions; and a space of power controlled by, as well as controlling people.

In light of this, we understand the linguistic schoolscape and the Saami educational space to be a complex set of spaces and relationships

Promoting Indigenous Language Rights in Saami Educational Spaces  129

(see  Pietikäinen, 2014). In the linguistic landscape, we include both ­linguistic signs and various objects and artefacts where Saami languages and culture have an emergent role. Saami Indigenous and National Minority Language Rights in Sweden

Language rights are, to refer to Mancini and De Witte (2008: 247), ‘fundamental rights protecting language-related acts and values. The term “fundamental” denotes the fact that these rights are entrenched in the constitution of a country, or in an international treaty binding on that country’. Preschools, as public institutions and places for language socialisation, are crucial spaces for the implementation of language policies, ideologies and rights. Here, we provide a brief presentation of the policy and law regarding Saami education at the national and local levels. The Saami hold dual status in the Swedish legal system. On one hand, they have been recognised since 1974 as an indigenous people with cultural rights (including language) and since 2011 as a ‘people’ with political rights (SFS 1974:152, 1974). In addition, the Saami have the status of a national minority according to the Swedish Language Act (2009:600), and their language rights are regulated by the Act on National Minorities and National Minority Languages (2009:724). Two international conventions – the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages – have shaped national legislation in Sweden on Saami language rights (see, for example, Pietikäinen et al. (2010) for a discussion of these legal documents and their implementation in Sweden). Some of the rights in these conventions are now law in Sweden as a result of three legal reforms from 2000 to 2019. The first Saami Language Act (SFS 1999:1175, 1999) came into force in 2000, giving the languages official legal status and enabling the Saami to use their languages in communications with authorities. The legislation regulated how Saami and other national minority languages are to be promoted at a national level while regulating more specific obligations – for instance, the organisation of preschool education in four municipalities in northern Sweden. From 2000 to 2010, these municipalities constituted the so-called Saami Administrative Area which, it was estimated, had the densest Saamispeaking population in Sweden (SOU 1997:193, 1997). However, many municipalities with Saami populations in the traditional South Saami area were not included in the Saami Administrative Area until 2010, when legislation was first reformed. After 2010, the Saami Administrative Area was extended to support language revitalisation efforts in the traditional South Saami area (SOU 2006:19, 2006). Since the 2010 expansion, preschools in the administrative area that support Saami languages and cultures have been established. However,

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drawbacks in the legislation and its implementation hampered the reforms mentioned above from being fully effective for language revitalisation purposes. For instance, what qualifies as preschool education in which a ‘substantial part is in Saami’ is unclear. There have been instances of municipalities claiming they provide preschool education in Saami; however, it is nothing more than short periods with a Saami speaker in the preschool. Other municipalities have stated that they do not provide any preschool education in Saami (SOU 2017:60, 2017; TSSI, 2011). This has resulted in critique from, for example, Saami institutions and organisations (TSLC, 2016; TSP, 2016). To address this critique, legislation has recently been harmonised with the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (EC, 2017) in a reform passed on 1 January 2019. The obligation of municipalities is now, as stated above, to provide preschool education that is wholly or substantially in Saami, a right also stated in the Swedish Education Act (see SFS 2010:800, 2010). Consequently, the Swedish School Inspectorate will now scrutinise municipalities to check how well they adhere to the legislation. The most recent reform has yet to affect local language policy or the structure of preschool education in the municipality where this study was conducted. Therefore, for the rest of this section, the law as it was until the end of 2018 is the focus. To implement minority policy, each municipality receives annual funding, the amount of which is determined by its population size, to cover expenses that arise from reform implementation. Generally speaking, municipalities tend to employ a Saami coordinator with language and cultural competence in their respective minority language to coordinate work with national minorities (Länsstyrelsen, 2016: 4). The Local Context of Saami Preschool Education

The municipality where this study was conducted has drawn up two documents to regulate the local implementation of minority language legislation. The first is a plan that concerns the national minority legislation in general, while the second focuses on preschool education in Saami. The plan contains an overview of laws on linguistic and cultural rights. In addition, it states the challenges the municipality faces in its efforts to adhere to the Act on National Minorities and Minority Languages (SFS 2009:724, 2009). Interestingly, several sections of the plan emphasise the visibility of minority languages and cultures: for instance, the symbolic act of using the Saami flag on Saami (and other) flag days. Furthermore, the plan specifies cooperation with other municipalities and organisations as well as with institutions in Norway. This is natural in a Saami context as most institutions pushing for South Saami language revitalisation are located in the part of Saepmie that overlaps Norway’s borders. Two components that are granted extensive space in the policy

Promoting Indigenous Language Rights in Saami Educational Spaces  131

documents are the visual promotion of Saami languages and culture, and consultation with Saami representatives, called the ‘consultative group’. Two local sameby2 are active within the municipality, each having a representative in the consultative group. The other five representatives are from the local Saami community. The second plan, which focuses on Saami in preschools and primary schools in the municipality, has three points that were particularly important for our study. First, the municipality dedicates itself to offering comprehensive preschool education in Saami in which additive bilingualism is foundational. The plan explicitly states that it is not enough that teachers know some Saami words and phrases. Second, teachers must have knowledge about Saami culture. Third, the preschool must have Saami indoor and outdoor environments. Our interpretation of the plan is that the first two points are met when one staff member is both fluent in Saami and knowledgeable about Saami culture. The plan elaborates the third point by stating that the indoor environment should have a clear Saami identity. Methodological Issues

This case study combines an analysis of local policy documents and semi-structured interviews with an analysis of the linguistic schoolscape. Both researchers collected data one day in January 2019 at a Swedish preschool in a small municipality in southern Saepmie, with focus on the Saami section. The interior and exterior of the preschool were photographed and two interviews were audio-recorded. The first interview with two preschool teachers took place at the preschool and lasted 45 minutes. The second interview, this one with the Saami coordinator, took place in her office and lasted 100 minutes. One teacher was currently working in the preschool, while the other had stopped working there about six months prior to the interview. The first teacher asked her former colleague to attend the interview since she had been active in starting up the Saami section of the preschool and they had also worked together. The Saami coordinator was interviewed because of her role as local policymaker; she had greatly influenced Saami policy at both the municipal and the preschool level and had helped preschool teachers create Saami spaces at the preschool because her child had once been a pupil there. The two interviews focused on the interviewees’ descriptions of how they had created Saami educational spaces at the preschool with the interviews addressing the following topics: how local Saami policy is enforced within the municipality; how preschool teachers design educational activities with Saami content and how the coordinator supports the work of creating Saami spaces at the preschool. The photographic material was gathered as follows: We took pictures of, for example, signs, pinboards and artefacts regardless of what

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language or culture they represented in the preschool rooms, as well as the cloakroom, nappy-changing room, gåetie room, 3 restroom, eating area, main playroom, art room and teacher’s corner. The exterior (which was later excluded from the data) was photographed by one researcher (Kroik), while the other (Straszer) interviewed the teachers. In total, 343 photos were taken. This material was merged and scaled down in steps one and two of the analysis. The interviews were conducted in Swedish. However, some South Saami terms and words – key for an understanding of context – were used, mainly by the Saami coordinator. Both interviews were transcribed in their entirety. The data were then coded thematically with a focus on the description of Saami spaces in the preschool and the municipality. All citations were translated by the researchers into English for this chapter. As the data collection took place in a preschool and the study involved indigenous peoples, the study demanded careful ethical consideration. The municipality, preschool and interviewees have been anonymised according to the ethical guidelines of the Swedish Research Council (TSRC, 2017). All interviewees provided informed consent to being included in the study. They were informed that interviews were voluntary and that children would not be present in the rooms being photographed. The teachers themselves decided how their respective interviews would be conducted so that it was convenient and not interfere with their work. Our understanding of the documents, artefacts and interviews was informed by our previous research experiences and lives as members of Saami communities and other minority groups. This assisted us in our endeavours to describe and discuss the selected preschool. Furthermore, the combination of our different perspectives enriched the study and allowed for a more developed critical view. Kroik belongs to the South Saami community, speaks South Saami and is familiar with the Saami educational contexts and culture as well as the local context of the municipality. At the time of writing, he was conducting an ethnographic study of a South Saami preschool in another location to that of this study and has for many years worked in Saami educational contexts. Further, he has known the interviewed coordinator personally for a long time, but he did not know the selected preschool or its teachers. Straszer, meanwhile, belongs to another minority group. This, combined with her professional interest in minority and indigenous affairs, has enabled her to acquire knowledge about Saami languages and culture. She had not previously met the interviewees. Straszer is familiar with the situation of the other national minorities in Sweden and has a research interest in and experience with preschools that have a minority language profile (see Straszer, 2017). In our data sampling, we took our photos in the preschool separately, which enabled us to arrive at different findings related to Saami educational spaces.

Promoting Indigenous Language Rights in Saami Educational Spaces  133

Table 6.1  Photographic data by rooms in Saami section Room

Number of photos

Cloakroom

37

Nappy-changing room

14

Gåetie room

55

Restroom

21

Eating area

42

Art room

24

Teacher’s corner

7

In total, we took 343 photos, 157 by Kroik and 186 by Straszer. This parallel photographing resulted in doublets and sometimes photos of the same artefacts, be they from different angles or be they in or out of focus. The analysis involved several steps: We first sorted all photos according to the room in which they had been taken (see Table 6.1). Next, doublets and near doublets (photos of the same object that differed due to zooming and composition) were deleted. The differences between our photos were noted, resulting in some photos being unique to one of us. As we merged the two sets of photos, differences in what we had observed became clear. For instance, Straszer, who lives in a more temperate region of Sweden than the one where the preschool is located, observed ice hockey helmets used for outside play in winter, while Kroik identified, for example, the artists of wall paintings and Saami-designed shelves (see, for instance, Figure 6.4). We then excluded photos from the main playroom shared with the non-Saami section of the preschool because there were few signs there relevant for our study. We also excluded exterior photos of the preschool since the objects there were covered in snow. This narrowed our focus to photos of the interior of the preschool that was exclusive to the Saami section. The whole data set consists of 200 photos of the schoolscape, distributed as illustrated in Table 6.1. The third step of the analysis involved categorising the photos. At this stage, we excluded any remaining doublets and near-doublets, resulting in a total 163 photos. Their distribution and function are presented in Table 6.2. The Function of Linguistic and Cultural Signs and Artefacts in the Schoolscape

Like Landry and Bourhis (1997) and Gorter and Cenoz (2015), we made use of three categories for linguistic and cultural signs and artefacts in the preschool: (1) signs with an informative function; (2) signs with a

134  Part 1: Assessing the Linguistic and Semiotic Landscapes of Educational Spaces

Figure 6.1  Useful objects in the schoolscape: a lamp made from a reindeer antler, a reindeer leather purse and toys with Saami motifs and symbols

symbolic function and (3) signs with both an informative and symbolic function. However, since our research extended beyond words on signs, we also analysed artefacts, articles for daily use (such as soap holders, shelves and dress-up clothes), toys and Saami handicrafts. As such, we added another category: other for this type of useful objects. This category is for photos of text-free materials used in everyday activities, such as toys, lamps, shelves and curtains (See examples in Figure 6.1). Photos in this category either relate strongly to Saami culture or are in line with the use of a certain room: for example, photos of ice hockey helmets, multicoloured curtain in the colours of the Saami flag or the gåetie in the gåetie room. It was not always clear how to interpret and categorise the signs; in some cases, we needed to negotiate and compromise. For instance, we found a handwritten sign with South Saami phrases in the eating area. As the use of Saami words and phrases in the preschool section often has symbolic value, we initially categorised the signs as belonging to Category 3: that is to say, signs with both an informative and symbolic function. However, after discussing and reviewing the interviews with the teachers, we decided that this particular sign has no symbolic value, its purpose being mainly informational: The teachers consult the sign when using Table 6.2  Photos of signs and objects with functions distributed according to room in the Saami section Room

Number of photos

Function of sign Informative

Symbolic

Both

Other/useful objects

Cloakroom

36

12

5

11

Nappy-changing room

13

11

0

0

2

Gåetie room

33

4

1

3

25

Restroom

18

1

2

6

9

Eating area

38

11

4

4

19

Art room

19

0

3

4

12

Teacher’s corner Total

8

6

0

0

2

4

163

39

15

30

79

Promoting Indigenous Language Rights in Saami Educational Spaces  135

Figure 6.2  Sign with the days of the week in South Saami (informative); a Saami flag (symbolic); and a picture in the cloakroom on a toilet door with both a woman and a man in Saami clothing, and with a quadrilingual sign that has South Saami text in the largest font (informative and symbolic)

South Saami phrases associated with food and eating. Table 6.2 displays our categorisation and the number of photos by room. The majority of photos represent useful objects. In the next step of the analysis, we separated the signs that had primarily written language on them; for example, signs on doors and walls, laminated A4 messages, teaching materials and notes, information, books with titles, games with names, small notes on artefacts, paintings and pictures (see some examples in Figure 6.2). These signs had different functions, and we felt most belonged to Category 1 informative and Category 3 both informative and symbolic. Most of the informative signs were in the cloakroom, with the vast majority of them being directed at parents and visitors. This holds true for the nappy-changing room as well, where handmade laminated signs were stored, ready to be placed by the children’s coat hooks to inform parents that more clothes, nappies and suchlike were needed. In the eating area, we found linguistic signs with a mixed function. There were many notes in South Saami that the teachers used during mealtimes. There were also shelves for books and games in South Saami and Swedish. The gåetie room and restroom displayed fewer linguistic signs compared to the other rooms; furthermore, they exhibited a high proportion of material belonging to Category 2 – that is to say, symbolic. Our third step of the analysis revealed that if we excluded material that did not display text and analysed purely linguistic material, a lot less would fall into the Category 2 symbolic, while Categories 1, informative, and 3, both informative and symbolic, decreased only marginally. This holds across the whole Saami section of the preschool. In our view, the decorative signs (sorted into the symbolic category) and the objects and artefacts found in the category useful objects are important in shaping the Saami educational space. In the next step of our analysis, we turned to the distribution of named languages on the linguistic signs as presented in Table 6.3. The most frequent language in the schoolscape of the Saami section was Swedish (67 instances). South Saami, which is the local Saami language, appeared only slightly less (53 instances). Saami languages spoken mainly in other

136  Part 1: Assessing the Linguistic and Semiotic Landscapes of Educational Spaces

Figure 6.3  Languages displayed on a door sign for ‘Eating Area’: South Saami is in the largest font size, then Lule Saami (blue font), North Saami (red font) and Swedish (yellow font)

regions of Saepmie, such as Lule Saami and North Saami, were also displayed. However, on locally designed and printed quadrilingual signs on doors, which signal the function of the room, South Saami dominated in size and position, while Swedish, Lule Saami and North Saami were displayed in smaller font and placed under South Saami (see Figure 6.3). The global language, English, tended to appear on manufactured material rather than being intentionally used in written form here. Finnish appeared on two objects: a fire extinguisher with instructions for use in both Swedish and Finnish and a blanket made in Finland. Norwegian was visible in just as many photos of the gåetie room as South Saami (see Table 6.3) since Norway produces a great deal of South Saami educational material and, as such, South Saami words are translated into Norwegian rather than into Swedish. Note, the number of examples where a language was used exceeds the number of photos, as a single photo can include up to four languages (see, for instance, Figure 6.3). Table 6.3  The distribution of languages in the schoolscape Room

No. of photos

Language occurrences Swedish

South Saami

Lule Saami

North Saami

English

Norwegian

Finnish

Total

Cloakroom

27

15

19

8

8

4

0

0

54

Nappychanging room

11

9

2

0

0

0

1

0

12

Gåetie room

9

5

7

0

0

2

7

1

22

Restroom

8

5

4

1

1

0

0

0

11

Eating area

27

23

16

4

4

4

4

1

56

Art room

10

6

4

2

2

0

0

0

14

4

4

1

1

1

2

0

0

9

96

67

53

16

16

12

12

2

178

Teacher’s corner Total

Promoting Indigenous Language Rights in Saami Educational Spaces  137

In this section, we highlighted some examples of the structure of the schoolscape. If we had considered only linguistic material on which writing appears, we would not have had pictures in the category now called useful objects; indeed, we would not have had this category. Nonetheless, we see that the material had an important role to play in the linguistic landscape, where it was used to place the preschool in a Saami context. The Saami flag, material made from reindeer antlers and pictures of reindeer, illustrates this. The Distribution of Saami Languages and Culture in the Schoolscape

As a final step, we identified and categorised the Saami languages and cultural signs. Saami was significant; as Table 6.4 demonstrates, 71% (117 of 163) of the photos were of signs, objects, symbols and the like that in some respect were associated with Saami languages and culture. Yet we faced challenges in defining certain objects as either Saami or Swedish: for example, the soft toy fishes, because fish is an equally important food item in both cultures, while the recreational activity of fishing is also equally important to both. Table 6.4  Saami languages, culture, handicrafts, motifs and symbols in the signs Room

Possible no. of photos

Actual no. of photos

Function of sign Informative

Symbolic

Both

Other/ useful objects

Cloakroom

36

21

3

5

11

Nappy-changing room

13

4

2

0

0

2

Gåetie room

33

31

3

1

3

24

Resting room

18

15

1

2

6

6

Eating area

38

31

2

3

18

Art room

19

11

3

3

5

Teacher’s corner Total

0

2

6

4

0

0

2

2

163

117

17

13

28

59

An artefact that has a strong Saami affiliation is the gåetie. This stands in the centre of one of the playrooms and gives the room its name. Most children at the preschool had no bond to a Saami gåetie prior to starting preschool; thus, the playschool gåetie could function as a bridge and a reminder of Saami culture in the local community. Traditionally, Saami art clearly depicts functional objects from nomadic life. Objects such as knives are crafted as both tools and works of art. This was reflected in the artefacts found throughout the schoolscape. The artefacts that to us best illustrate this connection are the shelves and the pinboard created as modernised Saami duedtie [d̥ ʊetːɪɛ]; duedtie is a South Saami word for

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Figure 6.4  The pinboard in the eating area with Saami handicrafts, symbols and signs. We marked the parts of the pictures that exhibit certain Saami aspects. First, we observe the reindeer at the top of the pinboard; second, the wooden business card of the artist is attached to the pinboard together with keys; third, the two objects close to the top centre of the pinboard are examples of Saami handicrafts, and the colours of the pinboard frame are the same as those of the Saami flag and are even presented in the same order as they appear on the flag

traditional Saami handicrafts and art. Besides their obvious function (holding documents, books and CDs, and displaying textual information, etc.), the shelves and pinboard have a decorative function (see Figure 6.4). Table 6.4 shows the Saami languages, culture, handicrafts, motifs and symbols used on the signs in rooms in the Saami section. Table 6.4 shows that the fewest photos with Saami affiliation were taken in the nappy-changing room (31% or 4 of 13). Interestingly, this room was also where most material belonged to the informative category. This shows that Swedish was used for communicative purposes, while Saami was used for symbolic purposes. In the gåetie room, Saami culture was in some senses most represented (31 of 33 photos), but as Table 6.3 shows, there was little material that could be classified as linguistic (9 of 33 photos). Considering

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Table 6.2, we note that a vast majority of the material in this room was symbolic and useful: that is to say, the room had lots of play items that have no text on them. Symbolically, this room is important. Saami Languages and Culture in the Preschool Teachers’ and Saami Coordinator’s Descriptions

Our interviews with the two preschool teachers and the Saami coordinator contributed to our understanding of the use of Saami in the preschool. Although not of Saami descent, the preschool teachers had taken South Saami language courses at university. They felt they were knowledgeable about Saami culture. Their own children had been taught some basic Saami at school, and they were both interested in Saami languages and culture. A so-called mother tongue teacher (see, for example, Rosén et al., 2019) in South Saami visits the preschool once a month to teach all children in the Saami section. In their interviews, the teachers emphasised how they had received a great deal of support from the Saami coordinator, whose child had attended the preschool. The coordinator had been an active parent, providing ideas about how to display and use Saami languages in the preschool. The Saami coordinator and the teachers had also travelled together to a South Saami preschool in Norway to gain inspiration and ideas about Saami educational spaces; like the Norwegian preschool, they had a wall painting of reindeer herding and a gåetie room. The Saami coordinator helped procure materials and signs from Norway, while the teachers explained how they had made their own materials (in the excerpt below, the teachers are coded T1 and T2, and the researcher is B): T1: lite material har vi gjort själv. Som- [some material we made ourselves, such as] T2: … mat- [food-] T1: … matlapparna och så skriver vi upp såna här, vi, lit-, dom är ju lite slarvigt skrivna där på, som vi har på dörrarna men det är ju för att vi själv ska komma ihåg, alltså meningar, såna här basic-meningar som … [the food notes and we write these, we, some, they’re a bit poorly written there, those we have on the doors, but that’s mainly so that we ourselves will remember, sentences I mean, such basic sentences as …] T2: .. för å kunna använda dom [in order to use them] T1: Ja. För våra barn kan ju inte läsa så att egentligen är ju såna här kanske inte så, viktiga för dom utan det är ju mer för oss. För att vi ska komma ihåg å säga rätt. [Yes. Since the children cannot really read, so these are really not that important for them, but they are for us. So that we remember how to say things in the right way.] B: Och hur använder ni eller i vilka sammanhang ni säger dom här orden till exempel? Dom här siffrorna eller …? [And how do you use or in what contexts do you use these words for instance? These numbers or …?]

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T1: Ja vi försöker å använda dom alltså i vardagssituationer. [Well, we try to use them in, well, everyday situations.] T2: Och eftersom det är så få som använder samiska så kan man ju använda både, ja vi benämner både samiskt och, namnet på svenska då. [And since so few use Saami, then you can use both, well, we use the words in both Saami and then in Swedish.] (2019-01-22, 12:22)

The teachers also discussed their use of digital resources. For example, the children sometimes watch films in both Saami and Swedish on the internet. They use the names of days and months in Saami in morning gatherings with all the children. Some children have an immigrant background and, the teachers say, are happy to learn Saami words. All children participate in Saami learning experiences: for example, eating Saami food on the Saami National Day; learning how to build fires; preparing and eating food in the gåetie in the school playground and playing reindeer herding games (marking reindeer calves and catching them with lassos in the forest behind the preschool). Another activity discussed during the interview was an excursion to a local Saami site, where a Saami woman organised a day with traditional Saami folktales and food in cooperation with the preschool and the mother tongue teacher. Every day, the children can play in the gåetie room, where there is a collection of learning materials such as cards and games in Saami and Swedish or Norwegian. The teachers reported that they take a bilingual teaching approach in the Saami section, which means that they use many Saami words and expressions in everyday situations.4 However, they stressed that neither of them has linguistic competence equal to that of a mother tongue speaker. Their inspiration for many of the activities derives from Saami culture, such as painting and drawing reindeers, using reindeer leather and Saami knives in craft time, and braiding with yarn in traditional Saami colours. Summary of Findings

A merger of the results of the individual steps in the analysis sheds light on how the schoolscape was created. We seek to explore how Saami educational spaces are created and formed as well as their place in the linguistic landscape. First, we discuss findings from our analysis of the photo material by contrasting a room that has a weak association to Saami language and culture with a room that has a strong association. The association to Saami languages and culture is weakest in the nappy-changing room; however, in this small room, most signs have an informative function, and few have a symbolic function. In contrast to the nappy-changing room, the connection to Saami languages and culture is strongest in the gåetie room, since almost all its photos show materials

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associated with Saami language and culture, with a majority falling into the category useful objects, such as toys and other play items. Some are handmade or adapted from purchased material, such as dolls from IKEA (the Swedish store) dressed in handmade Saami clothes (see Figure 6.1). The written languages in this room are South Saami and Norwegian, although there is little material that displays any writing. Other rooms where Saami language and culture are particularly visible are the cloakroom and eating area. South Saami takes precedence over Swedish in the cloakroom, which contains a great deal of linguistic material that serves a mainly informative function and secondly a symbolic function. The room is linguistically diverse; as Table 6.3 demonstrates, five of the seven named languages can be found in the cloakroom. This multifunctional room demonstrates that Saami languages feature strongly in the schoolscape. This is further illustrated by the most linguistically diverse room of the entire schoolscape, namely the eating area, where all languages are represented. Although Saami linguistic material is richer in the cloakroom than in the eating area, the eating area has a stronger Saami cultural association than the cloakroom, as Table 6.4 shows. To conclude, the areas that parents and visitors are most likely to see – the cloakroom and eating area – are spaces that clearly profile Saami, while both playrooms, the gåetie room and the resting room also have a strong Saami character. The interviews reveal more about how the objects were created and by whom. Many individuals – the teachers, municipal Saami coordinator, mother-tongue teacher, parents and visitors – have a role in creating Saami educational spaces in the preschool. The Saami coordinator in her dual role as a top-down policymaker and bottom-up policymaker as a parent had a central role in shaping the schoolscape. She both procured and produced material that can be seen and that is used in the preschool. The teacher interviews reveal that the teachers also have an active role in creating Saami educational spaces by procuring and producing materials such as games and books in South Saami, as well by displaying words and phrases for everyday use. The teachers also arrange activities that enable children to experience elements of Saami culture: for example, visiting a gåetie in the forest, eating Saami food and using Saami words and phrases. It is important to point out that the teachers and Saami coordinator are co-creators of Saami educational space in the preschool and maintain a continuous dialogue; as such, human interaction is also a feature of the Saami educational space in the schoolscape. In our analysis, we viewed each preschool room in its own right, with its own functions and uses, yet together they form a whole: a complex set of spaces that together form one educational space. The individuals in their roles and through their interactions are part of this educational space. We argue that by way of their efforts and the complex set of spaces with their wealth of linguistic signs and artefacts, they contribute to the creation of a Saami educational space in the schoolscape we studied

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Conclusion and Final Reflections

To conclude, we look at the basis for this study and present some final reflections on language rights as policy and law, and the implementation of these in the schoolscape we studied. As mentioned, there are two documents at the municipal level that regulate the local implementation of minority language legislation, with one providing clear descriptions of what Saami preschooling has to include. Additive bilingualism among children and teachers’ Saami language and cultural competence are mentioned, as well as the fact that the indoor environment should have a clear Saami identity. Meeting the requirements of the Act (SFS, 2009:724) that promotes minority languages remains a challenge for the municipality in focus here. In the preschool studied, teachers are expected to ensure that children improve their South Saami language skills. Teachers do make efforts in this regard, providing children with the opportunity by way of signs and phrases in South Saami. However, children receive only a few hours of language instruction each month. The municipal plan for preschool is that children will learn a few words and phrases in South Saami; however, this does not meet with legislation. The teachers we interviewed are native Swedish speakers who know only a limited number of Saami words and phrases; thus, there are no fluent speakers of Saami in the preschool. In this respect, the hegemony of the majority language as a means of everyday communication remains unchallenged. Nevertheless, it can be argued that the teachers’ use of South Saami phrases and words and their positive attitudes constitute small steps towards developing a Saami-speaking preschool setting, and this helps children build their Saami identity. In this preschool, the broad and rich display and distribution of Saami languages and artefacts have an important and symbolic role in promoting and supporting indigenous rights. When we consider the interior, our findings reveal that the whole preschool has a clear and visible Saami profile. Children and staff are reminded of the Saami reindeer-herding culture by way of paintings on an interior wall, locally made toys, the gåetie in a playroom and numerous reindeer motifs in the schoolscape. The Saami colours that appear on Saami clothes and the Saami flag can be found throughout the preschool interior. We argue that this signals a break from a monolingual Swedish cultural norm in the educational space. In this case, it is clear, as in Pietikäinen’s (2014) study, that the Saami educational space is located in relation to the material environment and objects (see the images in the figures above) and also, as the interviews demonstrate, to human interaction where Saami languages and culture have an emergent role. All these are important in the implementation of policy and law. However, in this preschool, South Saami has a mainly symbolic rather than communicative purpose. The case here does not show an

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ongoing language revitilisation process, but rather the possible onset of such a process. At this point, in a community with almost no fluent South Saami speakers, the education system is crucial in ensuring that language is transmitted to the next generation of potential speakers (see Baker & Wright, 2017; Todal, 2018). In our view, the symbolic use of Saami, as reflected in the schoolscape and the pedagogy, provides children with an opportunity to develop a cultural identity. One conclusion drawn from our analysis of the interviews, photos and policy documents is that the support of identity is central for both the teachers and the Saami coordinator. The cultural identity of children is supported by familiarising them, regardless of their background, with basic Saami vocabulary and Saami culture; in this sense, the schoolscape exhibits a Saami identity. This study points to possible future endeavours to describe and understand Saami and other indigenous or minority schoolscapes and educational spaces. A natural next step in researching Saami educational spaces would be both to observe the interaction between teachers, children and signs, and the way the signs and artefacts described here are employed, and also to analyse the situations in which the different languages are used and to what extent. This would further understanding as to how children and teachers in their interaction negotiate and renegotiate, invent and reinvent the schoolscape. Practical Implications

Finally, we will reflect on how the municipality can facilitate the use of Saami for communicative purposes, thereby making the Saami section of the preschool contribute more concretely towards language revitalisation. We focus on two factors, both of which give rise to discussions about the lack of Saami speakers in the local area. Firstly, we can see that those who shaped the preschool schoolscape were not proficient enough in Saami to use it in communication or, as a result, to act as role models in this regard. Although our study demonstrates that one parent can have a tremendous impact on the material aspects of the schoolscape, implementing Saami as a spoken language in education requires more human resources. When there are few preschool teachers who are fluent in Saami, the best solution may be to recruit elderly Saami speakers. Unfortunately, there are no elderly speakers in the region discussed here; every generation has been highly impacted by the assimilative language policies that have secured the current hegemony of Swedish. A proficient speaker from another South Saami region could be employed to allow for more opportunities for both children and teachers to use Saami. A proficient Saami speaker could be a linguistic role model for both children and staff. In our experience, one competent speaker in a group of staff can encourage the use of a minority language in more

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situations. In fact, the municipality has made note of this in their local preschool education plan, although it has yet to be implemented. Secondly, a structured form of communication with parents and other stakeholders is a requirement in the reformed law that has been in effect since early 2019. Such communication can lead to the involvement of more people in the revitalisation of Saami at preschool. Parents in the local community today cannot serve as linguistic role models for their children since they do not speak Saami. However, they should be consulted about the ambitions they have for their children’s language skills and use. In a language revitalisation context, parents can learn the language in parallel with their children. We conclude that legislation and local policy documents are not the primary reasons why there is only symbolic use of Saami at this preschool. Rather, the lack of Saami for communicative purposes in the local community is itself an obstacle. A key factor for the increased use of spoken Saami in the preschool is the provision of more opportunities for children, parents and staff to practise. Transcription Key , .. (-) (word)

Short pause Unfinished sentence, sentence follows Inaudible word or part of word Unclear word or text

Notes (1) Saepmie [sæːp̥ mɪɛ] is South Saami. The land is also, and possibly more commonly, referred to as Sápmi, which is North Saami. We use South Saami out of respect for the local language and tradition in the area where the study was carried out and the data collected. (2) A sameby [sɑːmebʏː] is an economic and administrative union for reindeer husbandry in a specific geographical area. (3) We use the term gåetie [gʊetːɪɛ] to refer to a traditional Saami tent that resembles a tipi. See Pesklo (2018) for a discussion on the difference between a tipi and a gåetie (Pesklo uses the North Saami term lavvu, which for current purposes is taken to be equivalent to gåetie). (4) Not to be confused with multilingual models such as Immersion or CLIL (see Baker & Wright, 2017).

References Baker, C. and Wright, W.E. (2017) Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism (6th edn). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Blommaert, J. (2013) Ethnography, Superdiversity and Linguistic Landscapes: Chronicles of Complexity. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Brown, D.K. (2012) The linguistic landscape of educational spaces: Language revitalization and schools in southeastern Estonia. In D. Gorter, H.K. Marten and L. van

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Mensel (eds) Minority Languages in the Linguistic Landscape (pp. 281–298). London: Palgrave Macmillan. EC (2017) European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages: Application of the charter in Sweden. Committee of Experts on the Charter. Report ECRML 2017, 1. Council of Europe. 6th Monitoring Cycle. Gorter, D. and Cenoz, J. (2015) The linguistic landscapes inside multilingual schools. In B. Spolsky, M. Tannenbaum and O. Inbar (eds) Challenges for Language Education and Policy: Making Space for People (pp. 151–169). New York, NY: Routledge. Hermanstrand, H., Kolberg, A., Nilssen, T.R. and Sem, L. (eds) (2019) The Indigenous Identity of the South Saami: Historical and Political Perspectives on a Minority within a Minority. Cham: Springer International. Landry, R. and Bourhis, R.Y. (1997) Linguistic landscape and ethnolinguistic vitality: An empirical study. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 16 (1), 23–49. Länsstyrelsen (2016) Rapport om användningen av statsbidraget för förvaltningsområden för finska, meänkieli och samiska samt förslag till riktlinjer [Report on Use of Government Grants for Finnish, Meänkieli and Saami and Proposed Guidelines]. Report number 106-23946-2015. Länsstyrelsen: Stockholm. Mæhlum, B. (2019) Southern Saami language and culture: Between stigma and pride, tradition and modernity. In H. Hermanstrand, A. Kolberg, T.R. Nilssen and L. Sem (eds) The Indigenous Identity of the South Saami: Historical and Political Perspectives on a Minority within a Minority (pp. 17–28). Cham: Springer International. Mancini, S. and de Witte, B. (2008) Language rights as cultural rights: A European perspective. In F. Francioni and M. Scheinin (eds) Cultural Human Rights (pp. 247–284). Leiden & Boston: Martinus Nijhoff. Otheguy, R., García, O. and Reid, W. (2015) Clarifying translanguaging and deconstructing named languages: A perspective from linguistics. Applied Linguistics Review 6 (3), 281–307. Pesklo, C. (2018) Cultural revitilisation: ‘Feeding on the tools of the conquerors’ – A SamiAmerican perspective. In G. Roche, H. Maruyamaand and Å. Virdi Kroik (eds) Indigenous Efflorescence: Perspectives from Sapmi and Ainu Mosir (pp. 209–218). Australia: ANU Press. Pietikäinen, S. (2014) Spatial interaction in Sámiland: Regulative and transitory chronotopes in the dynamic multilingual landscape of an indigenous Sámi village. International Journal of Bilingualism 18 (5), 478–490. Pietikäinen, S., Huss, L., Laihiala-Kankainen, S., Aikio-Puoskari, U. and Lane, P. (2010) Regulating multilingualism in the North Calotte: The case of Kven, Meänkieli and Sámi Languages. Acta Borealia 27 (1), 1–23. Rosén, J., Straszer, B. and Wedin, Å. (2019) Maintaining, developing and revitalizing: Language ideologies in national education policy and home language instruction in compulsory school in Sweden. In C.A. Seals and V.I. Olsen-Reeder (eds) Embracing Multilingualism across Educational Contexts (pp. 185–214). Wellington: Victoria University Press. Sammallahti, P. (1998) The Saami Languages: An Introduction. Kárášjohka: Davvi Girji. Scheller, M. and Urry, J. (2004) Tourism Mobilities: Places to Play, Places in Play. London: Routledge. SFS 1974:152 (1974) Instrument of Government [Regerinsformen]. Swedish Code of Statutes. Stockholm: Ministry of Justice. SFS 1999:1175 (1999) Lag 1999:1175 om rätt att använda samiska hos förvaltningsmyndigheter och domstolar [Saami Language Act (1999:1175) on the Right to Use Saami with Authorities and in Courts]. Swedish Code of Statutes. Stockholm: Ministry of Integration and Gender Equality. SFS 2009:600 (2009) Språklagen (2009:600) [Language Act (2009:600)]. Swedish Code of Statutes. Stockholm: Ministry of Culture.

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SFS 2009:724 (2009) Lag (2009:724) om nationella minoriteter och minoritetsspråk [Act (2009:724) on National Minorities and National Minority Languages]. Swedish Code of Statutes. Stockholm: Ministry of Culture. SFS 2010:800 (2010) Skollagen [Education Act SFS, 2010:800]. Swedish Code of Statutes. Stockholm: Ministry of Education and Research. SOU 1997:193 (1997) Steg mot en minoritetspolitik: Europarådets konvention för skydd av nationella minoriteter [Steps Towards a Minority Politics: The European Framework Convention for Protection of National Minorities]. The Minority Language Committee. Stockholm: Fritze. SOU 2005:40 (2005) Rätten till mitt språk – förstärkt minoritetsskydd. Delbetänkande av Utredningen om finska och sydsamiska språken [The Right to my Language – Strengthened Legal Protection for Minorities. Interim Report from the Swedish Government Official Report on the South Saami and the Finnish Language]. Stockholm: Ministry of Culture. SOU 2006:19 (2006) Att återta mitt språk: åtgärderder för att stärka det samiska språket [Reclaiming My Language: Measures to Strengthen the Saami Language]. Stockholm: Ministry of Culture. SOU 2017:60 (2017) Nästa steg? Förslag för en stärkt minoritetspolitik [Next Step? Proposals for a Strengthened Minority Politics]. Stockholm: Ministry of Culture. Straszer, B. (2017) Translanguaging space and spaces for translanguaging: A case study of a Finnish-language pre-school in Sweden. In B. Paulsrud, J. Rosén, B. Straszer and Å. Wedin (eds) New Perspectives on Translanguaging and Education (pp. 129–147). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Stroud, C. and Mpendukana, S. (2009) Towards a material ethnography of linguistic landscape: Multilingualism, mobility and space in a South African township. Journal of Sociolinguistics 13 (3), 363–386. Todal, J. (2018) Preschool and school as sites for revitalizing languages with very few speakers. In L. Hinton, L. Huss and G. Roche (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Language Revitalization (pp. 73–82). London: Routledge. TSLC (2016) De samiska språken i Sverige 2015 [The Saami Languages in Sweden in 2015]. The Saami Language Center. Kiruna, Giron: The Saami Parliament. TSP (2016) Shadow Report: Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. Kiruna, Giron: The Saami Parliament. TSRC (2017) God forskningssed [Good Research Practice] (Revised edn). Stockholm: The Swedish Reseach Council. TSSI (2011) Särskild rätt till plats i förskoleverksamheten för vissa nationella minoriteter [Special Right to Preschool Education for Certain National Minorities]. Stockholm: The Swedish School Inspectorate.

