Text, Transit, and Transformation

SKY Journal of Linguistics, 2007

2014

westminster.ac.uk

America is not just responding to, or rejecting, Western perspectives but producing material that can be valuable for understandingargumentsaboutordinarycitieswithinthecontextofglobalisation.We interrogatecurrentframeworksinurbanculturalstudiesandcommunicationtheory tohighlighthowresearchinLatinAmericaprovidenewpossibilitiesforexchangeand dialogues into an area of study that is often missing or limited in Western urban culturalanalysis.Wearguethatthisresearchmovesawayfromtheoriesthatdeemed Latin American cities as underdeveloped or unequally inserted in to the network of globalcitiesbyprovidingwaysofnarrating,imaginingandunderstandingthecityin theirownterms.Thisresearchhoweverdoesnotgounchallenged;wealsoarguethat LatinAmericancapitalcitiesareoftenprivilegedatthecostofforgetting,ignoringor justdescribingastraditionalotherLatinAmericancitiesintheregion.

Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development

Based on a database composed of 1500 pictures, belonging to 401 analytical units from the Linguistic Landscape (hereafter: LL), and representing mainly the signs on the shop of migrant traders in two multi-ethnic neighbourhoods in Milan, this paper will describe the positioning strategies of Latin American (hereafter: LA) communities in a multilingual urban space, and the processes of identity negotiation in which they are engaged. We will use a scale-sensitive and contextualised interdisciplinary approach to the analysis of LL (Vandenbroucke 2015), combining quantitative and qualitative methods. The aim is to show how the presence of Spanish in the LL indexes the collective identities, as well as the language and social attitudes of the LA communities living in Milan. We will analyse the emerging practices of flexible multilingualism, or translanguaging (García and Otheguy 2014), as a creative response to linguistic differences and potential conflicts.

Journal of Urban Cultural Studies, 2017

This editorial opens the special issue of the Journal of Urban Cultural Studies titled ‘Cities in the Luso-Hispanic World’ by suggesting that these introductory pages are transparent panes of glass on a vehicle of transportation passing through and linking the research articles that make up this special volume. The editorial’s narrative movement is not unlike that of a car driving through the urban spaces of a city, and the eight authors’ analyses are not unlike the moving images of cityscapes flashing before the car’s windows. The above metaphor of the narration as a ride through urban space serves to situate a variety of topics (movement, visibility, images, representations, rhythms, noise, heritage, reified capital in the form of buildings, and circulation of people and cultural products) as part and parcel of specific urban contexts, including Lisbon (Portugal), Belo Horizonte, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo (Brazil), Mexico City (Mexico), and Madrid and Córdoba (Spain) through poetry, novels, film, sound and architecture. Running through each contribution is the ongoing enquiry on how urban processes manifest culturally in Luso-Hispanic regions, and at a variety of scales, with special attention to bodies moving in, through, and around specific urban centres.

In this paper, we present an approximation of the relationship between language and identity in Galicia. Specifically, we focus on the discursive strategies reproduced by subjects in processes of identity construction. In light of the fast socio-economic changes caused by the current phase of globalization, there is a need for identities to be (re)-defined, and within this context minority languages have begun to take special relevance in traditional spheres, becoming a category of resistance. Here we shall analyze the strategies developed by social actors in order to maintain an identity of their own within the context of globalization, with particular attention to the Galician language and its social representations. Furthermore, we shall verify if these representations differ from the rural to the urban world, or if these two worlds also tend to merge (processes of suburbanization and contra-urbanization).

2005

Using an analysis of census data and personal narratives be Quechua intellectuals and activists, this paper questions the assumption on the part of linguists that language planning is necessary for the survival of an oral, indigenous language in a modern, urban environment. Current uses and emblematic values of Quechua in the bilingual city of Cochabamba, Bolivia are examined.

This paper addresses societal power relations and the way they are reflected in the public space of Galicia (Spain). It reflects on the struggles concerning the presence, contestation, and erasure of language(s) within the city of A Coruña, one of the main Galician cities. The three different spellings for the city name symbolize the struggle between social agents with different backgrounds, ideologies, and aims: linguistic conflict is thus homologous with the social conflict. Each spelling indexes different glottopolitical stances and traces different boundaries for different imagined spaces and communities. I focus on the 'war of spelling' and its impact on the linguistic landscape, highlighting the importance of diacritics in indexing identities. In the light of these two points, I address the tensions that can be detected in the production of the new city logo, which constitutes an attempt to erase the linguistic and social conflict.

… Ben-Rafael, & Monica Barni (red …, 2010

Critical Inquiries in Language Studies, 2022

The analysis of a community’s linguistic landscape has proven to be an excellent tool not only in portraying, but also in evaluating and interpreting what languages are used in a single place (and what languages seem to be invisible), what the vitality of any of these languages is, and the relative influence that each linguistic variety within that community has and how it relates to the other varieties in terms of power, visibility and functionality. The presence or absence of a language in the public space conveys a message that directly and indirectly exposes its significance versus its marginality in the community. The present study analyzes languages used in the public space of a neighborhood in Oviedo, the capital city of Asturias in Spain, where Spanish is the majority language and Asturian is the regional language. While Asturian is present in some of the official street signs, stores’ signages only utilize Spanish along with other minority languages such as Arabic. Using a mixed research approach, this article analyzes attitudes and power relations among Spanish, Asturian and other immigrant languages used in the LL of a neighborhood in Oviedo, Asturias, while also revealing public perceptions of language hierarchies and prestige in the area.

EchoGéo, 2023

This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced PDF of a book chapter published in Lid King & Lorna Carson (Eds), The Multilingual City: Vitality, Conflict and Change, Bristol, Multilingual Matters, 2016. This chapter is about the visual evidence of multilingualism and the languages we hear in Europe’s cities, indeed the new varieties that seem to be emerging as a result of close language contact. In what follows, we will explore the languages we see in the streets of Europe’s cities as well as the soundscapes created and experienced by their citizens. The written language we see all around us in a city — official and permanent signs guiding traffic or providing public information, signs generated by the marketplace, unofficial or temporary notices, even graffiti — are all indicators of the various languages that may be spoken by the city’s residents and visitors. Most city-dwellers do not necessarily pay much attention to the languages they see and hear around them — sometimes ignoring them, sometimes taking them for granted, often failing to distinguish between them. Sociolinguistics and researchers in the field of study described as linguistic landscapes argue that the languages we see (or do not see) reflect the power and social relations in a city, inclusion or exclusion, solidarity and belonging. This is an important area of city life to scrutinise, as we know very little about how the multilingual repertoires of citizens are operationalised in their daily life. How do multilingual (and monolingual) citizens use the various languages at their disposal in their interactions with others? Do the various spheres of city life reflect the type of daily language usage that occurs, and the speech communities who are present? In the LUCIDE City Reports, the research teams examined what local residents and tourists notice about the cityscape. Through interviews with respondents and photographic evidence, the City Reports provide a snapshot of contemporary multilingualism in its manifestations in city streets. The last part of the chapter turns from the visual landscape to consider two aspects of the audioscape: multilingualism in the airwaves and the phenomenon of multiethnolects.

2013