Stefania Tufi

Trademarks in the linguistic landscape: methodological and theoretical challenges in qualifying brand names in the public space

Abstract In the last few decades, investigations into the linguistic landscape (LL) have sought to analyse written language practices as they are observable in public space. Whilst the LL analysis of language choice in given contexts has opened a host of possibilities for scientific enquiry in the field, the methodologies employed in the collection and categorisation of written signs is still controversial. This paper addresses a specific aspect of the question by discussing brand names in the urban space and seeking to identify a framework for a linguistic classification of brand names. The authors indicate a way forward for future research that draws upon work undertaken in disciplines such as marketing and social psychology, emphasising that brand names should not be excluded from the analysis of the LL as this would amount to denying the linguistic impact of trademarks on individuals and groups in our globalised world.

Policies vs Non-Policies: Analysing Regional Languages and the National Standard in the Linguistic Landscape of French and Italian Mediterranean Cities

This chapter will discuss one aspect of an on-going investigation into the Linguistic Landscape (LL) of French and Italian Mediterranean coastal towns with a view to examining the context for the management of the public space, something which in terms of language policy is tackled in radically different ways by the two states involved. Since 2007, we have collected data from Mediterranean urban areas in both France and Italy, and consider here our findings from Corsica, Northern Catalonia, and Marseille (in France), and Genoa, Cagliari, and Naples (in Italy). By comparing two different approaches, we seek to discern whether what we refer to as policies and non-policies influence the appearance of the LL.

Shared places, unshared identities: vernacular discourses and spatialised constructions of identity in the linguistic landscape of Trieste

Language as it appears in the public space is at the centre of investigations into linguistic landscapes. Language agents immersed in a given geo-historical context contribute to the construction of spatialised meaning and to the transformation of space into place. The visibility of a language in a linguistic landscape does not just index a reality, i.e. the use of one or more languages within a community, but contributes to the symbolic construction of a given space. The current study aims to investigate the peculiarities of place-making and -marking of the Slovenian-speaking community in the area of Trieste via an analysis of written signs displaying the minority language. The paper will show that the tension resulting from achieved equality in the legal status of Slovenian and the perception of unequal power relations between different ethnic groups is reproduced in the construction of the local linguistic landscape. The final part of the discussion will suggest that public use of the Slovenian languag...

Language Ideology and Language Maintenance: The Case of Sardinia

Abstract Sardinian is spoken on Sardinia, the second largest of Italys islands, and is one of a set of minority languages which are officially recognized according to Italian law. In recent years there have been attempts to codify Sardinian. These were presented as an important step towards language maintenance and revitalization at a time of visible decline in the use of, and competence in, the local varieties in competition with the national language, Italian. The process of normalization of written Sardinian, however, has not been smooth and it has led to a solution of compromise which is still the object of lively debate. The article analyses the different levels at which language ideology has operated in the Sardinian context, focusing on the emergence of conflicting ideologies which have been promoted by the different agents of language policy, be they national and regional institutions, cultural operators, language activists or language actors. The analysis of the results of a recent sociolinguistic survey reveals that internalized discourses of “language rights” have gradually incorporated contrasting discourses of “language citizenship” (Stroud and Heugh 2004) in the ongoing debate on the role of Sardinian. Looking at the Sardinian case from this perspective contributes to a reassessment of the role of the language community, of policy makers and of educational establishments.

Sketching the Contexts: Italy and France

The main aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of language change and language management in Italy and France in order to situate the competing factors and actors which are responsible for the linguistic construction of the respective public spaces. In the course of the discussion we shall highlight aspects ranging from political-ideological discourses to socio-economic developments and their interconnections. Language policy will be analysed in its broadest possible framework (Spolsky, 2004) to give an indication of the complexity and rootedness of language ideologies, and of how they impact on language practices. We are aware that we merely touch upon a number of fundamental issues and debates revolving around the linguistic histories of the two countries, but the intention is to bring to the fore similarities and differences between the two contexts in order to provide a setting for subsequent chapters.

Insularity in the Linguistic Landscapes of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica

The islands of Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily have long been understood as parts of France and Italy, and any study of these two states from the perspective of the Mediterranean demands an engagement with these landmasses. Language use on islands is exposed to different and, in some ways, additional pressures in comparison with the mainland. The physical space between a continent and outlying islands nourishes specific phenomena with their own sociolinguistic consequences. We do not presume that these phenomena are limited to islands, but their effects are intensified in specific ways as a corollary to the fact of separation by a body of water. Traditionally, insularity has been perceived as a defining characteristic of islands; insularity favours internal circulation and we seek to test the implications of this in the LLs of Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily, in particular for the people who inhabit these zones. For all islanders, external borders are not a matter of interpretation: an island’s territory ends where the sea begins. Geophysical characteristics therefore seem to provide the material for a durable sense of identity and for the preservation of linguistic features that can be generalized more easily across local varieties when compared to other contexts.