7 Blackboard – A Space Within a Space: Visible Linguistic and Social Practices in Swiss Primary Classrooms Edina Krompák

Every language is located in a space. Every discourse says something about a space (places or sets of places); and every discourse is emitted from a space. Henri Lefebvre (1974/1991: 132)

Introduction

Interactive whiteboards and similar visualisers are deemed synonymous with 21st-century high-tech classrooms. Increasingly, these technologies are crowding out what some consider their outdated low-tech forerunner – the humble blackboard. These digital visualisation devices aim to support teaching and learning and prepare learners for the digital economy and society. Where such advanced technologies are widespread, these aims are generally enshrined in the curriculum. This is the case in the German speaking part of Switzerland, where Curriculum 21 includes the promotion of learners’ and teachers’ digital competence under the rubrics of media and information technology literacies (D-EDK, 2010–2014). The days of the blackboard are, however, far from numbered. This analogue precursor continues to exist as a significant visual tool in everyday school life alongside its contemporary digital descendants: ‘It is as essential and clichéd an image of schooling as apples, rulers, and school bells’ (Krause, 2000: 9). The widespread use of advanced technologies in Switzerland notwithstanding, the blackboard looks back on a long and resilient tradition. It has its roots in the work of the Swiss educator, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746–1827), who introduced the slate to 147

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19th-century schools (Abb, 1920). Since then, the blackboard has established itself as one of the constant symbols of classroom lessons and of school in general (Krause, 2000: 9; Röhl, 2016: 117–118). Whereas learners and teachers in some countries are increasingly switching to whiteboards (Krompák et al., 2020), in Switzerland, the old-fashioned blackboard still endures as standard. This applies across educational institutions, from primary to tertiary levels (Moser, 2006). Against this backdrop of the constant blackboard in digital society, this chapter explores its role in the schoolscape and its significance in learning and teaching practices. By including the perspectives of the users of the classroom as educational space, I examine how learners and teachers perceive the schoolscape and how they use the schoolscape for their everyday school life. This study further builds on existing schoolscape research (see the introduction in this contribution) by expanding the focus to the broader semiotic landscape (as opposed to the narrower linguistic one) and by using participative methodologies (Holm, 2018). The chapter begins with a theoretical outline that brings together an account of the spatialisation of the linguistic landscape (Jaworski & Thurlow, 2010) with a theory of social space (Lefebvre, 1974/1991). In order to gain deeper insights into the schoolscape, with a focus on one particular part of the schoolscape, the blackboard, I draw on Foucault’s (1997) concept of heterotopia. Accordingly, I consider the blackboard as a heterotopia in the schoolscape. After this, the study is placed in its broader context, paving the way for the three research questions: (1) What are the roles of blackboards in learning and teaching practices? (2) How do learners perceive their schoolscapes and how do they use them to learn? (3) How do teachers perceive their schoolscapes, and how do they use them to teach? The methods and design used in this longitudinal linguistic ethnography are outlined, after which excerpts from interviews with learners and teachers as well as photographs of the schoolscape are analysed. This leads us to a discussion of the blackboard as a space with in a space and of schoolscape as a representation of the classroom community. Schoolscape as a Social Space

This chapter illustrates the value to empirical research on schoolscapes of bringing together the theoretical accounts of the spatialisation of the linguistic landscape (Jaworski & Thurlow, 2010) with the theory of social space (Lefebvre, 1974/1991). Going beyond the original focus in linguistic landscape research on visualised language and signs in public spaces, Jaworski and Thurlow (2010: 2) also draw attention to the interaction of written signs with ‘other discursive modalities: visual images, nonverbal communication, architectures and the built environment’. Thereby, they challenge the reduction of linguistic landscape to written language and advocate a broader perspective that connects the semiotic and the

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spatial. The value of such an expanded semiotic perspective on landscape and space has been confirmed by other empirical investigations into combinations of multimodal semiotic modes of meaning (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006) such as smellscape (Pennycook & Otsuji, 2015), skinscape (Nassenstein & Rüsch, 2019; Peck & Stroud, 2015), soundscape (Backhaus, 2015; Scarvaglieri et al., 2013) and body language (Blackledge & Creese, 2017). In addition to expanding our focus from the linguistic to semiotics and space, Jaworski and Thurlow follow Scollon and Wong Scollon (2003) by also drawing attention to the social actors who construct complex networks of meaning in space. This reference to the social practices of agents is also central to Lefebvre’s (1974/1991: 31) view that ‘(social) space is a (social) product’. This has two implications: Firstly, physical natural space loses some of its significance in relation to social space; secondly, social groups (be they nations or villagers, learners or teachers) become visible as agents who contribute to producing their own spaces. These social groups produce specific social spaces through processes of ‘self-presentation and self-­ representation’ (Lefebvre, 1974/1991: 34). Comparing social practice with spatial practice, Lefebvre highlights the common lived dimensions of both. The representation of space is triadic: perceived space embodies spatial practices; conceived space comprises mainly the verbal representation of space; lived space embodies physical space, the ‘more or less coherent systems of non-verbal symbols and signs’ (Lefebvre, 1974/1991: 39). Applied to schoolscapes, the perceived space is constituted by the spatial practices of the students and the teacher in the classroom; the conceived space comprises the explicit and implicit rules represented in the classroom; and the lived space is constituted by the interaction between the physical and spatial organisation of the classroom on one hand and the verbal representation of the classroom on the other. The perceived–conceived–lived triad is interconnected by a consensus among pupils and teachers which enables individual agents to shift between them. Given the fact that space is created through practices, space is also internally connected to time: ‘Time and space are not separable within a texture so conceived: space implies time, and vice versa’ (Lefebvre, 1974/1991: 118). Previous research has shown that this way of conceptualising space holds considerable promise for how we conduct research on educational spaces (Glaser et al., 2018). However, as Gorter (2018) argues, there is still considerable potential to use this account of space in the study of schoolscapes. Accordingly, this chapter further builds on Gorter’s (2018: 84) suggestion that we view learners’ activities along this triad of social space: ‘1. observing or documenting (perceived space); 2. interpreting or producing texts (conceived space) and 3. exploring their own responses or those of others (lived space)’. By focusing on the blackboard, which represents a space within a schoolscape, I applied Foucault’s (1997) concept of heterotopia to analyse

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the function and relevance of the blackboard. Foucault defines heterotopias as a ‘kind of both mythical and real contestation of the space in which we live’ (1997: 332) and describes six principles: (1) heterotopias are universal and exist in every culture, (2) they can be reframed within society, (3) they can include incongruous places, (4) they are bound by time, (5) permission is needed to enter the heterotopia and (6) heterotopias hold ‘a function that takes place between two opposite poles’ (Foucault, 1997: 335). To explain the principles of heterotopias, Foucault (1997) discusses the cemetery and the garden as the two oldest examples of these. Although the cemetery has undergone changes over time, we will find that, based on the description above, it has a genuine role to play as a heterotopia. Also, the garden as ‘the smallest fragment of the world … at the same time, represents its totality, forming right from the remotest times a sort of felicitous and universal heterotopia (from which [is] derived our own zoological gardens)’ (Foucault, 1997: 334). Following these theoretical threads, the study reported in this chapter concentrates on the semiotic schoolscape and especially on the visibility of learning and teaching practices in the semiotic schoolscape as a social space. The larger space of the schoolscape is only addressed very briefly to contextualise the close reading of the blackboards as a heterotopia in classrooms. This chapter foregrounds blackboards as both signs themselves, spaces for other signs and excerpted spaces within the larger space of the schoolscape. Existing Research on Blackboards

Although there is considerable research from other perspectives on blackboards in educational settings, a schoolscape view on the blackboard and its crucial role in the semiotic landscape has been little explored. Earlier ethnographic investigations discuss the role of the blackboard in learning and teaching processes and emphasise the interrelation of discourses written on the blackboard with spoken ones (Röhl, 2016). One function of the blackboard is to mark its content as significant knowledge that has been validated by the teacher. In addition to being a means of authorisation, the blackboard is also a means of creating and building a (classroom) community (Röhl, 2016: 117). Using the metaphor of blackboard as tabula rasa, Röhl (2016: 116, emphasis in the original) highlights the ephemeral dimensions of the blackboard and the function of the sponge, which occasionally erases the written discourses. Another ethnographic study (Wulf et al., 2010) applied participatory observation and video-supported observation to explore ritualisation and the rituals of 300 children in Germany (aged between 6 and 13) in the four major fields of socialisation: family, school, peer group and media. Focusing on the spatial or physical surroundings in the classroom and on the ritualised

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behaviour of the learners, Wulf et al. (2010: 79) describe the blackboard as a ‘sacred space’. Like Röhl (2016), the authors define the board as a space ‘from which institutional authority is expressed’ (Wulf et al., 2010: 79), representing the two opposite sites (teacher and learner) and permission to enter the heterotopia (Foucault, 1997). Further, the blackboard area with the standing teacher and the seated learners constitutes a ritual that marks the beginning of the lesson. A mixed methods study (Kershner & Pointon, 2000) used both quantitative methods (questionnaires) and qualitative ones (visual methods such as learners’ photographs and classroom mapping) to elicit learners’ views of their classroom as learning environment. That study included 70 learners (aged between 9 and 11) and their class teachers from three schools in Great Britain. The study highlighted the significance of ‘display’ in representing and influencing learning and concluded that the physical and social aspects of the classroom environment are connected, ‘as shown by the children’s preferences for seeing the board and for sitting with friends’ (Kershner & Pointon, 2000: 75). Against this background, the blackboard appears as a relevant display not only of the institutional authority (Wulf et al., 2010: 79) but also of the legitimate and dominant languages in the school. My study brings together two research paradigms – ethnographic education research and sociolinguistic schoolscape research. In doing so, the two paradigms each borrow from their counterpart to fill some gaps. From ethnographic education research, schoolscape studies borrow awareness of the significance of learners. From schoolscape studies, education research borrows sociolinguistic methods that pay attention to the linguistic and semiotic features of space. Bringing these two paradigms into conversation both enriches our understanding of schoolscapes and education and sheds light on the reciprocal relations between the blackboard (the linguistic and semiotic landscapes) and linguistic and social practices (learning and teaching). The Context of the Study: Emerging Research Questions from a Comparative Schoolscape Project

The present study is part of ongoing research into the linguistic landscape in multilingual Switzerland more generally (Krompák, 2019; Krompák & Meyer, 2018), and specifically, the schoolscape of Swiss primary schools. It further builds on a comparative project of schoolscapes in Switzerland and Malta (Krompák et al., 2020) and thus invites comparison with other settings beyond these two countries. The aim of the precursor project was to explore and compare the visible learning spaces in the semiotic landscapes of two primary schools in both countries. For this purpose, learning space was defined as ‘a socially constructed space, which includes the physical and the interactional aspects of space in order to support learning processes’ (Krompák et al., 2020: 26). ‘Agency’ and

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the ‘board’ appeared significant in the comparative analysis of Swiss and Maltese data. Whereas in the Swiss schoolscape, learners’ work was very visible, what dominated in its Maltese counterpart were either commercial displays or signs made by the teacher. Although boards were central in both schoolscapes, they differed in their function and meaning. In Switzerland, the blackboard was used as a multifunctional and semi-­ permanent display with information, signs and drawings, some of which stayed on over weeks. In contrast, in Malta, whiteboards had replaced the blackboard. These whiteboards tended to be used for non-permanent displays and were always kept clean (Krompák et al., 2020: 44). While this comparative study produced many valuable contrastive insights, it also underlined the need for a deeper understanding of each of these settings themselves. To gain such an enhanced understanding of the schoolscape in Swiss primary schools, the present study addresses three questions. (1) What are the roles of the blackboards in learning and teaching practices? (2) How do learners perceive their schoolscapes and how do they use them to learn? (3) How do teachers perceive their schoolscapes and how do they use them to teach? While the first question focuses on a specific space in schoolscapes, namely, blackboards and their symbolic and semiotic contents, the second and third questions focus on the agents involved in producing and using these ­schoolscapes and the practices these agents engage in, namely, learning and teaching. In bringing together these three questions, the chapter shows the value of integrating questions and methods from current linguistic landscape research with questions and methods from current education research. Methods

The present chapter reports on a longitudinal linguistic ethnographic study that combined diverse methods and data. It incorporated the perspectives of various agents who use and produce signs in the schoolscape to tell and explore the story beyond the signs (Blommaert, 2013: 44). Core to the approach was the combination of linguistic ethnography with visual methods (Prosser, 2007). Linguistic ethnography is an interdisciplinary combination of sociolinguistics and ethnography that explores ‘language as one form of social practice’ (Heller, 2007: 2) in different contexts. It examines ‘how language is used by people and what this can tell us about wider social constraints, structures and ideologies. It achieves this by investigating the linguistic sign as a social phenomenon open to interpretation and translation but also predicated on convention, presupposition and previous patterns of

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social use’ (Copland & Creese, 2015: 14). By applying linguistic ethnography, I focus on the semiotic and spatial aspects of the schoolscape. The ethnographic approach taken in the study reported here made it possible to concentrate on microprocesses in everyday learning and teaching practices. Interviews with learners and teachers covered both the production and reception sides of the schoolscape, which made it possible to incorporate the perspectives of these different users of the space (see also Meyer & Krompák, 2017). The visual methods included data gathering through participatory photography and photo-elicitation. Participatory photography (Holm, 2018) was used to give voice to the participants, especially the learners. The participatory photography approach provides a ‘safe space’ in which the opinions of the participants, especially of children, are valued and considered as part of the meaning-making process (Clark, 2005, 2011: 327). Participatory photography has the advantage that it ‘enables the researcher to get a sense of what the participants want to show as important or interesting from their own worlds’ (Holm, 2018: 441). Moreover, by empowering participants as co-researchers, the participatory approach challenges the traditional hierarchies between the researcher and the participants. Thus, as Holm (2018: 442) underlines, research becomes collaborative, based on the direct influence of the participants on the research design and the visual material they produce. Both learners and teachers in the second wave of fieldwork displayed competence in taking photographs about the social space they design and use in their everyday practice. Building on the participatory photography, a photo-elicitation interview was conducted with the participants. This made it possible for participants to explain their choice of the specific signs and tell the story beyond it from their perspective. Study design

Different data sources were brought together ‘to describe and analyse the complexity of social events comprehensively’ (Blommaert, 2007: 682). This included digital photographs, audio-recordings of interactions, interview transcripts and field notes. Data were collected in two waves, 10 months apart: t1 = August 2017, t2 = June 2018 (see Figure 7.1). Question (1) on the role of the blackboard in learning and teaching was addressed by revisiting the Swiss data from the first wave of fieldwork for the comparative Swiss–Maltese study. Data were gathered in three ways: (1) To gain an overview of the schoolscape, I took 360 digital photos of images in a primary school building. (2) To explore the story beyond the signs, a walking-tour method (Garvin, 2010) was used. While I was taking the photographs, the school principal led me through the school building and commented on the schoolscape. (3) To involve the learners’ perspectives, spontaneous interactions with learners about some signs were audio-recorded.

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Figure 7.1  Research design: data collection and analysis

Questions (2) and (3) on how learners and teachers perceive their schoolscape and how they use it to learn and teach were addressed in the second wave of fieldwork conducted in Switzerland. In this second wave, which emphasised the blackboard, time and the agency of users of the schoolscape, data were gathered in three ways. Firstly, to investigate the changes in the schoolscape over one year, I selected five to six key images (Pink, 2006) from the data of the first phase of fieldwork. These were presented to four teachers and their classes who discussed them and related them to the recent schoolscape. The discussion of the key images was recorded and transcribed. Secondly, to empower the participants as co-researchers, a participatory photography approach was taken (Holm, 2018). The learners and teachers were asked to take photographs of the signs in the classroom that were personally relevant to them. Drawing on the walking tour methodology by Garvin (2010) and the tourist guide technique which was adapted to the school context by Szabó (2015), I gave the following instruction to the children: ‘Now, we are taking a walking tour of your classroom. I am a tourist, and you are my guide. What do I have to know about your classroom? What is interesting here? What is great here? What is not so great here? And why? Please take some pictures with my camera of these things’. Accordingly, the children guided me through their classroom by taking photographs of the artefacts. Thirdly, to involve the users’ perspectives of the space and their explanation of the selected items, I interviewed the learners and teachers either while they were taking photographs or afterwards about why they chose the specific sign to photograph. These interviews were also recorded and transcribed. Sample: The school and participants

The study was conducted in a primary school that covers Grades 1 to 6 (learners aged 6 to 12 years old). The school is situated in the

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German-speaking part of Switzerland in a neighbourhood with a high immigrant population. Accordingly, 85% of the learners have an immigrant background, are multilingual and, in total, speak 36 different official and non-official languages of Switzerland. Although the language of instruction is Standard German, the local variety of Swiss German is frequently used in colloquial communication with and among teachers. During the guided tour in the first wave of fieldwork, the school principal gave me a general overview of the schoolscape comprising common spaces and selected classrooms. Where interviews were conducted with learners, these were incidental rather than purposefully selected. In the second wave of fieldwork, the sample included four teachers and 27 learners. The participants were selected on a voluntary basis and were made up as follows: Grade 6 (21 learners aged 11 to 12), Grade 5 (three learners aged 10 to 11) and Grade 2 (three learners aged 7 to 8). Participation was voluntary and carried out with parents’ and learners’ consent (Wiles et al., 2008). Data and data analysis

The data corpus in the first wave (t1) comprised 360 digital photographs, two types of audio recording (90 minutes of audio recording of the walking tour with the principal; 2 to 3 minutes of spontaneous interactions with some learners) and the transcripts of the latter. The second wave (t2) involved data on two perspectives. To begin with, data were gathered about the participants’ perspectives from t2 on the linguistic schoolscape at t1, 10 months before. This consisted of 173.15 minutes of audio-recordings and notes of participants talking about five or six photographs that had been selected from the first wave according to the visual ethnography method proposed by Pink (2006), as well as transcripts thereof. After this, data were collected by means of the participatory photography method (Holm, 2018). This included 98 digital photographs and 88 minutes of audio-recorded photo-elicitation interviews with 27 learners and 85.15 minutes of photo-elicitation interviews with four teachers as well as the transcripts thereof. The interviews were analysed using open and initial coding based on grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006). Using content-based categories, it was possible to compare the signs photographed by the learners and the teachers to examine similarities and differences in their choices. Results

Question 1: What are the roles of the blackboards in learning and teaching practices? Blackboards were present in all the classrooms included in the current study. They belonged to the two different types of blackboard common in Switzerland: a blackboard consisting of only one panel, which is usually

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placed on a side wall of the classroom, and a big blackboard in the middle of the front wall of the classroom. This front blackboard has a total of eight panels, some of which can be closed over others. The central panels are usually without lines. Each of the six side panels has a different function and layout. They are typically used for teaching mathematics, music and writing with or without lines. To answer the first question, I began by identifying the photographs in which the blackboard (either the central or side blackboard) was visible. The blackboard appeared in 76 (4.7%) of the 360 photographs I had taken in the first wave, while the blackboard was visible in 18 (5.4%) of the 98 photographs the participants had taken in the second wave. Thus, in total, the blackboard was visible in 94 (4.8%) out of 458 photographs. Although the appearance of the blackboard in the visual data was not significant, the geosemiotic meaning of the blackboard (Scollon & Wong Scollon, 2003) appeared noteworthy. The emplacement of the blackboards (in the centre of the front walls so as to be visible to all the students) indicated the relevant role of the blackboard in teaching and learning (Oelkers, 2012). This was followed by an analysis of the content of the blackboards – in particular the displayed languages and images. Display of the blackboard

Corresponding to the language of instruction, Standard German was the most prominent language on the blackboards. In addition, two further languages taught in the primary school, namely French and English, were also displayed on the blackboard. Swiss German and the home languages of the learners appeared in very limited signs attached to the blackboard. In the classroom of the second grade, I found the one sign with the word ‘dwarf’ in Standard German and its translation in Swiss German and seven different home languages (Albanian, Slovenian, Mongolian, Serbian, Portuguese, Turkish and Ladin – a Rhaeto-Romance dialect spoken ‘in the Alpine arch stretching from Switzerland to the north-eastern border of Italy’; De Cia & Iubini-Hampton, 2020: 7). This sign represented not only the linguistic diversity of the classroom but also supported the multilingual competences of the learners. The photograph of the side blackboard (Figure 7.2) was one of the key images shown to the Grade 6 class in the second wave of the data collection process to investigate the aspect of time in the schoolscape. This side blackboard had a permanent function, namely, to display homework. It contained different types of signs in various media, such as chalk writing by different persons, photographs, leaflets and handwritten notes. Three languages existed alongside each other – Standard German, English and French – making this an example of translanguaging, which is defined as ‘multiple discursive practices in which multilinguals engage in order to make sense of their bilingual worlds’ (García, 2009: 45, emphasis in

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Figure 7.2  Side blackboard for homework in the Grade 6 classroom. Photograph by Edina Krompák (25.08.2017)

original). More precisely, this coexistence of languages written on the board constitutes an example of written translanguaging as everyday social practice in institutionalised contexts (Mazzaferro, 2018: 4), where specific norms and the overt language policy (Shohamy, 2006) of the schools form the linguistic practices of the learners. The relevance of this blackboard in the learning processes became evident in the photo-­ elicitation interview with learners in the Grade 6 class. They were highly motivated to describe the blackboard for homework, with overall eight learners explaining its use. This is also evident in the comments by Learner 14 (Excerpt 7.1) Excerpt 7.1

Interviewer: I have two more pictures exactly the blackboard ah now lots of (.) hands are raised ((laughs)) Learner 14: Well, this is our blackboard for homework what for me stri- well strikes that where your new homework stands, it was in the first English lesson we have learned ahm new words and we also learned homework and there we have since then we have this

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stuck there ahm hung and since then it has been there this if for me (…) the most important so [xxx] (19.06.2018, 11.11-11.45, Learner 14, Class Grade 6).

When interpreting the sign, the learner (Excerpt 7.1) first focused on the attached notice in English ‘Your homework’, connecting it with the first English lesson, when they learnt the word ‘homework’. This was coded as ‘past and present’ because of the connection of the sign in the present with the experiences of the learner in the past. Again, the learner emphasised the time aspect by describing how long the notice had been attached to the blackboard. The emphasis is both verbal, the learner repeated ‘since then’, and paraverbal in the stress on the word ‘since then’. Further, the learner expressed the individual importance of the signs beyond the first English lesson. It can be concluded that the learners perceived the display on the blackboard from the perspective of time and individual experiences. Besides the relevance of the sign in the social practice, every sign implies an individual meaning to the users of the space. The next section explores how teachers perceived and used the blackboard in their everyday practice. ‘Blackboard is a teacher’s calling card’

Clara and Nina,1 the teachers of the sixth-grade class, underlined the uniqueness of the blackboard in schools. They used the blackboard frequently for different purposes, which were generally allocated to specific parts of the board. The side boards were commonly used to attach cards or visualise information, such as homework. The front blackboard was frequently used to present the topic of the lesson: ‘what is going on in this classroom’ (Clara, 19.06.2018, 12.26). Moreover, they described the blackboard as the teacher’s calling card which is distinguished by cleanness and attractive chalk writing. Nina pointed to the ephemerality of chalk writing and chalk drawings and contrasted the unique impression of this image with a printed picture. In Excerpt 7.2, she gives an example of the longevity of a chalk drawing (Figure 7.3) on the blackboard. Excerpt 7.2

Nina: Ehm, things we no longer need are cleaned relatively quickly Interviewer: How long does for example this drawing with with the mountain stay yes Nina: Well, this this was now quite a bit of an exception so it’s staying now until until they go Interviewer: Yes Nina: This was two three four weeks ago was the presentation and it’s like this it was yes she she came especially on one afternoon to the school

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Figure 7.3  Blackboard drawing and writing by a learner on the inside of the side panel of the front blackboard. Photograph by Edina Krompák (19.06.2018)

asked may I draw it and we’re leaving it and it indeed also looks nicely decorative Interviewer: Yes, very nice and what kind of presentation was it Nina: About Japan it was a German presentation where where the children could choose a topic themselves (19.06.2018, 15.49‒16.43, teacher, Class Grade 6)

The blackboard, which may be perceived as a ‘sacred place’ (Wulf et al., 2010: 79), is a space ‘from which institutional authority is expressed’. In this specific situation, the teachers made an ‘exception’ and legitimised the learner’s entry into the ‘sacred place’. Moreover, the learner’s drawing has become a semi-permanent part of the ‘sacred place’ which expresses the teacher’s appreciation of her individual work. The blackboard also enables the contemporaneous representation of different spaces, in this case the Japanese landscape with the sentence in German ‘Auch der Schatten des Gastes ist ehrenwert’ [The guest’s shadow also merits respect] and indicates one of the principles of Foucault’s (1997) heterotopia. ‘The work with the blackboard is troublesome’

In contrast to Clara and Nina, Eileen, the young class teacher of the fifth grade, preferred modern teaching technologies such as the interactive whiteboard, visualiser and computer (Excerpt 7.3). She had had a positive

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teaching experience in England with the interactive whiteboard, which she wished to repeat in Switzerland. Moreover, she described working with the blackboard as troublesome for the same reason that the sixthgrade teachers, Clara and Nina, valued it. Whereas Clara and Nina made the longevity of the blackboard integral to their teaching practices, Eileen found its semi-permanent function problematic. Excerpt 7.3

Interviewer: How do you use then when the blackboard in your teaching? Eileen: Ehm, well maybe to say I’d like to also have an interactive whiteboard ((laughs))] I have already// Interviewer: Ah ((laughs)) Eileen: Got to know it ehm when I had an internship in England and well so I find it super. […] Eileen: I find it simple because or for me it’s a bit troublesome if I leave something on the board then the board is occupied and then you cannot somehow// Interviewer: //Yes// Eileen: //do something new or so// (20.06.18, 02.23-02.41, 03.12-03.23, teacher, Class Grade 5) ‘I could have more blackboards’

Finally, the blackboard is a central tool in the teaching practices of Florence, the class teacher of the second grade. She expresses her excitement about the blackboard in Excerpt 7.4. Excerpt 7.4

Florence: And then there are two [children] at the board have a chalk and the children [in the class] dictate and they all have a turn to write. Interviewer: //Yes// Florence: We do it also// Interviewer: //mhm// (.) Florence: So I think I could have more blackboards, we have ((laughs)) //always// Interviewer: //Yes// Florence: The blackboard’s rather too full (19.06.18, 10.31–10.42, teacher, Class Grade 2)

Like Clara and Nina, Florence allows the learners to use the blackboard for some tasks. This dilutes the boundary between the blackboard and the classroom and the corresponding spatial organisation of learners and teacher. When the learners use the ‘sacred place’ (Wulf et al., 2010: 79), it

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seems to be a ritual and also a readjustment of roles. Florence uses the blackboard intensively and multifunctionally, by writing and ­visualising the learning and teaching content. She also laughs about her comment – ‘I think I could have even more blackboards’ – which shows that she is aware of the fact that her classroom with its eight-sided front blackboard and the additional three blackboards on the side is actually well equipped. To sum up, the teachers perceive and use the blackboard differently. Nevertheless, they consider the visual aspect of the blackboard relevant to their social practices. Although the blackboard is mainly used by the teachers, in some situations, the learners are permitted to write or draw on the blackboard, breaking the boundaries of institutional authority (see also Röhl, 2016; Wulf et al., 2010). However, these situations are initiated by the teacher which means that as a heterotopia, the learners need permission to enter the blackboard (Foucault, 1997). To bring the perspective of the learners and the teachers together, the next section investigates similarities and discontinuities in the perception of the users of the space. The focus is on the shared knowledge of the schoolscape and the shared practices in the classroom community. Question 2: How do learners perceive their schoolscapes and how do they use them to learn? Question 3: How do teachers perceive their schoolscapes and how do they use them to teach? As in Sharples et al. (2003), the learners and teachers photographed signs for different reasons. Whereas the learners selected the signs based on the emotional meaning that these signs had for them, teachers concentrated mainly on the function of the sign. However, both the learners’ and the teachers’ photographs mainly captured the semiotic landscape of the classroom, focusing on objects and spaces. Where the photograph captured several topics, I categorised the signs on the basis of the participants’ description in the photo-elicitation interview. Thematic ethnographic analysis of the photographs collected by the learners and the teachers was used to answer the questions about their learning and teaching practices. To begin with, the 98 photographs were categorised into nine thematic groups as follows: (1) Behaviour regulation and rituals – objects and signs with symbolic character, such as the xylophone, which when played indicates to the learners that they have to be quiet. (2) Subjects – language or symbols connected to one specific subject, such as a display of numbers and maths calculations on the blackboard. (3) Organisation – signs related to the structure of the lesson and the class, such as the blackboard for homework (see Figure 7.2). (4) Learning strategies and materials – signs that support learning in the classroom, such as symbols for group work or folders.

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(5) Learners’ individuality – signs made by the individual learners, such as a handmade bag or a painted chair. (6) Plants and animals – living beings besides humans, such as a caterpillar in a terrarium or a plant in the classroom. (7) Relaxing – objects used to relax, such as a couch, a basket with marbles or board games. (8) Food and drink – objects that indicate eating and drinking, such as mugs. (9) Regional identity – signs that indicate belonging to a certain region, such as images of landmarks. The photographs were subsequently allocated to these categories to examine similarities and differences in the choices across grades (see Table 7.1). Surprisingly, out of a total of 98 signs, the blackboard appeared in 18 shared photographs taken by the teachers and the learners. Their contents belonged to the four categories: behaviour regulation and rituals, subjects, organisation, and learning strategies and materials. This result also shows the main function (the four categories above) of the blackboard and its relevance in the schoolscape. Further, I ascertained where the learners’ and teachers’ photographs converged and then analysed them to gain insight into shared social practices. The shared signs selected by the learners and teachers of all three classes were significant. In the sixth-grade class, there was convergence on seven signs: ‘folder for class council’ and ‘class chores/ Ämtliplan’ (Category 3: organisation), and the plush toy elephant, ‘Oli’, the ‘xylophone’ (Category 1: behaviour regulation and rituals), the ‘­visualiser’ and the ‘clock’ (Category 4: learning strategies and materials). Although the shared signs of the sixth-grade class and their teacher did not include the blackboard, the teachers did consider three Table 7.1  Number of photographs per category across grades Category

Grade 6 (n = 23)

Grade 5 (n = 4)

Grade 2 (n = 4)

Total (n = 31)

1.  Behaviour regulation & rituals

5

6

1

12

2. Subjects

0

3

4

7

19

10

6

35

4.  Learning strategies & materials

3. Organisation

3

9

3

15

5.  Learners’ individuality

3

5

7

15

6.  Plants and animals

0

1

1

2

7. Relaxing

1

2

2

5

8.  Food and drink

3

0

2

5

9.  Regional identity Totals

2

0

0

2

36

36

26

98

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Figure 7.4  Side blackboard for information in the Grade 6 classroom. Photograph by the teachers (19.06.2018)

blackboards with the functions homework, timetable and information (Figure 7.4) relevant to the schoolscape. In the fifth-grade class, there were five signs common to the teacher and learners. These were ‘class chores/Ämtliplan’ and ‘timetable for the week/Wochenplan’ (Category 3: organisation), the ‘instruction cards with symbols’ on the central blackboard (Figure 7.5) and, similar to the sixthgrade class, the ‘xylophone’ (Category 1: behaviour regulation and rituals) and the ‘visualiser’ (Category 4: learning strategies and materials). Whereas the first (‘No word!’) and the second instruction card (‘Whisper’) regulate behaviour, the third and the fourth instruction cards promote learning strategies such as work in pairs or in groups in the classroom (Figure 7.5). Of the total of 36 signs selected by the teacher and the learners, three signs were on the blackboard. They were: ‘class chores’/ Ämtliplan’ and ‘timetable for the week/Wochenplan’ belonging to ­organisation; and the prompt cards (‘No word!’, ‘Whisper’, ‘Partnerwork’ and ‘Groupwork’) belonging to learning strategies. By moving the attached arrow on the blackboard, the class applies the requested form of interaction and learning strategy. Based on their frequent use and positioning on the side, the laminated cards seem to be a semi-permanent part of the blackboard. In the second-grade class, the learners and teacher selected numerous signs connected with the learners’ individuality and class organisation. Independently from each other they chose four shared signs, namely, the blackboard with verbs, the birthday calendar, the couch and the gold frame. Although the sign ‘gold frame’ does not belong to the category of blackboard, I selected it as a key image (Pink, 2006) based on its meaning and materiality. The gold frame (Figure 7.6) constitutes a kind of ‘wall  of  fame’ where the learners’ best individual work is displayed.

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Figure 7.5  Prompt cards on the blackboard containing symbols accompanied by captions for organisation and learning strategies. Photograph by teacher, Class Grade 5 (20.06.2018)

Figure 7.6  Gold frame containing work by an individual learner. Photograph by learner, Class Grade 2 (19.06.2018)

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Although it is mainly the teacher who decides which work will be presented in the gold frame, learners can also submit proposals. At first sight, the gold frame resembles the blackboard: It is similarly positioned to the blackboards on the side wall and its relationship to time is similar in that it displays student work semi-permanently. However, since ‘the materials out of which an object is made signal much about how we are to take its meaning’ (Scollon & Wong Scollon, 2003: 135), the gold frame signifies a precious work of art. By the same token, it gives value to learners’ work and builds a classroom community in which their ­individuality is significant. Based on these observations, it can be concluded that the schoolscape signals linguistic and social practices and not only represents but also cocreates a classroom community. Comparing the results of the three classes, some tendencies can be identified such as the increasing significance of organisation, and behaviour regulation and rituals in the upper classes and the relevance of learners’ individuality in the lower classes. Although the quantitative data suggest that the categories ‘plants and animals’, ‘relaxing’, ‘food and drink’ and ‘regional identity’ are not significant, the qualitative data suggest that they contribute significantly to a positive classroom climate and a sense of regional belonging. The blackboard with its semi-permanent function indicates relevant learning and teaching practices in the classroom, such as learning strategies or organisational rules. Moreover, the blackboard may be considered a heterotopia in that it fulfils the six characteristics of a heterotopia, as defined by Foucault (1997): heterotopias are universal and exist in every culture (blackboards and whiteboards are widespread in education); ­heterotopias can be reframed within society, for example a chalkboard may be used to welcome guests in front of restaurants; heterotopias can include incongruous places, for example by presenting a Japanese ­landscape on a blackboard in a Swiss classroom (see Figure 7.3); ­heterotopias are bound to time such as the permanent blackboard with its semi-permanent content; permission is needed to enter the heterotopia, such as writing on the blackboard; and heterotopias hold ‘a function that takes place between two opposite poles’ (Foucault, 1997: 335), such as creating a space for learning and teaching in the classroom as an image of real life from outside. Conclusion The participants’ perspectives

The participatory photography method (Holm, 2018) enabled the participants to document and select artefacts with individual relevance. Furthermore, the focus on the participants’ perspectives shed light on ­relevant artefacts that are more hidden in the schoolscape than the

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dominant blackboards. Although the individual learner and teacher perceived the schoolscape differently, every class had some shared knowledge around specific signs (such as the birthday calendar for rituals and the posters and plush toy for communication) that are co-constitutive of their social practices. By gathering the visual data from the participants, the study aimed to reduce the power differences between the researcher and participants and promote equal participation by the teachers and children in the research. The blackboard as a space within a space

In the overall schoolscape, the blackboard is a significant space within a space, a heterotopia in the tradition of Foucault (1997) with a defined and ritualised function in all the classroom communities studied. The blackboard appears in different contexts as a ‘sacred place’ which marks a border between the learners and the teachers (Wulf et al., 2010: 79) and between spaces that can only be entered with permission. Yet sometimes, when learners get to use them, these borders become more porous. The blackboard has multiple functions, which include a space for attaching posters or information, learners’ work, chalk writing and chalk drawings. Moreover, the blackboard also appears as a semi-permanent sign in which elements are distinguished by the meaning of the material – permanence, temporality and quality (Scollon & Wong Scollon, 2003). The materiality of the sign on the blackboard (Kress & van Leewen, 1996; Scollon & Wong Scollon, 2003) sheds light on the learning and teaching practices in the classroom. At the same time, Röhl’s (2016) metaphor of tabula rasa applies to the complex function of the blackboard in learning practices, which symbolise, on one hand, the longevity of the written discourse and, on the other hand, the capacity of the learners to acquire new knowledge. Even though teachers use and value the blackboard differently, it remains an influential display in the classroom. Following Lefebvre (1974/1991), with its materiality, the blackboard constitutes the perceived as well as the co-constructed lived space. Schoolscape as a metaphorical representation of a classroom community

Based on my analysis, I conclude that schoolscapes are multilayered and multimodal semi-public spaces that include the perceived physical and visual settings, the lived interactional space created by teachers and learners, as well as the embodiment and modification of space over time. I conclude that linguistic and social practices, such as learning and teaching practices, behaviour regulation and rituals, are visible in the schoolscape, both in the conceived spaces and in the perceived ones (Lefebvre, 1974/1991). Whereas the conceived space related to the mental representation of classroom

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community includes rules and rituals, the perceived space includes the physical aspects of the space. Learners and teachers co-construct the lived space and share a common knowledge about learning, organisation, rules, behaviours and experiences. Correspondingly, each schoolscape co-constitutes a specific classroom community with its own history. To return to Lefebvre (1974/1991), discourse and space are interdependent. On one hand, the discourses of the specific classroom community shape the visual and spatial schoolscape, while on the other, the space ‘classroom’ with its ‘safe and sacred places’ co-constructs social practices and discourses among the users of the space. Transcription notation

(.) (..) (…) (6) ((laugh)) bold hmmm I just- [] // // […] [xxx]

pauses (1, 2, 3 seconds) pause of 6 seconds para- or nonverbal act stressed, emphasised holding of consonant, according to intensity abortion of utterance commentary overlap suppressed text unintelligible speech

Acknowledgements

My gratitude goes to the head of the school that participated in this study and to the teachers, the learners and their parents who made this research possible. My thanks are also due to the university students for fruitful discussions on selected data in my course ‘Introduction to research methods in education’. I am also grateful to the anonymous reviewers and my co-editor colleagues for their constructive and very valuable comments on this chapter. Note (1) All names are pseudonyms.

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Szabó, T.P. (2015) The management of diversity in schoolscapes: An analysis of Hungarian practices. Apple: Journal of Applied Language Studies 9 (1), 23–51. Wiles, R., Prosser, J., Bagnoli, A., Clark, A., Davies, K., Holland, S. and Renold, E. (2008) Visual Ethics: Ethical Issues in Visual Research. Southampton: National Centre for Research Methods. Wulf, C., Althans, B., Audehm, K., Bausch, C., Göhlich, M., Sting, S., Tervooren, A., Wagner-Willi, M. and Zirfas, J. (2010) Ritual and Identity: The Staging and Performing of Rituals in the Lives of Young People. London: Tufnell Press.

8 Institutional Educationscapes for New Speakers in Flanders: Language Learning Campaigns and Linguistic Integration Mieke Vandenbroucke

Institutional State Settings as Educational Schoolscapes (‘Educationscapes’) for New Speakers

When the linguistic landscape (LL) of educational settings is considered, what commonly comes to mind is the LL of the institution of the state most overtly connected with education, namely schools. Accordingly, educational schoolscapes are typically defined as the physical and social settings of teaching and learning where pupils meet with educators. They are the material spaces in which schooling curricula are implemented in practices and activities corresponding to the ideologies and social norms of the school and education policy (Brown, 2012; Gorter & Cenoz, 2015; Laihonen & Szabó, 2018; Malinowski, 2015). Schoolscapes are ideologically normative spaces, both in their educational content and their linguistic practices. While certain linguistic and semiotic practices are ideologically allowed and perpetuated, others are suppressed, overtly or covertly. Schoolscapes exist across the ideological spectrum, for example, regarding attitudes and positioning towards multilingual practice and proficiency in languages other than the school language. This ranges from strictly enforced monolingualism where pupils’ native home languages are not allowed on the school premises (should these not be the official language of the school), to more openness towards multilingual practice and home language inclusion. Aims of the latter include enhancing (language) learning and communication as well as celebrating pupils’ diverse 173

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linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Brown (2012) points out that schoolscapes can go beyond constituting and reproducing language policies; schoolscapes also harbour the power to challenge and transform language ideologies. Increasingly, the multimodal and spatial aspects of text and language in educational schoolscapes and educational LLs are receiving attention as well, pointing to the various ways in which semiotic modes differ from the purely linguistic mode. In addition, the physical emplacement of signs and text within the school also adds to meaning construction, identity valorisation and learning (Laihonen & Tódor, 2017; Szabó, 2015). Given that states also pursue educational goals through their other institutions beyond schools, a focus on educational settings as schoolscapes in the narrow sense is unable to capture the much broader institutional contexts that permeate the state. This chapter extends our attention to additional institutional contexts and physical settings beyond the school system and educational realm stricto sensu, where the nation-state can also pursue its ideology to regulate the language learning behaviour of populations. Such institutional spaces beyond schools, I argue, are educationscapes which are similarly permeated with educational missions. Rather than examining linguistic and semiotic practices inside schools per se, I look at potential continuities between schoolscapes in schools and what can be observed in governmental educationscapes where officials offer public services and conduct controls as part of the social contract between the nation-state and its citizens. This includes public services (such as transport), social benefits and administrative entitlements (such as healthcare) and registry offices, as well as sites of control and regimentation (such as legal institutions and police stations). This institutional shift in focus from schools to state institutions also entails a shift on human agency. Studies that look more narrowly at educational institutions typically focus on pupils who bring their home languages into the classroom and who are not yet fully proficient in the schooling language to follow instruction. In this chapter, the focus is on adult migrants who face (a) new language(s) they are not necessarily proficient enough in to participate in civil society and professional life in their new surroundings. While these adult migrants can join educational programmes and become part of physical classrooms and schoolscapes specifically for adult learners to master the local official language(s) as part of their migration trajectory and integration process, not all will necessarily do so. In this chapter, I examine how educational space stretches beyond migrant children’s schools to other institutional spaces. I discuss how, in these spaces, adult migrants can be construed (and perhaps even policed) as potential language learners and ‘new speakers’ (O’Rourke & Pujolar, 2015) of the local official language.

