Umeå's Linguistic Landscape
Pilot project conducted by Coppélie Cocq, Lena Granstedt, David Kroik, Eva Lindgren, Peter Steggo. Umeå University, March 2016.
Our project investigates the prerequisites and conditions for linguistic vitality and revitalization as they are given by the physical surroundings in Umeå. Since Umeå is official administrative area for the Sámi languages and for Finnish, we have a stronger focus on these languages in particular.
A linguistic landscape is constructed by the combination of ”road signs, advertising billboards, street names, place names, commercial shop signs, and public signs on government buildings” in a given ”territory, region, or urban agglomeration” (Landry & Bourhis, 1997:25).
What is behind the linguistic landscape?
• (In)visibility
• History of cartography
• Colonialism
• Cultural heritage
• Hierarchies, power structures
• Language policies
• Ideologies, attitudes
About 200 photos, collected in different parts of the city between December 2015 and March 2016. These include official and vernacular signs, ads, and graffiti, permanent and temporary signboards.
City center, December-January 2015
What are the effects of a Linguistic Landscape?
• Informational function
• Symbolic function
• Effects on linguistic vitality
• Potential for revitalization
• Connection between place and identity
Christmas market at Gammlia
As an example, Finnish is used as a language for communication at the same hierarchic level as Swedish, whereas Sámi languages barely appear at the stall.
Tráhppie, Sámi Culture House in Umeå
Preliminary results
• Swedish is omnipresent, but the linguistic landscape in Umeå is not monolingual.
• Besides Swedish, English appears frequently, often at the same hierarchical level as Swedish, in commercial settings and purposes.
• Sámi languages appear almost exclusively on official buildings and official signboards.
• Other languages rarely appear on official signs, now and then on commercial signs, and in the occasion of specific events, on vernacular signs.
• The linguistic landscape of Umeå is dynamic.
Expected results: visualizing a linguistic landscape
• Mapping geographical distribution, vernacular initiatives etc
• Getting an overview of the use languages in the physical surroundings in relation to discourses about multilingualism
• Visualizing empowering practices such as naming and place-making
• Gaining new understandings through visualization (deep mapping)
References and further readings
. Kasanga, L. 2012. Mapping the linguistic landscape of a commercial neighbourhood in Central Phnom Penh. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 33(6):1-15
. Landry, R., & Bourhis, R. Y. (1997). Linguistic Landscape and Ethnolinguistic Vitality: An Empirical Study. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 16(1), 23–49.
. Salo, H. (2012). Using Linguistic Landscape to Examine the Visibility of Sámi Languages in the North Calotte. In D. Gorter, L. Van Mensel, & F. Marten Heiko (Eds.), Minority Languages in the Linguistic Landscape. Palgrave Studies in Minority Languages and Communities.
. Shohamy, Elana & Gorter, Durk (2008) Linguistic Landscape. Expanding the Scenery Taylor and Francis
. Shohamy, E. et al (2010) Linguistic Landscape in the city. Multilingual matters.