Social Representations of Marseilles and Naples’ Linguistic Landscapes

The comparing of cities in LL research has been undertaken since Cenoz and Gorter contrasted San Sebastian and Leeuwarden in the 2006 landmark edited volume on multilingualism in the LL, and this approach has proved fruitful for highlighting trends in the management of the public space.1 Here, we pair two Mediterranean cities with the intention of evaluating the potential for the LL to play a part in the social representations of Marseilles and Naples. We approach the LL of these ancient places with a view to assessing the extent to which written language use in urban centres echoes the social representations constructed around each city. We take this opportunity to differentiate further between the creation of LL in France and Italy, whilst exploring the scope for the LL to serve as a prism through which social representations can be examined critically. This chapter opens with a brief presentation of social representations of Marseilles and Naples, and then uses LL data to investigate whether the public space as lived and experienced by both cities’ residents and visitors confirms the discourses that circulate in wider society regarding language behaviour.

Conclusions: The Transformative Power of Emplaced Language

LL is a defining quality of the urban fabric, understood as a web of multiple meaning-making activities. LL agents interact with, transform, and challenge cityscapes as sites of evolving networks of individuals and groups, and of political and socio-economic processes. They participate in the construction of a communicational landscape that is composed of both explicit and implicit relations so that it also points to invisible or silenced linguistic dynamics. Discussions about language are rarely about language itself but about the discourses woven around language and via the medium of language. Choosing a language to construct a narrative is never a neutral act, as expressed by Bakhtin (1981, p. 294) ‘Language is not a neutral medium that passes freely and easily into the private property of the speaker’s intentions; it is populated — overpopulated — with the intentions of others.’ In the course of the book we have highlighted themes as they emerged from our field-work and from our reflections in relation to a sociolinguistics of place. In this sense, our analyses are firmly anchored in physical spaces that narrate localized stories and relational processes within given sociocultural sites. At the same time, however, we contend that the dynamics which we have observed also exemplify directions, approaches, and developments which can be shared and explored further in LL studies and beyond.

The Linguistic Landscapes of the Ligurian Sea

In late modernity, it is not unusual to encounter the discourse of the ‘borderless world’, and scholars in the social sciences, history, politics, human geography, and other disciplines have been engaged in discussions surrounding this imminent upheaval in international relations.1 This borderless world has not yet come to pass and even within the European Union (characterized by the free internal movement of humans, labour, and goods), States continue to acknowledge the formal borders that separate countries, such as the one between France and Italy. Although the title of this chapter references the Ligurian Sea, in fact we investigate the land border zone between France and Italy and thereby explore the potential for the LL to contribute to border studies. We are encouraged in this work by, inter alia, Watt and Llamas (2014, p. 2) who contend that, in terms of language, borderlands are remarkable places, ripe for analysis along several vectors, including the relationship between language and identity (which we also address in Chapter 3). As is the convention in LL studies, we privilege here the cities that fall within the border zone, examining on the western side of the border Nice (20 miles or 32 km from the border) and Monaco (8 miles or 13km), and on the eastern side Genoa (106 miles or 170 km). From the outset, we acknowledge that Nice and Monaco sit much closer to the national border than does Genoa, but we contend that the comparison is significant, given the history of the coast that flanks the Ligurian Sea.

An Introduction to Mediterranean Linguistic Landscapes

In his classic work The City in History, Mumford reconstructs the development of the idea of the city from ‘a city that was, symbolically, a world’ to ‘a world that has become, in many practical aspects, a city’ (Mumford, 1961, p. xi). Along different lines, Lefebvre (1970, p. 7) predicted the ‘complete urbanization of society’ in so far as the urban would eventually envelop all ways of being, thinking, and acting. If on the one hand this remains a working hypothesis, on the other hand the dissemination of urban culture is pervasive and influential. By urban culture we mean a process, typical of late modernity, which emanates from the city but is also the result of the relationship between the wider culture and the city and of how urban culture impacts on the city itself. Studies examining such aspects have been at the centre of sociological and anthropological research (Redfield and Singer, 1954; Harvey 1973, 1989, 1996, 2006) but we position this book in relation to debates that have been percolating through sociolinguistics over recent decades. We exploit representations of the city which have moulded the collective imagination whereby the city as symbol is the epitome of social breakdown, anonymity, loneliness, forms of marginalization, and crime. However, it is also a privileged site of encounter and mobility, a laboratory of social and cultural activity, and a magnet for human energy.