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The notion of ‘the new speaker’ and ‘newspeakerness’ originates from within minoritised language communities where it designated speakers of the minoritised language who acquired this language in non-traditional ways (Soler & Darquennes, 2019). O’Rourke et al. (2018) adopted a broader and more generic understanding of the term to encompass ‘individuals who make regular use of a language that is not their first language, but a language they acquired outside of the home, often through the education system or as adult speakers’ (Soler & Darquennes, 2019: 2). As such, adult migrants learning an official majority language in their postmigration setting also, to some extent, constitute ‘new speakers’. The main point the chapter makes thus pertains to the fact that similar educational impulses that have been documented in educational contexts also permeate official institutions beyond schools as extended sites in which language ideological projects are carried out. As the empirical case study shows, not all institutions are equally permeated with an imperative to learn the locally dominant language, as certain educational nudges occur only in specific contexts and nodes of contact in these institutions. My examination of adult migrant new speakers and the particular educationscapes they come into contact with is empirically focused on the northern region of Belgium, Flanders, which is ideologically constructed as a monolingual space in institutional contexts in its official territorialised language policy. As such, we zoom in on a societal context charged with a history of pronounced language conflict, ideological language battles and nationalist striving for linguistic integration. Within this context, I explore in this chapter how institutional contact in official sites proceeds between migrant adult new speakers and government officials and how (c)overtly these new speakers are encouraged to acquire and use the official language. In doing so, I adopt a particular focus on a largescale language learning campaign entitled Nederlands oefenen, ik doe mee! (translation: ‘Practising Dutch, I’m in!’) which was initiated by the Flemish Ministry of Integration, and I examine the visual distribution of this campaign (and related inititatives) in posters and flyers throughout institutional contexts. The general aim of this political campaign is to stimulate organisations, institutions, local administrations and individual citizens to offer more language learning opportunities to migrants not yet fluent in Dutch to help their integration process into Flemish society. In order to understand the historical background to this Flemish agenda, I introduce the Belgian and Flemish context in more detail in the next section. This is followed by a section on the overarching research questions and methodological approach in this case study and a discussion of the material gathered in the institutional educationscapes. The chapter ends with concluding remarks.

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Language Ideological Battles over Linguistic Integration in Flanders, Belgium

The current outlook of the Belgian political landscape and societal structure is built around one central issue around which all other issues cluster: language (Janssens, 2001). This is the case because language in Belgium is not a neutral property and has always played a key role in Belgian politics in both the past and the present (Mettewie & Janssens, 2007). Throughout the second half of the 20th century, the contours of the current federal structure came into existence through attempts to reconcile the sharp hostilities between the French- and Dutch-speaking communities in Belgium, which resulted in constitutional revisions and gradual changes that provided the two regions and communities with relative autonomy as part of a federal Belgian state model. Concomitantly, an intricate and complex official language policy with three official languages (French, Dutch and German) was implemented, dictating the languages of official communication and government affairs to be used by institutions in the public, official realm according to geographical territory or region in Belgium. According to this territoriality principle, Flanders in the north of Belgium is officially monolingual Dutch-speaking; Wallonia in the south of Belgium is officially monolingual French-speaking and the Brussels-Capital region is by law bilingual in French and Dutch. Several municipalities surrounding Brussels and along the horizontal language border provide language facilities to inhabitants speaking another national language (French or Dutch, respectively, depending on the side of the border). In the eastern part of Wallonia, the Germanspeaking area offers facilities to French-speaking citizens. Figure 8.1 provides an overview of these regions and linguistic communities in Belgium and the linguistic demarcations of the territoriality principle. This complex political system of checks and balances both linguistically and territorially is one of the outcomes of a long period of conflict and compromise between the French- and Dutch-speaking communities in Belgium. At the time of Belgium’s independence in 1830, French was the language of the state, the ruling classes and the social, economic and political elite throughout Belgium. French was the sole language used in official domains and public affairs; it was the language of the ruling class and elites, and of social mobility. As this independence was attained by the French-speaking bourgeoisie’s revolt, the French-speaking nobility gained power, and the Flemish population was denied constitutional rights for their language and culture, since the French-speaking governing class wanted to create a linguistically homogeneous state with all Flemish citizens abandoning Dutch and shifting to French (Bourhis et al., 1979). Dutch and Flemish culture were suppressed and Frenchification promoted. This process of Frenchification affected all layers of the population in Brussels. In Flanders, French remained the language spoken by

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Figure 8.1  Regions and linguistic communities in Belgium (Reference: Geografisch Instituut Vrije Universiteit Brussel)

the elites, while the vast majority of Flanders’ population spoke Flemish dialects and remained virtually unaffected by the language shift (Janssens, 2001; Van Velthoven, 1987). During the course of the 20th century, the dynamics between the Dutch and French language and Flemish and French-speaking communities in Belgium changed drastically. Towards the end of the 19th century, a romanticist Flemish movement started to oppose the French predominance in Flanders and Brussels, championed the Flemish cause and fought for the recognition of and equal status for their language and culture (Van Velthoven, 1987). Flemish nationalism in the past and the present has always been implicitly connected to language (Blommaert, 2011). Contemporary Flemish nationalists still invoke an ideological narrative of a continued/continuing linear Flemish struggle dating back to 19th-century grievances (Blommaert, 2011). As a result of this Flemish struggle for equality and official recognition, the Dutch language would gradually attain official status and parity in all domains next to French during the 20th century by means of different sets of laws passed (Van Velthoven, 1987). In 1898, Dutch was recognised as a national language next to French. An additional set of laws was passed in the 1930s and resulted in ‘regional unilingualism’ that amongst others declared Flanders as officially monolingual Dutch, Wallonia as officially French and Brussels as officially bilingual (Spolsky, 2004: 164). A second set of language-related laws was passed in the 1960s and, amongst others, officially settled the language borders between Flanders and Wallonia in

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1961, based on the principle of territoriality (Bourhis et al., 1979). Throughout the years, as Belgium transitioned from a unitary state model to a federation of three monolingual communities and territorial regions through six different state reforms, additional rules and regulations were added to the language policy resulting in the intricate and complex system Belgium has today, which includes three official languages (French, Dutch and German). While many Flemings nowadays are still ‘extremely sensitive to anything that might be associated with the former rule by the Frenchspeakers, a period perceived as oppressive and humiliating’ (Verlot & Delrue, 2004: 225), language-related controversies in Flanders have subsided significantly. The Brussels region, however, still forms an unresolved, divisive issue and political Gordian knot that continues to fuel inter-communal animosity in Belgium. While Brussels is claimed to be historically a Flemish, Dutch-speaking city, it is in the present time predominantly French-speaking with a Dutch-speaking minority population, as a result of a thorough Frenchification process during the 19th and 20th centuries (Treffers-Daller, 2002). In spite of its official bilingual French–Dutch status, Brussels thus constitutes a predominantly Frenchspeaking (yet increasingly more multilingual) enclave surrounded by Flemish, officially Dutch-speaking, municipalities. Specific local municipal officials (called ‘aldermen’) for Flemish affairs were appointed during the 2000s in some of these Flemish municipalities on the Brussels periphery where a large number of French speakers reside in order to protect and ensure the Flemish character and Dutch-speaking nature of these municipalities in the face of Frenchification stemming from the capital (Janssens, 2012). In the latest elections in Belgium in 2012 and 2014, the right-wing Flemish nationalist party won with an overall 30% constituency. As a result of this outcome, this party came into power in many Flemish towns and cities and installed aldermen for Flemish affairs similar to the ones already in place on the Brussels periphery. Most of these are affiliated with the Flemish nationalist party. A key feature of local politics implemented by these Flemish nationalist politicians in office concerns the creation of a homogeneously Dutchspeaking territory and public space (Vandenbroucke, 2017). This is actively created by official measures that solidify the visibility of Dutch on public signage in Flemish towns, in an attempt to instil a linguistic doxa, that is, a practice that is accepted as self-evident and natural in a given society and not questioned (Bourdieu, 1977). Through the creation of a monolingual Dutch-speaking street scene, the political hope is then to create a carry-over effect that influences spoken language use and private linguistic practice to a point of doxic convergence (Vandenbroucke, 2017). This striving for the predominance of Dutch in Flanders perpetuates 19thcentury ideological creeds of romantic ‘one nation, one language’ ideals and regional monolingual ideologies developed by Herder (Bauman &

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Briggs, 2003). While initially Frenchification was seen as a threat by Flemish politicians, socioeconomic and demographic changes during the second half of the 20th century identified and reactivated linguistic sensitivities in Flanders. Globalisation, neoliberalism and the concomitant internationalisation of the workforce in Belgium, as well as increased waves of migration, have led to ‘superdiverse’ populations (cf. Vertovec, 2007) and to increased linguistic diversity among the Flemish population. Within Flemish nationalist ideological thinking, migrants speaking languages other than Dutch are expected to integrate linguistically and acquire Dutch proficiency (Blommaert & Verschueren, 1991). This is reflected, for example, in the educational system, where Dutch monolingualism is in general enforced (Rosiers, 2016), and in recent professional activation trajectories for adult migrant job seekers who are required to attain Dutch proficiency (Del Percio & Van Hoof, 2018). One particular type of campaign that reflects this ideological language integration policy for migrants is the Nederlands oefenen, ik doe mee! language learning campaign, conceptualised and subsidised by the Flemish government which I discuss in more detail later on. Research Questions and Methods

Against this background, this chapter addresses the following explorative questions: (1) Do we find evidence of encouragement for adult migrants to learn Dutch and integrate linguistically into Flemish society in the form of multimodal, semiotic and linguistic signs that form part of institutional campaigns and practices in the public space? (2) If such signs are found, how, and in which institutional settings, are these language learning campaigns geographically distributed? How common are they and are they equally common in, for example, service provision or high-stakes criminal investigation contexts? (3) What is the potential impact these campaign signs can have on spoken contact and encounters between government officials and adult migrants? In order to answer these explorative questions, I rely on data gathered in October 2016 and between December 2018 and March 2019 through onsite fieldwork in a range of institutional contexts throughout the city of Ghent in East Flanders. The contexts visited in 2018–2019 include a police department, a courthouse, an emergency doctor’s centre, a regular doctor’s office, a hospital, two train stations, a post office and the municipal registry office. As such, the fieldwork sites include a diverse set of institutional contexts which cover both services provided by the state to its citizens and sites of control and gatekeeping practices which police and regiment citizens’ behaviour.

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The fieldwork in these contexts included photographic documentation of posters or flyers, indexing or pertaining to language learning initiatives, and publicly displayed multilingual signs across the various institutional contexts. Data collection was positivist in nature, in the sense that only signs of this nature were documented, irrespective of the signs in the official language in their vicinity. In a case where an institutional space only featured monolingual Dutch signs, no photos were taken. As a result, the data set gathered was small and included only six photos of individual signs (some of which were displayed several times within one context) and six copies of individual leaflets (most of which were available on site in stacks of several copies). The respective distribution per site will be taken up in the discussion later on. An important caveat to take into account regarding this explorative case study thus pertains to its size: the limited number of fieldwork sites covered in this case study and the snapshot approach of photographic documentation at one moment in time yield results and insights which should not be gratuitously generalised and therefore need to be understood for their contextualised particularity. In order to address the third research question about the potential impact such signs can have on spoken interactions in institutional sites, I rely on data and insights from part of a larger project on municipal marriage fraud investigations in Belgian civil registry offices (Vandenbroucke, 2020) for which I conducted an interview with a civil servant about linguistic mediation in the registry office and I observed and recorded six gatekeeping encounters between migrants and civil servants in which the selection of the language of interaction plays a crucial role. The data analysis of the photographic material and gatekeeping encounters was discourse analytical in nature, in the sense that the LL material was analysed as meaningful referential and symbolic language use contextualised within a particular space and the interactional material as situated within the institutional organisational frame (Copland & Creese, 2015). By approaching these institutional contexts as potential educationscapes for adult migrants, I focus on the linguistic groundings of the activities and contact taking place in these contexts and their potential value for the nation-state to connect language acquisition to integration by encouraging the acquisition or use of Dutch in crucial physical locales of contact in these institutional sites. The Nederlands oefenen, ik doe mee! Language Learning Campaign Aim and intentionality

The first research question this paper addresses pertains to how adult migrants might be addressed in educationscapes to encourage language learning and linguistic integration. One particular campaign, launched in February 2014 by the Flemish Ministry of Integration, stands out as an

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example par excellence: the campaign entitled ‘Nederlands oefenen? Ik doe mee’ (translation: Practising Dutch, I’m in!). The general aim of this political campaign is to stimulate organisations, institutions, local administrations and individual citizens to offer more language learning opportunities outside the classroom to migrants not yet fluent in Dutch to help their integration process into Flemish society. On the day of the campaign’s launch, the Flemish Minister for Integration at that time stated: Via een taalcursus leg je de basis, maar je leert ze pas echt als je ze ook buiten de klas kan gebruiken: bij je buren, op straat, in de winkel, op de bus, in de bibliotheek, aan het loket, in het zwembad … Met deze campagne willen we anderstaligen uitnodigen om het Nederlands te gebruiken, ook al beheersen ze de taal nog niet perfect. Tegelijk vragen we Nederlandstaligen ook om anderstaligen de kans te geven om de taal te oefenen. Dat kan door zelf duidelijke taal te gebruiken en, hoe goed het ook bedoeld is, zelf niet te snel over te schakelen naar het Frans of het Engels. (English translation: Through a language course you acquire the basics, but you actually only really learn [a language] by using it outside the classroom: with your neighbours, on the street, in the store, on the bus, in the library, at the ticket booth, in the pool … With this campaign, we want to invite speakers of other languages to use Dutch, even though they do not master the language perfectly yet. At the same time, we also ask Dutch speakers to give speakers of other languages the opportunity to practise the language. This is possible by using clear language and, even though it may be well-intended, by not switching to French or English themselves too quickly.) (Source:http://www.sameninburgeren.be/nieuws/%E2%80%9Cnederlandsoefenen-ik-doe-mee%E2%80%9D)

The campaign included a website (www.taalboulevard.be) with tips for Dutch speakers on how to facilitate conversations in Dutch for speakers of another language, information on where learners of Dutch can find informal meetings with native speakers of Dutch in their local towns, as well as various events and projects that were intended to offer speaking and language practising opportunities for adult learners of Dutch. In addition, the campaign was advertised on the radio and in newspapers and visually distributed in posters and flyers throughout institutional contexts. The highlight of the campaign was an event in April 2014 which drew roughly 1000 participants where an attempt was made to break the world record for the ‘longest conversation table’. Two out of three of the participants were speakers of other languages who were learning Dutch. Figure 8.2 is a screenshot taken from the campaign’s Facebook page. It shows language learners of Dutch and displays the message that Dutch is the language they use for various purposes and in various contexts,

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Figure 8.2  Photo from the Campaign’s public Facebook page, first uploaded in 2014 (Translation: Dutch is my friend language, neighbour language, school language, home language, Facebook language, shop language, sport language, work language)

ranging from friendships to school, the workplace, shops and the neighbourhood. It is interesting to note that the Flemish striving for linguistic monolingualism in Flanders and the linguistic integration of migrants into Flemish mainstream society is also implicitly reflected in the phrase ‘Dutch is my home language’ in this photo. The photo shows a diverse set of faces so that each viewer may identify him or herself with one of them. As such, it arguably holds up a mirror to recent migrants to Flanders by implicitly conveying the message that they (too) should switch to Dutch as their main language and integrate linguistically. The campaign continues to live on through various initiatives, organisations and websites dedicated to offering places and opportunities for new speakers of Dutch to practise their language skills. The visual displays of the campaign and other related initiatives are also still to be found throughout institutional contexts. In the next section, I discuss the geographical and contextual distribution of these posters and flyers and other related material that I documented during my fieldwork. Geographic and institutional distribution

The second research question that this chapter addresses pertains to where signs encouraging language learning were encountered. The results were highly diverse and different in the two types of institutional context surveyed. The gatekeeping contexts – the police station and courthouse – were the most monolingual sites with virtually all publicly displayed language use in Dutch only. No flyers or posters were encountered that encouraged the use of Dutch or that addressed subjects with information in languages other than Dutch. As such, these institutions are presumably not explicitly or publicly identifiable as educationscapes through public signage. However, the fact that these two institutions’ LLs at the time of fieldwork were virtually exclusively monolingual in Dutch does convey the

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linguistic doxa, albeit in an implicit way. Only encountering signs in Dutch suggests to sign readers, some of which may be new speakers not (yet) proficient in Dutch, that Dutch is the sole possible language of communication within these sites and that either language learning or linguistic mediation is the valid option for proceeding to access these spaces. The healthcare contexts were comparatively more multilingual in nature in terms of language use on signage, even though these signs were still a minority presence in these contexts’ LLs. I encountered multilingual signs that target an audience of patients or visitors who are not fluent in Dutch mainly in the waiting areas, where patients were seated before being examined by a medical professional. Figures 8.3 and 8.4 illustrate the only signs I encountered in these spaces that were multilingual in nature. Figure 8.3 is a sign hanging prominently on display in the waiting room of several wards in a government hospital. The sign informs visitors waiting for consultations and/or surgery about who is allowed in the preparation area. The sign is bilingual in Dutch and Turkish, suggesting that a large number of Turkish clients pass through this hospital and that they are not necessarily fluent in Dutch. This sign was the only informative text encountered that was not monolingual in Dutch only. Figure 8.4 shows two texts encountered in the waiting room of an emergency doctor’s office. In both cases, the intention of the text is to make crucial information accessible in languages other than Dutch. While these examples are

Figure 8.3  Photo taken by Vandenbroucke in 2019 in the waiting room of a ward in a government hospital. The sign reads ‘Persons allowed during the preparation. Babies, children and teenagers may be accompanied by both parents. From age 16, only 1 adult is allowed in the preparation’ in Dutch (top) and Turkish (bottom)

Figure 8.4  Photos taken by Vandenbroucke in 2018 in the waiting room of an emergency doctor’s office. The leaflet on the left informs patients about the Global Medical File in various languages. The poster on the right advertises a website where information about sexual health is provided in multiple languages

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multilingual signs, their main aim is to convey important information of use to the reader, and not necessarily or explicitly to encourage the learning of the Dutch language or the normative use of Dutch in these spaces. Like the gatekeeping contexts, transportation service spaces (i.e. train stations) and the post office were all construed through signage and visual text as monolingual Dutch spaces. The only instances of active language learning encouragement I encountered during fieldwork were in the registry office. The number of these explicit ideological signs was small and took up a minority presence juxtaposed among many more monolingual Dutch signs. Here, both flyers that inform subjects about activities, tips and organisations where one can practise Dutch, as well as postcards that advertise the NedBox.be website where one may practise Dutch ‘in a fun’ way by means of TV clips and newspaper articles were found. The postcard explicitly invites a person to send the card to someone they know who is learning Dutch and might be in need of these supportive channels for learning the language. Figure 8.5 shows an example of an information leaflet found at the registry office. A similar example shown in Figure 8.6 is a poster that was displayed in numerous instances at the registry office. It openly encourages new speakers to practise Dutch together with Dutch speakers in the city and to integrate together into the city. It explicitly raises the inviting question ‘Are you joining?’ and refers interested parties to a website for more information. These results indicate that public signage encouraging language learning by new speakers is distributed comparatively more widely in waiting

Figure 8.5  Information leaflet ‘Do you want to practise Dutch? You can find tips, activities and organisations on: www.practicingdutch.be’

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rooms and ticket booths in municipal service provision contexts and is virtually absent in gatekeeping, transport or healthcare service spaces. This is presumably because an accurate understanding between civil servants and new speaker clients is typically considered less a prerequisite condition in the former contexts than in the latter more high-stakes contexts. In the case of the latter contexts – the hospital and the police station – certified interpreters, informal interpreters or the use of a lingua franca are typically used to enable adequate spoken communication between the government officials and the new speaker subject, while written information can also be conveyed via multilingual signage (as was the case in the hospital waiting area). In the next section, I address the third research question regarding the potential impact monolingual institutional educationscapes can have on spoken contact between government officials and new speakers. Potential covert pressure through the LL to perform a language learning identity in high-stakes official encounters

From the previous sections, it is clear that language learning nudges through signs and leaflets were most common in the registry office alongside predominantly monolingual Dutch signs in this specific space. This has the potential to encourage the use of Dutch on these premises both implicitly and explicitly. Various types of services are provided in registry offices, ranging from the provision of administrative information to migration gatekeeping. While the former type of encounter is arguably low stake, municipal service encounters in which migration rights are involved are far more high stake, as they constitute encounters between the state (embodied by a civil servant), citizens and potential migrant residents that may result in gaining or restricting access to certain (migration) rights and entitlements. In such encounters, the choice of language in which the encounter proceeds can be of importance for the mutual understanding between the interlocutors. An extreme example of such an encounter in the registry office is the municipal marriage fraud investigative unit. Encounters in this specific municipal unit require that civil servants and new speakers exchange highly detailed and accurate information. One campaign poster that encourages language learners to use Dutch was also displayed next to exclusively Dutch signs in the waiting room of the marriage fraud investigative administrative unit at the registry office (see Figure 8.6). This is where couples suspected of marriage fraud wait when passing by the unit to obtain information and, later on, before their interview with the civil servant investigating their case. While it is not possible to draw strong correlations, the specific geosemiotic emplacement (Scollon & Scollon, 2003) of this language learning sign in the waiting room, combined with the highly monolingual Dutch nature of the registry office, has the potential to exert covert pressure or doxic

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Figure 8.6  Photo taken by Vandenbroucke of poster ‘Let’s practise Dutch together. Let’s do fun things together. Let’s Integrate in Gent together!’ in the waiting area of the marriage fraud investigative unit at the civil registry office

expectations on investigated persons to (try to) use Dutch in any contact with the unit’s civil servants and/or during the actual interview to show that they have been learning it and are thus deserving and participating migrants. This is an important potential side effect to consider for this type of institutional encounter, because, as I explain in more detail below, the language choices during these marriage fraud investigative interviews can be of paramount importance, rendering such covert encouragements potentially problematic should they be interpreted in a normative way by a new speaker. In recent years, transnational marriage migration as a form of family reunification has become a growing policy concern for migration governance in Europe. As a consequence, a number of European nations including Belgium have started to examine marriage applications of a European citizen with a non-European citizen to determine whether the marriage is genuine or fraudulent (Wray, 2006). These legal-administrative investigations into potential sham marriages typically follow marriage permit applications by a Belgian citizen or resident with a non-European citizen or resident. As marriage (or legal cohabitation) in Belgium may warrant official residency entitlements to the non-Belgian partner, this investigation is designed to uncover whether the intent to marry is legitimate (i.e. genuine) or whether the statute is merely pursued to obtain a residency

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permit for the non-Belgian applicant. If deemed a sham, the applicants’ request is denied, they are not allowed to legally marry or cohabit in Belgium, a deportation order for the non-Belgian applicant may be enforced and the couple may be charged with criminal offences (Foblets & Vanheule, 2006). In order to make decisions on cross-border marriage application cases, interviews and interrogations are typically conducted with applicant couples by civil servants and/or police officers to examine the genuine nature of their relationship and assess their social identity. Applicant couples are interviewed separately and asked the same set of detailed questions, making a comparison of their answers possible in order to gauge whether they are genuinely close and a couple, or not. The talk and information exchange during these interview interactions is usually codified in written reports and become part of the institution’s public record-keeping (Maskens, 2015; Vandenbroucke, 2020). As the interviews are not audio-recorded by the institution, these written reports are the only lasting evidence on which the eventual decision at a later stage is based. By law, all official paperwork in these investigations must be conducted in an official Belgian language. However, at least one applicant is a non-Belgian migrant, and communication in these bureaucratic interviews therefore often has to be linguistically mediated. Linguistic mediation for these interviews ranges from certified court interpreting to professional community interpreting, ad hoc informal interpreting, second language discourse or lingua franca use (Vandenbroucke & Defrancq, 2021). These are therefore intrinsically multilingual procedures. Theoretical and applied research in the field of institutional discourse analysis has foregrounded the complex discursive filtering such interview encounters involve. The collaborative nature of co-constructed knowledge produced in interviews, ideological preconceptions and cultural assumptions often play an unacknowledged role and can have an impact on the information exchange during encounters, the discursive construction of an applicant’s identity or situation and even the outcome of a case (cf. Eades, 2010; Maryns, 2006; Trinch, 2003). Moreover, applicants typically have limited agency as interlocutors in these procedures, as they are not necessarily given any control over or insight into how their interlocutors understand their narratives and answers and how their accounts are entextualised in their case file, used as legal evidence and ultimately become part of the public record (Rock, 2001; Trinch, 2003). Yet another factor contributing to this complexity is the multilingual character of interactions, which invites a variety of partial and misunderstanding (Maryns, 2012). Against this background, the choice of language in which the interview is conducted and the extent to which the marriage applicant interviewee is proficient in this language are of paramount importance (Vandenbroucke, 2020; Vandenbroucke & Defrancq, 2021). Moreover, because of the comparison of the interview statements given by each applicant as a way of

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determining the genuineness of their marital intent, the degree of accuracy to which the non-native Dutch-speaking applicant’s answers are understood and noted down by the interviewing civil servant is thus highly important for case decision-making (Vandenbroucke, 2020). The combination of the monolingual educationscape of the registry office which implicitly encourages the use of Dutch and a more explicit language learning sign such as the one in shown in Figure 8.6, in the room where marriage applicants await their interview with a civil servant who will assess the genuine nature of their relationship, as well as their identity and suitability as a trustworthy migrant into Belgian society, is arguably to be avoided. What posters like this as part of the institutional educationscape can possibly lead to, with an explicit message to practise Dutch together and integrate together, is to covertly and unknowingly encourage the use of Dutch as the interview language. Hypothetically, the gatekeeping encounter with the civil servant may be experienced by the interviewee as almost a moment of language learning that a ‘good migrant’ should use to practise their Dutch. Alternatively, it also risks being interpreted by the new speaker as an opportunity to show that one has learnt and practised Dutch elsewhere prior to the interview, thereby performing an identity of a language learner who is keen to integrate, and by implication, deserves to be judged positively in the investigation. In spite of the positive intentionality of signs encouraging language learning, their spatial situatedness and emplacement in high-stakes municipal contexts is not advisable. While no evidence exists as to how frequently this occurs and how often, this has negative effects in high-stakes institutional encounters, in my fieldwork in municipal registry offices in Flanders (Vandenbroucke, 2020), I did observe how certain non-Belgian applicants decided to participate in the interview with the civil servant in Dutch, their second or even third language. In one particular interview, the decision was made jointly with the civil servant based on the applicant’s confirmation that they could speak Dutch and a brief small talk exchange at the start of the interview during which the civil servant checked the applicant’s fluency. During the hour-long interview itself, however, multiple instances occurred where the applicant struggled to adequately convey detailed information and facts in Dutch. Interestingly, the applicant also emphasised at the start of the interview that they wanted to become a legal resident as soon as possible so they could start to work and earn money to support their family. Arguably, this applicant seemed keenly aware of the need to present a positive identity and willingness to integrate socially and linguistically. While their choice to use Dutch as the interview language enabled them to convey a positive face and generate goodwill with the interlocutor, they did perhaps not realise that not relying on an interpreter to which they were entitled could harm the understanding and recording of detailed information, and consequently potentially even the outcome of the marriage application.

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Conclusion

In this chapter, I have examined the visual distribution of posters pertaining to the language learning campaign by the Flemish government in various institutions. These sought to encourage new adult speakers to learn Dutch as they integrate linguistically in Flemish society. In doing so, I have argued that these campaigns can function as language ideological educationscapes which can encourage but also inadvertently covertly pressure adult migrants to use institutional encounters – including both low-stakes administrative interactions and high-stakes migration-related interviews – as places of language learning. As such, this case study makes a theoretical contribution to the study of schoolscapes by illustrating how educational projects for linguistic integration spill over from actual school contexts into service provision for adult migrants and may construe these as ideologically charged sites in which linguistic integration runs the risk of prevailing over the communicative necessities of the institutional encounter. These posters emplaced in institutional settings thus form an intrinsic part of new speakers’ literacy trajectory in their post-migration context. This runs the risk of being troubling in high-stakes institutional settings, because such invitations to practise Dutch – no matter how well intended they may be – are not advisable in view of the necessity for accurate and detailed information to make decisions on individuals’ personal lives. While to some extent these posters may be seen as invitations and covert encouragements, one can also approach them as a form of display. A crucial consideration in this respect constitutes the reader of the poster and how this reader might interpret or experience its message. For an adult migrant new speaker, they may be seen as demands to integrate and conform to doxic expectations of both a linguistic and a civil nature. In contrast, for a Flemish Dutch-speaking native citizen, their meaning may centre more on the government taking up its responsibility and advertising institutional accountability, signalling that they are doing their part in trying to create and maintain a linguistically homogeneous Flanders. Different target audiences entail different readings (Collins & Slembrouck, 2007). In spite of this potential diversification of meanings for different types of reader, given the paramount impact institutional contact can have on adult migrant new speakers passing through institutional educationscapes, more awareness and sensitivity to the use of Dutch as the most appropriate language of contact in each specific situated context is advisable. References Bauman, R. and Briggs, C. (2003) Voices of Modernity: Language Ideologies and the Politics of Inequality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Blommaert, J. (2011) The long language-ideological debate in Belgium. Journal of Multicultural Discourses 6 (3), 241–256.

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Blommaert, J. and Verschueren, J. (1991) The pragmatics of minority politics in Belgium. Language in Society 20 (4), 503–531. Bourdieu, P. (1977) Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bourhis, R., Giles, H., Leyens, J. and Tajfel, H. (1979) Psycholinguistic distinctiveness: Language divergence in Belgium. In H. Giles and R. St Clair (eds) Language and Social Psychology (pp. 158–185). Oxford: Blackwell. Brown, K.D. (2012) The linguistic landscape of educational spaces: Language revitalization and schools in southeastern Estonia. In D. Gorter, H.F. Marten and L. Van Mensel (eds) Minority Languages in the Linguistic Landscape (pp. 281–298). Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan. Collins, J. and Slembrouck, S. (2007) Reading shop windows in globalized neighborhoods: Multilingual literacy practices and indexicality. Journal of Literacy Research 36 (3), 335–356. Copland, F. and Creese, A. (2015) Linguistic Ethnography: Collecting, Analyzing and Presenting Data. London: Sage. Del Percio, A. and Van Hoof, S. (2018) Enterprising migrants: Language and the shifting politics of activation. In M. Flubacher and A. Del Percio (eds) Language, Education and Neoliberalism: Critical Studies in Sociolinguistics (pp. 140–162). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Eades, D. (2010) Sociolinguistics and the Legal Process. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Foblets, M.-C. and Vanheule, D. (2006) Marriages of convenience in Belgium: The punitive approach gains ground in migration law. European Journal of Migration and Law, 8, 263–280. Gorter, D. and Cenoz, J. (2015) Translanguaging and linguistic landscapes. Linguistic Landscape: An International Journal 1 (1), 54–74. Janssens, R. (2001) Brusselse Thema’s 8: Taalgebruik in Brussel: Taalverhoudingen, Taalverschuivingen en Taalidentiteit in een Meertalige Stad. Brussels: VUBPRESS. Janssens, R. (2012) The linguistic landscape as a political arena: The case of the Brussels periphery in Belgium. In C. Hélot, M. Barni, R. Janssens and C. Bagna (eds) Linguistic Landscapes, Multilingualism and Social Change (pp. 39–52). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Laihonen, P. and Szabó, T.P. (2018) Studying the visual and material dimensions of education and learning. Linguistics and Education 44, 1–3. Laihonen, P. and Tódor, E.-M. (2017) The changing schoolscape in a Szekler village in Romania: Signs of diversity in rehungarization. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 20 (3), 362–379. Malinowski, D. (2015) Opening spaces of learning in the linguistic landscape. Linguistic Landscape: An International Journal 1 (1), 95–113. Maryns, K. (2006) The Asylum Speaker. London: St Jerome. Maryns, K. (2012) Multilingualism in legal settings. In M. Martin-Jones, A. Blackledge and A. Creese (eds) Routledge Handbook of Multilingualism (pp. 297–313). London: Routledge. Maskens, M. (2015) Bordering intimacy: The fight against marriages of convenience in Brussels. The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology 33 (2), 42–58. Mettewie, L. and Janssens, R. (2007) Language use and language attitudes in Brussels. In D. Lasagabaster and A. Huguet (eds) Multilingualism in European Bilingual Contexts: Language Use and Attitudes (pp. 117–143). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. O’Rourke, B. and Pujolar, J. (2015) New speakers and processes of new speakerness across time and space. Applied Linguistics Review 6 (2), 145–150. O’Rourke, B., Soler, J. and Darquennes, J. (2018) New speakers and language policy In J. Tollefson and M. Pérez-Milans (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Language Policy (pp. 610–632). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Rock, F. (2001) The genesis of a witness statement. International Journal of Speech Language and the Law 8 (2), 44–72. Rosiers, K. (2016) Translanguaging, troef of trend? Een analyse van meertalige interactie in een Gentse en Brusselse klas. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Ghent University. Scollon, R. and Scollon, S. (2003) Discourses in Place: Language in the Material World. London: Routledge. Soler, J. and Darquennes, J. (2019) Language policy and ‘new speakers’: An introduction to the thematic issue. Language Policy 18, 467–473. Spolsky, B. (2004) Language Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Szabó, P.T. (2015) The management of diversity in schoolscapes: An analysis of Hungarian practices. Apples – Journal of Applied Language Studies 9 (1), 23–51. Treffers-Daller, J. (2002) Language use and language contact in Brussels. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 23 (1), 50–64. Trinch, S. (2003) Latinas’ Narratives of Domestic Abuse. New York, NY: John Benjamins. Vandenbroucke, M. (2017) Whose French is it anyway? Language ideologies and reemerging indexicalities of French in Flanders. Language in Society 46, 407–432. Vandenbroucke, M. (2020) Legal-discursive constructions of genuine cross-border love in Belgian marriage fraud investigations. Critical Discourse Studies 17 (2), 175–192. Vandenbroucke, M. and Defrancq, B. (2021) Professionally unaligned interpreting in Belgian marriage fraud investigations and its consequences. The Translator. https:// doi.org/10.1080/13556509.2021.1880309 Van Velthoven, H. (1987) Historical aspects: The process of language shift in Brussels – Historical background and mechanisms. In E. Witte and H. Baetens Beardsmore (eds) The Interdisciplinary Study of Urban Bilingualism in Brussels (pp. 15–46). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Verlot, M. and Delrue, K. (2004) Multilingualism in Brussels. In G. Extra and K. Yağmur (eds) Urban Multilingualism in Europe: Immigrant Minority Languages at Home and School (pp. 221–250). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Vertovec, S. (2007) Super-diversity and its implications. Ethnic and Racial Studies 30 (6), 1024–1054. Wray, H. (2006) An ideal husband: Marriages of convenience, moral gatekeeping and immigration to the UK. European Journal of Migration and Law 8, 303–320.

9 Using Participatory Linguistic Landscapes as Pedagogy for Democracy: A Didactic Study in a Primary School Classroom Kirk P.H. Sullivan, Christian Waldmann and Maria Wiklund

It is not in itself sufficient that teaching only imparts knowledge about fundamental democratic values. Democratic working forms should also be applied in practice and prepare pupils for active participation in the life of society. (The Swedish National Curriculum, Swedish National Agency for Education, 2018: 7)

Introduction

Democratic values have been a central aspect of the Swedish curriculum since the 1940s (SOU 1948:27, 1948) when compulsory schooling was given a mandate to educate pupils to be independent, critical thinking citizens, yet within a democratic social structure. The introduction of democratic forms and values into Swedish schools was partly driven by the belief that traditional knowledge-oriented teacher-led authoritarian schooling had assisted the Nazi regime exert authority during the Third Reich and partly driven by the Social Democratic Party’s ambition to create a unitary school system in Sweden. From the 1940s onwards, the Swedish curriculum has been grounded in pupils’ everyday experiences, with teaching promoting ‘pupils’ independence and critical thinking, their will to work and to work independently, their sociality and capacity to co-operate’ (p. 5), and encouraging ‘pupils to develop activities and initiatives themselves’ (p. 5). 193

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Over the intervening years the curriculum has developed; not least to meet the challenges of the decentralisation of the Swedish school system in the 1990s, the increasingly multicultural society, and the rights afforded to the indigenous population, the Sámi1 and their languages. Today, Swedish schooling provides pupils with an education in practical democracy, as evidenced in the opening quotation to this chapter taken from the Swedish national curriculum: ‘Democratic working forms should also be applied in practice and prepare pupils for active participation in the life of society’ (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2018: 7). This aligns well with the United Nations resolution ‘Education for Democracy’ (United Nations, 2015) that encourages the integration of democracy into the goals of compulsory education. The interpretation and implementation of the Swedish national curriculum is left to individual members of the teaching profession. Hence, each teacher’s interpretation of democracy and the national learning goals affects the detail of what the school children learn. However, these are guided by definitions and descriptions of democracy available on Swedish government and other official websites. For example, on the Swedish parliament’s webpages about democracy, it is written that ‘[i]n a democracy, one should be able to think whatever one wants, and to have the opportunity to express one’s views openly in speech or in writing’ (author trans.) (Demokrati, n.d.), and on an official webpage aimed at immigrants, the complexity of democracy is described as follows: ‘Democracy also requires a respectful conversation. It’s about listening to what others think and expressing your own opinions. It is important for a functioning democracy that inhabitants feel part of society’ (author trans.) (Länsstyrelsen Västra Götaland, 2018). In this chapter, we align our definition of democracy with these, yet emphasise linguistics rights, feeling part of society and being invited to participate in respectful conversation as core aspects of democracy. We view the curriculum as raising the pupils’ awareness of the dimensions of democracy and its values. We, therefore, also align our expectations of the pupils’ understanding of democracy and democracy in practice with the learning goals that we outline in the next section. This study examines a primary school lesson that used participatory linguistic landscaping. This we define as an educational use of linguistic landscapes through methodologies that the pupils enact where they live. We used the participatory linguistic landscaping approach to stimulate discussion of fundamental democratic values and concretise understandings of power relationships in society that accompany language visibility. This study is thus not a linguistic landscape study per se, but rather a pedagogical design study. That is, this chapter considers whether linguistic landscapes have the potential to support pupils move their understanding of democracy from the abstract to the applied in practice. Specifically, we consider whether participatory linguistic landscaping and our pedagogical design stimulate discussion of democratic issues.

