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Abstract
Originally a niche within LL studies, research on schoolscapes and on LL as a pedagogical resource has gained momentum (Krompák/Fernàndez-Mallat/Meyer 2022). Most of this work focuses on traces and practices of multilingualism in schools, especially involving minoritized languages and English (Brown 2018, Szabó 2015), other themes being the communicative and symbolic functions of schoolscape signs and the semiotic design of educational spaces (Gorter/Cenoz 2015, Krompák/Camilleri Grima/ Farrugia 2020, Androutsopoulos/Kuhlee 2021). This new project – ‘Linguistic landscape and social situation in secondary schools’ – shifts focus from multilingualism to the relation between the functions of school signs and a school’s social situation. We approach the schoolscape as part of the living environment of students and teachers; a resource for accomplishing organizational tasks (e.g. coordination of learning activities, regulation of social conduct); and a trace of each particular school’s institutional profile and social conditions. We pursue this dual conception both in the perceived semiotic landscape and its narration and evaluation by teachers and students. Data are collected in four secondary schools in Hamburg, selected in such a way that covers both types of secondary school (gymnasiums vs. ‘neighborhood schools’) and different levels of precarity vs. privilege. Data collection in each school includes a comprehensive photographic documentation of signs across the school premises and a guided tour (Szabó/Troyer 2017) with follow-up interview carried out separately with teachers and students. This presentation draws on examples from the data collected so far to illustrate three working hypotheses: (a) schoolscape signs realize a limited number of sign genres, which occur across different school types and social conditions; (b) the repertoire of signs within a school varies by school type and social condition; (c) members of the school community reflexively link their own schoolscape to the school’s institutional profile and social positioning.
Literature
- Androutsopoulos, J./ Kuhlee, F. 2021. Die Sprachlandschaft des schulischen Raums. Zeitschrift für Angewandte Linguistik 75 (1), 1-49.
- Brown, K.D. 2018. Shifts and stability in schoolscapes: Diachronic consideration of southeastern Estonian schools. Linguistics and Education 44. 12-19.
- Gorter, D./ Cenoz, J. 2015. The linguistic landscapes inside multilingual schools. In B. Spolsky, M. Tannenbaum & O. Inbar-Louri (eds.), Challenges for language education and policy, 51-169. New York: Routledge.
- Krompák, E./Camilleri Grima, A./Farrugia, M. 2020. A visual study of learning spaces in primary schools and classrooms in Switzerland and Malta. Malta Review of Educational Research 14(1), 23-50.
- Krompák, E./ Fernàndez-Mallat, V./ Meyer, S. eds. 2022. Linguistic landscapes and educational spaces. Multilingual Matters.
- Szabó, T.P. 2015. The management of diversity in schoolscapes: an analysis of Hungarian practices. Apples: Journal of Applied Language Studies 9(1), 23-51.
- Szabó, T.P./Troyer, R. A. 2017. Inclusive ethnographies. Beyond the binaries of observer and observed in linguistic landscape studies. Linguistic Landscape 3:3, 306-326
Bio
Jannis Androutsopoulos is Research Professor (Professor II) at MultiLing and Professor of German and Media Linguistics (Linguistik des Deutschen und Medienlinguistik) at Universität Hamburg.