This article describes a critical literacy research project undertaken with English Additional Language students at a South African township school. Students were invited to take on the position of researchers in gathering and analysing bumper stickers found in commuter minibuses known as itekisi (taxi). These everyday texts in English and African…

Taking a multi-level perspective on language-in-public-space policy, this study investigates the way Tunisia's dominant languages are dealt with in three independent but interrelated activities of language policy: official texts, public talk, and the actual practices of business actors in five commercial districts in metropolitan Tunis. Detailed…

This study examined the extended discourse used by two Deaf parents with their two Deaf children (ages two and four). The study was conducted using an in-depth examination of parental expressive use of American Sign Language, looking at the use of discourse and the features and contexts that offered the most opportunity for rich language…

Chinatowns around the world have been much studied in the linguistic landscape literature. The bulk of this research has focused on Western enclaves resulting from the Chinese diaspora of the Nineteenth Century, which share certain semiotic characteristics and histories. Less research has been conducted on Chinatowns in the East or on newly…

The identity of a city matters in a global age. This article explores the discursive construction of the global city's identity in relation to semiotic landscape, using the construction of Shanghai as a global city as a case study. In this increasingly globalising world, Shanghai authorities have recently demonstrated the desire to establish…

As multivalent concepts, projects and formations such as China's Belt and Road Initiative continue to cleave through new spaces, it is increasingly important to attend to the construction, framing, maintenance and dissemination of the sign systems that enable them. Whether or not these systems constitute forms of cultural imperialism, move across…

Institutions are known through the names-cum-titles shown on their signboards, internet websites, letterheads, etc. However, it seems that such cultures could not satisfy the yearning of most organizations. So, they further propagate their core values and traits by constructing short linguistic bursts-cum-contents that can expatiate on what the…

Background: In South Africa, developing criticality among learners is essential for their careers in school and outside school. However, knowledge and understanding of critical literacy within the schooling context is unclear, with only patchy guidance available for teachers. Objectives: An intervention project was set up to discover how community…

Linguistic ideologies that are left unquestioned and unexplored, especially as reflected and produced in marginalized language communities, can contribute to inequality made real in decisions about languages and the people who use them. One of the primary bodies of knowledge guiding international language policy is the International Organization…

Linguistic landscape (LL) research seeks to account for the visible displays of multilingualism on public signage. While surveys of signage in the LL produce quantitative descriptions of language contact in a given area, such analyses shed little light on people's interpretations of multilingual signs. Moreover, even within more qualitative…

The past three decades of activism for linguistic human rights (Skutnabb-Kangas 2000) have witnessed examples of language planning by various national and supranational actors in national and international spaces, with an exchange of ideas and strategies employed by national, regional, and worldwide organizations. In many countries a key goal of…

This case looks at an urban high school and the interaction among teachers and administrators regarding the issue of language use at the school. Specifically, the teacher involved challenges heteronormative language. The case is intended to spark critical self-reflection, reflection of institutional norms, analysis of ways in which the status quo…

Analysis of spontaneous storytelling samples of deaf 5- to 7-year-olds (N=15), all exposed to manually coded English for some time, differentially showed characteristics more consistent with either English or Sign Language in the language areas of explicit relations, mimed relations, incorporated relations, and English Functors. (CB)

Examines the nature of American Sign Language, indicates its intricate morphological structure, and demonstrates one experimental way of uncovering and validating this structure. (FL)

Examines the narrative story structure of a short American Sign Language narrative using stylistic analysis plus the structure of pausing in the narrative. (FL)