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Signs in public spaces are not arbitrary, rather the language of any sign is both informational and symbolic (Landry & Bourhis, 1997). Thus, if the pupils find a homogenous semiotic landscape, this might generate a discussion about the place and participation of speakers of other languages in the pupils’ immediate environment and if they find a heterogeneous semiotic landscape, this might generate a discussion about why languages are visible in their immediate environment. (In)visibility in the linguistic landscape may concretise the abstract concept of a citizen’s ‘right to speak’ (Bourdieu, 1991), and the ways in which some are invited into democratic processes and power, and others excluded. The context for this study is two Year 6 classes for 11- to 12-year-old pupils in a school in a Northern Swedish municipality that is part of the administrative district for the Indigenous Sámi languages. The Sámi languages and culture are protected under the Law on National Minorities and Minority Languages, and municipalities in traditional Sámi areas are part of this administrative district (SFS 2009:724, 2009; SFS 2018:1367, 2018). Prior to the start of the study, the Year 6 pupils had studied Sámi history, culture and rights. Using photographs of the linguistic landscape taken by the pupils as a basis for classroom activities, we found that these photographs can promote discussion of the power relationships present in their everyday environment. These results suggest that teachers can actualise democratic ideals and stimulate discussion using participatory linguistic landscaping, yet that the pedagogical approach is likely to promote deeper discussions when used with older pupils. Schooling in Sweden

School is compulsory in Sweden for 10 years. Children enter the compulsory school system the year they turn six. According to Swedish law, all children shall have equal access to free education. The Swedish Education Act of 2010 (SFS 2010:800, 2010) that came into effect on the first of July 2011 defines, among other things, the principles and provisions for compulsory education. In relation to earlier Swedish Education Acts, the 2010 Act promotes greater oversight, freedom of choice and individual safety and security. Swedish compulsory schooling is divided into four stages. These stages are the preschool or reception year, Years 1–3, Years 4–6 and Years 7–9. In Sweden, there are two types of state-funded school, municipality schools and independent state (charter) schools. Currently, around 15% of all compulsory school pupils attend an independent state school. Pupils in these schools follow the same national curriculum as the pupils attending the municipality schools. As the research presented in this chapter was an educational project in school Year 6, we focus in this chapter on the learning goals as outlined in the Swedish national curriculum (Swedish National Agency for

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Education, 2018) for the end of the Years 4–6 stage of compulsory schooling. We focus particularly on the goals relating to democracy and civics as these are directly related to our research objective. As stated in the national curriculum (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2018), the Swedish school system is based on democratic foundations and ‘should impart and establish respect for human rights and the fundamental democratic values on which Swedish society is based’ (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2018: 5). One aspect of this is encouraging ‘respect for the intrinsic value of each person and the environment’ (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2018: 5), and another is ‘fostering in the individual a sense of justice, generosity, tolerance and responsibility’ (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2018: 5). Moreover, ‘the inviolability of human life, individual freedom and integrity, the equal value of all people, equality between women and men, and solidarity between people are the values that the school should represent and impart’ (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2018: 5). It is thus clear that democratic ideas permeate all schooling in Sweden. The Swedish national curriculum states a number of goals, of which the following are of relevance to the research project presented in this chapter: Each pupil • can consciously determine and express ethical standpoints based on knowledge of human rights and basic democratic values, as well as personal experiences; • respects the intrinsic value of other people; • rejects the subjection of people to discrimination, oppression and victimisation and becomes involved in helping other people; • can empathise with and understand the situation other people are in and also develops the will to act with their best interests at heart and • shows respect and care for both the immediate environment, as well as the environment from a broader perspective. (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2018: 10) Turning to the description of Civics in the national curriculum (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2018: 227), there is a focus on • human rights, democracy and being an active citizen. Our lesson design as outlined later in this chapter ends with a suggestion for action in the school environment to increase inclusion and the individual’s human rights, • pupils being able to express their ideas, something that our lesson design encourages and • helping the pupils to develop knowledge about how the individual and society influence each other. These points are central to our project which used participatory linguistic landscaping as a pedagogical tool for democracy – language rights are one

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aspect of inclusion in a nation’s democratic processes. The pupils needed to consider how society’s use of language in the landscape influences an individual, their perception of their value in society and, ultimately, how they can participate in the democratic processes of the nation. Participatory linguistic landscaping, we anticipate, will help the pupils move from abstract notions of democracy to personalised concrete understandings of democracy in practice. That is, it will assist the pupils to transform and apply their abstract learning in relation to the three learning outcomes presented above to a concrete situation relating to the visibility of languages, the recognition of their speakers and their invitation as participants in the Swedish democratic system. Our goal with this study was thus not to conduct and report a traditional linguistic landscape study, but rather to work from the pupils’ photographs of their daily linguistic landscape to see if the pupils were able to apply their abstract classroom learning in the concrete setting of their daily environment. In this way, we go beyond the conventional use of the linguistic landscape in research. Today, most school classes in Sweden have at least one pupil who speaks more than one language, and frequently at least one pupil whose strongest language is not Swedish. In 2018, 28.1% of compulsory schoolaged pupils had a right to mother tongue classes. This means that they use a language other than Swedish on a daily basis with at least one of their guardians as an additional first language or heritage language. Of these, 59.3% took part in these non-compulsory classes (http://www.jmftal.artisan.se). Parents have to actively apply for their children to receive these classes, and there needs to be at least five children in a municipality requesting classes in a specific language for teaching to be provided. Thus, it is clear that Sweden is an increasingly multicultural country. However, Sweden has never been monolingual. It is a country with an indigenous population and indigenous languages, the Sámi languages. As Albury (2019) points out, the Sámi languages are core elements of Sámi identity, embed common values, experiences and knowledge and are indexical of Sámi identity. It is not known how many Sámi people live in Sweden nor how many people speak one or more Sámi languages as ‘no institution is responsible for collecting Sámi demographic data or for producing official Sámi statistic in systematic and regular manner’ (Pettersen, 2011: 187). However, researchers currently think that around 20,000 Sámi people live in Sweden; this figure is the same as a 1975 survey (see Axelsson & Sköld, 2013). The Sámi were recognised as an Indigenous people by the Swedish parliament in 1977 and have additional rights in national and international law to be protected against discrimination in school, work and other arenas (Pikkarainen & Brodin, 2008). However, Sámi people continue to experience discrimination, and as Omma (2013) showed, today’s young Sámi report that they have experienced discrimination by teachers and pupils in school.

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The pupils participating in this study live in a Swedish municipality that is part of the administrative district for the Indigenous Sámi languages and have learnt about the Sámi during their primary school social science classes. They have also learnt that Sweden has four other official minority languages (Finnish, Meänkieli, 2 Romani and Yiddish). The superdiversity of this administrative district for the Indigenous Sámi languages varies; three key factors are the density of Sámi and other language-speaking individuals, the proximity to the Norwegian and Finnish national borders and tourism intensity. Superimposed on these factors is the ubiquitous presence of the English language in Sweden generally. Lindgren et al. (2016) briefly overviewed the superdiverse linguistic landscape of this region before proceeding to present an analysis of the English writing of teenagers growing up in Sápmi. This analysis looked for evidence of the superdiversity and super dimensions to be found in these teenagers’ environments in the texts they had written. Lindgren et al. concluded that: These writers learn English from different source dimensions, their digital, physical and school contexts to express their interpersonal meaning and their ideas with great integrity, they describe typical activities, features and dimensions in their immediate context. The texts suggest that the global context with its super dimensions seems as natural to these writers as their immediate context. (Lindgren et al., 2016: 66)

In a more recent study, Sullivan et al. (2019) focused on young writers composing texts in the Sámi language, North Sámi. They considered how the interaction of local, national and global dimensions of superdiversity in these young writers’ environments was reflected in their writing and found that they integrated all three of these dimensions into their texts. Both Lindgren et al. (2016) and Sullivan et al. (2019) highlight the way in which the superdiversity of the linguistic landscape, along with other cultural super dimensions, is integral aspects of an individual’s identity. Their studies also illustrate the omnipresence of English across Sweden and how the linguistic landscape of the administrative area varies due to tourism, trade, immigration, national borders and media trends. Teaching through Linguistic Landscapes

Linguistic landscapes have shown great potential for increasing awareness of language diversity and multilingualism in educational contexts. Lazdina and Marten (2009: 212), for example, pointed out that taking photographs of the linguistic landscape is ‘an easy and enjoyable way of involving students in field work’. This is particularly so in countries such as Sweden where almost 100% of Year 6 pupils own their own smartphone and have fast internet connectivity, making the sharing of

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photographs of the linguistic landscape easy. In their 2009 study, Lazdina and Marten worked with university students who collected and analysed linguistic landscape data recorded in the Baltic states. They demonstrated how this process raised awareness of multilingualism in these states and raised understanding of hierarchies inherent in language use. Similarly, Hancock’s (2012) study aimed to prepare teacher trainee students for their future careers in multilingual communities and schools by using linguistic landscaping to raise the teacher trainees’ awareness. The potential for increasing awareness of language diversity and multilingualism, and for raising understanding of hierarchies, inspired us to ask whether primary school pupils could photograph their own linguistic landscapes and use these photographs as a basis for discussions relating to democracy, not least in relation to (in)visibility in the linguistic landscape, and whether these photographs may concretise the abstract concept of a citizen’s ‘right to speak’ (Bourdieu, 1991). In posing these questions, we built on the ideas and work of Dagenais et al. (2009). They investigated the way 10- and 11-year-old children in Montréal and Vancouver ‘imagine the language of their neighborhoods and construct their identities in relation to them’ (p. 254), and more specifically, they showed that working with the linguistic landscape ‘provides a pedagogical tool to draw children’s attention to the non-neutral of written communication’ (p. 257). However, they reported that the children in their study experienced multilingualism in their communities but did not attribute importance to this. This could be, as Dagenais and Berron (2001) found, because children in multilingual communities regard multilingualism in their linguistic landscapes as the norm and hence banal. In the study presented in this chapter, we bring the linguistic landscape of the everyday environment, as seen by two groups of Swedish Year 6 pupils, into their classrooms through participatory linguistic landscaping. In this way, together with a pedagogical design and scaffolded lesson plan, we promote the discussion of democracy and linguistic rights and prepare pupils for a real-world activity, as outlined in the Swedish national curriculum (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2018). That is, we provide a democratic working form in practice to prepare pupils for active participation in the life of society. Research Question

The aim of the present study is to consider whether photographs of primary school pupils’ linguistic landscapes can be used to trigger pupils to consider democratic aspects of their environment. That is, can the photographs taken by the pupils be used to make democracy concrete and make the linguistic landscape into an integral part of democracy in practice for the pupils. We designed a study in the form of a classroom task to see whether a simple exercise of asking pupils to take photos of language

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in their school and in their out-of-school lives could form the basis for teacher-scaffolded discussions related to power, inclusion and acceptance. Our findings feed into another important question: At what levels in the education system can participatory linguistic landscaping be used and for which purposes? In this chapter, as we only look at one school level and one purpose, our findings will need combining, perhaps through a metaanalysis study that also evaluates the teaching of democracy in practice, to provide a rigorous answer to this educationally important question. Methodology The municipality

During the 2018–2019 school year, the municipality in which the participating school is located provided mother tongue teaching in just more than 40 languages. As already mentioned, mother tongue teaching requires that there are at least five school children who use the language at home and whose parents request that their children have a mother tongue teacher. Naturally, teaching can only be provided if a teacher to teach the mother tongue can be found. However, the number of languages gives an impression of the linguistic diversity in the municipality, at least for languages that are used and being learnt by a reasonable number of school-aged pupils. More languages are heard and used in the municipality than the number of languages for which mother tongue teaching is provided. At the end of 2018, just less than 12% of the population of the municipality was born outside of Sweden. The municipality is also part of the administrative district for the Indigenous Sámi languages, and hence has additional responsibilities for the visibility of these languages and for supporting their use, specifically in official contexts. The school

The school context for the study was an average-size state primary school with Swedish School Years 0–6, that is, children of 6–12 years of age. At the time of the study, the school population included pupils with languages other than Swedish as their first language, and the majority of the pupils lived within walking and/or cycling distance of the school. Participants

The third author, Maria Wiklund, approached the pupils and guardians of two School Year 6 classes. These classes were approached as we felt that pupils in School Year 6 would best allow us to assess whether this approach was suitable for primary school pupils, or better suited for secondary school pupils. This school year is the year before the pupils move

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to a new school for high school. The pupils are therefore familiar with each other in a way they would not be during the first year of high school. These pupils had already learnt about the Indigenous Sámi in accordance with the national curriculum. Moreover, the picture prompt is a common element of the national test for Swedish Language that is taken in Year 6, and therefore, the class teachers had trained the use of pictures as prompts for discussion and writing. Thus, these pupils should be well prepared, socially and intellectually, for the linguistic landscaping task of taking photographs and discussing them in groups. The research reported in this chapter was conducted in accordance with Swedish and European law: The Swedish Act relating to research involving humans (SFS 2003:460, 2003) and the ethics guidelines of the Swedish Research Council (Stafström, 2017) were followed. The pupils were informed about the project and their guardians gave written consent to their participation in the project. The pupils gave their consent orally and were told that they could withdraw from the class at any point without any negative consequences or being asked why. The pupils were told that they would be asked to take photographs of language in their everyday lives as the basis for a discussion. As the project had more than one phase (the first two are reported on in this chapter), consent was given separately for each stage. The parents were informed that the children’s anonymity would be assured and that the school would not be named or indirectly identified in any presentations or publications. In one class, 13 pupils (6 male, 7 female) participated, and in the other class, 14 pupils (8 male, 6 female) participated. All the pupils were native speakers of Swedish, a couple of pupils were bilingual, and to our knowledge, no pupil identified as Sámi. Due to the size of our study and the restrictions in Swedish law relating to the collection of personal information, we do not report the linguistic backgrounds of the participants in more detail. This we acknowledge as a limitation of the study. The same teacher taught both classes for Swedish and social studies (civics). The pedagogical design

The pedagogical design for the research project had three stages, the first two of which are presented and discussed in this chapter. Stage one consisted of pupils photographing language in their everyday lives and uploading their photographs to a private Instagram account. The pupils were told that their everyday lives included daily activities inside and outside school. Stage two consisted of a classroom discussion prompted by the photographs. Stage three of the pedagogical design was designed to be an action research project that implemented some of the pupils’ ideas from stage two. Stage three of the pedagogical design was not implemented after this pilot project, but we hope to be able to re-run an improved version of our pedagogical design, including stage three, during the next school year.

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Stage one: The collection of the photographs

The pupils were asked to take photographs of language in everyday life using their mobile phones and to upload these photos to a special password-protected Instagram account. We decided to use mobile phones as the medium of photography as all the pupils participating in the study had smartphones and knew how to use them to take photographs. 3 We decided to use a special password-protected Instagram account as this would assure anonymity. That is, we would not know which participant had taken which photograph as all would be registered as having been uploaded by the same Instagram account user. We provided the pupils with the login and password details for this account and made sure that all the pupils understood how to upload photographs to the account. The pupils were given a week to photograph their linguistic landscape and upload their photographs to the common Instagram account. To ensure that the pupils were reminded and had time to upload their photographs, they were allowed to upload photos during a class earlier on the same day as stage two of the project. No specific instructions were given as to what language might mean, and the pupils were encouraged to take as many, or as few, photographs as they wished. It was made clear to the pupils that there were no correct or incorrect things that should or should not be photographed. It was up to them to decide what was to be photographed and uploaded. We decided not to direct the pupils towards any particular notion of language as we were interested in understanding what aspects of language they see in their daily lives. Stage two: The lesson

Before the start of the class, 10 copies of all the photographs were printed in colour on A4 paper. We printed the photographs to facilitate discussion and reduce the risk that their phones and computers might distract them during the class. We designed the class to include a number of steps that would culminate in a discussion on how to improve their school to make it more welcoming for pupils with languages other than Swedish as their first language. This discussion was designed to support discussion of democratic aspects of feeling part of a society and feeling included rather than excluded or peripheral, and inviting all to be active participants in a democratic society. We designed a 90-minute lesson that led from the photos and the pupils’ own perceptions of their linguistic landscapes to abstract thoughts relating to democracy and concrete proposals for increasing democracy in their school setting. To this end, the 90-minute lesson was structured as follows: (1) Lesson introduction – this included an introduction to the two researchers present in the classroom (the first and third authors) who would be leading the lesson, as well as information that we would be working

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from the photographs they had taken and uploaded to the Instagram account during the week. We also thanked them for being active in taking photographs and uploading them. We felt it was important to show our appreciation for the effort they had already made. (2) The pupils were randomly assigned to discussion groups of four to five pupils. This was done by randomly taking sticks with the pupils’ names on from a cup; this is the way the teachers in the school usually create random groups for discussion and other group exercises. (3) After the pupils had sat in the randomly assigned groups, they were given the first task of the lesson: They were asked to group the photos. Our analysis of the pupils’ photos revealed that all four of Scollon and Scollon’s (2003) discourses – regulatory, infrastructural, commercial and transgressive – were represented among the photographs. By asking the pupils to group their photos without us giving them any directions as how to think, we hoped that we would get an insight into how they construct and categorise their linguistic landscape and that we would see things in their categorisation that we could discuss with the pupils later in the lesson. (4) Next, we asked the pupils to consider which languages could be seen in their photographs. Our objective here was not to assess whether the pupils could name all the languages (in fact, we could not name all of them), but rather to stimulate the pupils to reflect upon how many languages were visible in their linguistic landscapes and how many of them they were (perhaps) unable to identify. We hoped that this might challenge their views of the society around them and suggest to them that their hometown was less monolingual Swedish than they perhaps thought. At the end of this phase of the lesson, we asked the pupils if there was anything that surprised them about the photographs. We asked this question as a transition question between the part of the lesson that considered what could be seen and the rest of the lesson that considered what is not seen and what this might mean for the individual, participation in society, and democracy. (5) After the discussion about the languages represented in the photographs, we asked the pupils to think of any languages that they had expected to be visible in their photographs. Our analysis of the pupils’ linguistic landscape photographs showed that the Indigenous Sámi languages were not represented and that neither the minority language Finnish nor the school languages French, German and Spanish were represented. With this question, we wanted to get the pupils to reflect on groups in society that are less visible and marginalised, including the Indigenous Sámi which these pupils had learnt about earlier during their primary school education. We designed this discussion to include group work around bilingual signage and how people might feel to see their language in the landscape, and how they might feel when it is not present.

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(6) During the final phase of the lesson we initiated, with the whole class, thoughts about how the pupils’ own school environment could be developed. We asked the pupils to discuss what they would do if they were each given 500 Swedish kronor (circa USD50) to adapt their school. This task required thinking of an action for democracy and was designed to create a discussion related to human rights and democratic inclusion in a context with which they were very familiar. The ideas from this phase of the lesson were intended to feed forward into step 3 of our pedagogical design. Data collection

Data were collected in a number of ways. Throughout the lesson, observational notes were made. These notes reflect the discussions and their direction rather than verbatim dialogues between the pupils and between the pupils and the researchers leading the class. The grouping of the photographs was captured using a mobile phone, and the explanation for each grouping written down in the observational notes. The pupils wrote down the names of the languages they recognised in each photograph, together with what surprised them about each photograph and the photographs generally. They also wrote down a list of the languages they thought were missing from their photographs. The final group task about how to use 500 Swedish kronor was discussed with the whole class and observational notes were made. These notes included the proposals made by the pupils for developing their school’s linguistic landscape. Findings

In the presentation of our findings, we focus on our research question: Can primary school pupils’ photographs of their linguistic landscapes be used to trigger these pupils to consider democratic aspects of their environments? We view each of the tasks from a pedagogical perspective; that is, we consider how well each of the tasks worked as actions to create learning situations, including the pupils’ interactions with the tasks. In this chapter, we focus neither on the linguistic landscape that the pupils photographed nor on the power structure that this reflects. Therefore, we do not present this in detail in this chapter. The tasks are numbered based on the lesson phases outlined above; hence, we start our discussion of our findings in relation to our research question from lesson Phase Number 3. Lesson Phase Number 3: Look at all the photographs and sort the photographs into groups

As pointed out above, by asking the pupils to group their photos without us giving them any directions as how to think, we hoped that we

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would get an insight into how they construct and categorise their photos and hence their linguistic landscape. During this phase of the lesson, most of the pupil groups worked efficiently and discussed how the photographs might be grouped. It was noticeable that in a couple of groups, there were very different opinions. At the end of this task, the number of groups of photographs varied between three – odd, boring, signs in languages we understand – to five – Japanese, English, Swedish, other languages and something else. The extremes suggest that although most of the pupils primarily focused on language, that is English, Swedish, unknown and so forth, other groups produced categories such as signs, outdoor nature background, texts and other languages; and school, number and words, signs, and other ways of writing. This phase of the lesson succeeded in getting the pupils to consider all of the linguistic landscape photographs and what was particular about each of them. It also allowed a spontaneous follow-up discussion with the whole class about how each group saw its daily linguistic environment. At a simple level, the class may be divided into those who saw languages and those who saw the function of the language that had been photographed. In sum, pupils perceive the input they receive from their linguistic landscape in different ways. The pupils were able to talk about the photographs, use previous knowledge and discuss and agree on a grouping of the photographs. This element of the class was pedagogically successful and, with more advanced and rigorous data collection, this approach would allow researchers detailed insight into how these pupils perceive linguistic landscape images in their immediate daily environment. Lesson Phase Number 4: Which languages are represented in the linguistic landscape photographs?

As pointed out in the lesson plan above, this phase of the lesson was not to test the pupils’ knowledge of the languages photographed, but to actualise what languages were present as the impetus to a discussion of what surprised them about the photographs the pupils had taken of their linguistic landscape. What surprised us here were the approaches the pupils took to working out what the language that they did not recognise might be. Some pupils approached this by typing the phrase into Google, and others did this by working out to which language family the words might belong. A phrase in Turkish was particularly interesting as it was the use of ‘i’ among other capitals that helped one group work this out based on their memories of a vacation in Turkey. Identifying some words as Chinese, Japanese and Korean created lots of discussion but much insecurity among some members of the class. After the pupils had written down the languages they saw, we told the class that we could not identify all the languages. We then asked the class

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what surprised them about the photographs they had taken. The answer we received was that they were surprised that there was so much Japanese and Chinese in the photographs they had taken as they felt there was not that much Japanese and Chinese in their daily linguistic landscape, and not so many Japanese and Chinese speakers in their municipality. The pupils felt that these languages were over-represented in the photographs they had taken. However, the pupils suggested that these languages gain prominence in the linguistic landscape due to the number of Asian restaurants and Asian food products in the supermarkets. Many of their parents buy soya sauce and noodles, and food companies put Chinese and Japanese characters on the product wrappers along with text in Swedish and/or English. Thus, for these pupils, their perceived space did not match their conceived space (Lefebvre, 1991). This phase of the lesson design was successful. We observed discussion around the feeling of ‘surprise’ that the pupils interestingly developed into thoughts around why their participatory linguistic landscape photos had captured so much Chinese and Japanese text. Up to and including this stage of the lesson, the discussion had not taken a democracy discussion turn. However, this stage also suggests that participatory linguistic landscaping can be used with primary school pupils to access their understanding of their personal linguistic landscapes. Thus, we have shown that in the primary school setting, it is possible to use photographs taken by pupils of their personal linguistic landscapes as the basis for studies that consider how pupils access and create their personal understandings of the languages in their immediate environments. Lesson Phase Number 5: Which languages do you think are missing in the photographs that are found around or near here?

In this lesson phase, we wanted to inspire the pupils to reflect on groups in society that are less visible and perhaps therefore marginalised. This question was challenging for the pupils. When we asked what languages were missing, some pupils started to write a list of all the named languages that they knew. Then, when we revised the question to which languages are common in our municipality that are not seen on the photographs, a discussion about what common meant and when something becomes common started. In the end, we landed on the question of which languages they had expected to see in the photographs that were not seen. This revised question resulted in a varied list of languages including school languages such as French and German which are present in the school environment, and Danish, Finnish and Norwegian which are seen in Sweden on everyday items such as shampoo bottles. Although guiding students to see and discuss the absence of languages in linguistic landscapes is of great value (see, for example, Gorter et al., 2012) and the aim of the project presented in this chapter was not to create

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a discussion about the invisibility of the Sámi languages, both classes mentioned that the Sámi languages were not visible in their photographs. This suggests that the pupils recall their earlier learning about Sweden’s Indigenous people and minority languages. As part of this teaching, they had also learnt that their municipality was part of the administrative district for the Indigenous Sámi languages with responsibility for the visibility for these languages. In this way, participatory linguistic landscaping connected abstract teaching about minorities and linguistic rights to the situation in their personal environments. The realisation that the Sámi languages were invisible in their photographs stimulated a discussion around where you could see them in the municipality. Some pupils thought these languages were not visible in their environment and thus should not be in their photographs. Other pupils thought that even if they are not frequently seen, apart from in a few strategic places, they ought to be seen more as the town they live in is build on Sámi land. Double signing was mentioned as something used in areas where the percentage of Sámispeaking people is higher. Interestingly, some of the pupils had never noticed this; perhaps seeing only what they need to see. The discussion took a lived space (Lefebvre, 1991) turn when the pupils started to explore their empathetic reactions to how they would feel if they were Sámi and saw double signage in their indigenous language. Two positions appeared in the discussion. Imagining that they were Sámi, one group of pupils said they would feel happy, recognised and invited to participate in society if their language and culture were being recognised, whereas another group felt that it would make no difference to how they felt as they would understand the sign in Swedish. One pupil who talked about how happy they had been when abroad on vacation when they suddenly saw signage in Swedish presented a useful argument for linguistic rights. This signage made them feel more welcome and part of where they were on vacation. These young pupils did not explicitly state the notion of inclusion and having equal rights, but our interpretation of the conversation is that, for some, this was integral to their way of thinking and, to others, a monolingual society where all spoke the same language, and naturally the language they spoke, was all that was necessary. Even though the pupils have different ideas about linguistic rights and participation in a democratic society, we felt that all pupils reflected upon what not being part of the linguistic landscape could mean and that all pupils gained from the discussion. The educational approach of participatory linguistic landscaping to create discussion has been shown to be effective. A full-scale study with classroom video-recording and individual audio-recording using this approach would provide details about pupils’ understandings of how language and democracy interact. Such studies could also help design intervention studies with the aim of improving pupils’ understanding and enactment of democracy, including linguistic rights, in daily life.

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Lesson Phase Number 6: Please consider how you could develop your school environment to make it more welcoming if you had 500 Swedish kronor each

The educational objective of this stage was to create a discussion related to human rights and democratic inclusion in a well-known context. The pupils were asked to think of actions for democracy for developing a familiar context, their own school. The pupils were told they each had 500 Swedish kronor. They were asked to consider how they would use this money alone, or together with other pupils, to develop their school environment. In this exercise, we again noted a wide variation in views among the pupils. We grouped the proposals into three themes: signage and support, sharing and learn Swedish. The signage and support theme included the actions of having all signs in the school in two or more languages to make pupils with a first language other than Swedish feel more welcome, of having the school’s welcome sign in many languages so that as many as possible would feel the school recognised them as individuals, and of buying textbooks and library books in the languages of as many pupils as possible to help them learn more easily. Together these actions would help pupils with a first language other than Swedish feel more included in their school. The sharing theme included employing more teachers who spoke other languages as well as Swedish, thus allowing more languages to be used in all lessons, and that all pupils should learn words in all the languages spoken in the school to show the pupils that everyone cares about them. This theme has elements of the political action component of translanguaging (e.g. García, 2014; Skein et al., 2020). For example, translanguaging is viewed as a ‘democratic endeavor of social justice’ (Velasco & García, 2014: 7) and as ‘transformative, attempting to wipe out hierarchy’ (García & Leiva, 2014: 200). The final theme, the learn Swedish theme, was not explicitly stated as learn Swedish, but the comments from the pupils included buy more books to help the new arrivals to learn Swedish better and give more lessons in Swedish because without Swedish they cannot be part of society. In some ways, this theme has much validity, as it is more difficult to achieve in Swedish school and Swedish society if your Swedish is not very good. However, the discussion was challenging as the learn Swedish comments were presented as the opposite to making pupils feel more part of the school by making their language visible in the school environment. The educational design of this phase of the lesson places demands on the pupils’ cognitive and moral maturity. During this stage, it became apparent that not all the pupils were sufficiently mature to discuss their suggestions in relation to other suggestions or synthesise them with other ideas. This element of the lesson design was the one that moved from the participatory photographs of the linguistic landscape to building upon

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what had been seen to an action for improvement. This step required detailed scaffolding by the researchers and would also demand this of school teachers using participatory linguistic landscaping to teach this step. However, the lesson encouraged the pupils to articulate their personal views, and for the primary school pupils who showed greater maturity, we observed an ability to discuss their own ideas in relation to other ideas and synthesis their ideas with other pupils’ ideas. Discussion

Using photographs taken by pupils of their linguistic landscapes as prompts to teach democracy helped the pupils move democratic ideals from being an abstract school topic with ‘correct’ answers to something personal that builds on daily lived personal experiences within a perceived environment and is concrete in ways similar to the environments investigated by Dagenais et al. (2009). This move created a challenging teaching environment even if the pupils did not perceive the tensions that we saw in their positions. It became apparent that there is a tension between linguistic rights policy and reality. This raises the question as to whether top-down linguistic policy trickles down to young citizens learning about democracy, indigenous and linguistic rights, and being empathetic towards other humans. Moreover, it raises the question whether the objectives of the Swedish national curriculum outlined above are achieved in more than abstract terms. That is, pupils achieve a pass grade by giving the expected answers, but how they think and act in concrete settings is at times less democratic. This again supports the use of participatory linguistic landscaping in the classroom to help pupils question their personal democratic positions and be challenged by their peers for their views. Our study has shown that participatory linguistic landscaping supports key aspects of the Swedish national curriculum. For example, it usefully supports the development of pupils’ ‘understanding of what it means to be an active, responsible citizen in a rapidly changing society’ (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2018: 227), encouraging pupils ‘to get involved and participate in an open exchange of view on societal issues’ (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2018: 227) and assisting ‘pupils to develop knowledge about how the individual and society influence each other’ (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2018: 227). The diverse positions we observed in both classrooms reflect aspects of linguistic democracy that do not have to be mutually exclusive, namely, the recognition of linguistic variation and the right of every person in Sweden to access and learn fluent Swedish. Primary school pupils are perhaps not cognitively mature enough to be able to synthesise these positions, and for some, this means not being able to see that the recognition of linguistic variation is not a threat nor is it something that hinders individuals from accessing fluent Swedish.

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However, the ways in which the pupils presented their opinions about how best to use their 500 Swedish kronor, and when imaging how they would react when seeing signage in Sámi and Swedish, did not suggest discrimination. In our opinion, some of their opinions demonstrated a lack of understanding of the other. The group that wanted more Swedish teachers and books did not say that the non-Swedish speakers should not use their own languages, but rather that they would be best helped by learning Swedish and gaining higher school grades in tests that are presented in Swedish. This would help these pupils become a part of Swedish society and ultimately get jobs. This group of pupils focused on how best to integrate immigrant pupils into their perceived linguistic landscape. These pupils considered themselves to be ‘involved in helping others’ (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2018: 10). Equally, when discussing signage in Sámi and Swedish, all pupils were able to ‘empathise with … the situation other people are in’ (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2018: 10), yet some only saw signs as informational (Landry & Bourhis, 1997). Other pupils were able to ‘empathise with and understand the situation other people are in’ (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2018: 10, our italics). This group of pupils saw these dual language signs as both informational and symbolic (Landry & Bourhis, 1997). That is, although all can understand Swedish, the importance of the Sámi signage is that it includes and welcomes the Indigenous population in a way that Swedish only signage cannot. In sum, the lesson worked well in moving the pupils’ thoughts and understanding through the three stages of perceived, conceived and lived space (Lefebvre, 1991). Indeed, a key implication of this study is that using school children’s own perceived linguistic landscape by asking them to photograph language in their environment creates more authentic material to work from and which pupils recognise. Moreover, it became apparent that linguistic landscapes afford more than language learning opportunities and a base for discussion of multilingualism – they can be a trigger for discussing and learning about the ‘non-neutral nature of written communication’ (Dagenais et al., 2009: 257) and the non-linguistic aspects of society mirrored in the linguistic landscapes. They can be a starting point for discussion on democracy and inclusion. However, from what we observed, it is more likely that in the primary school setting, participatory linguistic landscaping challenges pupils’ perceptions of their linguistic landscape and begins to make the pupils realise that other pupils perceive, conceive and live the landscape differently. This discussion can be used as a trigger to discuss positions of power and dominance and to consider how this may affect some and reduce their feelings of being part of society, being excluded and not being able to contribute productively to society. Hence, authentic personal linguistic landscapes can be used to teach democracy in school. However, one limitation or challenge of this study was the age of the pupils, and we suggest that this type of discussion may be more suited to

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high school pupils who may be better able to articulate diverse opinions and justify them in a classroom discussion. That is, in groups of pupils who are cognitively and morally more mature and more open to accountable talk (e.g. Michaels et al., 2008). The task we suggest could be the same. We think that it would also be interesting to be able to run a research project that starts with this but that then has the financial possibility of implementing some or all of the pupils’ suggestions for developing their school environment and then evaluating the impact of the change on the pupils in the school, that is, stage three of our pedagogical design. There is much potential for using the linguistic landscape for democratic action in school, and now that it is clear the educational approach of using participatory linguistic landscaping in schools creates and supports discussion, research that is less pedagogically explorative should be conducted that both works with linguistic landscape methodologies and with classroom talk that moves the abstract to the concrete in the personal lived space. Such future research should also consider how teachers can most effectively work with participatory linguistic landscaping to maximise the students’ learning experiences when working in the ways outlined in this chapter. Here, we suggest the consideration of research on navigating controversial questions in the classroom, for example, Lindström and Sullivan (2021). Notes (1) We use the North Sámi spelling for Sámi. In the literature, other spellings are encountered frequently, for example, Saami and Sami. (2) Meänkieli is spoken along the Swedish–Finnish border and was earlier referred to as Torne Valley Finnish as it has many similarities to Finnish. (3) In 2017, 89% of 10-year-olds and 98% of 11-year-olds owned a mobile phone (Davidsson et al., 2017).

References Albury, N.J. (2019) ‘I’ve admired them for doing so well’: Where to now for indigenous languages and literacies? In C. Cocq and K.P.H. Sullivan (eds) Perspectives on Indigenous Writing and Literacies (pp. 13–28). Leiden: Brill. Axelsson, P. and Sköld, P. (2013) Indigenous Peoples and Demography: The Complex Relation between Identity and Statistics. New York, NY: Berghahn Books. Bourdieu, P. (1991) Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge: Polity. Dagenais, D. and Berron, C. (2001) Promoting multilingualism through French immersion and language maintenance in three immigrant families. Language, Culture and Curriculum 14 (2), 142–155. Dagenais, D., Moore, D., Sabatier, C., Lamarre, P. and Armand, F. (2009) Linguistic landscape and language awareness. In E. Shohamy and D. Gorter (eds) Linguistic Landscape: Expanding the Scenery (pp. 253–269). New York/London: Routledge. Davidsson, P., Thoresson, A. and Internetstiftelsen i Sverige (2017) Svenskarna och internet 2017: undersökning om svenskarnas internetvanor [Swedes and the Internet 2017: An Investigation of Swedish Internet Habits]. See https://internetstiftelsen.se/ docs/Svenskarna_och_internet_2017.pdf (accessed 10 July 2021).

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Demokrati. (n.d.) See https://www.riksdagen.se/sv/sa-funkar-riksdagen/demokrati/?fbclid=I wAR0JpkRAcLqutJ60xgfwBV0TyeiPdlD4_nifRTTtQFwLaeHJs0r_qgANzas (accessed 6 March 2020). García, O. (2014) Countering the dual: Transglossia, dynamic bilingualism and translanguaging in education. In R. Rubdy and L. Alsagoff (eds) The Global–Local Interface, Language Choice and Hybridity (pp. 100–118). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. García, O. and Leiva, C. (2014) Theorizing and enacting translanguaging for social justice. In A. Blackledge and A. Creese (eds) Heteroglossia as Practice and Pedagogy (pp. 199–216). Dordrecht: Springer. Gorter, D., Marten, H.F. and Van Mensel, L. (eds) (2012) Minority Languages in the Linguistic Landscape. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Hancock, A. (2012) Capturing the linguistic landscape of Edinburgh: A pedagogical tool to investigate student teachers’ understandings of cultural and linguistic diversity. In C. Hélot, M. Barni, R. Janssens and C. Bagna (eds) Linguistic Landscapes, Multilingualism and Social Change (pp. 249–266). Frankfurt: Peter Lang. Landry, R. and Bourhis, R.Y. (1997) Linguistic landscape and ethnolinguistic vitality: An empirical study. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 16 (1), 23–49. Länsstyrelsen Västra Götaland (2018) Vad är demokrati? [What is democracy?]. See https://www.informationsverige.se/sv/jag-har-fatt-uppehallstillstand/samhallsorientering/boken-om-sverige/att-paverka-i-sverige/vad-ar-demokrati/?fbclid=IwAR1wH uYhfhTxaO3DpAp3eo6YagIFLp5GJi4BX26RcpvR7Qpjg9Y5mrbzChs (accessed 6 March 2020). Lazdina, S. and Marten, H.F. (2009) The linguistic landscape method as a tool in research and education of multilingualism: Experiences from a project in the Baltic States. In A. Saxena and Å. Viberg (eds) Multilingualism: Proceedings of the 23rd Scandinavian Conference of Linguistics, Uppsala University, Sweden, 1–3 October, 2008 (pp. 212– 225). See http://uu. diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:275878/FULLTEXT03 (accessed July 2021). Lefebvre, H. (1991) The Production of Space. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Lindgren, E., Sullivan, K.P.H., Outakoski, H. and Westum, A. (2016) Researching literacy development in the globalised North: Studying tri-lingual children’s English writing in Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish Sápmi to provide a window onto the superdiverse. In D.R. Cole and C. Woodrow (eds) Super Dimensions in Globalisation and Education (pp. 55–70). Singapore: Springer. Lindström, N. and Sullivan, K.P.H. (2021) Wayfinding through disrupting controversies in the religious education classroom: Teachers’ views. Education in the North 28 (1), 68–81. Michaels, S., O’Connor, C. and Resnick, L.B. (2008) Deliberative discourse idealized and realized: Accountable talk in the classroom and in civic life. Studies in Philosophy and Education 27 (4), 283–297. Omma, L. (2013) Ung same i Sverige: livsvillkor, självvärdering och hälsa [Young Sámi in Sweden: Living conditions, self perception and health]. PhD thesis, Umeå University. Pettersen, T. (2011) Out of the backwater? Prospects for contemporary Sámi demography in Norway. In P. Axelsson and P. Sköld (eds) Indigenous Peoples and Demography: The Complex Relation Between Identity and Statistics (pp. 185–196). Oxford: Berghahn. Pikkarainen, H. and Brodin, B. (2008) Discrimination of National Minorities in the Education System (DO Report No. 2008:2 eng). Stockholm : Ombudsmannen mot etnisk diskriminering. Scollon, R. and Scollon, S. (2003) Discourses in Place: Language in the Material World. London: Routledge. SFS 2003:460 (2003) The Act concerning the Ethical Review of Research Involving Humans. Stockholm: Ministry of Education.

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SFS 2009:724 (2009) Law on National Minorities and Minority Languages. Stockholm: Ministry of Culture. SFS 2010:800 (2010) Education Act. Stockholm: Ministry of Education. SFS 2018:1367 (2018) Amendments to the Law (2009:724) on National Minorities and Minority Languages. Stockholm: Ministry of Culture. Skein, E., Knospe, Y. and Sullivan, K.P.H. (2020) Supporting advanced multilinguals as individuals: The translanguaged mind and writing. In G. Neokleous, A. Krulatz and R. Farrelly (eds) Handbook of Research on Cultivating Literacy in Diverse and Multilingual Classroom (pp. 577–595). Hershey, PA: IGI Global. SOU 1948:27 (1948) 1946 års skolkommissions betänkande med förslag till riktlinjer för det svenska skolväsendets utveckling [Report from the 1946 School Commission with Proposals for the Development of Swedish Schools]. Stockholm: Ecklesiastikdepartementet [Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs]. Stafström, S. (2017) Good Research Practice. Stockholm: Swedish Research Council. Sullivan, K.P.H., Belancic, K., Lindgren, E., Outakoski, H. and Vinka, M. (2019) The global in the local: Young multilingual language learners write in the Sámi language (Finland, Norway, Sweden). In A. Sherris and J. Kreeft Peyton (eds) Teaching Writing to Children in Indigenous Languages: Instructional Practices from Global Contexts (pp. 235–253). New York/London: Routledge. Swedish National Agency for Education (2018) Curriculum for the Compulsory School, Preschool Class and School-Age Educare (Revised 2018). Stockholm: Norstedts Juridik. United Nations (2015) General Assembly resolution 69/268, Education for democracy, A/RES/69/268 (5 March 2015). See https://undocs.org/en/A/RES/69/268 (accessed 6 March 2020). Velasco, P. and García, O. (2014) Translanguaging and the writing of bilingual learners. Bilingual Research Journal: The Journal of the National Association for Bilingual Education 37 (1), 6–23.

