Linguistic Landscapes and the Navigation of New Cities: A Phenomenological Self-study of what Jim King Taught Me

Landry and Bourhis are credited with coining the term linguistic landscapes, which they defined as “the language of public road signs, advertising billboards, street names, place names, commercial shop signs, and public signs on government buildings [combined] to form the linguistic landscape”. Based on a broad study of linguistics through a college course with Jim King and a shared love of travel, I took a phenomenological approach to this self-study as I explored the linguistic landscapes of three unfamiliar countries. I analyzed the photographic data I collected to understand what information I gained from the signs and how I used the information to meet my needs. I believe this kind of data could influence visual literacy research and instruction in a way that may help tie in-school teaching to an enriching life outside of school. "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. " -Mark Twain, Innocents Abroad Landry and Bourhis (1997) are credited with coining the term linguistic landscapes, a term which they defined as “the language of public road signs, advertising billboards, street names, place names, commercial shop signs, and public signs on government buildings [combined] to form the linguistic landscape of a given territory, region, or urban agglomeration” (p. 25). The “linguistic landscape serves to inform in-group and out-group members of the linguistic characteristics, territorial limits, and the language boundaries of the region they have entered” (Landry & Bourhis, 1997, p. 25). Public signs reflect the language of power in a region and can convey linguistic identities and the status of competing language groups (Bourhis, 1992, as cited in Landry & Bourhis, 1997). I explored the linguistic landscapes of three unfamiliar countries during a fortyfive day summer research and leisure trip. I took a phenomenological approach to this study (Patton, 1990) to gain a holistic and inductive understanding of the information I gained from the signs in these cities. As this was my first time out of the United States, I had a heightened awareness of the signs around me and their physical contexts because I had to meet my basic needs for food, transit, and activity in these foreign settings. I photographed the signs and symbols around me that I utilized in order to meet these needs. I considered how the linguistic landscapes I saw in my travels influenced my perception of each place. When I returned home, I analyzed the photographic data for patterns, commonalities, and dissimilarities to begin to understand what information I gained from the signs, how I used the information in visual images to meet my needs, and what skills I used to acquire this information. My interest in this study was sparked by my first travel experience abroad and my attention to the kinds of skills I needed in order to make my trip safe and productive. My knowledge of linguistic landscapes came after a course in linguistics with the world-traveler, Jim King. Through these contexts and conversations, I began to see signage in foreign cultures as a tool for cross-cultural navigation and understanding other ways of living. This knowledge could help teachers better prepare their students to navigate the linguistic landscapes of foreign cultures, making international travel a conceivable option for students while developing visual intelligence, which has been said to increase “the effect of human intelligence” and “extend the creative spirit” (Dondis, 1973, p. 185). A Brief Review of the Literature I reviewed the literature and conducted this study with an eye for my own reading of the signs of England, Finland, and France in my first trip abroad as a visitor and education researcher. I reviewed the most current literature in the field of linguistic landscapes and I used commonalities in those reference lists to identify the foundational work in the field. A basic search of the key term linguistic landscapes in peer-reviewed journals through Publisher Provided Full Text Searching File, Academic Search Premier, MLA International Bibliography, OmniFile Full Text Mega, Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index, Communications Abstracts, and ScienceDirect yielded 72 results. Of those, I identified six published works that were within the scope of this review, peer-reviewed, and available to me. From those articles, I incorporated six additional works cited across many or all of those articles in the form of book chapters and seminal works of any publication date that further informed my understanding of the field. I found that studies were only conducted from an outsider perspective. No one examined their native linguistic landscape. I initially questioned this commonality, wondering why all researchers examined languages and cultures other than their own and why I, too, only considered studying other linguistic landscapes. de Botton (2002) provides insight, noting that linguistic landscapes do not seem distinctive to the casual eye; they are noted when signs appear in a form that would “never exist in precisely this form in [one’s] own country” (as cited in Jaworksi, 2010, p. 9-10). The visual messages of linguistic landscapes become so much a part of the scenery of a place, making note of the message becomes an unconscious everyday activity to the insider (Sayer, 2010). The spaces, places, topics, and lenses varied greatly among the studies I reviewed. Wetzel (2010) questioned authorship and intended audience through examination of Japanese signs as narratives. She viewed the images and text of public advertising and informational signs and found them to be useful in examining everyday life in Japan. Sayer (2010) described the extensive use of English on signs in a community in Mexico to identify the social significance it carries within the community. He found that English was often used because it was seen as sophisticated, fashionable, cool, sexy, an expression of love, and a means to express subversive identities. Lou (2012) looked closely at the signage of Washington, D.C.’s Chinatown and how the superficial inclusion of Chinese script as per law shaped the production and consumption of this text. She found that the Chinese text was not relevant to the lives of the city’s inhabitants, as they do not engage with it on a day to day basis. Barrs (2011) studied the use of the English language in Japanese public and private signage. He encourages teachers to attend to signage in order to help students ‘unlock’ the code of English embedded in the native Katakana script. Tufi and Blackwood (2010) examined brand names for their ties to regional and cultural heritage by questioning each brand’s authorship. They found that many brand names lost their ties to a country of origin and became multilingual brands over time through worldwide consumption. Jaworski (2010) examined postcards from around the world for the sense of place portrayed to tourists through linguistic landscapes. He looked at the interplay of text and images and how they engage the attention of viewer and portray it in a positive light to encourage travel to the destination. Researchers addressed informational aspects of the signs they examined as necessary and tended to focus on signs for their symbolic functions, as in Lou’s (2012) study of Washington D.C.’s Chinatown, Wentzel’s (2010) study of Japanese signs as narrative, or Sayer’s (2010) study of English in Mexico. They investigated linguistic landscapes that were largely defined by their symbolic functions in discourses of power and cultural identity. Informational functions may include basic communication and the obtainment of services. The main focus of Jaworski’s (2010) work could be interpreted as informational, as he analyzed post cards for their sense of place. Lou (2012) builds a detailed triadic model of place, consisting of spatial representation, material space, and spatial practice. Lou’s model proved useful in my analysis of the informational functions of linguistic landscapes I observed. Lou sees the study of linguistic landscapes as a spatial representation on the surface of a place; an explicit lens for interpretation of signs that incorporates language as semiotics, language as action, and language as capital. Further, Wetzel (2010) makes explicit a Bakhtinian theoretical frame for understanding linguistic landscapes, viewing advertising signs as narratives and questioning voice, authorship, and interpretation of everyday public signs in Japan. This brief literature informed several of my decisions in my own study of linguistic landscapes and prepared me to take my own photographs of signs. The analysis of linguistic landscapes for their symbolic functions was beyond the scope of my historical and cultural understanding of the countries I visited. I focused on linguistic landscapes mainly for their informational functions, as this function mirrored my use of signs throughout my travels. The literature also brought to my attention issues regarding the unit of analysis for this study. According to Huebner (2008), the literature has yet to clearly define a unit of analysis. A ‘sign’ could be defined by its text, images, text and images, size, message, or even through its surrounding visual context. Though most studies I reviewed set forth Landry and Bourhis’s (1997) definition of a linguistic landscape, each study proceeded to define signs differently or not at all. As I selected scenes and composed photographs as well as possible while maintaining an alertness to my surroundings, I included the contexts I thought necessary to balancing scale, detail, and content as best I could. Huebner (2008) also raises questions of agency and intended audience, questions closely related to Landry and Bourhis’s (1997) symbolic function of signs, situations motivated by political change or political control. Often in the literat