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ERIC Number: EJ1050679
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2015
Pages: 19
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0143-4632
EISSN: N/A
Language Visibility, Functionality and Meaning across Various Timespace Scales in Brussels' Multilingual Landscapes
Vandenbroucke, Mieke
Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, v36 n2 p163-181 2015
This paper addresses the complex multilingual linguistic landscapes (LLs) of three strategically-chosen areas in global city Brussels by examining how language displays on public signage in these areas are used for different purposes, functions or intentions. The focus will be on meaning-construction in the post-Fordist globalised era as shaped by different contextual scales. By drawing on a systematic corpus of linguistic landscape data indicative of language visibility and functionality patterns in each of these three areas and by drawing on a small selection of interviews with shop-owners, this study will discuss the "landscapes" and diverse displays of Brussels' three "big" languages (French, English and Dutch) and "ethnoscapes" (Appadurai 1990) of their attendant transnational communities of tourists, immigrants and expats. In order to assess these differences in functionality and meaning, the geographical notion of TimeSpace scales is applied as an analytical and interpretative concept and as a metaphor most apt to study sociolinguistic processes and phenomena of globalisation. This more interpretative, scale-sensitive and contextualised approach to LL and language meaning is also in line with recent arguments in favour of qualitative, interdisciplinary approaches to linguistic landscape research.
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Belgium
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A