10 ‘Go in Practice’: Linguistic Landscape and Outdoor Learning July De Wilde, Johannes Verhoene, Jo Tondeur and Ellen Van Praet

Introduction

With its focus on ‘language in the environment, words and images displayed and exposed in public spaces’ (Shohamy & Gorter, 2009: 1), linguistic landscape (hereafter LL) studies provide rich potential for outdoor educators (see Gorter, 2018, for a recent review on studies about LLs as a pedagogical resource). Since the mid-1970s, outdoor education has developed1 as a recognised form of educational practice, with several authors (e.g. Eaton, 2000; Greenaway, 2008; Priest, 1986) making attempts to define this relatively new form of training. Originally, outdoor education was used mostly for nature study: Those who influenced the field early on defined outdoor education with the needs of camping education in mind (e.g. Sharp, 1943). Today, it includes all school-related outdoor experiences designed to meet objectives in diverse areas. According to Priest (1986: 13), outdoor education is ‘an experiential process of learning by doing, which takes place primarily through exposure to the out-of-doors’. 2 This chapter evaluates LL studies as a powerful tool for outdoor education for university students, focusing on learners’ reactions, learning outcomes and potential behavioural changes in a context of language learning. We address the following research questions: How satisfied are university students with an LL outdoor activity? How satisfied are they with the instruction that they rely on mobile technology to report on the assignment? How do students self-assess their learning outcomes with regard to the LL assignment? Does students’ awareness of language use in public spaces change? The first section reviews research on the possibilities of LL studies as a tool for outdoor learning, with a focus on studies conducted with 214

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university students. The second section describes the design and implementation modalities of a pedagogical LL project in a course for master’s students in a university programme on Multilingual Communication and reports on the data sets used to gather students’ experiences and critical evaluation of the assignment. In the third section, we discuss the findings with reference to the claims made by various scholars about the benefits of having students actively engage with the surrounding, but often unnoticed, multilingual landscapes. In the concluding sections, we reflect on the opportunities of this pedagogical practice and suggest improvements for future applications. The Linguistic Landscape as an Outdoor Space for Effective Learning for University Students

Advocating experiential learning in education goes back to the early 20th century, when John Dewey (1907) argued for incorporating as much of current society into the educational process as possible to facilitate learning, which would then in turn enhance society as a whole. Outdoor learning has been promoted to enhance both formal and informal learning (van Putten, 2013) and is praised for its positive effects on motivation and learning outcomes (Scott et al., 2012; Waite, 2011). By the same token, scholars have pointed out threats to the implementation of sound outdoor learning activities; high student–staff ratios, high workload for academics preparing and assessing outdoor activities, budgetary restrictions and high costs for students may explain why outdoor learning activities are implemented less frequently than desired in higher education (Munge et al., 2017). For an overview of outdoor learning, including a critical analysis of the history and concrete examples, we refer to the work of Becker et al. (2018). While most outdoor learning experiences have been used in the natural sciences, a recent rediscovery of outdoor learning has taken place in the social sciences in particular (see e.g. Harris & Bilton, 2019). Outdoor learning is also particularly valuable for learning about the LL. Being outdoors, students are learning how and what to look out for. Studying the signs outdoors, rather than in the close comfort of a home, classroom or office, also allows them to interview the producers and recipients of the signs, thereby linking real senders, signs and intended audience. Another benefit of students being in the location where the sign is positioned is that they can observe features which would be otherwise unperceivable, such as the density of the distribution of signs and the linguistic soundscapes or spoken languages heard near the signs (Scarvaglieri et al., 2013). Lazdina and Marten (2009) were the first to report using LLs for learning activities outdoors targeting university students. The authors report on a 2008 project carried out with a ‘small group of Master students of Philology’ (Lazdina & Marten, 2009: 215) in several mediumsized cities in the Baltic states of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. They

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highlight the students’ increased awareness of the varying effects of language legislation and policies on the material surroundings. Sayer (2010) invited his English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students in Oaxaca, Mexico, to analyse a corpus of 250 photographs. With his students, he classified the signs (according to targeted audience, purpose, type and social meaning) and identified six themes that explain different social meanings of English in Oaxaca. He concludes that this activity made students ‘think creatively and analytically about how language is used in society and become more aware of their own sociolinguistic context’ (Sayer, 2010: 153). Rowland (2013) carried out a project with EFL students in Japan, discussing students’ analyses of their local LL against six pedagogical benefits distilled from the specialised literature on LL: (1) developing students’ critical literacy skills, (2) improving students’ pragmatic competence, (3) increasing the possibility of incidental language learning, (4) facilitating the acquisition of multimodal literacy skills, (5) stimulating students’ multicompetence and (6) enhancing students’ sensitivity to connotational aspects of language. Rowland also reports on the difficulties experienced by his students, in particular when categorising the numerous photos they had collected. Rather than steering his students towards ‘particular understandings of English in the Japanese LL’ and providing them with example categories based on qualitative content analysis, he invited the students to apply a ‘list of questions as a heuristic’ to the photos. Questions included the kind of sign (e.g. advertisement, road sign), its location, the maker of the sign (e.g. a shop, a restaurant, a private citizen), the intended audience of the sign, possible reasons for the use of English and possible reasons for the absence of Japanese in the photographed signs. Hancock (2012) applied an LL inspired pedagogical project in Edinburgh to increase pre-service teachers’ awareness of changing patterns of societal multilingualism (Hancock, 2012). Malinowski’s (2015) creative adoption of Henri Lefebvre’s triple notion of conceived, perceived and lived spaces for language learning ‘emphasizes the value of LLs as important learning environments, adding a superb potential for application to the fundamental-scientific interest of LL studies’ (Blommaert, 2016: n.p.). Van Hout and Van Praet (2016) report on a fieldwork assignment designed to have MA students experience first-hand how entrepreneurs write for the globalised marketplace. Taking students on a ‘semiotic safari in urban environments, where they encounter professional communication in multilingual couleur locale’ (Van Hout & Van Praet, 2016: 398), the authors demonstrate how students became more aware of the degree of linguistic innovation, rhetorical creativity and ethnocultural stereotyping of entrepreneurial communication in their cities. The present study adds to the previous scholarship in two ways. First, we explicitly address the learning experience triggered by an LL outdoor assignment. Second, we expand the data set, combining surveys, focus group discussions and digital video glasses.

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Methodology

Following this rationale, Authors 1 and 4 (De Wilde and Van Praet) developed an assignment for 56 students of a Master of Arts programme in Multilingual Communication at a Belgian university (Ghent University3), aligning LL research with a place-related outdoor education philosophy and practice. The MA programme trains students in multilingual communication skills for business, government and non-profit organisations and is exclusively populated by students with a background in (applied) linguistics. With the exception of two, all 56 students had been enrolled previously in a third-year bachelor programme in Applied Language Studies at the same university. They therefore constituted a homogeneous group in terms of age and previous academic knowledge. During the first two years of the bachelor programme, they had been introduced to a variety of topics on intercultural communication, intercultural pragmatics and sociolinguistics during two different courses but were unfamiliar with LLs. Ghent, the city where they studied and carried out research, is particularly well suited for the assignment. It is the second biggest city in Flanders with a population of 261,475 officially registered inhabitants and approximately 74,000 students (Stadsbestuur Gent, 2018). Although the majority of Ghent inhabitants speak Dutch, the official language of the northern part of Belgium, the 2017 census suggests a lively multicultural and multilingual picture: 22.6% of the inner city has a non-Belgian nationality with more than 150 different nationalities being registered, 33% of Ghent’s population has roots in migration and 33% of the schoolchildren do not have Dutch as their first language (Stad Gent, 2019a). The city is also a major tourist destination with 1,493,000 overnight tourist stays registered in 2017 (Neyt, 2019) and 97,596 paying visits to the city’s major architectural attraction registered in 2018 (Stad Gent, 2019b). Although officially trilingual, language is a sensitive issue in Belgium, a country ‘often considered as a special, rather problematic, case of societal multilingualism [and which] has an exceptionally elaborate complex of language laws, the outcome of a history of language-related legislation’ (Blommaert, 2011: 241). The aim of the assignment was threefold: (1) to familiarise students with basic theoretical and methodological notions of LL studies; (2) to stimulate learner autonomy, motivation and deeper understanding and (3) to raise students’ awareness of the language usages and varieties in a familiar city. The students’ assignment consisted of three phases. Firstly, they were given general instructions and asked to register online using the Electronic Learning Environment (ELO) in order to form teams of four. After the registration deadline, all 14 teams were randomly assigned a street in the city centre of Ghent. Secondly, students were familiarised with the basic principles, common methodologies and core topics in LL research during

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a two-hour ex cathedra lecture. Firstly, students were familiarised with the disciplinary roots and the object of study of LL, including definitional issues, in particular the one concerning what counts as a sign. These difficulties were illustrated with examples that were easily recognisable for the students (e.g. monolingual versus bilingual signage in Belgian train stations, multilingual signposting on a window of a shop near the university building). Next, the lecturer also introduced a reduced set of theoretical underpinnings (e.g. frames, speech acts, superdiversity) and discussed the differences between more qualitative and quantitative methodological foci. These differences were illustrated with examples from studies with strong ties to variationist sociolinguistics (e.g. Backhaus, 2007) which aim to map the distribution and prominence of linguistic features or codes across geographic space (Shohamy & Gorter, 2009), as well as ethnographic linguistic approaches (Maly, 2017) and qualitative-explorative interview studies (Scarvaglieri, 2017). The material taken from these empirical studies also allowed the lecturer to introduce students to a set of analytical categories for categorising signs (e.g. top-down/bottom-up, symbolic/informational, monolingual/multilingual). After the lecture, they were instructed to explore their designated streets, anticipate the preferred methodological scope (qualitative, quantitative or mixed method), design provisional research questions and conduct background desk research (e.g. gather sociodemographic information). One week after the introductory lecture, the students conducted fieldwork and documented the LL of the street that had been assigned to them. During the fieldwork, students were instructed to collect photographs and to audio-record interviews in order to also explore the perceptions of those who produce as well as those who ‘read, attend, decipher and interpret these language displays’ (Shohamy & Gorter, 2009: 1). In the last phase, students were asked to discuss their findings during a video presentation delivered two weeks after the fieldwork. Additionally, students were instructed to live-tweet during fieldwork (a minimum of four pictures per team). The rationale behind this was fourfold (see also Tang & Foon Hew, 2017 for an overview of empirical studies related to Twitter use in educational contexts published from 2006 to 2015). Twitter was used (1) for capture and representation purposes, (2) to enhance student collaboration, (3) to facilitate student engagement with the course content by having them paraphrase and apply the key points mentioned in the introductory lecture in a 140-character tweet and (4) allow for learner–instructor interaction: Both lecturers joined the livetweeting during fieldwork, commenting intensively on students’ post. Data Sets and Analysis

The results reported in this chapter are based on three data sets, comprising both qualitative and quantitative data.4 The first data set consisted

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of pre- and post-fieldwork assignment surveys (N = 56, response rate of 100%, see online appendix for an English translation of the post-survey). The pre-survey was taken immediately after the introductory lecture, whereas the post-survey was taken after students had handed in their video presentation. The pre-surveys included demographic questions (age, sex), previous experience with outdoor learning activities and expectations about the learning processes in relation to this particular type of outdoor learning (six-point rating scale without a neutral option). We also included questions on students’ Twitter use, frequency and profile. As for the LL, the pre-survey included can-do statements gauging self-perceived knowledge of basic LL concepts (e.g. I can explain the distinction between informal and symbolic language use), as well as an open question assessing the knowledge students had retained after the two-hour introductory lecture. In the post-survey, the can-do statements regarding the LL were maintained, but three open questions were added. Finally, the post-survey also included five rating scales on the use and perceived utility of and satisfaction with Twitter during the assignment, as well as five scaled questions and an open question gauging students’ impressions of the use and relevance of outdoor learning for this particular assignment. Students’ answers to both surveys were analysed both quantitatively and qualitatively. For the scaled survey items, we asked students to rate their (dis)agreement with a statement on a scale between zero (full disagreement) and five (full agreement). Neutral responses were not included; i.e. students had to rate either a certain level of disagreement (value zero corresponding to ‘fully disagree’, one to ‘disagree’ and two to ‘rather disagree than agree’), or a certain level of agreement (values three, four and five being ‘rather agree than disagree’, ‘agree’ and ‘fully agree’, respectively). Given the limited sample, the quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics in SPSS. For the analysis of the open questions, we relied on content analysis procedures identifying and labelling keywords according to an annotation scheme (Neuendorf, 2002). The second data set included digital video glasses recordings of three students’ first-person perspectives during the fieldwork. We asked three students, belonging to different teams, to wear video glasses while conducting the field research. By means of a combination of point-of-view filming and a think-aloud protocol, we intended to enrich the data and gather insights into participants’ personal experiences and emotions. This was achieved by students wearing the video glasses and verbalising their thoughts while conducting the fieldwork. Given that the interaction with the other team members was also recorded, we were able to gather data that would give us insight into thoughts and opinions that were made explicit through group dynamics and discussions. Finally, the third data set comprised three audio-recorded focus group discussions. The discussions lasted approximately 45 minutes each and were led by Authors 2 and 3 (Johannes Verhoene and Jo Tondeur). These

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authors were, in contrast to the other two authors, not involved either as lecturers or assessors. The focus group discussion and the assessment for the Master’s course were strictly separated so as to avoid a possible bias or desirability bias in students’ comments. The group discussions took place two weeks after the fieldwork. We invited three teams to participate in three focus group discussions (12 students), selecting those teams in which video-glass recordings had been used. The methodological reason for working with the same teams across Data Sets 2 and 3 was that rich and telling excerpts in the video data could be returned to the students in order to ask them to expand on specific concerns. As for data processing, both the second and third data sets were analysed in similar ways: After fully transcribing the data, we included the text documents in qualitative data analysis software NVivo 12 in order to label and systematise the data. During the primary-cycle coding (Tracy, 2013), we approached the data by adopting theory-informed first-level codes, which were close to the research questions (e.g. ‘learning’, ‘awareness’, ‘Twitter experience’). In the secondary-cycle coding, we reassembled the data by enhancing the level of detail in coding and by inductively adding other topic-oriented codes (e.g. ‘assessment’). We focused on salient and recurrent themes, in particular elements of satisfaction (e.g. ‘learning theory in practice’) or particular concerns (e.g. ‘time constraints’, ‘purpose of Twitter’). Findings Quantitative data: Survey items

We report on the data, clustering the results by grouping (1) students’ views on LL learning in and through outdoor learning and (2) their knowledge on LL, indicating each time whether these data were gathered before (pre-survey) or after (post-survey) the outdoor activity (for an overview of all the data, see Appendix 1). Linguistic landscape learning in and through outdoor learning

Most students (41 of the 56 participants) were familiar with outdoor learning activities and had already engaged in them in higher education contexts. They perceive outdoor learning as a valuable expansion of traditional learning methods such as lectures or reading assignments in textbooks or online sources (M = 4.2; SD = 0.7; N = 56). In addition, the participants also more or less agree (M = 3.8; SD = 1; N = 56) with the statement that academic content can be learnt through outdoor activities. The results on this same question in the post-survey were very similar (M = 3.8; SD 0.9; N = 56; see also Appendix 1, Table 10.1). As far as students’ views on LL learning in and through outdoor learning are concerned (see Appendix 1, Table 10.2), it is striking that participants generally disagreed

‘Go in Practice’: Linguistic Landscape and Outdoor Learning  221

with the statement that ‘LL learning-by-doing in extracurricular contexts can stand alone; there is no need to supplement it with lectures’, a tendency that is present both in the pre-survey (M = 1.5; SD = 0.8; N = 56) and the post-survey (M = 1.5; SD = 0.8; N = 56). In other words, participants clearly believe that LL learning cannot stand apart from additional information transfer or learning activities through other, more traditional learning or instructional formats. Clearly, not all students perceived themselves to be ready to take a more constructivist approach to learning. One possible reason is that they were generally not self-directed and were more used to or keen on being ‘spoon-fed’ (Donnelly et al., 2011). Knowledge of linguistic landscape

The participants’ knowledge of LL was tested through ratings on scaled can-do statements gauging self-assessed knowledge (see Appendix 1, Table 10.3). The results show no or little differences between both moments of testing, estimates on most of the statements remaining more or less the same. The most prominent difference concerned Statement 2, for which students were asked to assess their capacity to distinguish between informational and symbolic language use. For this question, the mean between pre-survey (M = 4.1; SD = 0.9; N = 56) and post-survey results (M = 3.6; SD = 0.8; N = 56) goes down 0.5, which indicates that students think they’re less capable of the distinction between informational and symbolic language use after rather than before the outdoor learning activity. This finding might, at first sight, seem strange. In our view, the decrease in self-assessed capacity to distinguish between these two types after the fieldwork might very well be a consequence of students’ awareness that the rich variety and heterogeneity of public signage does not always comply with neat distinctions and analytical categories. Twitter usage

The results of the pre-survey show that 87.5% of the participants (n = 49) did not use Twitter for personal purposes. As a result, 78.6% (n = 44) of the participants considered themselves to be beginners in using Twitter. Only six participants (n = 10.7%) used Twitter in their free time. Satisfaction with Twitter use did not seem to be high either, since only 52.7% of the participants (n = 29) found the use of Twitter during the outdoor activity helpful to some extent. Finally, 63.6% (n = 35) of all participants indicated that they disagreed rather than agreed with the fact that, by using Twitter, they would learn something about LL. 5 Qualitative analysis of survey-data, video-glasses recordings and group discussions

The qualitative data were collected in three different ways, which allows us to address different aspects of the LL assignment. The

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qualitative data from the assignment surveys grant insight into experiences with outdoor learning, self-assessed learning experiences and opinions about the assignment and Twitter usage during this particular outdoor learning activity. The data collected through the video recordings show how students dealt with the assignment and how collaboration between team members worked out. This allowed us to observe students’ learning and possible changes in awareness during the outdoor learning activity, issues that were then explicitly addressed during the group discussions. Experiences with outdoor learning in general

When we asked students in the pre-survey open question to list previous outdoor learning experiences in higher education contexts, they mentioned a variety of activities, such as company visits, making video presentations, conducting interviews, attending lectures extra muros, visiting museums, poster presentations, city walks, internships, studying abroad and organising events. Of these examples, museum visits were mentioned most often (13 respondents), followed by studying abroad (8 unique references). Sixteen of the 56 students (28.6%) indicated in the presurvey that they could clearly see the usefulness and added value of these earlier outdoor learning experiences, indicating this through comments such as ‘the activity was useful to further discover the theory that was discussed in the lesson in a different environment’ (S_19).6 Seven students explicitly mentioned the pleasure they experienced in outdoor learning. On the other hand, 6 out of 56 students expressed negative experiences with previous outdoor learning activities, especially in terms of lack of guidance, time intensity or absence of interesting content. The most critical point mentioned by one of these six students concerned the lack of learning: ‘I do not think this has taught me anything that I could not have learned in a lecture hall environment’ (S_48). The other participants did not discuss personal experiences but listed examples of experiences involving outdoor learning instead. In the focus group discussions, previous experiences involving outdoor learning were discussed in more detail but, overall, the same type of experiences as in the surveys emerged. Experiencing the linguistic landscape in outdoor learning

When asked about their experience with the LL outdoor learning activity after fieldwork (post-survey), students brought up many different things, both positive and negative. First of all, 41% of them expressed a clear appreciation of the fact that the outdoor learning activity ensured that the theory was put into practice, in particular because of the focus in LL on public space. Students particularly highlighted the fact that the activity made them observe differently and enter into direct contact with language in the public space: ‘[i]t was ... a positive experience to apply the theory in practice. It is useful to really pay attention to the language and

‘Go in Practice’: Linguistic Landscape and Outdoor Learning  223

public space and to examine these more closely’ (S_34). Comments in both the post-surveys and the focus group discussion show the importance of theoretical notions being delivered beforehand and the need for thorough preparation. In addition, three other themes concerning experiences with the LL assignment emerged, each of which was mentioned at least 10 times in the post-surveys. The students welcomed the high activity level (n = 10) and appreciated the fact that they were given the freedom to work on the assignment independently (n = 11). During the focus group discussions, other positive aspects came up several times. Students participating in the group discussions indicated that they would better remember the theory underlying the LL because of the outdoor learning activity, and the change from traditional indoor lectures to the outdoor assignment was also experienced positively. Finally, 12 students in the post-survey indicated that they enjoyed the fact that, during the activity, they gained new insights into theoretical concepts and the linguistic environment in the street they observed. Several students underscored the fact that they saw outdoor learning as an ideal method to learn about LL, a positive appreciation reflected in both the post-surveys and the focus group discussions: ‘LL is something that is researched outside and, so, it is best that it is taught outside. You can say in a lecture that it should be done like this or like that, but if you want to be able to do it, you should have a go in practice’ (S_04).7 Surprisingly, exactly the same aspect – i.e. the relationship between theory and empirical instances of language use in public spaces – was mentioned as a point of critique in some of the negative experiences regarding the assignment. For example, 8 of the, in total, 13 participants who had something negative to say about the activity in the post-survey open question indicated that they did not learn much more during the activity: ‘It made a nice change, but I didn’t learn anything new. You can see the theory applied in reality, but this has no added value for me’ (S_56). The other five participants who expressed negative opinions did not complain about the outdoor learning activity as such but about the allocated streets (too few public signs, not enough passers-by to interview, too many shops closed) or about the time constraints for preparing the outdoor learning activity. In the focus group discussions, students mainly reported negative experiences with regard to the effort and time investment, the insufficient preparation time before the fieldwork and the short deadline for completing the assignment after the fieldwork. However, these three negative points were not consistently mentioned by the students in each focus group discussion. One issue did, however, come up consistently in all three focus group discussions: Qualitative research was experienced by the students as extremely difficult. This was also evident in the video-recorded data. Each of the three observed groups tried to collect qualitative data by talking to business owners or passers-by, but this way of collecting data was experienced as very challenging and, after all,

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for a relatively poor result: Only a small portion of qualitative data was obtained. Most of the students felt more comfortable collecting quantifiable data on the occurrence and visibility of specific languages in the public space. This observation was repeated by the three teams involved in the second data set, and the two lecturers involved in the course assignment (July De Wilde and Ellen Van Praet) confirmed that the students’ approach was predominantly quantitative. Learning about the linguistic landscape in and through outdoor learning

First of all, the video recordings show that, during the activity, the students spent most of their time taking photos to complete their task. The students mainly thought about the language in which the message was written and what type of information the message conveyed. Furthermore, all three groups explicitly discussed the differences between top-down (i.e. official communication created by the state and local government bodies) and bottom-up language use (i.e. communication initiated by shop owners, private businesses, etc.). In addition, two groups touched upon the differences between informational and symbolic language use while confronted with particular bits of language signs in the public space, thereby reflecting on the senders of the signs and intended audiences. Students also indicated that the activity had helped them gain a better understanding of what LL is. In the post-survey open question, nine students explicitly mentioned that the assignment helped them get a better grip on the concept of LL. This is consistent with the mostly positive experiences concerning outdoor learning, in particular its potential to bring theory into practice. In the same vein, 8 students out of the 56 indicated in the post-survey that, given the insights delivered in the ex cathedra lecture preceding the fieldwork, they did not think they had learnt anything ‘really new’ in the outdoor learning activity but that despite the lack of new ‘real’ insights, outdoor learning did help to learn to apply LL, to remember concepts longer and to discover things left unnoticed: ‘theory can be very vague at times. And then by walking around, because at first we thought our street wasn’t that interesting, but then eventually by walking around and really looking, you notice that you can actually find something interesting everywhere’ (S_26). Raising awareness of the linguistic landscape in outdoor learning

Besides learning about concepts and content and implementing LL, the outdoor learning activity also clearly sparked a process of awareness among the participants. In the video recordings, for example, it is striking that students regularly questioned predominantly monolingual signage in the streets. Each group mentioned this at least once. Students’ reactions, therefore, show that they became particularly aware of the fact that many messages were monolingual, whereas they would have expected them to

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be (more) multilingual. Specifically, the participants homed in on posters and vacancies written exclusively in English or Dutch-only information displayed on the window of a doctor ‘leaving out patients who do not speak Dutch’ (S_14). We also witnessed participants emitting hypotheses on the origin of languages they were less or not familiar with. The observations also suggested that the longer participants are involved in the fieldwork experience, the more explicitly they will start developing expectations about the LL. For example, recordings showed how students considered in advance that the instructions on a parking meter would be offered in several languages and commented on the fact that this issue would not have crossed their minds if it had not been for the assignment. Next, we observed that students regularly found themselves looking for reasons why shop owners or official instances used certain languages. Finally, we observed students actively thinking about the LL surrounding them and relating it to theoretical constructs they had been given in the lecture prior to the assignment (e.g. ‘indexical use’, ‘ethnolinguistic vitality’). Twitter usage

The data on Twitter usage reveal that the participants were not entirely satisfied with how Twitter was coupled to the assignment. Only 4 students out of 56 indicated in the post-survey that they actually enjoyed tweeting during the assignment. The biggest stumbling block, according to many participants, was a perceived lack of purpose of using Twitter. This was explicitly indicated by 21% of the participants in the post-survey and subsequently reinforced in the three focus group discussions, where all the students indicated that they mainly experienced it as a means of control by their professors. In addition, they felt that Twitter did not help them to learn about the LL and that it actually obstructed their own research. Not a single student declared in the post-survey that Twitter added value to the assignment. Somewhat incompatible with the previous results, 38% (n = 21) still stated in the post-survey that they saw Twitter as the ‘right choice’ of social medium. In analysing the video recordings, we observed that the majority of the participants lost sight of Twitter during the activity. Two of the three observed groups explicitly said that they had forgotten about Twitter for a while. In addition, every time students talked about Twitter, the groups had first perceived a certain linguistic message and used it for their research; only afterwards did they remember that they needed to tweet something about the message. Twitter was clearly not top of the list for the observed groups nor did they consider tweeting a spontaneous act. Quite the contrary, students considered it an obligation rather than a logical complement of the LL research: ‘It was just not very spontaneous, was it? I do use Twitter and I think it’s a great app, but I found the link a bit weird. We were really actively looking for what we could post on it, and so it became another thing to do’ (S_14).

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Finally, processing the assignment proved a difficulty that was much talked about. This could only be deduced from the focus group discussions. Students found the processing aspect very time-consuming and suggested other ways of learning; for example, show the video presentations or parts of them to their peers while jointly discussing the results. Discussion

This study explored the relation between outdoor learning and LL using a mixed-method methodology. We analysed 56 master’s students’ reactions and learning while conducting outdoor activities for a research assignment on key LL notions. In line with a recent longitudinal study concluding that an outdoor programme increases students’ intrinsic motivation significantly (Dettweiler et al., 2017), our findings illustrate that the vast majority of students were satisfied and enjoyed the outdoor activity. Analyses of the video recordings indicate that students were eager and motivated to apply LL concepts and categories to the linguistic environment of the street that was assigned to them. The results also highlight that students welcomed the high activity level and appreciated the fact that they were given the freedom to work on the assignment independently. Regarding the learning outcomes, the observations through the video glasses clearly showed a growing intellectual curiosity to know the reasons behind specific language choices in the public space. Taking Rowland’s (2013) pedagogical benefits as a measure of the extent to which learning took place, this study achieved, above all, the development of students’ critical literacy skills, an improvement in their pragmatic competence and increased multimodal literacy skills. There is some evidence of incidental language learning, though limited to isolated words or short sentences. However, findings are not one-sidedly positive. The assignment failed to provide the students with the necessary support and preparation to conduct qualitative analysis, which students perceived as far more challenging than a quantitative approach in which they mapped, for instance, the way multilingual LLs are distributed geographically within different parts of the city. This finding is in line with the difficulties reported by Rowland (2013) when analysing the pedagogical benefits of an LL with EFL students in Japan. Another critical note concerns the added value of using Twitter. The ‘technology’ aspect of the project led to unexpected questions about student- versus teacher-centred learning. Twitter seemed to facilitate dialogue between the instructor and the students but not between the students themselves. Furthermore, the negative comments by students on the use of Twitter in this project suggest that the teacher presence through Twitter does not facilitate, and is potentially disruptive of, student-centred meaning-making in outdoor learning. In this respect, we

‘Go in Practice’: Linguistic Landscape and Outdoor Learning  227

should bear in mind Koehler and Mishra’s (2009) suggestions that educators, when designing an ICT-rich learning environment, should not only focus on how to use technology (such as Twitter) but also on how this technology intersects with specific pedagogical approaches (e.g. outdoor learning) and specific content areas (e.g. LL). Their concept of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) stems from Shulman’s (1986) notion of pedagogical content knowledge and his belief that teaching boils down to understanding the relationship between what is to be learnt and how it is to be taught. It could be argued that in this specific case of outdoor learning of LL concepts and approaches, Twitter was not considered to be the best TPACK solution. Guided by the results of this study, Authors 1 and 4 will explore whether a citizen science tool, such as the Lingscape app, reduces students’ impressions of such means being used for control.8 Limitations and Recommendations for Future Research

Although beyond the original scope of the study, further research is needed to analyse the combined impact of the different actors and factors at different aggregation levels (e.g. student, academic staff and even institutions) and also address the effect of this experiential learning pedagogy in terms of the time spent by both students and staff in the preparation, realisation and follow-up of the assignment, a concern that was incidentally mentioned by several students. The results of the current study have limited generalisability and cannot simply be extrapolated to other institutions or educational levels, in particular when student populations are less homogeneous in terms of previous knowledge on LL and sociolinguistic research. Colleagues interested in replicating the assignment might want to explore whether providing a different kind of support before and after the outdoor activity may temper the criticism voiced by some students who felt very uncomfortable with qualitative research or the amount of time and effort required. In addition, given that in our study most data on learning outcomes were self-assessed (an exception being the video recordings and focus group which included only 12 students), future studies might also include in the data set the assignment output or final product – i.e. the video presentations made by the students. Lastly, recording a research subject’s first-person viewings, either by attaching a digital video camera or wearing digital video glasses, can afford deeper insights into their experiences (Skinner & Gormley, 2016). The richness of the video data gathered by this research project invites a closer analysis of what students experience in a dynamic outdoor learning environment so as to gain a deeper understanding of whether the assignment has the potential to actually increase their language awareness.

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Notes (1) For detailed accounts of the historical development of outdoor education in the UK, Australia and New Zealand, see Brookes (2002), Lynch (2006) and Nicol (2003). (2) Priest’s definition (1986: 13–14) was founded on six major points: that outdoor education was a method; that it draws upon a heritage of ideas about experiential learning from the likes of Comenius, Rousseau, Pestalozzi and Dewey; that the outdoor setting is vital to learning; that learning in education occurs across three domains (cognitive, affective and motoric); that the curriculum is interdisciplinary in nature and that learning is a matter of many relationships (see also Wattchow & Brown, 2011: xviii). These relationships concern not only natural resources but also include people and society at large. (3) Tom Van Hout piloted the assignment in 2014 at the University of Antwerp, where he teaches professional communication in English to about 70 students in the Master of Multilingual Professional Communication. The pilot version inspired the assignment discussed in this paper (see also Van Hout & Van Praet, 2016). (4) For reasons of space, we did not include copies of the research instruments as ­appendices in the present chapter (informed consent, pre/post-survey questions, focus  group preparation, NVivo 12 coding scheme). The reader may consult these  ­ d ocuments at (access with view options): https://drive.google.com/ open?id=174io92MFfctY8V4_­VHwmjWK6yPNDUrez (5) Qualitative data from Twitter use during the outdoor learning experience may be viewed through #A4MC1819. (6) All students were coded according to the format S_X. All translations from the Dutch quotes by the students are ours. (7) We used part of this quote for the short title of this chapter: It suggests the benefits of studying linguistic signs outdoors, and it reflects the close link between theory and empirical instances of language use in public spaces. (8) https://lingscape.uni.lu/#hero

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Appendix 1. Descriptive statistics quantitative analysis Table 10.1  Views on outdoor learning (pre- and post-surveys, n = 56) Min

Max

Mean

Standard deviation

1.  PRE experience OL 1

2

5

4.2

0.7

2.  PRE experience OL 2

1

5

3.8

1.0

3.  PRE experience OL 3

0

5

2.3

1.1

4.  PRE experience OL 4

0

5

2.5

1.2

5.  PRE experience OL 5

0

5

3.1

1.1

1.  POST experience OL 1

1

5

4.1

0.9

2.  POST experience OL 2

1

5

3.8

0.9

3.  POST experience OL 3

0

5

2.5

1.0

4.  POST experience OL 4

0

5

2.3

1.2

5.  POST experience OL 5

0

5

3.0

1.1

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Table 10.2  Views LL in and through outdoor learning (pre- and post-surveys, sixpoint scale, n = 56) Min

Max

Mean

Standard deviation

1.  PRE Knowledge LL/OL 1

1

2.  PRE Knowledge LL/OL 2

1

5

3.6

0.9

5

3.7

0.8

3.  PRE Knowledge LL/OL 3

1

5

3.5

0.9

4.  PRE Knowledge LL/OL 4

2

5

4.0

0.7

5.  PRE Knowledge LL/OL 5

0

5

2.8

1.1 0.8

6.  PRE Knowledge LL/OL 6

0

5

1.5

7.  PRE Knowledge LL/OL 7

1

5

3.9

0.7

8.  PRE Knowledge LL/OL 8

2

5

3.7

0.8

1.  POST Knowledge LL/OL 1

1

5

3.3

1.0

2.  POST Knowledge LL/OL 2

1

5

3.6

0.9 0.9

3.  POST Knowledge LL/OL 3

1

5

3.2

4.  POST Knowledge LL/OL 4

1

5

3.8

0.8

5.  POST Knowledge LL/OL 5

1

5

3.1

0.9

6.  POST Knowledge LL/OL 6

0

4

1.5

0.8

7.  POST Knowledge LL/OL 7

1

5

4.1

0.8

8.  POST Knowledge LL/OL 8

1

5

3.7

0.8

Table 10.3  Self-assessed LL knowledge through can-do statements (pre- and postsurveys, six-point scale, n = varying) N

Min

Max

Mean

Standard deviation

1.  PRE Knowledge LL 1

55

1

5

3.8

1.1

2.  PRE Knowledge LL 2

55

2

5

4.1

0.9

3.  PRE Knowledge LL 3

55

1

5

3.3

1.0

4.  PRE Knowledge LL 4

55

2

5

4.0

0.7

5.  PRE Knowledge LL 5

55

3

5

4.4

0.6

6.  PRE Knowledge LL 6

54

1

5

3.6

0.8

7.  PRE Knowledge LL 7

54

1

5

3.4

0.8

8.  PRE Knowledge LL 8

54

0

5

3.1

0.9

1.  POST Knowledge LL 1

56

1

5

3.5

1.0

2.  POST Knowledge LL 2

56

1

5

3.6

0.8

3.  POST Knowledge LL 3

55

0

5

3.5

1.0

4.  POST Knowledge LL 4

55

3

5

4.1

0.7

5.  POST Knowledge LL 5

55

3

5

4.5

0.6

6.  POST Knowledge LL 6

55

2

5

3.7

0.6

7.  POST Knowledge LL 7

55

1

5

3.5

0.8

8.  POST Knowledge LL 8

55

1

5

3.2

0.9

11 Linguistic Landscape Signs in First-Language Learning Materials: From Passively Illustrative Function to Meaningful Learning Experiences Solvita Burr (Berra in Latvian, née Pošeiko)

Introduction

Linguistic landscape (LL) is the study of written texts (LL signs) in one or multiple languages in the public space (Shohamy & Gorter, 2009: 1–3). Originally, the scholarly approach to LL consisted of photographing such signs and measuring language frequencies in relation to factors such as the ethnic composition of place, multilingualism and language policy. Over time, LL research has become varied and complex. Current research often combines different disciplines (e.g. economics, semiotics, social geography and psychology), and thus, many new theoretical approaches and interdisciplinary studies have been conducted (see overviews in Gorter & Cenoz, 2017: 233–245; Shohamy, 2019: 25–37). One important and recurring theme in LL studies is the use of LL signs in language learning, for example, by involving language learners in a LL investigation as an empirical outdoor activity (see Chapters 10 and 12 in this collection). So far, attention has centred on using LL for contextual input to teach an additional language to different age groups (e.g. Cenoz & Gorter, 2008, 2015; Chern & Dooley, 2014; Malinowski, 2019; Malinowski et al., 2020; Maxim, 2020; Rowland, 2012; Sayer, 2009; Solmaz & Przymus, 2021). Researchers and instructors have often linked language learning to raising linguistic, cultural and sociopolitical awareness of the environment of a target language’s speakers. In this sense, language knowledge is not limited to correct pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary but also encompasses the contextual understanding of the 232

Linguistic Landscape Signs in First-Language Learning Materials  233

conditions of (non-)use of a language (e.g. language law, language value, language conflicts, linguistic attitudes) and related challenges (e.g. how language policymakers deal with growing multilingualism, how global citizens explore new places and how immigrants integrate into local communities). However, insufficient attention has been paid to the link between LL studies and the study of learning materials or to the creation of methodologies and textbooks. (One exception is Chapelle’s paper on cultural narratives in the LL images of Québec in French as a foreign language textbook – Chapelle, 2020: 43–67.) Moreover, this gap is especially evident when it comes to first-language teaching. The aim of the chapter is twofold: first, to determine the functionality of LL signs in existing textbooks for the learning and teaching of Latvian, and second, to argue for an alternative approach to LL signs in such materials that allows meaningful learning experiences. To illustrate the latter, I discuss examples from a high-school textbook for Latvian as a first language (Latvian L1), Ceļvedis pilsētu tekstu izpētē [A Guide for Exploring City Texts] (Berra, 2020). The chapter begins by (1) outlining the main ideas and principles of edusemiotics and the pedagogy of multiliteracies. It then (2) gives a background account of the language and language education situations in Latvia. After that, it (3) describes the methodology of the textbook-­ content analysis before analysing the relevant data and showing that it is largely restricted to passive illustration. Next, the chapter (4) briefly describes the structure and content of the high school textbook, providing some examples of how textbook and curriculum developers can offer an alternative and more meaningful engagement with LL. It concludes by (5) asserting the pedagogical benefits of LL signs in first-language learning and giving perspectives on the possible future use of LL signs in languageteaching materials. Taking the Latvian context as its point of departure, the chapter thus suggests how LL studies and data can be transferred to other local practices, prompting practitioners to consider ways in which to create such meaningful learning materials for other settings. Linguistic Landscape Signs in Education: Edusemiotics Theory and the Pedagogy of Multiliteracies

When examining LL signs used for pedagogical purposes, one cannot ignore the fact that such signs are often multimodal, containing both linguistic and non-linguistic information. Signs convey ideas using language; the visual aspects of language (such as typography, placement in the semiotic layout, colour, spatial and kinetic arrangements); sound elements; and photos, drawings, diagrams and maps (e.g. Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2006: 16–17). In fact, written language is not always the central communicative mode of a sign. This multimodal nature of signs is at the centre of the study of the semiotic landscape (e.g. Scollon & Scollon, 2003) and is

234  Part 2: Linguistic Landscape as a Pedagogical Resource

further analysed in LL studies (e.g. Baro, 2020; Jaworski & Thurlow, 2010). Such multimodality affects the ways in which we notice, read and interpret LL signs, and reading multimodal signs requires more than an ability to read written texts. Teaching with LL signs fits organically into the conceptual framework of educational semiotics or edusemiotics. Emerging in the early 21st century, edusemiotics explores the philosophical specifics of semiotics in educational contexts (e.g. Semetsky, 2010, 2017; Stable & Semetsky, 2014). The theory highlights the following features of learning processes and goals: (1) lifelong learning with, through and about signs and the slow transformation of habits (habits of thinking and habits of acting in the world) in order to become a more self-conscious, responsible and empathic person; (2) learning from practical experiences (learning by doing, from real-life situations and meaning-making practices), questioning and seeking various answers, views and interpretations; and (3) a conception of language as one of semiotic structure that exceeds the emphasis on truth and direct representation associated with analytic philosophy. In this sense, the learning process is associated with a diversity of signs, embodied cognition and self-formation (Semetsky, 2017: 6). Further theoretical and empirical studies offer philosophical and ethical reasons for using signs for pedagogical purposes; in addition, they emphasise the need to provide students with meaningful experiences that raise their semiotic consciousness and develop their semiotic competence (Deely & Semetsky, 2017: 211–213; Semetsky, 2017; Stable & Semetsky, 2014). As, according to the theory, human experiences are always marked by signs, and signs are vital to thinking and living, learning with, through and about signs is a natural way of gaining and sharing experiences, meanings and knowledge. Signs and sign-based phenomena (activities and behaviour) are broadly understood: for example, as language and its units, body language, visual communication, media, advertising, material culture, natural elements, narratives, rituals and even a person, value or knowledge (see more in Semetsky, 2010, 2017; Stable & Semetsky, 2014). Backhaus has reviewed the semiotic background of LL signs extensively. He concludes that an LL sign is a specific type of semiotic sign, as it is displayed in the material world in a certain physical form, stands for something other than itself (i.e. it is a signifier that relates to something specific such as a company, a product or a place), conveys a message in linguistic and non-linguistic ways (indexical, iconic and symbolic elements such as drawings, pictograms and written language) with contextdependent meaning and has the potential to be interpreted (Backhaus, 2007: 4–7). In this sense, LL signs fit into the language learning process as a means of looking at language-related issues more broadly by engaging students in the study of the various relationships between LL signs and

Linguistic Landscape Signs in First-Language Learning Materials  235

their contexts. For instance: (1) the LL sign and place; (2) author(s) and readers of the LL sign; (3) form and content of the LL sign and (4) meanings expressed by different languages, linguistic means, images, diagrams, schemes, etc. Given the pedagogical aim, namely, enabling meaningful learning experiences by means of LL signs, it is necessary to consider the interconnections among key concepts such as meaning and meaningful experience, as well as literacy and the pedagogy of multiliteracies. In this regard, edusemiotics accounts of meaning and meaningful experience are pertinent. From an edusemiotics perspective, meaning has been characterised ‘as an effect of an object in the environment of the subject’s action that duly affects the course of his/her action’ (Kukkola & Pikkarainen, 2016: 209), whereas meaningful experience is understood as a process in which students work actively to empirically acquire or develop skills and competences useful for their personal growth alongside the subject content (Kukkola & Pikkarainen, 2016: 209–210). In language classes, ‘operations’ with LL signs originating from various contexts (with different meanings and implications for complex human relationships and social processes) encourage the emergence of literacy in the wider sense through the scrutiny of perceptions, analyses and interpretations. Such an extended literacy competence enables students to discuss conventions, negotiate meanings and navigate multilingual practices. Working with LL signs should help students develop their comprehension of symbolic resources and the relationships among such symbolic resources in texts, as well as the textual practices of local communities or cultures. Recent decades have seen literacy studies taking from applied linguistics, ethnography, critical pedagogy, cultural geography, social semiotics and behavioural sciences to encompass the sociocultural, multimodal and digital aspects of signs (see more in Bezemer & Kress, 2008; Mills, 2016; Street, 1997). One result of such cross-pollination is the pluriliteracy approach. This approach focuses mainly on individual multilingualism, plurilingual literacy practices and their equal value, and plurilingual competence in multilingual education (including CLIL). However, the pluriliteracy approach pays little attention to other modes and semiotic resources besides language (García, Bartlett et al., 2007: 10–13, also in Cenoz, 2009; Common European Framework of References for Languages, 2001; García, Skutnabb-Kangas et al., 2006; Marsh, 2007). In contrast, the multiliteracies approach combines the ‘multi-’ of multiple textual practices (the enormous and significant differences in cultural, social and domain-specific contexts and patterns of communication) with the ‘multi-’ of multimodality (Cope & Kalantzis, 2015: 3). Multiliteracies scholars design learning activity sequences based on four knowledge processes: situated practice, or experiencing; overt

236  Part 2: Linguistic Landscape as a Pedagogical Resource

instruction, or conceptualising; critical framing, or analysing; and transformed practice, or applying (Cope & Kalantzis, 2015: 1–36). The first draws on the experiencing of authentic meaning-making in specific contexts connected to students’ nearby environment. It concerns both the updating and use of students’ real-life experiences, knowledge, skills and opinions and the accumulation of new knowledge through immersion in a range of information sources, interactive and hands-on tasks and experiences. The second component, conceptualisation, develops an explicit meta-language to support active interventions that scaffold student learning. Learners themselves deepen and expand disciplinary knowledge by identifying, naming and categorising the main concepts, significant elements or models; characterising the typical features, patterns and their interactions; raising concerns; summarising and drawing conclusions. Analysing makes sense of these experiences and conceptualisations by interpreting the social contexts and purposes related to meaning-making. At first, learners analyse the content, form and functionality of texts that differ in purpose, addressee and complexity. Then, they expose and reasonably evaluate interests and purposes expressed by individuals or social groups in the communication processes, and the possible impact of these interests or purposes on a person, social group or public opinion. The last, applying, is putting meanings, knowledge and understanding to work effectively in the complex diversity of realworld situations. It is the ability to use available semiotic resources (including language) according to the objective, purpose and addressee in predefined situations or proximate contexts. It also involves improvisations, expressions of voice and perspective, and creative surprises for different audiences in unprecedented circumstances. Each knowledge process is divided into two subgroups. Experiences can be known and new. Conceptualisation can be made by naming or by theory. Analysis can be functional or critical. Finally, application can be made appropriately or creatively (according to Cope & Kalantzis, 2000, 2015, 2020; New London Group, 1996). According to scholars and involved educators, the strengths of the pedagogy of multiliteracies are the transitions between the four dimensions (experiencing, conceptualisation, analysing and applying) and its adaptability across countries, schools and subjects (Cope & Kalantzis, 2015: 31). In sum, both edusemiotics and the pedagogy of multiliteracies give strong philosophical, pedagogical, psychological and social arguments for the use of LL signs in education. In fact, they complement each other well. While edusemiotics offers a broader theoretical frame, the pedagogy of multiliteracies provides the methodological model for learning with, through and about LL signs and suggests practical tools and techniques for transferring learning about signs to the classroom. The following section sketches the language and language education contexts in Latvia, within which the use of LL in textbooks will be examined.

