linguistic schoolscape

RESUMEN: El paisaje lingüístico (PL) emerge como un eje vertebrador de pedagogías situadas, inclusivas y multilingües. Su carácter dinámico y multimodal no solo refleja la complejidad sociolingüística de nuestras comunidades, sino que ofrece al profesorado una plataforma privilegiada para promover el pensamiento crítico, la reflexión metalingüística y la acción transformadora dentro y fuera del aula. El paisaje lingüístico en el contexto del aula se refiere al uso y análisis de los textos y signos visibles en el entorno escolar y comunitario como recurso pedagógico. Esta aproximación conecta el aprendizaje formal con la realidad sociolingüística, promoviendo la conciencia cultural, la competencia simbólica y el desarrollo de habilidades de alfabetización multilingüe. El estudio del PL ilustra cuestiones teóricas en el ámbito educativo a diferentes niveles y ha preparado a nuestros alumnos para participar de forma crítica en el análisis variacional de los signos verbales que componen su realidad más cercana. Palabras clave: paisaje lingüístico, paisaje lingüístico en contextos educativos, multimodalidad, agencia y agentes en el aula, ecología educativa Richness of the linguistic landscape in the classroom, state of the art ABSTRACT: The linguistic landscape (LL) emerges as a backbone for situated, inclusive, and multilingual pedagogies. Its dynamic and multimodal nature not only reflects the sociolinguistic complexity of our communities but also offers teachers a privileged platform to promote critical thinking, metalinguistic reflection, and transformative action inside and outside the classroom. The linguistic landscape in the classroom context refers to the use and analysis of texts and visible signs in the school and community environment as a pedagogical resource. This approach connects formal learning with sociolinguistic reality, promoting cultural awareness, symbolic competence, and the development of multiliteracy skills. The study of LL illustrates theoretical issues in education at different levels and has prepared our students to participate critically in the variational analysis of the verbal signs that make up their immediate reality.

Contributing to previous research on schoolscape, this study explores artifacts crafted by international student organizations (i.e., flyers and roll-up banners) across a U.S. university campus. Specifically, drawing on elements from geosemiotics (i.e., visual semiotics, place semiotics, and interaction order), the authors examined (1) how the producers convey their identities through both multilingual and multimodal practices, and (2) how the artifacts interact with the surrounding space. Considering the ephemeral nature of the artifacts under scrutiny, pictures of the actual artifacts were collected over a two-month period in 2024. The findings show that the sign makers constructed their identities through varied semiotic resources, including text, images (e.g., national flags, natural elements, historical landmarks), typography (e.g., typographic mimicry), colors indexing ethnocultural and/or national identities or university affiliation, code preferences, and linguistic choices creating multiple interaction orders. Regarding the emplacement of the artifacts, different patterns emerged, including a preference for authorized spaces over those associated with transgressive semiotics, and, more generally, a shift towards digital spaces for organizational promotion.

Transcarpathia is one of the westernmost counties of Ukraine with a centurylong multilingual tradition. The biggest minority group in the region is formed by Hungarians whose main educational and cultural centre is the Ferenc Rákóczi II Transcarpathian Hungarian College of Higher Education. The linguistic landscape of the region has been analysed several times, but the same cannot be said about schoolscape studies. Therefore, the present paper aimed to solve this research gap and investigate how a minority higher education institution can implement current educational and language policies in its linguistic landscape. The study employed a qualitative approach to show the symbolic significance of the languages used in an educational setting. Altogether 394 pictures were taken in the corridors of the main building of the Transcarpathian Hungarian College, in the Philology Campus, in several classrooms, and in the near environment of the institution. The pictures were divided into eight distinct categories, ranging from bottom-up to top-down initiatives: decorations, symbolic inscriptions, advertisements, instructions related to crises, names of rooms, educational documents, library signage, and other signs and announcements. In addition, the official website and the social networking sites of the Transcarpathian Hungarian College were analysed briefly as part of a virtual schoolscape analysis. Based on the results, the Rákóczi College follows a strong bilingual tradition by making everything available in at least two languages (Ukrainian and Hungarian), but the bottom-up domain is also subject to monolingualism. Furthermore, the online schoolscape of the institution is multilingual because everything is published in three languages (Ukrainian, Hungarian, and English). The research can be further expanded with the help of the aforementioned qualitative approach of schoolscaping in other Transcarpathian Hungarian educational institutions to get a deeper insight into the applied multilingual practices in a war-torn country.

This paper investigates the linguistic landscape of one public secondary school in Irosin, Sorsogon, Philippines. In particular, it identifies what language/s are displayed in the signs, who produced the signs, what materials are used, and who the intended audience is. It also determines how the languages are used, displayed and regulated in the school premise. Based on the 90 signs collected, the paper shows that English dominates in the linguistic schoolscape followed by Filipino while Bikol is scantly visible. It also illustrates that English functions in different spaces of the school in the ‘center’ (or top-down), English is used for formal communication while in the ‘periphery’ (or bottom-up), it is used as the language of youth, language of fashion and language of fetishization. On the other hand, Filipino, Bikol languages and mixed languages are mostly observed in bottom-up signs which are mostly used informally such as to impose particular order, to express transgressive pe...

The study of linguistic landscape is considered in its infancy in socio-linguistic research (Monje, 2017). When we walk through an institution, it is common to encounter linguistic tokens in different locations. Announcements and signages are two of the most important things with regard to information dissemination in an institution. These things helped in aid to making students informed of everything that is important to know. These are as important as billboards and other big printed advertisements that we usually see in cities, factories etc. To make this effective, school signage should be integrated into the planning and design process, and should encompass brand reinforcement, way finding and regulatory, as well as specialty sign (David, 2011). These public signs are a type of a semiotic sign in that they too stand for other than themselves.

