Sociolinguistics: Linguistic Landscapes of Bamberg

In this course, we will get to know the sociolinguistic method of Linguistic Landscapes research (LL). The LL approach has developed since the 1990s within the Third Wave of Sociolinguistics as a tool to investigate urban multilingualism. It focuses on written instances of language in the public sphere such as road signs, street names, shop names, advertisements, billboards, etc., to analyse the use and power relations of different languages. In this class, we will first learn about central sociolinguistic concepts and research areas related to LL research such as societal multilingualism, minority languages and language & power and we will then conduct an original case study examining the Linguistic Landscape of Bamberg. Students will be involved in gathering data, developping a suitable method, analysing the data and finally writing a research report.