Language and place-making: public signage in the Linguistic Landscape of Windhoek's Central Business District

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Investigating linguistic landscapes (LLs) has primarily been a matter of assessing language use in public signage. In its early days research in the field focused largely on quantitative analysis and typically drew direct relations between the prevalence (or absence) of languages in the public signs of an LL and the ethnolinguistic vitality of such languages. In recent years, scholars in the field have pointed out the flaws of these assumptions and taken a less determinist approach to LL study. In the present study I apply such a broader view with a multidisciplinary theoretical background. I investigate the public signage of Independence Avenue in Windhoek, Namibia, on the one hand evaluating to what extent Namibia's language policy (LP) and the real language practices of Namibians are reflected here, and on the other how commercial and non-commercial entities place and design public signs differently and what this may reveal about their identities. In conjunction with this I examine the public signage of online platforms, which have largely been neglected in LL studies.I predominantly draw on literature from LL study, and continue to incorporate LP theory and geosemiotics to explain how public signage is used as a form of place-making by making space meaningful. Data collection for the study included two steps: the first involved taking hundreds of photographs of public signs along the physical space of Independence Avenue, and the second comprised looking at the online signage of the different entities discovered in the LL. The study is predominantly qualitative and aims to discover how language use in the LL exposes language ideologies and language practices, and how signs produced by different entities reveal acts of place-making.The LL reveals a predominance of English both in the physical and online space of Independence Avenue that contrasts with the actual language practices of most Namibians. Furthermore, the findings indicate a division of public signage into zones with markedly different characteristics, with a central zone that appears more exclusive and tourist-oriented, and two peripheral zones that instead resemble sites of necessity. The study is important because it is the first to focus on an LL in Namibia, and in addition reveals possible detrimental ideologies and practices that can be assessed further and possibly resolved.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University