Linguistic Landscape Signs in First-Language Learning Materials  237

Sociolinguistic and Educational Context Languages in Latvia

In 2020, Latvia had 2,076,050 inhabitants (Centrālā statistikas pārvalde, 2020). Latvian is among the Baltic languages of the IndoEuropean language family. It is the only official (state) language; the 2011 population census shows that it is the main language spoken at home by 62.1% of the population (Centrālā statistikas pārvalde, 2014) and that it is the dominant language in various sociolinguistic domains. LL research in seven Latvian cities and some smaller towns also shows the predominance of Latvian over English, Russian and other languages, both in the official and the commercial sphere (e.g. Burr, 2021; Marten, 2010; Pošeiko, 2015). Russian is the biggest minority language, spoken as a first language by around one-third of the population (37.2%, main in-home language). In many situations, Latvian and Russian appear in similar contexts (e.g. in the media, on the street, in shops and in communication with friends – more in Kibbermann & Kļava, 2017: 94–99). Two other languages that deserve mention are Livonian and Latgalian. Livonian is an autochthonous language in Latvia with around 30 speakers. It is currently receiving considerable state support for its revitalisation and research. Latgalian, on the other hand, is a regional variety of Latvian spoken in eastern Latvia. Latgalian is used daily by 8.8% of the population (Centrālā statistikas pārvalde, 2016). In Latgale, 97,600 (35.5% of the region’s inhabitants) speak Latgalian. Language education in Latvian schools

In the 2019/2020 school year, there were 711 public schools in Latvia; 172 of those schools implemented a minority curriculum. Students generally studied using Latvian (73.4% out of 214,521 students between 1st grade and 12th grade) or Russian (25.4%) as the language of instruction (IZM, 2021). Alongside Latvian as a second language, students in these schools also learnt minority languages as an L1. The most common was Russian; other L1s included Polish, Estonian, Lithuanian and Belarusian.1 The first foreign language (English) in all Latvian schools is taught from the first grade (6–7 years old); the second foreign language (mostly Russian or German) from the fourth grade. Some schools additionally offer other foreign languages (e.g. French, Spanish and Chinese) (for more about languages in Latvian education, see Lazdiņa & Marten, 2019). Content Analysis of the Presentation of the Linguistic Landscape in Latvian L1 Textbooks

Textbooks possess the simultaneous roles of mirroring teachers’ and policymakers’ pedagogical beliefs, as well as spurring students, through

238  Part 2: Linguistic Landscape as a Pedagogical Resource

intriguing tasks, discussion prompts and content, to voluntarily assume agency in their own learning process. Effective language textbooks inhabit both roles naturally, without strain or affect. Images in textbooks should be chosen deliberately and should relate to the relevant school subject in order to clarify or provide new information on a specific topic, text or task. Guided questions for the description, analysis and interpretation of images in textbooks are particularly useful for language, communication and cultural teaching and learning (for more about questions in the analysis of LL signs, see Chapelle, 2020: 62–64). The first Latvian L1 textbooks were published in the beginning of the 21st century; in those first textbooks and, in Latvian L1 textbooks since, Latvian literary and folkloric texts have been the favoured type of learning texts (see more in Dzintars, 2013). Methodology

I conducted a content analysis of Latvian L1 textbooks to determine how often images with LL signs were used and to examine the methodology of language teaching that informed the use of such LL signs. Fiftyeight textbooks were chosen for study. The selection was based on the desire to cover the period between the restoration of Latvia’s independence and the present (1991–2018); different age groups (primary school, high school and adult education) and various authors, publishers and target audiences (native speakers, minority school students, foreign students). The focus was on the methodology of first-language teaching. The textbooks were divided into three categories. Forty books were for Latvian as L1 teaching (school students with Latvian as a second or third language also use Latvian as L1 textbooks if they study in schools with Latvian as the language of instruction). Twelve textbooks were for teaching Latvian in minority schools, while six books were for adolescents and adults who learn Latvian as a foreign language in Latvia or abroad. Such a relatively small corpus of textbooks allows us to notice the main similarities and differences in the methodology of language teaching with LL signs, if the book contains any. The content analysis employed the seven criteria is represented in Table 11.1. Results of quantitative analysis

Images with LL sign(s) are included in 62% of the textbooks (36 of the 58), 50% (20) of the Latvian L1 textbooks, 100% (all 12) of the textbooks examined for minority schools and 67% (4) of the textbooks for Latvian as a foreign language. In total, 142 images of LL signs were identified; some textbooks include both photographed and drawn LL signs. Likewise, one image incorporates several LL signs (see Table 11.2 and Figure 11.3).

Linguistic Landscape Signs in First-Language Learning Materials  239

Table 11.1  Criteria and categories of analysis Criteria

Categories of analysis

1

Inclusion of images of LL signs

Number of images with LL signs

2

Type of image of LL signs

Authentic photo; authentic photo with altered verbal text; drawing of a sign which is a clear copy from a Latvian city; drawing of a sign from a non-existent city

3

Type of LL sign

Advertisement, poster, graffiti, warning sign, etc.

4

Languages in the LL sign

Mono/multilingual; which languages appear in the sign

5

Function of the LL sign in the textbook

Illustration for a chapter, definition, dialogue or literary text; part of an exercise; standard example for solving an exercise

6

Type of exercise associated with LL sign

Image description/storytelling; text prediction; answering questions about LL sign content; connecting information; dialogue (including role game); error correction; sentence/text completion; reading aloud; LL research in a surrounding area; memorising

7

Language topic related to exercise with LL sign

Phonetics; lexis; grammar; text genre; sociolinguistics

Table 11.2 shows the number of images containing LL signs and their types, split by category of textbook. The Latvian L1 textbooks have 23 illustrations containing LL signs, 16% of all examined illustrations. Of these, only six illustrations are authentic photos (i.e. ­unadjusted and unmodified for the learning process): two photos of the Freedom Monument, a photo of the sculpture Lielais Kristaps (‘The Great Kristaps’), a photo of a direction sign, a photo of a Latvian Post mailbox and a photo of a supermarket (see two in Figures 11.2 and 11.3). Quantitative data show that real Latvian LL signs are more often used in the textbooks for teaching Latvian as a foreign language (35% of all illustrations with LL signs) than in those for teaching Latvian in minority schools (27% of all illustrations with LL signs). In turn, Latvian L1 textbooks include more drawn LL signs (mainly advertisements, posters and name signs) from imaginary cities; the drawn illustrations account for 52% of all illustrations containing LL signs. The dominance of advertisements, posters and classifieds is understandable, because they have been explicitly mentioned in the subject standard and included in state examinations for a long time: In the 9th and 12th grade centralised examinations, students are expected to demonstrate the ability to create such texts according to literary and genre norms. The results demonstrate that 38% of all LL signs included in the Latvian L1 textbooks (45) are a part of an exercise. This is almost twice as common as in the Latvian textbooks for minority schools (72% of all LL signs).

Number of images containing LL sign(s)

Type of image depicting a LL sign

Type of LL sign

1

2

3

Criterion

43

59 25 19

name sign classified memorial sign

4

working hours sign

32

16

public transport sign

other LL signs (graffiti, sign on mailbox, warning sign, prohibition sign)

12

street name

7

16

poster

road sign

93

advertisement

293

36

drawing of a sign from a non-existent city

5

58

142

Total

drawing of a sign which is a clear copy from a Latvian city

authentic photo with altered verbal text

authentic photo

Categories

–

4

–

–

–

2

5

7

8

9

10

45

12

5

6

23

Books for Latvian L1

–

10

1

7

2

3

6

8

12

5

24

78

13

23

15

51

Books for minority schools

18

3

9

10

2

8

10

49

2

59

170

18

8

5

37

68

Books for Latvian as a foreign language

Categories of textbooks

Table 11.2  Images of LL signs according to seven criteria of analysis (Columns 1 and 2) across three categories of Latvian language textbooks (last three columns)

240  Part 2: Linguistic Landscape as a Pedagogical Resource

Number of languages and which languages appear in the LL sign

Function of the LL sign in the textbook

Type of exercise associated with LL sign

4

5

6

Table 11.2  (Continued)

17 4 1 4

English French Mandarin unclear (i.e. unreadable, code-mixing or other reason why clear assignment was not possible)

image description/storytelling

standard example for solving an exercise

part of an exercise

59

146

50

146

96

293

1

multilingual

illustration for a chapter, definition, dialogue or literary text

3 1

1

Latvian–Georgian English–Latvian

1

Latvian–Russian

Italian–English

6

Latvian–English

12

253

Latvian

bilingual sign

280

monolingual sign

293

6

17

7

17

21

45

1

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

44

44

45

29

56

6

56

16

78

–

–

–

–

–

4

4

2

1

–

1

70

74

78

–

24

73

37

73

59

170

1

3

1

1

2

8

2

–

4

16

139

162

170

(Continued)

Linguistic Landscape Signs in First-Language Learning Materials  241

7

Language topic related to exercise with LL sign

Table 11.2  (Continued)

111 12 10

grammar text genre sociolinguistics

19 114

lexis

phonetics

1

memorising 146

8

17

reading aloud LL research in a surrounding area

19

sentence/text completion

2

64

dialogue (including role game) error correction

20

connecting information

6 40

answering questions about LL sign content

text prediction

1

5

13

5

3

17

–

–

3

8

2

1

3

4

1

–

5

4

39

43

6

56

–

4

8

6

–

11

5

14

5

–

4

3

59

66

6

73

1

4

6

5

53

12

22

242  Part 2: Linguistic Landscape as a Pedagogical Resource

Linguistic Landscape Signs in First-Language Learning Materials  243

Three examples of the function of linguistic landscape signs in Latvian L1 learning

The content analysis of the textbooks proves that Latvian L1 textbooks are still predominately organised by grammatical goals; this is indicated by the layout of the content by grammatical topics (e.g. Pareizruna ‘Speech’, 2 Lietvārds ‘Noun’, Teikums ‘Sentence’), a large number of grammar tables, highlighted language rules and definitions, and tasks for strengthening linguistic competence (including exercises associated with LL signs). In the textbooks for second- and third-grade school students, some LL signs draw students’ attention to phonetic issues: doubling consonants (e.g. in the word balle ‘ball’) and the use of narrow and broad vowels e, ē (e.g. in words avene ‘raspberry’, pārdevējs ‘seller’ and pērk ‘buy’). Certain changes in content and methodology are, however, visible in the Latvian L1 textbooks of the past two decades. Firstly, more-recent textbooks contain a wider variety of texts (including images with LL signs, often with a single, thematic relationship among them). Secondly, the deductive approach more often shifts to an inductive approach, allowing the school students themselves to first notice certain peculiarities of language use, then learn them explicitly. A closer examination of three examples sheds light on the function of LL signs in the learning process. Example 1: Depiction of language as a system

The first image illustrates the depiction of language as a system in the guise of the cityscape of language, or ‘Language City’ (see Figure 11.1). The image appears inside the front and back covers of a sixth-grade textbook, aimed at students around the ages of 11 to 13 years (Urževica, 2002). Separate fragments of the cityscape are dispersed throughout the textbook as chapter title illustrations. Figure 11.1 is a visualisation of a structurally grammatical approach to language teaching. The drawn image metaphorically shows ‘Language City’ and its possible LL with names of businesses and institutions (e.g. Vecvārdu noliktava Apvidvārdi, ‘Warehouse of obsolete words Regionalisms’; TV-radio pareizrunas ierakstu centrs, ‘TV-radio spelling recording centre’ and Viesnīca ‘Pēc stundām’, ‘After Classes Hotel’). Visible street names include Valodas tīrības iela, ‘Language Purity Street’, and Dzimtās valodas prospekts, ‘The Native Language Prospect’). The LL signs in ‘Language City’ have a metalinguistic function to metaphorically show the appropriate principles of language use. For example, the name Pirts Valodas tīrītava, ‘Bathhouse for language purifying’, implies the need for a ‘pure language’. Non-literary language units can be thrown into the dump, as illustrated by the name of the pile of waste: Neliterāro vārdu izgāztuve, ‘Dump of non-literary words’.

244  Part 2: Linguistic Landscape as a Pedagogical Resource

Figure 11.1  A drawing of language as a system, LL of ‘Language City’ with words and phrases in Latvian (Urževica, 2002)

The city depicts language as a system in a creative way, corresponding to students’ visual learning and memory, while at the same time conveying the linguistic attitude of the author towards Latvian language culture. Thus, illustrations of ‘Language City’ focus on students’ linguistic and social knowledge (e.g. the alphabet, the understanding of what people do in a publishing house (tipogrāfijā)) and the systematic arrangement of new, language-topic-related information. Example 2: The symbolic function of LL signs in textbooks and society

The second example illustrates the symbolic function of some LL signs both in textbooks and in Latvian society. The image depicts the Freedom Monument in Riga bearing the inscription Tēvzemei un brīvībai (‘For fatherland and freedom’) which is accompanied by some text (see Figure 11.2). This fragment appears in a first-grade Latvian L1 textbook for students around the ages 6 or 7 (Andersone et al., 2014). It stems from the chapter titled ‘Latvia’, which contains three folk songs about the

Linguistic Landscape Signs in First-Language Learning Materials  245

Figure 11.2  Photograph of the Freedom Monument in Riga accompanied by lines from a nationalist folk song and instructions to study the Latvian inscription in a first-grade textbook (Andersone et al., 2014: 70)

fatherland. The songs contain such lines as Skaista, skaista tēvu zeme/par visām zemītēm (‘Beautiful, beautiful fatherland/over all the little lands’) and Visiem labi, visiem labi/Manā tēvu zemītē (‘All is well, all is well/In my little fatherland’), the latter accompanying the image of the monument. The song is followed by questions about the meanings of the lines and instructions to examine the photo of the monument and its inscription, and think of two sentences about national holidays (or, more relevantly, Proclamation Day). The monument is indirectly compared to the symbol of the fatherland, which is especially important for national holidays. However, there is a lack of transition between talk of the fatherland and public holidays; thus, posing the question to students, ‘What significant celebrations in the country do you know?’ would have been useful. The collection of tasks stimulates students to experience new information (folk songs), conceptualise fatherland and combine this information with existing knowledge about national holidays to create their own text. It does so, however, without acknowledging the four knowledge processes advocated by the pedagogy of multiliteracies, namely, experiencing, conceptualising, analysing and application.

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Example 3: LL and sociolinguistics

The third example illustrates the use of LL signs to familiarise students with sociolinguistic topics. It is a photograph of the outside of a shopping centre (see Figure 11.3) and appears in a Latvian L1 textbook for seventh-grade students around the ages of 12 to 14 (Grigus & Zeiļaka, 2007). This photo is also the only visual material in all the textbooks that demonstrates the use of other languages besides Latvian and directly encourages students to express their views on the diversity of languages and linguistic attitudes. This is surprising, given the more than 20 languages in the LL of eight Latvian cities (see section ‘Languages in Latvia’). In the first task, the students are instructed to think about why the Latvian poet, Jānis Baltvilks, published the following poems, written in the Latvian folk song tradition: Bend, tree tops So that little voices can be heard above you! Let’s sing English texts So that Europe is happy! Let there be words, who had words Shopkeepers, they had words: They have named their shops In non-existent language.

Students’ attention is thereby drawn, on one hand, to expectations regarding language choice in Europe, namely, the use of English and its influence on the local language environment and, on the other hand, to naming strategies in Latvia. The second task is to compare these poems with four Latvian folk songs which appear after the photo in the textbook. Here are two of them: Swing me mother, In the cradle of nightingale, So that I would have sweet dreams And such a nice language. Wherever I went, I walked singing; With a skilful step, With clear and handy language.

Students are nudged to see a difference in the valuation of Latvian and how, in folk songs, Latvian plays an important role in self-representation, communication and the formation of individual identity. The purpose of the tasks is to find out how attitudes towards the choice and use of languages in Latvia have changed. In order to do so, they

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Figure 11.3  A photograph, preceded by two short poems, of the outside of a shopping centre, bearing signs with business names and advertisements in multiple languages in a seventh-grade textbook (Grigus & Zeiļaka, 2007: 6)

need to look at the photo and recall similar examples and then critically assess the change in language use and linguistic attitudes, ideally also referring to the language use in the poems and folk songs. The tasks require the study, comparison and critical analysis of new information (a poem and folk songs). However, students do not conceptualise (e.g. define, explain) task-related terms such as business names, anglicisms, language prestige and linguistic attitude. Students are also not asked to express their opinions, whether orally or in written form, about language choice. These three examples point to various uses of LL signs in language textbooks to teach language: firstly, the teaching of language as a system (e.g. lexis, syntax, punctuation and style); secondly, showing the link between the LL sign and its environment from a cultural and historical perspective (LL sign as symbol and/or reference to significant events, people and traditions) and thirdly, raising awareness about the language situation (including language prestige and linguistic attitudes). Further conclusions regarding the pedagogical goals of images containing LL signs in the sampled Latvian L1 textbooks include: • Drawings of LL signs outnumber photos of LL signs. In some cases, this may be due to the choice not to promote any particular company, event or product.

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• Photos of or with LL signs mainly function as illustrations for literary texts (poems, stories), informative texts, text genre definitions (e.g. advertisement and poster) and/or titles of textbook chapters (e.g. ‘Lexis’ and ‘Communication’). The link between an illustration and the text and/or task is rarely explicitly stated (e.g. by drawing students’ attention and mentioning common keywords). • The illustrations depict mainly monolingual LL signs in Latvian, with little or no respect for the real language situation in Latvian cities; none of the Latvian L1 textbooks has an illustration with LL signs in local languages – Russian, Livonian and Latgalian. • Latvian L1 textbooks do not encourage students to find illustrative examples of language use by exploring the real-world environments they know – for example, on the internet or TV, in bookstores, sports or city streets. • The textbooks do not address non-verbal information in signs; i.e. the semiotic perspective is ignored. In sum, the LL signs included in the textbooks, whether photographed or drawn, exclude some representative features of Latvian cityscapes (e.g. multilingualism and alternatives to diacritical marks in business names, for instance, restaurant name muusu instead of mūsu ‘our’). The accompanying tasks are mostly related to the use of standard language in certain types of text (posters, advertisements and classifieds). In relation to the tasks, signs are often auxiliary rather than functionally central. Sociolinguistic topics are poorly covered, and semiotic-related discussions are not included. And, although signs are to some extent included in the learning process, such learning does not cover the full cycle of experience, conceptualisation, analysis and application. Future learning materials should address these lacunae. Hence, it is logical to ask: To what extent could LL signs be used more prevalently and effectively in language learning? To what extent would the more prevalent use of LL signs in textbooks aid language learning? What should useful and interesting learning materials be like in the 21st century? Creating a Textbook that Uses Linguistic Landscape Signs for Meaningful Learning Experiences

Ceļvedis pilsētas tekstu izpētē (‘A Guide for Exploring City Texts’; Berra, 2020) is a high school textbook that seeks to build on lessons learnt from the analyses of the use of LL in earlier Latvian L1 materials. It aims to expand the use of LL signs in language teaching to emphasise language–environment interactions and encourage a sociolinguistic approach to language learning. It does so by taking a semiotic perspective and highlighting the use and perception of LL signs in various localities. Thus, the

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book develops students’ understanding of LL as a platform for self-representation, social organisation and public communication and the LL approach as a tool for investigating interdisciplinary perspectives. Structure of the textbook

The textbook contains five parts: an introduction; a chapter for teachers; two theoretical chapters for high school students and emergent researchers; four practical chapters and recommended literature. In addition to photos of/with LL signs from different Latvian cities at various times (mainly the early 20th century, the interwar period, Soviet times and today), the textbook includes entries from dictionaries and encyclopaedias; fragments of literature, music, films, popular-scientific and scientific papers, and reference literature; parts of laws; informative texts (including articles and posts on the internet); pictograms and websites. These texts are related to LL signs, their features and functionality, and the perception thereof. All texts are in their original languages (e.g. Latvian, English, Russian, Livonian, Latgalian, German and French) and in semiotic form. The choice of texts is based on the content, not the language; this broadens students’ understanding of the topic to be learnt by allowing them to read texts in the original language and develop their pluriliteracy. Multilingual input raises further discussion (oral/written) in Latvian. The practical chapters are designed around LL signs: restriction and prohibition signs; posters; advertisements and graffiti. These are structured in accordance with the four stages of knowledge processes discussed above. The goals of each chapter are to strengthen linguistic knowledge, develop critical thinking and multiliteracies and develop awareness of the peculiarities of LL signs, their functionality and perceptions thereof in society, literature, media and linguistics. These goals are closely related to the pedagogical principles of edusemiotics. The practical chapters comprise three parts: keywords of the chapter and planned results; a set of tasks about/around LL signs and a self-­ assessment section (open questions, tests or rating scales). They do not include grammar tables and rules; instead, high school students themselves need to compile summaries with the most important information for understanding each type of LL sign (e.g. the typical linguistic patterns of prohibition signs). There are also no answers because in many cases there are several possible options. The tasks in each chapter cover four stages that include the knowledge processes: experiencing, conceptualisation, analysing and applying. First, students get to know the topic through association with familiar themes, texts and contexts, drawing upon their experiences and knowledge. For instance, the following are the first two tasks in the ‘Advertisements’ chapter: (1) Name three to four keywords that describe advertisement and to

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advertise. (2) In a group, look at the list and decide which of the following could be considered an advertisement or could function as an advertisement. Base your answer on the keywords you named above and personal experiences or realistic examples. (Some examples from the list: a family photo at a doctor’s private practice; animals in their natural environment; a poem collection; a music video; radio news in a regional language; a commercial name sign; public kiss of partners; a lecture by a foreign professor; beauty product samples; Latvian song and dance festival.) Next, students formulate what the chapter topic (i.e. advertisement) means to them and what it could mean to other social actors (e.g. advertising agencies, Latgalian and Livonian centres, tourists, language controllers and local/international businessmen). Third, students’ attention is directed to understanding the main concepts of the chapter (i.e. relevant types of LL signs) and studying the definitions and descriptions of these concepts and the chapter topic as presented in various texts (e.g. linguistics and marketing case studies; art and typography recommendations) in different languages. Here, students clarify and supplement the definitions and descriptions they formulated in the previous stage in light of new information. In the fourth stage, students conduct a detailed analysis of LL signs, functionally and critically evaluating the language units, modes, meanings, subtexts, ideas and attitudes of the addressor and addressee, the interests, goals and motives of social actors, and the possible impact of social processes on local communities. For example, looking at various photos containing LL signs, students are asked to critically think about and discuss such questions as: How can the language of graffiti be described? Why are posters on the leading news portal of Latvia different for the Latvian and Russian versions on the portal? What do images in advertisements tell us about the work, interests, behaviour and appearance of women and men? What linguistic and visual metaphors are included in advertisements before the start of the school year? How does language play work on the poster for the launch party for the Latgalian poetry book, Pistacejis (Pistacejis, ‘Pistachios’, and/or Pi stacejis, ‘At the station’)? The in-depth analysis of each type of LL sign takes place gradually, guiding students’ work from simpler questions to complex ones. References to additional learning materials (e.g. linguistic journals, digital dictionaries and Latvian language corpus) and useful information on the internet (e.g. news, podcasts and blogs) help students to complete tasks and prepare for discussions afterwards. Restriction signs in the learning process

The use of restriction and prohibition signs is particularly valuable in language learning because they show: (1) how social life is (non-)

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Figure 11.4  Photographs with restriction and prohibition signs in one language (Latvian/English) or two languages (Latvian and English) in a contemporary high school textbook (Berra, 2020)

linguistically organised in a specific area; (2) which languages are used on regulatory signs; (3) who displays signs regulating people and peoplerelated activities (e.g. smoking, vehicle movements and dog walking) and who displays regulatory signs in one or more language and (4) which places are marked exclusively for certain social groups (e.g. a courtyard entrance only for company employees, a parking place only for clients of an institution and land/property only for its owner/residents). Figure 11.4 shows photos containing restriction signs which accompany tasks that encourage students to identify linguistic and semiotic resources used for expressing restrictions in the city; compare the function of the signs in light of these resources and assess the possible motivations and purposes for language choice, considering target audience and placement. These examples allow students to analyse the strategies for expressing restrictions (e.g. the use of Latvian particle tikai, ‘only’, in the sentence Iebraukšana tikai klientiem! – ‘Entrance for customers only!’) and implicit prohibitions in Latvian (e.g. Neiebrauc, ja neesi klients – ‘Do not enter [the territory] if you are not a customer!’), comparing them with words and strategies in other languages students know. The photographs also raise a discussion on the need for multilingual restrictions.

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The practical task accompanying the photos is an exploration of restriction and prohibition signs, in groups, in the surrounding neighbourhood. Students mark them on the map, then evaluate the usefulness of restriction and prohibition signs and justify possible reasons for the (in-) effectiveness of the signs. Students are required to discuss the need for additional restriction/prohibition signs in some problematic places in the research area. After getting to know the road sign placement policy, students are encouraged to prepare and send a letter of recommendation to the municipality or the responsible road maintenance institution with a map, illustrations of the necessary restriction/prohibition signs and a justification for why the signs are necessary. This task is followed by more creative applications: writing an instruction manual on how to create clearly understandable restriction/prohibition signs; drafting advice for locals and/or foreigners on how to understand restriction/prohibition signs easily; making a collection of modified restriction/prohibition signs with comments (e.g. funny interpretations of road signs). Thus, the knowledge processes (experiencing, conceptualising, analysing and applying) related to LL signs help students develop awareness of both multimodality and multilingualism in their environment and understand ways of expressing restrictions and prohibitions in Latvian in comparison to in other languages. Not least, the tasks encourage students to be socially responsible by assessing to what extent restriction/prohibition signs help local people feel safe and comfortable. In sum, the textbook gives a broad perspective on LL signs and offers possibilities for their further research. It stimulates discussions on the creation, perception, evaluation and functionality of public information and shows both teachers and learners how to apply multilingual practices. It encourages narrow reading (i.e. reading a series of texts on the same topic) and deep learning (e.g. careful study of the main concepts of a topic and relevant LL signs). As such, it aims to facilitate a meaningful experience of the LL. Conclusion: Prospects for Language Learning Materials that Employ Linguistic Landscape to Facilitate Multiliteracies

The historical content analysis conducted above on the LL in Latvian L1 textbooks reveals that these textbooks rarely contain images (especially photos) with LL signs. Where there are illustrations, these are incidental to the tasks in these textbooks. However, examples from these texts also show that it is possible to use LL signs in language teaching: to teach about language as a system, to show the cultural and historical significance of city texts in the local environment and to talk about a country’s language situation.

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The contemporary textbook, A Guide for Exploring City Texts, suggests ways in which language learning materials may build on these earlier potentials by drawing on philosophical ideas from edusemiotics (Semetsky, 2017), the pedagogical methods of multiliteracies (Cope & Kalantzis, 2015) and LL research. It is guided by the usefulness of acquainting language learners with a broad range of semiotic resources and familiarising learners with techniques to recognise the perceptions, evaluations and metalinguistic behaviours of various social actors (e.g. language experts, tourists, businessmen, artists and architects) who use LL. More than in the textbooks discussed here, this emphasises the relationship between text and place – both as a geographical feature and as a social construct for local communities and guests. Although the promotion of multilingual education is common in some settings, multilingual practices and learning about them have been challenged and publicly criticised in some communities; Latvia, where nationally oriented language policy still dominates, is a case in point. Where multilingualism is contested, even small steps towards multilingualism in language learning are an achievement. This chapter has argued that, and sought to illustrate how, the benefits of including LL signs and the LL approach in second-language learning (incidental learning, pragmatic competence, multimodal literacy skills, multicompetence and the symbolic and emotional power of language (see Cenoz & Gorter, 2008)) also apply to first-language learning. And it has shown how – given the greater facility of discourse in the first-language classroom – teachers may highlight topics related to multiliteracy, such as belief, ideology, diversity, inclusion/exclusion and justice. The chapter has also suggested new directions in the use of LL signs and the LL approach in language learning on which curriculum and materials developers as well as language instructors can build. This use of LL signs and the LL approach will allow students to learn through • their own experiences • embodied cognition and a diversity of texts, meanings and contexts • studying a variety of views, interpretations, and linguistic, cultural and social practices • approaching lived/perceived spaces outside the language classroom and • making creative works in various languages, registers and modes. As argued from the combined perspective of edusemiotics and the pedagogy of multiliteracy, such a learning process itself constitutes a learning benefit. Moreover, the inclusion of a broad range of LL signs in language learning materials deepens learners’ knowledge of language and linguistics, exposes them to scholarly literature and research methodologies in linguistics and raises their awareness of language diversity and

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multilingual practices. Going beyond this, the inclusion of LL signs and methodologies in both language teaching and across the curriculum can facilitate interdisciplinary learning and teaching by bringing together discrete subjects such as the arts, sciences and sports. The inclusion of the LL across disciplines has the potential to develop subject-related knowledge, skills and competences, as well as general capabilities for personal and professional growth, such as acting responsibly (see one example in the section on restriction signs above), linking information and working in teams. The challenge for curriculum and materials developers, as well as language instructors, is to facilitate such meaningful learning experiences – learning experiences that mobilise LL in ways that move beyond positioning students as passive absorbers of incidental images towards being active co-creators of meaningful knowledge. Acknowledgements

This chapter has been produced within the framework of the ERAF (Eiropas Reģionālās attīstības fonds) postdoctoral research project ‘Linguistic Landscape of the City as a Multifaceted Resource in the Baltic States: Linguists’, Entrepreneurs’ and Students’ Perspectives’ (No 1.1.1.2/ VIAA/1/16/011). Notes (1) Mazākumtautību izglītība Latvijā [Minority Education in Latvia]. https://www. mfa.gov.lv/arpolitika/sabiedribas-integracija-latvija/mazakumtautibu-izglitiba-latvija (accessed 21 September 2019). (2) Here and later, all examples in Latvian are translated into English by the author.

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Shohamy, E. and Gorter, D. (2009) Introduction. In E. Shohamy and D. Gorter (eds) Linguistic Landscape: Expanding the Scenery (pp. 1–10). New York, NY: Routledge. Solmaz, O. and Przymus, S. (eds) (2021) Linguistic Landscapes in English Language Teaching: A Pedagogical Guidebook. See https://www.llineltproject.com/about/ llinelt-a-pedagogical-guidebook.html (accessed July 2021). Stables, A. and Semetsky, I. (eds) (2014) Pedagogy and Edusemiotics: Theoretical Challenges/Practical Opportunities. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Street, B. (1997) Cross-Cultural Approaches to Literacy. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. Urževica, S. (2002) Latviešu valodas mācība. 6. klasei. Lasāmā grāmata. Soļi. Valodas pilsēta [Latvian for 6th Grade. Reading Book. Steps. Language City]. Rīga: Zvaigzne ABC.

