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Chats in Linguistic DiversityLinguistic landscapes

Language makes the place

By January 17, 2022March 1st, 2024One Comment4 min read2,234 views

Welcome back to another year of research blogging on and about language on the move!

We kick off 2022 with a new episode in our Chats in Linguistic Diversity. In this episode, I speak with Professor Adam Jaworski about his research in language and mobility.

Language as resource to style a place

A languaged Christmas tree in an upmarket Sydney shopping mall

Adam is best known for his work on “linguascaping” – how languages, or bits of languages, are used to stylize a place. A welcome sign may index a tourist destination, artistic arrangements of word blocks like “love”, “peace”, or “joy” may index consumption and leisure spaces, multilingual signage may index a cosmopolitan space, and the absence of language may suggest the quiet luxury of the super-rich.

As these examples suggest, Adam’s focus, often in collaboration with his colleague Crispin Thurlow, has been on privileged mobilities: European tourists in West Africa, business class travelers, and those frequenting the consumption temples of our time, upmarket shopping malls.

Such research is vital to understanding the intersection between language and inequality, as Adam explains in our interview.

Privilege is the other side of the inequality coin, and a side that sociolinguists have often neglected.

English is safe and multilingualism is fun

The research of Adam and his associates has shown that English is often used to index a place as “safe”. However, the English that makes a place safe is not monolingual but plays with other languages or allusions to them. The English of consumption and leisure spaces is one that is shot through with bits and pieces of other languages – an umlaut here, a “bonjour” sign there, and a tourist going “xie xie” over there.

Code-crossing – switching into another language to signal symbolic change of speaker status or identity – thus becomes a sign of privilege, a way to have fun and to index one’s cosmopolitanism and global-mindedness.

Visual language displays have long marked a space as privileged, as in this cross-stitched sampler (Image credit: Nick Michael, Wikipedia)

Focusing visual language

Much of the language that makes a place consists of visual displays. These linguistic signs predominantly serve a decorative purpose, and Adam takes us back to Roman Jakobson and his theorization of the poetic function of language. According to Jakobson, the poetic function of language forces us to attend to the sign itself – the signifier – more than its meaning – the signified.

In today’s world with its ubiquity of signs, images, and other visual displays, it is easy to forget that the presence of signs for the sake of the sign itself has always been a display of power and privilege.

In short, our conversation is an invitation to carefully attend to mundane and everyday (bits of) language as an entry point into the big social questions of power, inequality, and social justice.

And, as always, academic questions do not come out of nowhere. That’s why the conversation is also a chance to hear from Adam about his career trajectory over the past 40 years.

If you want to dig deeper into Adam’s work, here are some suggested readings

Jaworski, A. (2015). Globalese: a new visual-linguistic register. Social Semiotics, 25(2), 217-235.
Jaworski, A. (2015). Word cities and language objects: ‘Love’ sculptures and signs as shifters. Linguistic Landscape, 1(1-2), 75-94.
Jaworski, A. (2019). X. Linguistic Landscape, 5(2), 115-141.
Jaworski, A. (2020). Multimodal writing: the avant-garde assemblage and other minimal texts. International Journal of Multilingualism, 17(3), 336-360.
Jaworski, A., & Lou, J. J. (2021). # wordswewear: mobile texts, expressive persons, and conviviality in urban spaces. Social Semiotics, 31(1), 108-135.
Jaworski, A., & Piller, I. (2008). Linguascaping Switzerland: language ideologies in tourism. In M. A. Locher & J. Strässler (Eds.), Standards and Norms in the English Language (pp. 301-321). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. (available for download here)
Jaworski, A., Thurlow, C., Lawson, S., & Ylänne-McEwen, V. (2003). The uses and representations of host languages in tourist destinations: A view from British TV holiday programmes. Language Awareness, 12(1), 5-29.Thurlow, C., & Jaworski, A. (2003). Communicating a global reach: Inflight magazines as a globalizing genre in tourism. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 7(4), 579-606.
Thurlow, C., & Jaworski, A. (2006). The alchemy of the upwardly mobile: symbolic capital and the stylization of elites in frequent-flyer programmes. Discourse and Society, 17(1), 99-135.
Thurlow, C., & Jaworski, A. (2010). Tourism discourse: language and global mobility. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

There is lots of related content on Language on the Move and this is small selection

Alcaraz, A. T. (2015). Strolling in Barcelona with Sanskrit and Devanāgarī.
Farrell, E. (2010). Visiting the Ausländerbehörde.
Grey, A. (2018). Do you ever wear language?
Hopkyns, S. (2020). Linguistic diversity and inclusion in the era of COVID-19.
Kalman, J. (2020). Signs of the times: Small media during Covid-19 in Mexico City.
Piller, I. (2010). Toiletology.
Piller, I. (2012). Money Talks.
Piller, I. (2013). Polish cemetery in Tehran.
Piller, I. (2017). More on banal cosmpolitanism.
Tenedero, P. P. P. (2021). COVID-safe travel between care and compliance.
Valdez, P. N. (2021). COVID-19 and the struggle for inclusive mobility.

Ingrid Piller

Author Ingrid Piller

Dr Ingrid Piller, FAHA, is Distinguished Professor of Applied Linguistics at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. Her research expertise is in bilingual education, intercultural communication, language learning, and multilingualism in the context of migration and globalization.

More posts by Ingrid Piller

Join the discussion One Comment

  • Neil Andre Tualla says:

    After listening to your conversation with Professor Jaworski, I am very interested to know more about “linguascaping” and visual language. It gave an insight on how “linguascaping” and visual language display power and privilege. I realize that there are other landscapes to consider like escalators and elevators. It gave me an understanding that these are simply “exclusive” and display of “safety”. I always thought that they were just embellishments, ease of access and hobbies that everyone could see, but I never expected to notice that there were signs of status and power.

    After reading your article, I am starting to have a realization to what “linguascaping” has to offer. My study is related as it focuses on the multimodality of visual novels. Your article inspired me to pursue a similar issue in the future. Thank you very much for sharing your work Dr. Piller!

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