Spoken language use in public places

[William Leap]

Leap[, William L
2009 Professional baseball, urban restructuring and (changing) gay 
geographies in Washington DC. in  Out in Public:  Reinventing Lesbian/Gay 
Anthropology in a Globalizing World. Ellen Lewin and William L. Leap, eds. 
pp. 202-223. Malden MA: Blackwell. 

Wlm L. Leap
Professor and Chair,
Department of Anthropology
American University, Washington DC 20016

"It is not very hard to silence us, but that is not because we cannot 
speak."    --  a Bengali villager once remarked to Nobel prize winning 
economist  Amartya Sen  (The Argumentative Indian, Picador Book, 2005: 
xiii) 

"Don't be a drag, just be a queen!"  Lady Gaga



From:   Emily McEwan-Fujita <emilymcfujita at GMAIL.COM>
To:     LINGANTH at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
Date:   10/05/2011 08:17 PM
Subject:        Spoken language use in public places
Sent by:        Linguistic Anthropology Discussion Group 
<LINGANTH at listserv.linguistlist.org>



Dear Colleagues,

In response to my earlier query about research methodologies for observing
the public use of language in potentially multilingual contexts, I should
have specified that I was only referring to the use of spoken language and
not written language.

A number of people have suggested that I look at the "linguistic 
landscape"
literature. Thank you very much for the suggestion. The definition of
linguistic landscape given in Elana Shohamy's book _Language Policy: 
Hidden
Agendas and New Approaches_  is as follows:

"Linguistic landscape (LL) can be viewed as one domain within language in
the public space; it refers to specific language objects that mark the
public sphere and is used here as one case. Examples of LL are road signs,
names of sites, streets, names of buildings, place and institutions,
advertising billboards, commercials and personal visitiing cards as well 
as
labels, instructions and public forms, names of shops and public signs"
(Shohamy 2006:112).

Thus the term "linguistic landscape" would seem to apply only to examples 
of
written language. However, if anyone is aware of someone having undertaken 
a
linguistic landscape-oriented study that focuses instead on spoken 
language,
I would be very interested to hear about it.

I received a suggestion to check the work of Jacqueline Lindenfeld on
markets in France; her book describes her research methodology which
consisted of participant observation and recording of extensive 
interactions
at markets, in an early example of "ethnography of communication" 
research:
http://books.google.ca/books?id=tXn4RAFhhVQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=speech+and+sociability+at+french+urban+marketplaces&hl=en&ei=K-iMTrK-LoHX0QG99LW0DA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=2.%20Data%20collection&f=false


I have also received suggestions to check the work of Carol Myers-Scotton
and Peter Auer and I'm looking into that.

I have also received suggestions to check the articles in _The Handbook of
Language and Globalization_ edited by Nik Coupland. I will look into that 
as
well.

As well as descriptions of academic research methods, and discussions of
methodological issues and problems, I am also searching for descriptions 
of
research methods for studying spoken language use in public places that
might have actually been used by minority language planners and/or 
community
members themselves, such as the example described by Urla, something which
wouldn't involve audio recordings but the tabulation of quantitative data 
of
some kind. This would probably be put to more applied uses.

(Please don't re-post my query to other lists without my permission -- I
intended only to query subscribers to the Linganth List.)

Thank you very much!

Emily

**********************************************************************
Emily McEwan-Fujita, Ph.D.
Research Associate
Gorsebrook Research Institute for Atlantic Canada Studies
Saint Mary's University
Halifax  B3H 3C3
Nova Scotia
Canada

emilymcfujita at gmail.com
http://smu-ca.academia.edu/EmilyMcEwanFujita

slslc.editor at gmail.com
Editor, Small Languages & Small Language Communities Section
International Journal of the Sociology of Language
General Editor: Joshua A. Fishman
**********************************************************************