12 Cultural Authenticity in the Linguistic Landscape: Developing AdditionalLanguage Learners’ Critical Intercultural Understanding Yu Li

Introduction

In exploring the pedagogical potentials that linguistic landscape (LL) studies offer to additional-language education, researchers have developed a variety of approaches. Some utilise LLs primarily as additional-language input (e.g. Cenoz & Gorter, 2008; Chern & Dooley, 2014; Chesnut et al., 2013; Hernández-Martín & Skrandies, 2020; Kim & Chesnut, 2020; Lee & Choi, 2020), focusing on cultivating students’ literacy skills, pragmatic competence and multilingual awareness. Others view LL as sociocultural practice (e.g. Curtin, 2009; Dagenais et al., 2009; Elola & Prada, 2020; Huebner, 2006; Lozano et al., 2020; Richardson, 2020; Rowland, 2013; Sayer, 2010, 2020), highlighting the meaning-making agency of language in social interactions to deepen students’ understanding of and engagement in their communities. This current project furthers the role of the LL as a productive site for additional-language education; by engaging students in critical inquiries centring on the cultural authenticity of LLs, it challenges additional-language learners to examine, evaluate and eventually revise their preconceived intercultural notions. More specifically, in this project, undergraduate students of an advanced Mandarin course carried out a semester-long study to observe, document and critique the ‘Chineseness’ in the LL of a Southern US city. Through an iterative process supported by the triadic paradigm of ‘conceived spaces, perceived spaces, and lived spaces’ (Lefebvre, 1991; Trumper-Hecht, 2010) as applied to additional-language learning in the 258

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LL (Malinowski, 2015), students completed coursework encompassing classroom learning, self-guided study and field research. By the end of this project, qualitative data from the students’ written work demonstrated that most of the learners’ overall understanding of cultural authenticity had evolved from a concept that was unitary, static and absolute to an understanding that was more multifaceted, fluid and context-dependent. In other words, the project illustrated that developing additional-language learners’ critical intercultural understanding could be accomplished by engaging them in research on the cultural authenticity of LLs. Critical intercultural understanding refers to an evolving appreciation of the complexity, fluidity and relatedness of cultures developed through evidencebased interrogation of one’s assumptions, ideas and beliefs about cultural production and representation in the context of intercultural communication. Research in LLs using such evidence-based interrogation, especially if it is conducted with the aim to develop critical intercultural understanding, may be referred to as critical LL research. In what follows, I will first discuss the concept of ‘cultural authenticity’: How it is understood in critical intercultural communication (CIC) and related disciplines, and how this understanding has evolved in recent decades. I will also explain from a pedagogical perspective why this concept was the focus of the current project. I will then sketch the project’s methodological approach, which envisioned the investigation of LLs in layers of conceptual spaces, before describing in detail the design and procedure of the project. Following that, I will discuss the qualitative data to demonstrate that student research in the LL is able to galvanise additionallanguage learners to re-examine critically their implicitly held cultural assumptions, reconceptualise their cultural beliefs and, in so doing, develop a more nuanced and sophisticated understanding of intercultural exchange. Finally, before concluding the chapter, I will discuss the project’s pedagogical implications, in particular, how it relates to the prevalent pedagogical model of ‘cultural products, practices, and perspectives (3P)’ as articulated in the national standards for additional-language education in the US (ACTFL, 2017). Critical Intercultural Communication and Cultural Authenticity

In CIC, culture is understood to be a broader and more complex notion than in the traditional approach to investigating intercultural encounters. In fact, CIC calls into question much of the traditional understanding regarding the relationship between communication and culture (Halualani & Nakayama, 2010; Nakayama & Halualani, 2010). To start with, in defining culture, the traditional approach understood the concept largely in terms of national cultures, while scholars taking the critical approach deal with a more complex notion that includes groups based on gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age and physical ability, as well

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as diasporic groups or communities (Nakayama & Martin, 2017: 2). In general, CIC scholars approach culture as ‘heterogeneous, dynamic, and a contested zone’ (Martin & Nakayama, 2018: 89). As these scholars point out, the traditional approach made several problematic assumptions: one, that national cultures were stable and predictable, and two, that groups within nation-states were homogeneous. In addition, the prevailing cultural identity for a nation-state as referenced in the traditional approach was often that of the most powerful group (e.g. referencing the culture of white – and often male – Americans as American culture, or that of educated Hàn Chinese as Chinese culture). These assumptions ignored the rich and complex variations within national cultures, in effect ‘[leading] to inconclusive, misleading, and inaccurate results’ that ‘tended to perpetuate stereotypes’ (Nakayama & Martin, 2017: 3). Not surprisingly, the critical approach understands the concept of cultural authenticity differently from the traditional view. From the critical perspective, first of all, cultural hybridity is a given: ‘Any culture has been impacted by other cultures so that there are parts of other cultures embedded in it’ (Nakayama & Martin, 2017: 5). This view echoes the philosophical debate on cultural contamination and syncretism in recent decades. For example, Appiah (2006) argued against the very idea of cultural purity by calling out its illusory nature: Living cultures do not, in any case, evolve from purity into contamination; change is more a gradual transformation from one mixture to a new mixture, a process that usually takes place at some distance from rules and rulers, in the conversations that occur across cultural boundaries. (Appiah, 2006: 13)

The critical approach holds that cultures are not only heterogeneous but also often conflictual. An important dimension of culture is the notion of a battleground. CIC scholars point out that the individual and collective differences within a given culture determine that ‘any culture is replete with cultural struggles’ (Martin & Nakayama, 2018: 91) and that cultural boundaries, more often than not, are concentrated zones of contestation and conflicts. They pose questions such as the following: How is culture positioned? Who benefits from specific versions or interpretations of culture? Which power forces and structures help to shape and represent culture? Can we ever truly know a culture? What can we not know, and what does that mean for us in a complex intercultural world? (Halualani, 2011: 44). If we speak only in terms of national cultures, we are bound to gloss over the heterogeneity of the cultural inhabitants and lose sight of their struggles. Our understanding will likely be shallow and oversimplified. We may fail to recognise the cultural bias and injustice that some among us suffer and fail to act on their or our behalf. Another difference in the critical approach is that it views culture as ‘fluid, dynamic, and changeable’ (Nakayama & Martin, 2017: 3). The

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traditional perspective tended to assume a static view of culture and focus on comparing, and sometimes predicting, the communication patterns of national cultures (e.g. Do Chinese and Americans communicate differently in interpersonal, organisational or face-to-face contexts?). In CIC, the idea that culture is stable, fixed and unchanging is largely rejected and considered a false notion that could provide a deceptive sense of security (Halualani, 2011: 48). Anthropologists have made a similar transition from categorising cultural patterns as fixed, static and unchanging, to seeing cultural processes as dynamic and fluid, extended across national and regional borders, and connected to issues of race, gender and class within the context of historical social power relations (Baldwin et al., 2006, cited by Martin & Nakayama, 2018: 89). In philosophical terms as well, scholars consider cultural changes congruent with cultural authenticity: ‘Cultures are made of continuities and changes, and the identity of a society can survive through these changes. Societies without change aren’t authentic; they’re just dead’ (Appiah, 2006: 7). Critical scholars of intercultural communication also accord much more importance to the context and power relations involved. Studies of intercultural encounters traditionally focused on interactions at the interpersonal level: For example, how the individuals involved used different languages, exhibited different cultural attitudes, held different values or beliefs, and how such differences influenced their communication. The critical perspective, however, approaches intercultural communication with a focus on macro-level contexts, foregrounding the broader political, social, historical and economic issues and perspectives that inform intercultural interactions (Nakayama & Martin, 2017: 6). Thus, understanding of interpersonal communication is achieved through the lens of social power relations and dynamics, and it is, in turn, employed to critically reflect on these dynamics. The notion in CIC that culture is heterogeneous, fluid and contextdependent, as outlined above, is in agreement with the perspectives developed in recent work in anthropology. From the anthropological perspective, cultural authenticity is understood to be socially constructed, because ‘authenticity is produced through discourses that valorize certain qualities and assign or attribute them to cultural objects and symbols as a means of creating distinction, whether of status, prestige, or value … [by] culture-producing organizations, prestige-granting institutions, and other cultural authorities’ (Grazian, 2012: 192). Thus, there is little inherent about a particular characteristic, quality, practice or belief that permanently links it to one culture or alienates it from another. In this sense, ‘authenticity itself can never be authentic, but must always be performed, staged, fabricated, crafted, or otherwise imagined’ (Grazian, 2012: 192; see also Bielby & Bielby, 1994; Fine, 2003; Lena & Peterson, 2008; Negus, 1998). In other words, in reality, we may speak of multiple valid authenticities. As Theodossopoulos (2013) describes,

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Contemporary anthropology has moved beyond the confines of essentialist conceptualisations of culture. It is now generally accepted that there are no single, bounded, and self-contained cultures, and neither is there a unitary, fixed, and all-embracing anthropological definition of authenticity (Handler & Linnekin, 1984; Handler, 1986; Taylor, 2001; van de Port, 2004; Lindholm, 2008) … Gradually, anthropological scholarship is moving in the direction of acknowledging the existence of plural, multidimensional authenticities (see Field, 2009). (Theodossopoulos, 2013: 340)

Remarkably, in this chapter, we will see some evidence of a similar shift taking place in the additional-language learners’ critical understanding of cultural authenticity as a result of their LL research. In this project, the learners focused on the concept of cultural authenticity and made evidence-based arguments about the ‘Chineseness’ of the Chinese signs displayed in the LL. From a pedagogical perspective, the focus on cultural authenticity was chosen for several reasons. First, it engaged students in a way that required them to directly confront their own preconceived notions regarding the Chinese culture. When asked to evaluate the authenticity of an object, a scene or a transaction in the LL, they had to look to the evidence, ask questions about their subjective standards on authenticity and be able to rationalise and justify their discernment and conclusion. Second, cultural authenticity is a notion that enjoys great currency in popular discourse. It is conceptually familiar to most additional-language learners little versed in sociocultural theory. Discussing the authenticity of the food served at a certain restaurant, for instance, is an everyday experience in online forums or face-to-face conversations, and most additional-language learners are likely to feel that they will have something to say. The purpose of this project, however, was not for the students to reach any conclusive understanding of what authentic Chinese culture does or should look like; rather, it was to engage them in critically examining Chinese cultural authenticity and, by doing so, to understand how heterogeneous, fluid, context-dependent and complex the Chinese culture – or any culture – is. In other words, the purpose was to improve the students’ critical intercultural understanding. As previously discussed, what also made cultural authenticity a particularly useful focus was that the concept is only deceptively shallow. Popular understanding regarding what is culturally authentic tends to be limited and superficial. Indeed, as the students dived into their research, they were able to come away with new and enriched insights. Before we move on to more details, however, some explanation is needed regarding the methodological framework used in this project. Conceived Spaces, Perceived Spaces and Lived Spaces

The current project adopted the conceptual framework of conceived spaces, perceived spaces and lived spaces as its structural approach. First

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conceptualised by Henri Lefebvre in The Production of Space (1974; translation in English, 1991), this triadic paradigm was used by TrumperHecht (2010) to investigate the perceptions and attitudes of Jews and Arabs towards the Arabic text visible in the mixed cities of Israel. Its application to additional-language pedagogy was outlined by Malinowski (2015: 96–97), who suggested that ‘language educators apply the framework to investigating LLs as multiple layers of spaces and designing language-learning activities for additional-language learners to explore, compare, and contrast the distinct representations of language, people, and place afforded by these three spaces’. In this current project, student researchers investigated the concept of cultural authenticity through an iterative process, focusing one at a time on the conceived, the perceived and the lived spaces that constituted the LL they investigated. In this interpretation of the three-spaces framework, the conceived space originates from pre-established or prescribed ideas about a location. Such ideas dictate either ‘the [official and public] representations held and promoted by policy makers’ (Malinowski, 2015: 105) or, in the case of the current study, the personal and more or less private imaginations of a place based on preconceived notions. It is the ‘I-think’s’ and the ‘shouldbe’s’ as in, for example, ‘I think authentic Chinese restaurants should be decorated in red and gold’. Presumably, students come into the project already equipped with some kind of articulatable understanding about such familiar concepts as the ‘cultural authenticity’ of a location, object or experience. Such understanding constitutes the conceived space, the abstract and imagined layer of the place. By contrast, the perceived space refers to ‘that which is created by people and documentable through the camera’ (Malinowski, 2015: 105), the concrete, actual existence that students are able to observe or imagecapture on location. This layer is the space in which some of the evidence is identified, gathered, analysed and eventually used to support a more objective and substantiated understanding that may diverge from that of the conceived space. Additional-language learners’ activities regarding the perceived space may include taking photos and descriptive notes of LL elements, analysing graphic and textual information of such elements, decoding linguistic components including words and symbols, and contextualising and categorising documented signs or other aspects of the LL. They lead to such statements as ‘I see that this Chinese restaurant is decorated in a combination of green and white’, or ‘I discover[ed] that although red is one of the popular colours used in Chinese restaurants in this area, a number of other colours such as green and white are also common’. The lived space is ‘the “experiential” dimension of the LL as presented by the “inhabitants”’ in the LL and requires ‘ethnographically-informed investigation into local actors’ views and experiences’ (Malinowski, 2015: 105). For additional-language researchers, this layer is no longer about their own perspectives – about what ‘I think’ (conceived space) or what ‘I

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observe’ (perceived space) as visitors of the LL; rather, it is about those who reside in the LL – what they think, what they know and how they feel. To acquire an evidence-based understanding of the lived space, students must conduct ethnographic research through participant observation or interviews of the LL inhabitants for their views and experiences. The ‘three-spaces’ framework provides a clear structure for engaging additional-language learners in their investigative work in the LL. As a bridge from theory to practice for the students, a set of key ideas combining the notions of conceived, perceived and lived spaces with the project’s conceptual focus on cultural authenticity were used: conceived cultural authenticity, perceived cultural authenticity and lived cultural authenticity. Moving from conceived to perceived and then to lived, students started by articulating what they believed they knew about authentic Chinese culture, went on to document and analyse what they actually observed in the field, and finally inquired about, experienced and examined what the inhabitants of the Chinese LL believed and felt. From one stage to the next, this layered approach encouraged additional-language learners to observe closely, think critically and remain open-minded to alternative views. The next section will describe how the project was set up and implemented. Project Description

This project was the main assignment of a fourth-year undergraduate Chinese language and culture course. The course focused on sociocultural issues of contemporary China, such as environmental protection, healthcare reform and the economy and was conducted almost entirely in Chinese. Nine students, all at the Intermediate Mid to Advanced Low level of the proficiency scale of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL, 2014), took the course and completed this project. The project tasked the students to investigate the cultural authenticity of the Chinese LLs in various neighbourhoods of metro Atlanta. The students were advised to visit any areas that had Chinese writing displayed in the public space. In groups of threes, they visited one cultural centre, one bookstore, two supermarkets, one food court in a Chinese shopping centre, one bakery and six restaurants, an average of four locations per group. The project spanned the entire semester (Weeks 2 to 16) and incorporated a variety of activities. Because LL research was new to most of the students, it was necessary to introduce the basic theory at the outset of the project. They read and discussed Gorter’s (2013) article, ‘Linguistic landscapes in a multilingual world’ and, in a written reflection, responded to reading questions that guided them to think about the goals, subjects and methods of LL research. This work, done in Week 2, provided the students with a broad theoretical orientation and helped

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them contextualise the specific research they would conduct in the following months. Based on the three-spaces framework, the project adopted an iterative research process consisting of three field trips supported by class discussions before and after each trip. This part of the project took place from Weeks 3 to 9. The discussions centred on three sets of questions provided to the students. The students were given the questions in English in class. They then discussed the questions first in small groups and then as a class, also in English. In these discussions, the students were reminded that there were no right or wrong answers. In facilitating the discussions, the instructor primarily made sure that the students backed up their arguments with specific evidence, but she did not arbitrate or question the correctness of their answers. This was to ensure that the students drew their own conclusions. The students then, as homework, wrote up their responses and reflections in individual essays – one for each question set – in Chinese (350–400 characters). The essays were graded only on the quality of the Chinese language, not on the content, also to ensure that the students could freely express their opinions. Before the first field trip, in Week 3, a class session was devoted to the concept of conceived cultural authenticity. After a brief introduction to the three-spaces framework, students exchanged their views about authentic Chinese culture. They were given the first set of discussion questions to work with: Conceived cultural authenticity: (1) What does being ‘authentically Chinese’ mean to you? (2) What are some visual signs – linguistic or nonlinguistic – that may convey ‘Chineseness’ as you understand it? (3) Does your understanding match that of your classmates? If not, what are the differences and what do you think may have caused the differences?

Based on these questions, the students talked about Chinese writing on public signs, interior décor that looked Chinese, food items that they considered uniquely Chinese and so on. They were then invited to think about the neighbourhoods they would visit on the first field trip and talk about what they specifically expected to see in these locations based on their understanding of cultural authenticity at the time. The students worked in groups of three, and each group made a list of LL elements in the ‘conceived’ space that they would later use to compare with their observations on the field trips. This first class served as a brainstorming session to activate students’ imagination about Chinese culture in the specific LL they would be investigating and compelled them to try to express clearly and coherently their own preconceived notions, possibly seldom articulated otherwise, of what the LL should look or feel like. It prepared the students intellectually for their first field trip. The first field trip and post-trip discussion took place in Weeks 4 and 5. The students were required to document LL elements that illustrated

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Chineseness to them, as they actually observed them on location, i.e. perceived cultural authenticity. They took photos and wrote notes about the LL elements they observed to record how authentically Chinese they considered these elements and to what extent such elements contributed to the authenticity of the location as they perceived it. For example, one student photographed a few of the framed calligraphy works hanging on the walls of a Chinese restaurant and noted that one of the pieces contained a wellknown ancient Chinese poem relating to the name of the restaurant, and another one was a congratulatory verse composed in the Classical Chinese style dedicated to the opening of the restaurant. She wrote that these items appeared authentic for two reasons: Viewers had to be highly literate in Chinese to fully appreciate the calligraphy works, and these pieces appeared to have been custom-created for that particular restaurant. Another student took a photo of a restaurant menu and noted that items such as ‘sweet and sour chicken’ were on the menu and observed that the food was ‘not very authentic’ based on her understanding of Chinese (American) cuisine. In class, the students discussed a second set of questions: Perceived cultural authenticity: (1) What did you see, hear, smell and feel at the location you visited on your first field trip? (2) How culturally authentic to you were the various places at this location, and what evidence do you have to support your understanding? (3) Compared with what you had imagined to be able to observe on this trip, did what you actually observed surprise you in any way? If so, in what ways? (4) If there were discrepancies between what you had imagined and what you observed, were there potential sociocultural reasons that might help explain them?

Additionally, the students were encouraged to think about investigating the ‘lived space’ in preparation for the next field trip: (5) If you have a chance to talk to the locals, what questions will you ask them to further your understanding of what you have observed so far?

This discussion aimed to help the students reflect on their field experience, practise organising and interpreting the evidence they had collected and clarify their understanding of ‘conceived’ versus ‘perceived’ cultural authenticity. By the end of this discussion, they were expected to be prepared to explore a second location, this time with a more enhanced understanding of the three spaces and of cultural authenticity. During Weeks 7 and 8, the students took their second trip. (Week 6 was devoted to a guest lecture on the Chinese community in Washington, DC, Chinatown.) The students were encouraged to pay particular attention to what surprised them. They documented LL elements in a more intentional manner. Besides visual sources of linguistic information, they also attended to such aspects of the landscape as sounds, smells and feelings (e.g. hot, drafty) and, more importantly, conducted ethnographic work observing, interacting with and interviewing the inhabitants of the

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LL. For example, at the Chinese restaurants, they took note of the ethnicity of the customers and the languages they spoke by observing them, as such information might indicate the restaurants’ target clientele and the authenticity of their food and services. The students also talked to the customers and the staff about how authentic the food was in their view and, in a few cases, they talked with the restaurant owners about the choices for the menu items, the names of the restaurants, the décor and atmosphere of the dining spaces and the like, in order to present a variety of perspectives from those whose inhabitancy in the LL was temporary or relatively permanent. The conversations, primarily in English, were not recorded, and the students took written notes of the key points. When they returned to the classroom again, the students reflected on their second field trip based on a third set of discussion questions focusing on lived cultural authenticity: Lived cultural authenticity: (1) How important was it to your interviewees for the businesses you visited to be authentically Chinese? (2) What did it mean to them for the businesses to be authentically Chinese, and what had been done to accomplish that? (3) Did your understanding of cultural authenticity match that of your interviewees? If not, what were the differences and what did you think might have caused the differences? (4) What were some of the things, if any, that your interviewees would like to do to improve the representation of the Chinese culture?

In Week 9, the students took the third and last field trip. This trip was an opportunity for them to gather additional data by either visiting a new location or revisiting one of the previous locations. After the students returned from this trip, in Week 10, they began working on their final paper. The paper asked them to, based on the three response essays, further reflect on their understanding of Chinese cultural authenticity, especially if and how that understanding had changed. This part of the project again started with a discussion session in class in English. Students were asked to work with each other to consider the following questions and submit their individual responses in writing in English as well: Summative reflection on cultural authenticity: (1) What was your understanding of ‘cultural authenticity’ before the LL project? (2) What locations did you visit? What LL elements (including sight, smell, sound, people, etc.) did you observe and document at each of the locations? (3) Has your understanding of cultural authenticity changed? If so, in what ways? (4) What do you think you may be able to argue in your paper?

This final, summative response was intended to prompt the students to reflect on their semester-long research experience and outcome and start building an overall argument for their research papers. Then, during Weeks 11 to 16, the students drafted and revised their papers (in Chinese) and presented their research, both orally and in writing (both in Chinese as well), to conclude this project.

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Data and Discussion

This section will present and analyse qualitative data from the students’ reflection essays on conceived, perceived and lived cultural authenticity, their summative reflections and their research papers. The majority (7 out of 9) of the students reported in the summative reflections that their understanding about cultural authenticity had changed. The overall direction of the change was towards a greater appreciation of the complexity, diversity, fluidity and context-dependency of Chinese culture represented in the LL of Atlanta. The students’ changes in understanding were, of course, not uniform, possibly due to their diverse backgrounds and prior experience in Chinese culture: Three of them – Ana, Elena and Glen (pseudonyms, same below) – were of Western heritage. Ana and Elena grew up in the US. Ana had spent her sophomore year of high school in China, but Elena’s experience in Chinese was limited to her classwork in college. Glen grew up in Italy and the US with Russian-speaking parents and had attended high school in Beijing for a year. Three other students – Ben, Clara and Fiona – came from South Korea. They had all studied some Chinese in South Korean high schools, and Fiona had lived in China for some time (duration unknown). Diana was Tibetan, but she had attended schools in California for several years before coming to Atlanta for college. Hana and Ira grew up in the US in Chinese-speaking households and had frequently visited China. The two students who reported a lack of change in understanding in their summative reflections were Clara and Ira. It is worth noting that although Clara reported that her understanding had not changed, her written responses and paper did reflect some changes. The students’ initial notion of cultural authenticity indicated a conceptualisation of culture as something pure, fixed and absolute. Fiona believed that ‘cultural authenticity [was] a value not influenced by different cultures and people groups’. Ira thought cultural authenticity meant ‘not influenced by other cultures [, and people] would practise and portray it in the same way as [in] the native country’. Elena ‘understood the concept as black and white – authentic or not – without considering the blending of cultures’. Ben also wrote that ‘before the project, my understanding of cultural authenticity was keeping the culture free from any foreign influence. I always thought culture had to be fully preserved and could not be subjected to change to be authentic’, and ‘something is either authentic or not’. Furthermore, a few students seemed to subscribe to a view of cultures as defined by national borders or identities. ‘My understanding of cultural authenticity was just simply how well a culture represented in another country represents the culture back home’ (Clara). ‘It was important to speak with people of Chinese nationality about what counted as being culturally authentic: ties to history, tradition and geographic region’ (Glen).

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By the end of the project, most of the students articulated a more nuanced and sophisticated understanding of what constituted cultural authenticity. ‘I used to think as long as it is [a] very ethnic type of service or product [it is authentic], but now I realise it is more than that and involves people who work there and customers who shop there’ (Hana). ‘I have since learnt that cultural authenticity is a broad concept that can be argued to encompass many different things. Some can define authenticity in a way different than another [others], but with the proper support these different definitions are acceptable’ (Fiona). A few students began to question the value judgement implied in ‘authenticity’, reflecting on their field experience. The owners of the Panda Express restaurant told the students that they were proud of serving food that was ‘authentically Chinese American’. Another restaurant, Golden Buddha, served Korean Chinese cuisine, which the customers, including the students themselves, enjoyed. From such experiences, the students concluded that not being authentic in the narrow sense of the Chinese culture did not necessarily mean something inferior. Realising that the word ‘authenticity’ in its common usage often implied superiority, they further argued that the evaluation of cultural authenticity should not be a value judgement. Fiona suggested changing the word ‘authenticity’ to ‘heritage’ in the research question of the project to avoid students making such judgements. A close look at how the seven students described the changes in their understanding of authentic Chineseness revealed several general patterns. The students in general recognised that the hybridisation between Chinese and other cultures had been pervasive and cross-fertilisations observed in the field were just as valuable as the ‘pure’ Chinese culture they had imagined. For example, Glen ‘noticed that there were degrees of cultural authenticity: little to none, a mixture of Chinese and American, full or Chinese’. Fiona said clearly that ‘an authentic culture includes elements of heterogeneity’, and Elena, quite eloquently, said that ‘culture is pure only in an isolated bubble, but with globalisation, as long as a culture’s essential tenets remain, the incorporation of some other cultures does not seem to sully the culturally authentic spirit’. Even Clara, who did not believe her understanding had changed, wrote that ‘I realised how hard it is to present a culture in a manner that both properly shows authenticity and fits into the culture in which people want to present their culture’. They also recognised that cultures were changeable and constantly changed. ‘As time goes by, culture cannot and doesn’t have to stay the same but always changes [according] to the environment’ (Ben). ‘Cultural authenticity is not stagnant or fixed. It continues to change and needs to be re-evaluated and redefined’ (Fiona). ‘I now understand cultural authenticity to be more fluid than the once static definition I thought ... That does not mean that adapting to a changing cultural condition lessens the authenticity’ (Elena).

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They learnt to define cultural authenticity in context. They recognised that what being authentic meant might change depending on who was making the judgement and in what situation. ‘Cultural authenticity is shaped/modified based on the setting and people involved’ (Diana). Chinese natives likely used different standards from non-Chinese people. Ben’s group visited the restaurant that served Korean Chinese food. According to Ben, this type of food was more likely to be perceived as authentic by native Koreans who had been exposed to it in Korea than by native Chinese who had not. Glen pointed out that, in a market economy, the authenticity of goods and services was most likely to be decided by the clientele to whom the businesses inevitably catered. When a significant portion of the customers were Koreans or Korean Americans, adopting a Korean–Chinese identity through the food the restaurant served helped maximise its appeal to these customers. In this way, the standard for authenticity changed depending on the location and the clientele. ‘Cultural authenticity is defined in context and there is not an absolute standard for authenticity’ (Ben). ‘I used to be conservative in my beliefs, thinking that cultural authenticity can only be obtained where the culture originated. Now I understand that cultural authenticity can be achieved anywhere’ (Diana). The students wrote that cultural authenticity was a dynamic concept also because it was shaped by how people related to and interacted with each other. They discovered that how others perceived them in terms of their cultural identity in relation to the perceivers might shape the authenticity of the cultural experience. Diana wrote about one field trip, ‘when I ordered beef noodles, because the waiter knew that I was not Chinese, he asked if I’d like it to be less spicy. I saw how a restaurant adapted to the customers’ preferences based on their cultural assumptions about the customers’. Fiona, Ben and Clara had a similar experience, but it played out in an almost opposite way. All three of them were Asian, but none was Chinese in their cultural background. ‘We went to the same restaurant twice. When we had an American server, we got served more Americanised Chinese food [than when we had a Chinese server]. It seemed the American server perceived us as non-Chinese while the Chinese server perceived us as more Chinese than the average customers’. Thus, it appeared that the interlocutors’ relational perceptions of each other’s cultural identities – rather than their supposedly inherent and absolute identities – played a key role in the dynamics of these intercultural transactions. As Clara reflected in her paper, ‘when we talk about cultural authenticity, we need to consider to whom [the question is posed]’. Pedagogical and Theoretical Implications

From the broader perspective of additional language and cultural education as a field, there have been disciplinary shifts in recent decades

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towards language-learning activities such as those supported by student research in LLs. For example, the content standards by ACTFL (2014) proposed the engagement of student learning in the communities (one of the Five C’s: Communication, Cultures, Connections, Comparisons and Communities), the Modern Language Association (MLA) called for developing students’ translingual and transcultural competence (MLA, 2007), the New London Group (1996) advocated for a ‘pedagogy of multiliteracies’, and there were also ‘the social turn in SLA’ (e.g. Firth & Wagner, 1997), ‘social pedagogies’ (Bass & Elmendorf, 2012), and the ‘spatialization of literacy education’ (Leander & Sheehy, 2004). This current project is a response to these calls for pedagogical changes to more rigorously engage additional-language learners in sociocultural study and research. Additional-language learners’ investigation of urban LLs constitutes an intellectually driven approach to developing students’ translingual and transcultural competence as advocated by the MLA (2007). It is also able to fulfil all Five C’s of the ACTFL Standards (2014). Furthermore, it answers to the requirement as articulated in ACTFL’s model for cultural teaching and learning – cultural products, practices and perspectives (3P) – to cultivate a more critical intercultural communicative competence after additional-language learners reach the advanced level in their linguistic proficiency (ACTFL, 2017): Advanced: In my own and other cultures, I can explain some diversity among products and practices and how it relates to perspectives. I can interact at a competent level in familiar and some unfamiliar contexts. Superior: In my own and other cultures, I can suspend judgement while critically examining products, practices and perspectives. I can interact in complex situations to ensure a shared understanding of culture. Distinguished: In my own and other cultures, I can objectively evaluate products and practices and mediate perspectives. I can engage with complexity and pluricultural identities and serve as a mediator between and among cultures.

The learning outcomes of this current project, as discussed in the previous section, coincide with the above expectations of additional-language learners to be able to explain cultural diversity (Advanced), critically examine cultures (Superior) and objectively evaluate cultures (Distinguished). Indeed, additional-language learners’ research in LLs engages students in critical thinking and learning in tandem with developing their translingual and transcultural proficiency. One may further argue that it does so not just at or above the advanced proficiency level and may be applicable to pre-advanced students as well. According to ACTFL’s can-do statement in intercultural communication in reference to the 3P model, pre-advanced students are expected to be able to

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identify (Novice) or compare (Intermediate) cultural products and practices to help them understand perspectives and to be able to interact at a survival (Novice) or a functional (Intermediate) level in familiar contexts (ACTFL, 2017). The conceptualisation of culture in these statements, however, seems to still fall along the lines of a traditional approach to intercultural communication: Identifying or comparing certain products, practices or perspectives as belonging to a particular culture (but not others) may run the risk of promoting or calcifying an essentialist view of national cultures, or what additional-language educators traditionally refer to as ‘native culture’ versus ‘target culture’. It may be counterproductive if the ultimate goal is to, as articulated by the Advanced, Superior and Distinguished can-do statements, develop students’ critical competence and approach to intercultural encounters. Student-centred LL research may hold the key to solving this contradiction: Although this current project was for an advanced language course, it may be feasibly adapted and adopted to engage undergraduate students in pre-advanced courses, as long as allowance is made for the students to complete a greater portion of the work in the language of instruction (instead of the language they are learning). Empirical data are needed to know with certainty if this is indeed the case. If it is, then the current model of teaching culture to learners of additional languages in the US (ACTFL, 2017), as described above, will need to be revised to be fully consistent with the critical approach to intercultural communication from the Novice level to the Distinguished level. In other words, engaging additionallanguage learners in critical LL research may constitute an essential curricular component – in terms of both content and pedagogy – of additional language and critical intercultural education. Conclusion

LL research examines the creation, display and manipulation of semiotic information in public spaces to uncover the sociocultural factors behind such creation, display or manipulation. Student-centred, critical LL research has the potential to promote intercultural understanding among learners of additional languages and cultures. The current project, for example, engaged advanced learners of Chinese in critically examining their preconceived notions about cultural authenticity. By gathering Chinese LL data on fieldtrips and reflecting on them in class discussions and written assignments, the students conducted iterative studies of what authentic Chinese culture meant to them and to the inhabitants of the Chinese LL in a metropolitan area. The ‘conceived space, perceived space and lived space’ research paradigm and the evidence-based approach encouraged the students to thoughtfully articulate their personal preconceptions about cultural authenticity, to purposefully investigate the LL reality in comparison with their own beliefs, and to critically re-examine, modify and deepen their intercultural understanding.

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The design of the project was not without its limitations. Conclusions were drawn almost entirely based on self-reported data gathered by the students and could benefit from additional external assessment. Carefully designed instruments that measure the changes in students’ intercultural competency (rather than merely intercultural understanding) before and after the project could potentially allow for a stronger claim to its pedagogical efficacy, or lack thereof. In addition, the current design did not incorporate the assessment of students’ linguistic learning as one of its key outcomes. Participants used English in the class discussions before and after the field trips and on the fieldtrips, as well as for the summative reflection, and they used Chinese only for the three shorter written responses to questions about conceived space, perceived space and lived space, and the final paper and its presentation. The project could potentially make language learning a more equally important goal as cultural learning despite that the current design focused much more heavily on the latter. These limitations might be worth considering by those interested in adopting a similar project design in their own teaching. Despite the above limitations, however, the project generated valuable evidence for students’ improved understanding of cultural authenticity in general and authentic Chinese culture more specifically. The student researchers started out with a relatively simple, narrow and static view of cultural authenticity and considered it a more or less unitary, pure and permanent concept. Through critical analyses of the LL data, they were able to modify their preestablished ideas and develop a more nuanced and sophisticated understanding of cultural authenticity in recognising cultures to be almost always more complex, hybrid, dynamic and context dependent. When engaged in intentional gathering and critical analysis of the intercultural evidence widely available in the LL, these student researchers came to terms with their preconceived notions to achieve a more nuanced and sophisticated intercultural understanding. Such a process required them to approach their subject matter with objectivity and openmindedness and to have empathy for others. Instead of assigning a superior status to pure and unchanging (yet non-existent) authentic forms of culture, they learnt to appreciate more the mixed and dynamic nature of cultures and to value more the diversity of multiple authenticities. In this way, critical LL research may have the potential not only to deepen student researchers’ understanding of the sociocultural reality but also to motivate positive change towards a more tolerant, just and equitable society. References ACTFL (2014) World-readiness standards for learning languages. See https://www.actfl. org/publications/all/world-readiness-standards-learning-languages (accessed July 2021). ACTFL (2017) CSSFL-ACTFL can-do statements: Performance indicators for language learners. See https://www.actfl.org/sites/default/files/CanDos/Intercultural%20 Can-Do_Statements.pdf (accessed July 2021).

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Appiah, K.A. (2006) The case for contamination. The New York Times Magazine, 1 January. See https://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/01/magazine/the-case-for-contamination.html (accessed July 2021). Bass, R. and Elmendorf, H. (2012) Designing for difficulty: Social pedagogies as a framework for course design. See https://blogs.commons.georgetown.edu/bassr/socialpedagogies/ (accessed July 2021). Bielby, W.T. and Bielby, D.D. (1994) ‘All hits are flukes’: Institutional decision-making and the rhetoric of network prime-time program development. American Journal of Sociology 99 (5), 1287–1313. Byram, M. (1997) Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Canagarajah, A.S. (2002) Globalization, methods and practice in periphery classrooms. In D. Block and D. Cameron (eds) Globalization and Language Teaching (pp. 134– 151). London: Routledge. Cenoz, J. and Gorter, D. (2008) The linguistic landscape as an additional source of input in second language acquisition. IRAL: International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching 46 (3), 267–287. Chern, C.-I. and Dooley, K. (2014) Learning English by walking down the street. ELT Journal 68 (2), 113–123. Chesnut, M., Lee, V. and Schulte, J. (2013) The language lessons around us: Undergraduate English pedagogy and linguistic landscape research. English Teaching; Hamilton 12 (2), 102–120. Curtin, M. (2009) Language on display: Indexical signs, identities and the linguistic landscape of Taipei. In E. Shohamy and D. Gorter (eds) Linguistic Landscape: Expanding the Scenery (pp. 221–237). New York, NY: Routledge. Dagenais, D., Moore, D., Sabatier, C., Lamarre, S. and Armand, F. (2009) Linguistic landscape and language awareness. In E. Shohamy and D. Gorter (eds) Linguistic Landscape: Expanding the Scenery (pp. 253–269). New York, NY: Routledge. Elola, I. and Prada, J. (2020) Developing critical sociolinguistic awareness through ­linguistic landscapes in a mixed classroom: The case of Spanish in Texas. In D.  Malinowski, H.H. Maxim and S. Dubreil (eds) Language Teaching in the Linguistic Landscape: Mobilizing Pedagogy in Public Space (pp. 223–250). Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55761-4_11 Field, L. (2009) Four kinds of authenticity? Regarding Nicaraguan pottery in Scandinavian museums, 2006–08. American Ethnologist 36 (3), 507–520. Fine, G.A. (2003) Crafting authenticity: The validation of identity in self-taught art. Theory and Society 32, 153–180. Firth, A. and Wagner, J. (1997) On discourse, communication, and (some) fundamental concepts in SLA research. Modern Language Journal 81 (3), 285–300. Gorter, D. (2013) Linguistic landscapes in a multilingual world. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 33, 190–212. Grazian, D. (2012) Demystifying authenticity in the sociology of culture. In J.R. Hall, L.  Grindstaff and M. Lo (eds) Handbook of Cultural Sociology (pp. 191–200). London: Routledge. Gudykunst, W. (2004) Bridging Differences: Effective Intergroup Communication (4th edn). London: Sage. Halualani, R.T. (2011) In/visible dimensions: Framing the intercultural communication course through a critical intercultural communication framework. Intercultural Education 22 (1), 43–54. Halualani, R.T. and Nakayama, N.T. (2010) Critical intercultural communication studies: At a crossroads. In T.K. Nakayama and R.T. Halualani (eds) The Handbook of Critical Intercultural Communication (pp. 1–16). Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell. Handler, R. (1986) Authenticity. Anthropology Today 2 (1), 2–4.

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Handler, R. and Linnekin, J. (1984) Tradition, genuine or spurious. The Journal of American Folklore 97 (385), 273–290. Hernández-Martín, L. and Skrandies, P. (2020) Taking the foreign out of language teaching: Opening up the classroom to the multilingual city. In D. Malinowski, H.H. Maxim and S. Dubreil (eds) Language Teaching in the Linguistic Landscape: Mobilizing Pedagogy in Public Space (pp. 293–325). Cham: Springer. https://doi. org/10.1007/978-3-030-55761-4_13 Huebner, T. (2006) Bangkok’s linguistic landscapes: Environmental print, codemixing and language change. In D. Gorter (ed.) Linguistic Landscape: A New Approach to Multilingualism (pp. 31–51). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Jordan, S.A. (2002) Ethnographic encounters: The processes of cultural translation. Language and Intercultural Communication 2 (2), 96–110. Kim, S. and Chesnut, M. (2020) Teaching with virtual linguistic landscapes: Developing translingual and transcultural competence. In D. Malinowski, H.H. Maxim and S. Dubreil (eds) Language Teaching in the Linguistic Landscape: Mobilizing Pedagogy in Public Space (pp. 69–92). Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-03055761-4_4 Leander, K.M. and Sheehy, M. (eds) (2004) Spatializing Literacy Research and Practice. New York, NY: Peter Lang. Lee, H. and Choi, B. (2020) A geolocative linguistic landscape project in Korean as Foreign Language education. In D. Malinowski, H.H. Maxim and S. Dubreil (eds) Language Teaching in the Linguistic Landscape: Mobilizing Pedagogy in Public Space (pp. 183– 204). Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55761-4_9 Lefebvre, H. (1991) The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell. Lena, J.C. and Peterson, R.A. (2008) Classification and culture: Types and trajectories of music genres. American Sociological Review 73, 697–718. Lindholm, C. (2008) Culture and Authenticity. Malden, MA; Oxford: Blackwell. Lozano, M.E., Jiménez-Caicedo, J.P. and Abraham, L.B. (2020) Linguistic landscape projects in language teaching: Opportunities for critical language learning beyond the classroom. In D. Malinowski, H.H. Maxim and S. Dubreil (eds) Language Teaching in the Linguistic Landscape: Mobilizing Pedagogy in Public Space (pp. 17–42). Cham, Switzerland: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55761-4_2 Malinowski, D. (2015) Opening spaces of learning in the linguistic landscape. Linguistic Landscape 1 (1), 95–113. Martin, J.N. and Nakayama, T.K. (2018) Intercultural Communication in Contexts. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education. MLA. (2007) Foreign languages and higher education: New structures for a changed world. See http://www.mla.org/flreport (accessed July 2021). Nakayama, T.K. and Halualani R.T. (2010) The Handbook of Critical Intercultural Communication. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Nakayama, T.K. and Martin, J.N. (2017) Critical intercultural communication, overview. In Y.Y. Kim (ed.) The International Encyclopedia of Intercultural Communication (pp. 1–13). Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell. Negus, K. (1998) Cultural production and the corporation: Musical genres and the strategic management of creativity in the US recording industry. Media, Culture and Society 20, 359–79. New London Group (1996) A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review 66 (1), 60–92. Richardson, D.F. (2020) Floating traffic signs and the ambiguity of silence in the linguistic landscape. In D. Malinowski, H.H. Maxim and S. Dubreil (eds) Language Teaching in the Linguistic Landscape: Mobilizing Pedagogy in Public Space (pp. 163–182). Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55761-4_8 Rowland, L. (2013) The pedagogical benefits of a linguistic landscape project in Japan. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 16 (4), 494–505.

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Sayer, P. (2010) Using the linguistic landscape as a pedagogical resource. ELT Journal 64 (2), 143–154. Sayer, P. (2020) Ethnographic language learning projects through the linguistic landscape. In D. Malinowski, H.H. Maxim and S. Dubreil (eds) Language Teaching in the Linguistic Landscape: Mobilizing Pedagogy in Public Space (pp. 327–347). Cham, Switzerland: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55761-4_14 Taylor, J. (2001) Authenticity and sincerity in tourism. Annals of Tourism Research 28 (1), 7–26. Theodossopoulos, D. (2013) Laying claim to authenticity: Five anthropological dilemmas. Anthropological Quarterly 86 (2), 337–360. Trumper-Hecht, N. (2010) Linguistic landscape in mixed cities in Israel from the perspective of ‘walkers’: The case of Arabic. In E. Shohamy, E. Ben-Rafael and M. Barni (eds) Linguistic Landscape in the City (pp. 235–251). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Van de Port, M. (2004) Registers of incontestability: The question for authenticity in academia and beyond. Ethnofoor, XVII (1/2), 7–22.

