Special Lecture on
“Linguistic Landscape: Past, Present, and Future”
Speaker: Bernard Spolsky (Bar-Ilan University, Israel)
Date: 4 June 2019 at 4-5pm
Venue: Room 304 Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Building, Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University.
Until the term paysage linguistique was applied by Landry and Bourhis to Canadian francophone high school students’ impressions of their exposure to French media, it was used by many linguists to refer to the actual language policy (the oral and written language practices) of a speech community. It was later restricted to the public signs described by Spolsky and Cooper in the Old City of Jerusalem, and many studies followed of urban public signs, encouraged by the ease of collecting iPhone digital photos. Most of these studies deal with what can be seen, but others are starting to investigate (as well as guess) the motivation of the signwriter. More recently, Shohamy and others have extended the term to deal with “all possible discourses” that may be interpreted by looking at or thinking about “public space”. It is thus threatening to replace the field of semiotics, the general theory of signs. My invitation to this event was to give a personal account of my own initial interest in linguistic landscape, challenges I have faced, how I perceive the field to have developed, and the direction I’d like to see it take in the future. This is what I propose to do.
The lecture is free of charge and available for the public. However, due to the limited number of seats, the registration will be on a first-come-first-serve basis. The lecture will be followed by a reception.
*XIScape2019 participants who have already registered for the workshop during the XIScape2019 registration process do not have to register here. The registration of XIScape2019 automatically includes the registration of the introductory workshop and the special lecture.
The lecture is funded by Chula Global Network.
