Language used in public and commercial signs constitutes linguistic landscape of urban public space. As a key component of physical location,linguistic landscape is often viewed as a powerful educational tool and a vital source of language input in language teaching, learning and acquisition.This paper examines the roles and values of linguistic landscape for language education in the perspectives of incidental learning,language awareness and literacy skills. It also illustrates the functions of linguistic landscape in schools to revitalize minority languages.Language teachers can use linguistic landscape as an instrument in designing nuanced and multilayered learning activities to help learners understand the society as well as learn the texts. This paper concludes that the integration of linguistic landscape as a pedagogical resource and tool brings a wide range of benefi ts to language learning.
This study focuses on the relationship between the language power embodied in the bottom-up signs and the culture power in Shanghai’s language ecosystem. It reports on a linguistic landscaping research of Shanghai urban catering business. Data collection includes photographing linguistic signs displayed in and out of some 100 restaurants and interviewing restaurant owners or workers. The research finds that the top-down signs can accurately reflect language power and social status of the sign makers, while the language power of the bottom-up signs is not directly corresponding to social status of the sign makers. The author argues that the mismatch in the bottom-up sign cases is mainly caused by the impacts of culture power of the investigated languages. The author further argues that sign producer’s original motivation is not the focus of this linguistic landscaping study; rather, this study emphasizes text interpretation and positions the texts in its social context in order to analyze the culture power refl ected in the linguistic signs. The paper concludes that researchers should take extra caution in interpreting culture power embodied in the “Прецедентный феномен(precedential phenomenon)” while analyzing languages of bottom-up signs.
In linguistic landscape studies, signs displayed in public place are generally classifi ed into two types: official signs and private signs. This paper takes issue with this widely-accepted classifi cation, arguing that the offi cial-private distinction fails to address the language use differences on signs targeted at the insiders and those targeted at the outsiders of a speech community. The linguistic landscape in various speech communities of Macau has demonstrated the existence of insider-outsider difference. In this study, the linguistic landscape in Hong Kong’s speech communities are examined, and the findings also clearly support the distinction of insider-oriented and outsider-oriented signs. It is argued that multilingual speech communities have advantages over monolingual speech communities, with the former more inclined to accommodate internal and external needs. The classification of linguistic landscape thus should not only take into account the language differences between offi cial and private sectors, but also the internal-external differences in a speech community.
Since the beginning of the current century, Japan has seen a dramatic increase of foreign population and various social problems have emerged in society. To deal with the large population from abroad, not only the local authorities, but many non-government organizations get involved in relevant activities. To provide a general picture of multilingual life in a traditional homogeneous society,this study attempts to analyze the language use in today’s Japan with Tokyo as a reference point. As a cosmopolitan city, the linguistic landscape under the control of municipality of Tokyo faces the question of how to address the needs of its large number of foreign residents. My investigation into the research literature and the offi cial documents shows that while the relevant authorities are fully aware of their responsibilities to provide service including more languages in the official linguistic landscape, particularly the languages of ethnic minorities, they can hardly fulfi ll their objectives of creating equal environment for different ethnic groups in terms of language service due to financial constraints. The article concludes that if the current situation continues, the problem is bound to result in negative impact on both municipality administration and academic research.
Linguistic landscape, as an emerging field in sociolinguistic studies, refers to the linguistic objects visible in public space,which are viewed as a lens to the power relationship and identity of the languages and speech communities in a specific region. Positioned as an overview of the recent development of international linguistic landscape studies, this article fi rst reviews the history of linguistic andscape inquiry, then analyzes the latest research trend, and concludes with a discussion of the implications for relevant research in China. The development of linguistic landscape studies can be divided into three historical periods. The period from the 1970s to 1997 was the infancy stage of linguistic landscape exploration. From 1997 to 2007, it came to a theoretical exploration stage, followed by a taking-off period since 2008. The research trend in this field can be generalized as a broader scope of signage, a continuous expansion of researchareas, increasingly multidisciplinary theorization, and more diversifi ed approaches to linguistic representations in public space. Finally, the article reveals the weakness of linguistic landscape research in China, and suggests possible directions for further work.
CJLPP colleagues are saddened by the passing of an important fi gure in Chinese language modernization, Mr. Zhou Youguang, who passed away peacefully at 112 year old in Beijing, January 14, 2017. This article attempts to summarize his life achievements in simplifying and transliterating Chinese characters and to evaluate the influence on scholarly work on Chinese language planning in the future. Mr. Zhou Yuanguang is both “a theorist and a professional in Chinese language planning”. He had significant contribution in practical work of devising and promoting Chinese Pinyin Scheme, and his insights on various issues about theorizing Chinese language planning are specially inspirational and should be further studied and carried on by future researchers. Language planning in Zhou’s work is referred to as ‘language modernization’, and this behooves us to pay special attention to the characteristics of Chinese language planning and to give more importance to studying it from perspective of academic history. Mr. Zhou’s practical success in Chinese language planning and his observation in working guiding principles and theories concerning language and script has many implications for both researchers and practitioners, including to focus more on practical application in real life and to pursue a scientific and rigorous working culture. To follow Zhou’s step, we should also develop a vision with wider spectrum aiming at future development, and it is also important to respond to social demand when conducting research in accordance with developing rules of language and script.
This paper seeks to refl ect on the problems of curriculum planning in teaching Chinese as a second language, thereby reforming the current curriculum design. The discipline of teaching Chinese as a second language has at least two major defi ciencies in its curriculum planning. One is that course designers have no clear understanding of the characteristics of Chinese language and Chinese characters in the framework of second language learning. The other is that the courses stand aloof from the authentic Chinese language communication in China. In order to revamp the existing curriculum design and system, more relevant courses should be opened based on the characteristics of Chinese language and Chinese characters as well as the availability of language resources. Specifically, the class hours for compulsory and elective courses should be reduced properly, and courses such as Chinese characters, Chinese functioning words, written hinese, Pinyin-mediated spoken Chinese, local Mandarin and dialects need to be added. The new curriculum planning and design would be of signifi cance in several aspects. Firstly, it highlights both the “characters” and the “language” in Chinese,and enhances the status of Chinese characters in teaching. Secondly, it expands and strengthens the functions of Pinyin in Chinese teaching. Thirdly, it pays more attention to the teaching of Chinese written language. Finally, the planning demonstrates the advantages of learning Chinese in China compared to learning it in other countries. In this way, the scope of language learning and acquisition could be broadened, and the efficiency of Chinese learning could be improved.