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Linguistic landscaping as an RST research method: the downfall of language policies in a post-war context

Linguistic landscaping as an RST research method: the downfall of language policies in a post-war... This paper aims at checking the eligibility of linguistic landscaping research methods for language research from the RST perspective. Linguistic landscaping has proved, so far, to be an excellent tool for documenting and delineating social changes and different cleavages in a society (Ben-Rafael etal. 2006; Grbavac 2012a; Trumper-Hecht 2009). Linguistic landscaping is capable of depicting subtle phenomena, above all, in a multilingual and multicultural setting. Linguistic landscape, as a set of `in vitro' and `in vivo' signs put up by new social actors, is dynamic and purposive, in the very same manner like the agency concept in Realist Social Theory (RST). It is an "ever-shifting set of conditioning relations" (Carter and Sealey, 2014 in preparation). The paper will apply agency and structure approaches of RST on language policy, which is a variable that saturates and shapes all aspects of a linguistic landscape. This case study was done in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, a city that was divided after the 1992­1995 war into two parts. Today all characteristics of an unstable, rapidly changing society in transition are present in the city. The two confronted collectives have different interests, so that the linguistic landscape of the city of Mostar represents http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png European Journal of Applied Linguistics de Gruyter

Linguistic landscaping as an RST research method: the downfall of language policies in a post-war context

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Publisher
de Gruyter
Copyright
Copyright © 2015 by the
ISSN
2192-9521
eISSN
2192-953X
DOI
10.1515/eujal-2015-0005
Publisher site
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Abstract

This paper aims at checking the eligibility of linguistic landscaping research methods for language research from the RST perspective. Linguistic landscaping has proved, so far, to be an excellent tool for documenting and delineating social changes and different cleavages in a society (Ben-Rafael etal. 2006; Grbavac 2012a; Trumper-Hecht 2009). Linguistic landscaping is capable of depicting subtle phenomena, above all, in a multilingual and multicultural setting. Linguistic landscape, as a set of `in vitro' and `in vivo' signs put up by new social actors, is dynamic and purposive, in the very same manner like the agency concept in Realist Social Theory (RST). It is an "ever-shifting set of conditioning relations" (Carter and Sealey, 2014 in preparation). The paper will apply agency and structure approaches of RST on language policy, which is a variable that saturates and shapes all aspects of a linguistic landscape. This case study was done in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, a city that was divided after the 1992­1995 war into two parts. Today all characteristics of an unstable, rapidly changing society in transition are present in the city. The two confronted collectives have different interests, so that the linguistic landscape of the city of Mostar represents

Journal

European Journal of Applied Linguistics – de Gruyter

Published: Mar 1, 2015

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