13 Linguistic Landscapes in Educational Contexts: An Afterword Durk Gorter and Jasone Cenoz

Introduction

Linguistic landscape studies have come a long way from their early days when most investigations were a kind of inventory of the diversity of languages on static signs in public spaces (Backhaus, 2007; Shohamy & Gorter, 2009; Spolsky & Cooper, 1991). Today, such studies are highly diversified investigations of how linguistic landscapes originate and how they are constructed, perceived, experienced and given meaning. This development of the field over more than a decade is reflected in the contributions to this edited volume. The study of linguistic landscapes has been defined as ‘attempts to understand the motives, uses, ideologies, language varieties and contestations of multiple forms of “languages” as they are displayed in public spaces’ (Shohamy & Ben-Rafael, 2015: 1). However, the locus of linguistic landscape studies may be not only public spaces but also different (semi-)public institutions. In particular, educational contexts are rich sites of language on display that hold the promise of interesting, relevant, engaging and innovative research studies. A basic distinction can be made between, on one hand, the study of the display of signs in what has been referred to as the ‘schoolscape’ and, on the other hand, the use of linguistic materials from signage as a pedagogical tool (Gorter, 2018). This distinction is reflected in the two parts of the book. The linguistic landscapes of classrooms and corridors of schools and other educational contexts, the so-called schoolscapes (Brown, 2005), present themselves as a fruitful décor that is available for in-depth exploration by researchers. At the same time, education is an institution that can offer opportunities for students to use linguistic landscapes ‘as a powerful tool for … meaningful language learning’ (Shohamy & Waksman, 2009: 326). Of course, this is not an absolute division between two exclusive approaches; it is more like a continuum, because the two approaches can be combined and the emphasis can be more or less 277

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on one or the other. As the chapters in this book demonstrate, signage inside and outside the school covers a variety of issues to be examined. These studies lead to a deeper understanding of what happens in learning and teaching contexts and beyond and is relevant for research on education in general. Education turns out to be a productive domain for the field of linguistic landscape studies where it is consistently receiving more attention in language teaching (Carr, 2019). The authors of the contributions in this edited volume demonstrate that the linguistic landscape in educational contexts in the wide sense of the word provides a promising way forward to learn more about the signage that surrounds students and teachers either in their immediate school context or in society at large. The contributions cover a diverse set of themes about language diversity, social values, critical consciousness and language learning, among others. Taken together, the chapters take linguistic landscape studies a step further. The aim of this concluding chapter is to look into theoretical approaches and research methods as areas where progress is being made. All chapters in this book show directly or indirectly that the concepts and insights from linguistic landscape studies in general can be applied to educational contexts, in a narrow or wide sense, and thus can be of great relevance to teachers and students, and also beyond to any learners. The power of linguistic landscapes as a pedagogical tool is not limited to one target group of, for example, university students (as in Sayer, 2009). Learners of all ages can be involved, and this is shown in this collection. The target groups vary from very young children to adults, and for each group, the pedagogical value and the possibilities for learning and teaching become clear. At the same time, a critical perspective is possible, and issues of inequality in the linguistic landscape play an important role. We can group the chapters by the targeted age group and, by going over the contributions in this way, we can provide a first brief characterisation of the topic of each chapter, which includes the social context of each study and its location. The youngest age group (children from ages one to five) was studied by Straszer and Kroik in a preschool in a town in the north of Sweden, located in an area where Saami has a presence as a minority language. They look into the visibility and salience of Saami in linguistic and cultural signs and artefacts to explore their functions. Likewise, Harris, Cunningham, King and Stirling focus on early childhood in an education centre in New Zealand where the children are immersed in Māori, the indigenous language. In their study, they examined the way in which the children, teachers and families are influenced by the linguistic landscape. A slightly older age group is dealt with by Krompák in her chapter about a primary school in a neighbourhood with a high immigrant population in the German-speaking part of Switzerland. The pupils are

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confronted with Standard German messages on their blackboards, even if 85% have an immigrant background and these children share 36 different languages among them. The case in the chapter by Sullivan, Waldman and Wiklund is similar because they consider sixth-grade pupils at a primary school in a town of 100,000 inhabitants in northern Sweden, 250 miles south of the Arctic Circle. The municipality is highly diverse, with teaching provided in 42 mother tongues. Their study focuses on how the linguistic landscape supports pupils’ learning about democratic values. The next age group is secondary school students, who are the subjects of two chapters. Burr shows how language learning textbooks may offer learners of Latvian as their first language the possibility of learning about linguistic landscapes. Bagna and Bellinzona study 12 secondary schools in Italy, which have high percentages of migrant students. They make the interesting observation that the linguistic landscape inside the schools plays the role of a ‘third teacher’, next to the class teacher and the learning materials or textbooks. In another chapter, Lehner also investigates the age group of secondary school students. Her case study takes place among migrant adolescents in a youth club in Vienna, Austria, thus beyond the school context. These young people have more than 30 languages and language varieties among them and are surrounded by a predominantly monolingual German linguistic landscape (85%) with a bit of English (11%) and titbits of other languages, such as Arabic or Farsi/Dari, thrown in. They actively engage in this linguistic landscape themselves when they participate in a photo workshop to discuss their perspective on the institution. University students represent the age group of young adults who are over-represented in scientific research because they are more accessible to researchers. Accordingly, they are the subjects in the investigations in four chapters of this book. In Huang Fanglei’s case study, students at a university in Hong Kong are confronted with neoliberal ideologies channelled through posters from the university’s health services. Li carries out a project among undergraduate students taking an advanced course in Chinese language and culture at a university in a southern city in the United States. These students undertook field trips during which they conducted linguistic landscape research in various neighbourhoods, thereby becoming more meta-culturally aware. De Wilde and her colleagues involved master’s students at a university in Flanders, Belgium. Those students had to carry out an assignment about the linguistic landscape and the researchers’ report on the students’ experiences using this learning tool. Older adult learners are also included in the age range covered in this book. In her chapter, Vandenbroucke focuses on adult migrants in the city of Ghent in East Flanders, Belgium. These migrants are learners of Dutch and may be construed as new speakers. This brief first introductory overview of the chapters demonstrates that all age groups can be relevant and interesting for linguistic landscape

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studies situated in various educational contexts. The overview also highlights the broad geographic coverage of the studies, spanning four continents. In the next section, we discuss the theoretical approaches and the research methods used in this collection. We also introduce a model of multilingual inequality in public spaces which aims to offer an overarching perspective that brings together various strands in linguistic landscape research. We wrap up this chapter by pointing to some limitations and future directions. Theoretical Approaches

This book aims at promoting the field of linguistic landscape studies in an educational context. Thus, it is important to further develop existing theoretical frameworks and concepts. In their overview of the history, theoretical topics and methodologies of this field, Van Mensel et al. (2016) emphasise its kaleidoscopic nature, observing that studies are based on a wide range of theoretical viewpoints. Indeed, the ever-increasing number of studies over the past decades has not given rise to an overarching theoretical framework. Theoretical approaches are borrowed to a large degree from other, existing specialisations or disciplines. The situation is no different for studies that focus specifically on schoolscapes. In his overview article, Gorter (2018) mentions that in spite of the fact that there is a good deal of variety in the disciplinary background of researchers, most of the work may be characterised as falling within sociolinguistics and applied linguistics, more than within educational studies. The present collection contributes to shortening the distance between linguistic landscape and educational studies. It covers different educational contexts where we again find a broad spectrum of theoretical notions and models. We can portray and compare the most important theoretical approaches and concepts that have been applied in these research projects and try to evaluate whether any theoretical progress has been made. The notion of ‘schoolscape’ appears as a suitable designation to apply to the signage on display inside an educational institution (and in its immediate surroundings). It is similar to the linguistic landscape of public spaces more generally. The concept of schoolscape indeed turns out to be a core concept in this thematic collection, and it comes as no surprise that ‘schoolscape’ figures in all chapters but two. In order to find out if there is conceptual development and refinement, our first step is to look at how the different authors define schoolscape. Not all authors provide a definition, but where they do, they mostly follow Brown (2012: 282), who defined schoolscape as ‘the school-based environment where place and text, both written (graphic) and oral, constitute, reproduce and transform language ideologies’. This definition is already an elaboration of her earlier definition which is used by De Wilde, Verhoene, Tondeur and Van Praet in their chapter in this collection. Their chapter refers to Brown’s

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(2005: 79) original more limited account, which described the schoolscape as ‘the physical and social setting in which teaching and learning take place’. Comparing Brown’s older and more recent definitions, one can observe that her focus has widened and that the later version emphasises the role of language ideologies. After carrying out a longitudinal study of schoolscapes in Estonian schools, Brown (2018), in a more recent article, takes her definition still one step further, now emphasising the diachronic and dynamic aspects of schoolscapes. First, she reiterates her earlier definitions from Brown (2005) and Brown (2012) in similar words: ‘schoolscape signifies both a place – those school-based environments where place meets text, whether written (graphic) or oral – and a set of processes, because the text and place, working together, constitute, reproduce, and transform language ideologies’ and then she adds the dimension of changes over time: ‘schoolscapes are continuingly changing in their scope (e.g. within a classroom, school or nationally) and tempo (e.g. accelerated by revolution or government changes)’ (Brown, 2018: 12). It is clear that the concept of schoolscape has developed considerably over the years. Lehner, in her chapter, uses an alternative definition of schoolscape presented by Szabó (2015), who was inspired by Brown but wanted to include a number of other elements, such as the dimensions of ideology, identity and temporality. Szabó (2015: 24) defines schoolscapes ‘as a reference to the visual and spatial organization of educational spaces, with special emphasis on inscriptions, images and the arrangement of the furniture’. In this definition, the concept of schoolscape refers to more than just the signage on the walls of a school and includes other objects. Lehner studies a learning club for pupils with a migrant or refugee background, and she thus also moves beyond the typical school context. She chooses to use the terms ‘linguistic landscapes’ and ‘schoolscapes’ interchangeably, often side by side, and she focuses on the linguistic signs, partly through quantitative analysis and partly through a qualitative analysis of the pupils’ perspective. In her conclusions, she makes a link between pupils’ needs and institutional ideologies. Several authors link the concept of schoolscape to other theoretical notions. Bagna and Bellinzona take schoolscape more literally to point to the written languages on the walls, and they make a connection with Spolsky’s (2004) framework of language policy which consists of language practices, management and ideologies. This connection leads to an interesting observation about the role of principals as gatekeepers who control the policy of what languages may be represented in the signs on the schools walls. Other authors also emphasise the ideological aspect as an important part of the schoolscape. For example, Vandenbroucke uses the notion ‘language ideological educationscapes’. She conceives of schoolscapes as ideologically normative spaces where some practices are allowed and others are not, for example, in terms of monolingual norms or multilingual diversity. Moving beyond educational contexts in the strict sense,

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she includes public services such as train stations, hospitals and police stations. She conceives of those spaces as institutional schoolscapes where adult migrants are seen as language learners who are expected to practise their newly acquired Dutch, thus connecting the concept of schoolscapes with that of ‘new speakers’. In a similar vein, Huang Fanglei seeks to move beyond conventional contexts of schooling. To emphasise such a wider scope, he proposes the term ‘educationscape’, which he prefers over schoolscape. He associates educationscapes with an affordances-based, critical multimodal discourse analysis through which he examines the social and ideological dimensions of health posters at the university. He argues that these posters have the potential to socialise the students in the dominant neoliberal discourse (or fail to do so). What we can observe in these examples are specific applications of the concept of schoolscape which include expansion of the contexts and further refinement of the concept itself. In other words, one may conclude that the authors of the chapters in this book contribute to conceptual and theoretical progress. Second language acquisition (SLA) is a theoretical approach relevant for a linguistic landscape or schoolscape. It may seem rather obvious that linguistic landscapes in public spaces have the potential for language learning and language awareness, especially for learners of additional languages. We argued how some of the signs that passers-by find in the street can be useful as authentic input for them as additional language learners. Metalinguistic awareness is another concept of relevance, and it can be increased by the multilingualism on display and, finally, pragmatic competence can be developed by certain types of signage. We demonstrated the usefulness of these concepts some years ago with examples from the linguistic landscape in the city of Donostia-San Sebastian in the Basque Country in Spain (Cenoz & Gorter, 2008). As was mentioned above in different ways, language learning is an important theme in this collection. A recurring theoretical framework in this book comes from the ideas on public spaces in the city by the French philosopher and sociologist Henri Lefebvre (1991). His ideas – among them the distinction between ‘perceived’, ‘conceived’ and ‘lived’ spaces – inspired several early linguistic landscape studies (e.g. Barni & Bagna, 2010; Ben-Rafael, 2009; Guilat, 2010; Shohamy & Waksman, 2009). Trumper-Hecht (2010) applied and elaborated Lefebvre’s triadic model in her study of the linguistic landscape in mixed cities in Israel. She investigated the visibility of Arabic as it is differently perceived and experienced by Arab and Jewish residents. For her ‘to arrive at a deeper theoretical understanding of the LL as a sociolinguistic-spatial phenomenon … a study of all three dimensions and the ways in which they may be interrelated is required’ (Trumper-Hecht, 2010: 237). Lefebvre’s ideas are also important in the relationship between language learning and linguistic landscapes. Malinowski (2015)

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demonstrated that these ideas can be well applied to language learning inside the classroom. Taking Lefebvre’s and Trumper-Hecht’s views as a point of departure for a pedagogical approach, he elaborates them for students in an educational context. This means that learners can carry out activities involving observing or documenting of the schoolscape (the perceived space). In a next step, the conceived space leads to interpreting or producing texts, and the lived space implies exploring their own responses and especially those of others to those texts. Malinowski designed a number of learning activities in which he distinguishes three modes: (1) relating to signage, (2) interacting with signage and (3) knowing the world from signage. His pedagogical suggestions can be qualified as a promising way forward for teaching and for research (Gorter, 2018). The focus in this book is on education, and it is thus encouraging to see that different chapters adopt as their only or one of their theoretical approaches Lefebvre’s triadic model. In her study of blackboards, Krompák combines the triad of perceived, conceived and lived space with the spatial approach of semiotic landscapes (Jaworski & Thurlow, 2010). She undertakes a longitudinal linguistic ethnographic study of the roles and uses of blackboards in the classroom and how learners and teachers perceive these as schoolscapes. At the same time, the classrooms are a conceived space and a lived space where teachers and learners interact. In their chapter, Sullivan, Waldman and Wiklund do not refer explicitly to Lefebvre, but it is obvious that they are inspired by his work when they discuss the perceived, conceived and lived spaces in relation to the pedagogical use of linguistic landscapes by students in order to learn about democracy. Li also adopts the same conceptual framework. She follows the advice of Malinowski (2015) when she designs learning activities for students to explore the ‘Chineseness’ of the linguistic landscape in a Southern city in the United States. The students move from their own conceptions (‘I think’) about what the linguistic landscape has to be like, via their photographic documentation of signs (‘I observe’), to experiences through contact with local actors who reside in the linguistic landscape (‘what they think’). Li argues that these activities contribute to critical reflection on cultural authenticity by these language learners. Overall, the three chapters demonstrate in various ways the potential and fruitfulness of applying Lefebvre’s triadic model to linguistic landscapes in an education context. The kaleidoscopic nature of the field of linguistic landscape studies, as mentioned by Van Mensel et al. (2016), is confirmed in this book and illustrated by the fact that the various authors mention and apply several other frameworks or approaches. These include a wide range, for example, the bioecological model, critical discourse analysis, edusemiotics, the concept of thirdness, as well as translanguaging (for an application of the latter concept, also see Gorter & Cenoz, 2015). It may seem that this multitude of theoretical perspectives leads to fragmentation of the field, and

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it is time for a change to create some overall coherence. This is the implication of a recent book review in which Canakis (2019: 269) observes that theoretical diversity has been predominant in the field and argues that ‘the various – and often disparate – strands can be tied up together in more coherent theoretical proposals’. This was one of the reasons why we recently developed a new model (Gorter, 2021; Gorter & Cenoz, 2020) in which we offer a more encompassing approach to linguistic landscapes. This model of multilingual inequality in public spaces is briefly summarised because it also has a bearing on educational contexts. The model includes a recurring cycle of policy processes, production of signage, meaning of signs, as well as perception and use. A summary of the model is given in Figure 13.1. The model aims to describe and analyse a reiterative series of components that concerns the way in which linguistic landscapes are put together and which influences the experiences of persons and their social behaviour, in particular their language use. According to this model, languages in the linguistic landscape are unequal. This is because languages are socially situated in different ways, they are displayed unequally and users view them differently. Thus far, studies of linguistic landscapes do not follow such an all-encompassing approach. In the model, five parts are distinguished that are conceived as linkages in a chain (see Figure 13.1). The first component concerns language policy processes; processes which, to a large extent, determine the languages displayed on signs. The second component is the production processes of the signs themselves. These processes depend on the design but also on material and multimodal aspects and on language selections. The third part is composed of the physical signs on which language is displayed as they are encountered in the investigated spaces, which as in this volume may, for example, be educational spaces. The fourth and fifth components refer

Figure 13.1  A model of multilingual inequality in public spaces (Gorter & Cenoz, 2020: 18–19)

Linguistic Landscapes in Educational Contexts: An Afterword  285

to processes prompted by individual signs, a series of signs or all signage together. Signs may influence people because of what they see and read. Subsequently, people may respond to or interact with the language(s) on signs, and this may influence their manner of acting and their language practices. All of this combined leads us to argue that, recursively, language policies are influenced by evaluations of individuals who react to texts in public (or educational) spaces, and such reactions can thus influence the future development of policy in a feedback loop (the arrow in Figure 13.1). Gorter (2021) provides a detailed outline of this comprehensive model. Research Methods

A distinctive characteristic of linguistic landscape studies is that researchers typically take (numerous) photographs (Gorter, 2019). This is no different in the studies on the educational domain presented in this volume. It is interesting to note that almost all studies not only rely on taking photographs – either by the researchers themselves or by students as part of an assignment on linguistic landscapes – but also combine the photographic data with more traditional research methods and techniques such as interviews and surveys. As is common in this field, some studies are mainly quantitative while others are more qualitative. The latter are characterised by their authors as (linguistic) ethnography or as participant observation and, in such cases (semi-structured or informal), interviews, observations, taking field notes and the like form part of the research methodology. Interviews can be held individually with teachers or students, or they can be conducted using focus or discussion groups. In an educational context in particular, interviews with groups of students are relatively easy to organise. Given that texts can be read in different ways and that not all viewers perceive the same image content, it is important that linguistic landscape research considers the way viewers construct their own interpretations. For some people, a bilingual sign may be an expression of linguistic justice, while for others, it may reflect a language hierarchy where one language dominates another. An advertisement may be understood as humorous by some people but insulting by others. Words can have different meanings for different people, as much as the texts on a sign can be ‘read’ differently. Therefore, when Harris and her colleagues in their chapter describe how they collected data from different perspectives, this is an important innovation. Their linguistic landscape data in the Māori immersion early childhood centre was recorded on video twice, at the height of an adult as well as at the height of a child, thus capturing the different perspectives of the adult caretakers and the young children. Similarly, but in a different way, Straszer and Kroik report that both

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researchers independently of each other took pictures of signs, billboards, objects and artefacts in the rooms of the Saami preschool. When they merged the two sets of photos for the analysis, it became clear that there was overlap but also that some photos were unique to one of them. As they report, they had not observed the same characteristics of the schoolscape owing to, among other things, differences in their background. The example illustrates that there can be significant individual differences in how the signs are captured by two different researchers. These examples raise important questions for linguistic landscape fieldwork about the perspective of the researcher and this could have consequences for studies carried out by one researcher only. Obviously, linguistic landscapes may be perceived quite differently by different people. This undermines the assumption that taking a picture of a sign is an objective documentation of the linguistic landscape. As mentioned in the examples above, the obvious differences are between a young child and an adult or between persons with different social or linguistic backgrounds, but also between regular passers-by and first-time visitors, or, importantly in this context, between students and teachers. It is not only about the sampling area, the unit of analysis or the interpretation of the photographic data but also about the way in which situations were regarded when collecting the data. There are, of course, no easy solutions, but it is important that researchers become aware of their subjective perspective. Another issue besides the researchers’ perspective is to consider how photographs contextualise what is in them. Kallen et al. (2015) discuss some of the issues related to the importance of the context of the discourse represented in linguistic landscape photographs and mention spatial, ensemble and discourse contextualisation as three major effects of how data are communicated. The context of an individual sign can make clear how the sign interacts with other signs, can demonstrate languages in conflict or how there are different discourses in one space. Furthermore, the issue of the quality and the functions of published photographs in linguistic landscape or schoolscape studies is an issue less often addressed, but it should not be overlooked (Gorter, 2019). Researchers of schoolscapes should give careful attention to their images as data, and also seriously consider that their images are an important part of the final publication. The authors in this publication have undoubtedly gone through steps to consider which pictures to select as figures in their chapter, and this may not always be easy if you have several hundred photographs to choose from and can only use a few. It is equally important to consider how the images they have selected are reproduced and what the effects of the images may be on readers. In order to develop the field, one has to consider the technical quality of the photographic data, because they are one of the basic materials. Readers can judge for themselves if this is sufficiently the case in this book. After all, the well-worn cliché states ‘one picture is worth a thousand words’.

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As mentioned above, Harris and her colleagues recorded the schoolscape by means of video, a method that holds potential advantages. Troyer and Szabó (2017) divide video-recording data collection techniques into participatory and non-participatory, the latter being the method used by Harris et al. Troyer and Szabó argue that in certain environments, video is a better data collection tool than still photos and refer to two examples of non-participatory video-recording. Hult (2014) used video-recording from a car at 65 mph to document the linguistic landscapes along the highways of San Antonio, Texas, while Lou (2016) used video-recording during a bus ride to collect data on the linguistic landscape of Hong Kong. An important advantage of video recording as used by Harris et al. is that it allows the sequence of signs along a specific route along the walls of an educational centre to be maintained and analysed from two perspectives. An example of participatory video-recording is given in the chapter by De Wilde and her colleagues who had three students wear digital video glasses while they carried out a linguistic landscape assignment. This provides a first-person perspective which was enhanced by asking students to verbalise their thoughts and opinions. One interesting outcome the authors report is that during the fieldwork, the students became more aware of the monolingualism of the messages, where beforehand they had expected those to be more multilingual. This method is an interesting innovation that could be applied to more linguistic landscape studies. Another element not mentioned in the studies here, but related to video, is the fact that a significant component of contemporary linguistic landscapes is made up of constantly varying displays on digital screens in public spaces (Gorter, 2019). Smartphones, digital advertising and information screens have spread fast. Many people walking the streets hold their mobile devices in their hands. The screens of these devices deliver a never-ending stream of messages, ads, sound files, photos and videos. In many urban contexts, digital outdoor video screens can be observed, which display unending fragments of ‘language’ (Cashmore et al., 2018). Limitations and Future Directions

In this concluding chapter, we have shown that the study of linguistic landscape items in educational contexts, of schoolscapes in their diverse manifestations, offers relevant new information about education, both in classrooms and beyond. The chapters in this edited book all analyse the display of languages in schoolscapes or the use of such displays as pedagogical tools, or their combination. Taken together, the chapters show that the linguistic landscapes in educational contexts harbour considerable potential for language learning, for increased language awareness and for critical reflection, be it for students, teachers, other professionals

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or academic researchers. The studies also make theoretical and methodological progress. In this book, as well as in other recent specialised collections by Malinowski et al. (2020) and Niedt and Seals (2021), we see the results of studies that show how texts and images in educational spaces provide instruction or learning opportunities in their own right. Several of those studies examine the impact of signs that combine images, words, colours and other elements in contexts such as preprimary, primary and secondary schools, universities and cultural and social centres, both inside and outside the classroom. Digital screens appear to be a particularly urgent issue for further investigation through a linguistic landscape lens, because such screens have become an important part of educational contexts, as well as of public spaces where they are replacing many static displays. This is especially so in a world dealing with a pandemic, where more and more activities, including teaching, have been moved online in these challenging times. It is difficult to predict for a post-pandemic world how much of the work, meetings, conferences and teaching will remain online, either wholly, partially or mixed. Obviously, digital whiteboards are a common part of the schoolscape in classrooms around the world, and those screens are an important teaching tool. In her chapter, Krompák acknowledges this spread but limits her study to the low-tech schoolscapes of the traditional blackboard because this still continues to be used extensively. This is an example of two technologies that can sit perfectly side by side (similar to print and digital newspapers, magazines and books). However, teachers who use a digital board are no longer limited in what they can write or draw as they were on the traditional blackboard. Basically, a digital board makes the whole internet available and therefore such screens in classrooms can provide links between online and offline linguistic landscapes (Blommaert & Maly, 2019). Owing to their dynamic and multimodal character, digital boards may be an interesting topic for future research on schoolscapes. Such research could further include smartphones, tablets, laptops and other digital devices that teachers and students use for educational purposes, because these smaller screens also generate endless streams of linguistic landscapes. Some may see the kaleidoscopic nature of the field of linguistic landscape studies as problematic (Canakis, 2019; Spolsky, 2020). The model we presented above does comply to some extent with calls for an overarching approach. However, it seems that the ongoing diversity and heterogeneity of theoretical approaches will have to be taken for granted. It does not seem likely that one theoretical approach will dominate, and there is no one single unified theory which is uniquely suited to analysing signage. We are convinced that the plurality of the field of linguistic landscape studies has advantages in providing multiple perspectives, which is an asset rather than a liability.

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Acknowledgement

This work was supported by the MINECO/FEDER under Grant EDU2015-63967-R and the Basque Government under Grant DREAM IT-1225-19. References Backhaus, P. (2007) Linguistic Landscapes: A Comparative Study of Urban Multilingualism in Tokyo. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Barni, M. and Bagna, C. (2010) Linguistic landscape and language vitality. In E. Shohamy, E. Ben-Rafael and M. Barni (eds) Linguistic Landscape in the City (pp. 3–18). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Ben-Rafael, E. (2009) A sociological approach to the study of linguistic landscapes. In E.  Shohamy and D. Gorter (eds) Linguistic Landscape: Expanding the Scenery (pp. 40–54). New York, NY Routledge. Blommaert, J. and Maly, I. (2019) Invisible Lines in the Online-Offline Linguistic Landscape. Tilburg Papers in Culture Studies, No. 223. Tilburg University. Brown, K.D. (2005) Estonian schoolscapes and the marginalization of regional identity in education. European Education 37, 78–89. Brown, K.D. (2012) The linguistic landscape of educational spaces: Language revitalization and schools in southeastern Estonia. In D. Gorter, H.F. Marten and L. Van Mensel (eds) Minority Languages in the Linguistic Landscape (pp. 281–298). Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan. Brown, K.D. (2018) Shifts and stability in schoolscapes: Diachronic considerations of southeastern Estonian schools. Linguistics and Education 44, 12–19. Canakis, C. (2019) Further advances in linguistic landscape research: Language and identity-work in public space. Punctum 5 (1), 264–270. Carr, J.R.C. (2019) Linguistic landscapes. In M. Aronoff (ed.) Oxford Bibliographies Online in Linguistics. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ OBO/9780199772810-0251 Cashmore, E., Cleland, J. and Dixon, K. (2018) Screen Society. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Cenoz, J. and Gorter, D. (2008) Linguistic landscape as an additional source of input in second language acquisition. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching (IRAL) 46, 257–276. Garvin, R.T. and Eisenhower, K. (2016) A comparative study of linguistic landscapes in middle schools in Korea and Texas: Contrasting signs of learning and identity construction. In R. Blackwood, E. Lanza and H. Woldemariam (eds) Negotiating and Contesting Identities in Linguistic Landscapes (pp. 215–231). London: Bloomsbury. Gorter, D. (2018) Linguistic landscape and trends in the study of schoolscapes. Linguistics and Education 44, 80–88. Gorter, D. (2019) Methods and techniques for linguistic landscape research: About definitions, core issues and technological innovations. In M. Pütz and N.-F. Mundt (eds) Expanding the Linguistic Landscape: Multilingualism, Language Policy and the Use of Space as a Semiotic Resource (pp. 38–57). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Gorter, D. (2021) Multilingual inequality in public spaces: Towards an inclusive model of linguistic landscapes. In R. Blackwood and D. Dunlevy (eds) Multilingualism in the Public Space: Empowering and Transforming Communities (pp. 51–79). London: Bloomsbury. Gorter, D. and Cenoz, J. (2015) Translanguaging and linguistic landscapes. Linguistic Landscape 1(1), 54–74.

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Gorter, D. and Cenoz, J. (2020) Theoretical development of linguistic landscape studies. Linguistic Landscape 6 (1), 16–22. Guilat, Y. (2010) ‘The holy ark in the street’: Sacred and secular painting of utility boxes in the public domain in a small Israeli town. In E. Shohamy, E. Ben-Rafael and M. Barni (eds) Linguistic Landscape in the City (pp. 37–54). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Hult, F.M. (2014) Drive-thru linguistic landscaping: Constructing a linguistically dominant place in a bilingual space. International Journal of Bilingualism 18(5), 507–523. Jaworski, A. and Thurlow, C. (eds) (2010) Semiotic Landscapes: Language, Image, Space. London: Continuum. Jing, L. and Marshall, S. (2018) Engaging with linguistic landscaping in Vancouver’s Chinatown: A pedagogical tool for teaching and learning about multilingualism. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 23 (8), 925–941. doi: 10.1080/13670050.2017.1422479 Kallen, J., Dunlevy, D. and Balaeva, O. (2015) Contextualising units in the linguistic landscape: How should data be framed? Paper presented at the Linguistic Landscape Workshop, University of Berkeley, 7–9 May. Lefebvre, H. (1991) The Production of Space. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Lou, J.J. (2016) The Linguistic Landscape of Chinatown: A Sociolinguistic Ethnography. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Malinowski, D. (2015) Opening spaces of learning in the linguistic landscape. Linguistic Landscape 1 (1), 95–113. Malinowski, D., Maxim, H.H. and Dubreil, S. (eds) (2020) Language Teaching in the Linguistic Landscape: Mobilizing Pedagogy in Public Space. Berlin: Springer. Niedt, G. and Seals, C.A. (eds) (2021) Linguistic Landscapes Beyond the Language Classroom. London: Bloomsbury. Sayer, P. (2009) Using the linguistic landscape as a pedagogical resource. ELT Journal 64 (2), 143–154. Shohamy, E. and Ben-Rafael, E. (2015) Introduction: Linguistic Landscape, a new journal. Linguistic Landscape 1 (1/2), 1−5. Shohamy, E. and Gorter, D. (eds) (2009) Linguistic Landscape: Expanding the Scenery. New York, NY: Routledge. Shohamy, E. and Waksman, S. (2009) Linguistic landscape as an ecological arena: Modalities, meanings, negotiations, education. In E. Shohamy and D. Gorter (eds) Linguistic Landscape: Expanding the Scenery (pp. 313–331). New York, NY: Routledge. Spolsky, B. (2004) Language Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Spolsky, B. (2020) Linguistic landscape: The semiotics of public signage. Linguistic Landscape 6 (1), 1–15. Spolsky, B. and Cooper, R.L. (1991) The Languages of Jerusalem. Oxford: Clarendon. Szabó, T.P. (2015) The management of diversity in schoolscapes: an analysis of Hungarian practices. Apples – Journal of Applied Language Studies 9 (1), 23–51. Troyer, R. and Szabó, T.P. (2017) Representation and videography in linguistic landscape studies. Linguistic Landscape 3 (1), 56–77. Trumper-Hecht, N. (2010) Linguistic landscape in mixed cities in Israel from the perspective of ‘walkers’: The case of Arabic. In E. Shohamy, E. Ben-Rafael and M. Barni (eds) Linguistic Landscape in the City (pp. 235–231). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Van Mensel, L., Vandenbroucke, M. and Blackwood, R. (2016) Linguistic landscapes. In O. García, N. Flores and M. Spotti (eds) Oxford Handbook of Language and Society (pp. 423–449). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Index

ACTFL proficiency standards, 259, 264, 271–273, 291 additive bilingualism, 131, 142 adult learners, 15, 174, 181, 279 affordance, 14, 105, 109, 119, 282 agency, 57, 82, 89, 124, 151 applied linguistics, 7, 17, 235, 280 Arabic (language), 40, 78, 86–88, 94, 96–97, 99–100, 263, 279, 282 Atlanta, 17, 264 Austria, 13, 20, 33–34, 47–48, 279

restaurant, 266–267, 270 computer-mediated communication, 55, 73 critical discourse analysis, 14, 105, 283 intercultural communication, 259–261, 272 intercultural understanding, 259, 262, 272–273 thinking, 193, 249, 271 cultural authenticity, 259–262, 267–270, 273 hybridity, 260, 269 products, practices and perspectives (3Ps), 259, 271–272

Backhaus, Peter, 7, 9, 149, 218, 234, 277 Barni, Monica, 81, 100, 282 Basque Country, 282 Belgium, 20, 175–179, 187–188, 217, 279 Ben-Rafael, Eliezer, 9, 277, 282 (bilingual) language development, 56, 63, 67, 72 bioecological systems theory, 13, 55–56 blackboard, 14, 147–167, 288 Blackwood, Robert, 9–10, 81, 104 Blommaert, Jan, 9–10, 33, 39, 51, 128, 152–153, 177, 179, 216–217, 288 Bourdieu, Pierre, 5, 107, 178, 195–199 Bourhis, Richard, 5, 8, 90, 128, 133, 176, 178, 195, 197, 210 Bronfenbrenner, Urie, 13, 55–60 Brown, Kara D., 4, 10–12, 55, 78–79, 104, 106, 108, 124, 128, 173, 174, 277, 280–281

democracy in practice, 194–197, 199–200 democratic ideas, 196 language education, 99 society, 202, 207 values, 16, 193–194, 196 dialogicality, 120 digital platforms, 59, 69 screens, 287–288 technology, 55, 73 world, 55 Donostia-San Sebastian, 282 doxa, 178, 183 Dutch (language), 15, 177, 217, 279

Cenoz, Jasone, 2, 11–12, 17–18, 39, 79–82, 90–91, 101, 128, 133, 282–284 Chinese language, 9, 17, 19, 78, 86–89, 92, 94–95, 99–100, 205–206, 264–265, 279

education compulsory, 194–195 early childhood, 56, 59, 60, 278 primary, 278–279 secondary, 279 291

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educational contexts, 198 linguistics, 4 practices, 2 spaces, 2 English (language), 3, 9, 14, 31, 39, 40, 50, 58, 84, 86–88, 93–94, 136, 156, 198, 205–206, 279 Estonian (language), 108, 237, 281 European charter for regional or minority languages, 129–130

Jakobson, Roman, 39 Jaworski, Adam, 8, 32, 40, 79, 148–149, 283 Khartoum, 20 kōhanga reo (language nests), 58, 61

heterotopia, 15, 148–151, 159, 161, 165–166 Hong Kong, 14, 104–105, 109, 111, 122, 279, 287

Landry, 8, 90, 128, 133 language awareness, 16, 48, 77 learning, 180–182 minority, 195, 198, 203, 207 policy, 4, 77, 100 regime, 40, 50 repertoires, 78, 83–84, 100 revitalisation, 13, 14, 19, 55–74, 129–130, 142–144 transmission, 58–59 variation, 209 Latvian (language), 17, 20, 233, 237, 279 learning additional language, 263–267, 270–273 experience, 233, 235, 248, 254, 256 first-language, 232–233, 253 outdoor, 16 Lefebvre, Henri, 14, 17, 32, 47, 149, 166–167, 216, 263, 282–283 linguistic diversity, 3, 77–78, 81, 99, 198–199 ethnography, 13, 34, 60–61, 148, 152, 154–155, 180, 263–264, 266–267, 285 ideologies, 79, 100 justice, 3 rights, 196, 199, 207, 209

inductive thematic analysis, 63 inequality multilingual inequality, 2, 6, 18–20, 280–284 social inequality, 3, 20 Instagram, 201–203 interdiscursivity, 109, 122 interviews, 14, 35, 47–49, 81, 131–132, 285 Italian dialects, 84, 86, 94, 100 language, 6, 13–14, 20, 77, 84, 86–88 Italy, 13, 77–101, 279

Malinowski, David, 216, 232, 263, 282–283, 288 Malta, 151–152 Māori Kaupapa, 60 immersion, 55–73, 285 language, 13, 55–74, 278, 285 tikanga (cultural practices), 63, 65, 67–68, 76 marketisation, 106 Meänkieli (language), 198 mental health, 104–105, 109–110, 116–117, 120–123 methods

Fairclough, Norman,105–106, 109, 111, 122–123 Farsi/Dari (language), 40, 279 Finnish (language), 14, 136, 198, 203, 206 Flanders, 175–179, 182, 189–190, 217, 279 Foucault, Michel, 122–123, 148–151, 159, 161, 165–166 frontstage and backstage, 13, 41, 49–50 German (language) standard, 155–156, 279 Swiss, 155–156 Ghent, 16, 179, 217, 279 Gorter, Durk, 9–10, 79–82, 90–91, 98–99, 101, 128, 133, 149, 218, 232, 253, 257, 277, 280, 282–287 grounded theory, 81, 155

Index 293

guided walking tour, 12, 80, 154 mixed, 15, 80 qualitative, 81–82, 101 quantitative, 81, 101 participatory, 15, 34, 44–47, 153–155, 165, 194–197, 199–200, 206–207, 209–211, 219, 221, 225, 227, 259, 272–273 migrant individuals, 31, 35–36, 44, 279 languages, 77, 86, 94–85, 99–100 migration, 31, 41, 44, 50 monolingualism, 3, 197, 203, 207 multiculturalism, 194, 197 multilingualism, 2, 108, 198–199, 210 multiliteracies, 17, 233, 235–236, 245, 249, 252–253, 255–256 multimodality, 81, 83, 105, 109–111, 113, 122–123 neoliberal discourse, 282 neoliberalism, 14, 104, 106 new speakers, 174–175, 177, 179, 181–183, 185–186, 190, 279, 282 New Zealand, 13, 15, 55–74, 278 Ngāi Tahu, 60 Norway, 127, 130, 136, 139 Pietikäinen, Sari, 128, 142 plurilingualism neoplurilingualism, 14, 78, 89 policymaker, 4, 131, 141, 233, 237 refugees, 13, 31, 35–36, 44 Romani (language), 198 Saami (also Sámi) Lule Saami language, 127, 136 North Saami, 127, 136 Saami language, 14, 16, 194–195, 197–198, 200–201, 203, 207, 210, 278, 286 South Saami language, 127–130, 132, 134–136, 139, 141–144 Saepmie (also Sápmi), 144, 198 San Antonio, Texas, 287 second language acquisition (SLA), 282 self-management, 107, 115, 117, 120–121

semiotics edusemiotics, 17, 26, 233–236, 249, 253, 255–257, 283 geosemiotics, 81, 186 scapes educationscapes, 2, 6–7, 17–20, 109, 122–124 healthscapes, 5 homescapes, 5, 20 lawscapes, 5 museumscapes, 5 refugeescapes, 8 schoolscapes, 8, 10–11, 13–15, 17, 20, 127–128, 131, 133–137, 140–143, 277, 280–281 skinscapes, 9 smellscapes, 9 soundscapes, 7 x-scapes, 8 Scollon, Ron, 149, 203 Scollon, Suzanne Wong, 149, 203 Shohamy, Elana, 9, 55, 108 spaces conceived, 15, 17, 149, 158–159, 166–167, 206, 210, 258–259, 262–266, 272 perceived, 15, 17, 149, 158–159, 166–167, 206, 209–210, 258–259, 262–266, 272 public, 195, 280, 284 learning, 31, 36–37, 49–50, 151 linguistic, 77–78, 99 lived, 15, 17, 149, 158–159, 166–167, 207, 210–211, 258–259, 262–266, 272 Spain, 282 Spolsky, Bernard, 281 Sweden, 14, 16, 127, 129, 132–133, 193, 195–198, 200, 206–207, 209, 278–279 Swedish (language), 197, 200–203, 205–211 Switzerland, 147–148, 151–152, 154–156, 160, 278 Szabó, Tamás Péter, 11, 33, 80, 154, 281, 287 Textbook, 237–239, 243–244, 246–248, 252 Thurlow, Crispin, 8, 148–149, 234, 283

294  Linguistic Landscapes and Educational Spaces

translanguaging, 11, 63, 80, 156–157, 208, 283 translingual and transcultural competence, 271 triangulation design, 80 tuakana teina (reciprocal learning), 61, 67, 72, 76 Turkish (language), 11, 95, 156, 183, 205

Twitter, 218–219, 221, 225–226 United States, 279–283 Urciuoli, 107–108, 122–123 Vienna, 13, 31, 35, 279 Yiddish (language), 198