The book contains a collection of studies of the linguistic landscape - the use of written language on signs in the public sphere - in 5 different societies: Israel, Japan, Thailand, the Netherlands (Friesland) and Spain (Basque Country). All contributions focus on multilingualism in the social context of the major cities.

This book focuses on linguistic landscapes in present-day urban settings. In a wide-ranging collection of studies of major world cities, the authors investigate both the forces that shape linguistic landscape and the impact of the linguistic landscape on the wider social and cultural reality. Not only does the book offer a wealth of case studies and comparisons to complement existing publications on linguistic landscape, but the editors aim to investigate the nature of a field of study which is characterised by its interest in ‘ordered disorder’. The editors aspire to delve into linguistic landscape beyond its appearance as a jungle of jumbled and irregular items by focusing on the variations in linguistic landscape configurations and recognising that it is but one more field of the shaping of social reality under diverse, uncoordinated and possibly incongruent structuration principles.

Linguistic Landscapes is the first comprehensive approach to language on signs. It provides an up-to-date review of previous research, introduces a coherent analytical framework, and applies this framework to a sample of signs collected in Tokyo. Linguistic Landscapes demonstrates that the study of language on signs provides a unique research perspective to urban multilingualism.

This book offers an inclusive perspective on the constellation of languages in Europe by taking into account official state languages, regional minority languages and immigrant minority languages. Although "celebrating linguistic diversity" is one of the key propositions in the European discourse on multilingualism and language policies, this device holds for these three types of languages in a decreasing order. All three types of languages, however, are constituent parts of a multilingual European identity and should be taken into account in any type of language policy. Both facts and policies on multilingualism and plurilingual education are addressed in case studies at the national and European level. The selection of case studies is based on a careful weighing of geographical spread of countries and languages across Europe on the one hand, and availability of established expert knowledge on the other. After an Introduction to the theme of the book (Guus Extra and Durk Gorter), Part I deals with official state languages with a focus on the spread of English as lingua franca across Europe (Juliane House), on French and France (Dennis Ager), on Polish in Poland and abroad (Justyna Lesniewśka), and on language constellations in the Baltic States (Gabrielle Hogan-Brun). Part II deals with regional minority languages with a focus on Catalan in Spain (Francesc Xavier Vila i Moreno), Frisian in the Netherlands (Durk Gorter et al.), Hungarian as a minority language in Central Europe (Susan Gal), and Saami in the Nordic countries (Mikael Svonni). Part III deals with immigrant minority languages in the United Kingdom (Viv Edwards), Sweden (Lilian Nygren-Junkin), Italy (Monica Barni and Carla Bagna) and Europe at large (Guus Extra and Kutlay Yağmur).

Superdiversity has rendered familiar places, groups and practices extraordinarily complex, and the traditional tools of analysis need rethinking. In this book, Jan Blommaert investigates his own neighbourhood in Antwerp, Belgium, from a complexity perspective. Using an innovative approach to linguistic landscaping, he demonstrates how multilingual signs can be read as chronicles documenting the complex histories of a place. The book can be read in many ways: as a theoretical and methodological contribution to the study of linguistic landscape; as one of the first monographs which addresses the sociolinguistics of superdiversity; or as a revision of some of the fundamental assumptions of social science through the use of chaos and complexity theory as an inspiration for understanding the structures of contemporary social life.

In this comprehensive and pioneering volume, language scholars from around the world examine the "linguistic landscape" from multiple perspectives – theoretical, methodological, and critical. Written by widely recognized experts, the articles in Linguistic Landscape analyze linguistic landscapes in a range of international contexts. Dozens of photographs illustrate the use of language in the environment – the words and images displayed and exposed in public spaces. Suitable for graduate or advanced undergraduate students in applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, and language policy studies, Linguistic Landscape is a vital contribution to a burgeoning field.

The Low Countries are famous for their radically changing landscape over the last 1,000 years. Like the landscape, the linguistic situation has also undergone major changes. In Holland, an early form of Frisian was spoken until, very roughly, 1100, and in parts of North Holland it disappeared even later. The hunt for traces of Frisian or Ingvaeonic in the dialects of the western Low Countries has been going on for around 150 years, but a synthesis of the available evidence has never appeared. The main aim of this book is to fill that gap. It follows the lead of many recent studies on the nature and effects of language contact situations in the past. The topic is approached from two different angles: Dutch dialectology, in all its geographic and diachronic variation, and comparative Germanic linguistics. In the end, the minute details and the bigger picture merge into one possible account of the early and high medieval processes that determined the make-up of western Dutch.

This book provides a forum for theoretical, methodological and empirical contributions to research on language(s), multimodality and public space, which will advance new ways of understanding the sociocultural, ideological and historical role of communication practices and experienced lives in a globalised world. Linguistic Landscape is viewed as a metaphor and expanded to include a wide variety of discursive modalities: imagery, non-verbal communication, silence, tactile and aural communication, graffiti, smell, etc. The chapters in this book cover a range of geographical locations, and capture the history, motives, uses, causes, ideologies, communication practices and conflicts of diverse forms of languages as they may be observed in public spaces of the physical environment. The book is anchored in a variety of theories, methodologies and frameworks, from economics, politics and sociology to linguistics and applied linguistics, literacy and education, cultural geography and human rights.

Visible language is widespread and familiar in everyday life. We find it in shop signs, advertising billboards, street and place name signs, commercial logos and slogans, and visual arts. The field of linguistic landscapes draws on insights from sociolinguistics, language policy and semiotics to show how these public forms of language relate to multiple issues in language policy, language rights, language and education, language and culture, and globalization. Stretching from the earliest stone inscriptions, to posters and street signs, and to today's electronic media, linguistic landscapes sit at the crossroads of language, society, geography, and visual communication. Written by one of the pioneers of the field, this is the first book-length synthesis of this exciting, rapidly-developing field. Using photographic evidence from across three continents, it demonstrates the methodology and approaches used, and summarises its findings and developments so far. It also seeks to answer common questions from its critics, and to suggest new directions for further study.