The study of linguistic landscape is considered in its infancy in socio-linguistic research (Monje, 2017). When we walk through an institution, it is common to encounter linguistic tokens in different locations. Announcements and signages are two of the most important things with regard to information dissemination in an institution. These things helped in aid to making students informed of everything that is important to know. These are as important as billboards and other big printed advertisements that we usually see in cities, factories etc. To make this effective, school signage should be integrated into the planning and design process, and should encompass brand reinforcement, way finding and regulatory, as well as specialty sign (David, 2011). These public signs are a type of a semiotic sign in that they too stand for other than themselves.

This paper investigates the linguistic landscape of one public secondary school in Irosin, Sorsogon, Philippines. In particular, it identifies what language/s are displayed in the signs, who produced the signs, what materials are used, and who the intended audience is. It also determines how the languages are used, displayed and regulated in the school premise. Based on the 90 signs collected, the paper shows that English dominates in the linguistic schoolscape followed by Filipino while Bikol is scantly visible. It also illustrates that English functions in different spaces of the school in the ‘center’ (or top-down), English is used for formal communication while in the ‘periphery’ (or bottom-up), it is used as the language of youth, language of fashion and language of fetishization. On the other hand, Filipino, Bikol languages and mixed languages are mostly observed in bottom-up signs which are mostly used informally such as to impose particular order, to express transgressive pe...

One of the salient features in the implementation of K to 12 curricula in the Philippines is the use of the Mother tongue or lingua franca of the area as the medium of instruction from kindergarten to Grade 3 which brought significant effects to the Mathematics classroom situation. Sorsogon province with fourteen municipalities and one city has several local languages that varies from district to municipalities. This descriptive-comparative study using survey- questionnaire and unstructured interview was conducted to describe, illustrate and compare dialects in the Province of Sorsogon as Mother Tongue-Based (MTB) medium of instruction in grade school Mathematics. A stratified sampling technique was utilized in determining the representative area for each of the identified four language varieties existing in the province such as Masbate Sorsogon dialect, Bikol Sorsogon, Waray Sorsogon, and Miraya Sorsogon dialect. Findings revealed that variations in the mathematical terms of Sorsog...

Il linguistic landscape può essere definito come lo studio delle lingue e dei messaggi presenti in forma scritta nello spazio pubblico. Il volume si propone, nella prima parte, di fornire una sintesi dello stato dell'arte sul linguistic landscape, dalle origini fino ai più attuali sviluppi, utile a ricercatori e studenti universitari che vogliano accedere ad una trattazione scientifica sul tema in lingua italiana. Nella seconda parte, invece, viene esplorato lo schoolscape, ossia l'insieme di oggetti linguistici e semiotici che contribuiscono all'organizzazione visiva degli spazi scolastici. Vengono presentati i risultati di un'ampia ricerca, il cui scopo è quello di indagare usi, funzioni e percezioni di questo spazio e delle politiche linguistiche che lo regolano, nell'inedito contesto italiano. Le conclusioni cui si giunge, oltre a delineare un quadro ricco e sfaccettato di pratiche e utilizzi, vogliono stimolare una riflessione sul ruolo che lo schoolscape può avere, e già ha, in un'ottica di giustizia, equità sociale e di educazione linguistica democratica.

This paper investigates the linguistic landscape of one public secondary school in Irosin, Sorsogon, Philippines. In particular, it identifies what language/s are displayed in the signs, who produced the signs, what materials are used, and who the intended audience is. It also determines how the languages are used, displayed and regulated in the school premise. Based on the 90 signs collected, the paper shows that English dominates in the linguistic schoolscape followed by Filipino while Bikol is scantly visible. English used in bottom-up signages is used for formal communication while it is used as the language of youth, language of fashion and language of fetishization in the bottom-up signages. On the other hand, Filipino, Bikol languages and mixed languages are mostly observed in bottom-up signs which are mostly used informally such as to impose particular order, to express transgressive personal feelings and emotions, political choices, or individual and group identity. The high preference of English in the school top-down signs is shown by capitalizing, highlighting and using vivid inks or paints as well as using durable materials for long lasting presence of English in the LL. Though there are spaces for bilingual and mixed languages in the schoolscape, the findings show that the general institutional infrastructure and the stakeholders through their language practices do not fully support and strengthen the multilingual speakers of the area as well as the general goal of language policy on multilingualism promoted by the Department of Education.

One of the salient features in the implementation of K to 12 curricula in the Philippines is the use of the Mother tongue or lingua franca of the area as the medium of instruction from kindergarten to Grade 3 which brought significant effects to the Mathematics classroom situation. Sorsogon province with fourteen municipalities and one city has several local languages that varies from district to municipalities. This descriptive-comparative study using survey-questionnaire and unstructured interview was conducted to describe, illustrate and compare dialects in the Province of Sorsogon as Mother Tongue-Based (MTB) medium of instruction in grade school Mathematics. A stratified sampling technique was utilized in determining the representative area for each of the identified four language varieties existing in the province such as Masbate Sorsogon dialect, Bikol Sorsogon, Waray Sorsogon, and Miraya Sorsogon dialect. Findings revealed that variations in the mathematical terms of Sorsogon dialects within and between the representative areas include lexical and orthographical variations as used by the respondent grades 1 and 2 teachers of the identified four dialects. On the other hand, syntactic variations are visible in the mathematical statements as translated by the respondents in their own dialect. The difficulty of translating technical terms in mathematics and insufficient MTB-based instructional materials are the top problems met by the grade school teachers. A translation dictionary was developed as ready reference that could be validated and be utilized by the grade school teachers in the sample area of the study.