The role of linguistic landscapes (LL) and their educational benefits is not a new topic of research in multilingual or multicultural studies, but Linguistic landscapes beyond the language classroom expands LL studies in important ways. This volume features eleven permutations of the ways in which LLs move ‘beyond the classroom’ becoming sites for expressing and negotiating identities and ideologies. In line with LLs’ sociolinguistic beginnings, this volume argues that both traditional and nontraditional LLs form a semiotic landscape rather than a purely linguistic one.
Editors Greg Niedt & Corinne A. Seals skillfully develop the central components of their thesis through the division of the volume into three parts. Part 1, ‘Other forms of language classroom’, is dedicated to LLs structured with an educational purpose. At a German-language school in Minnesota, the strategic distribution of texts connects students to German culture and history in addition to new vocabulary. Outside the classroom, representations of American Sign Language (ASL) at Gallaudet University reflect the inequality between dominant and minority languages on campus. This chapter also provides a robust visual representation of an LL which includes hand shapes, photos, and videos necessary for the expansion of LL studies. The section concludes with an examination of a two-week study abroad program in New Caledonia where, drawing data primarily from the students’ observational journals, the authors focus on the ways an LL's linguistic and semiotic features overlap to enrich students’ education.
Part 2, ‘Structured spaces becoming classrooms’, guides readers through a series of LLs constructed for purposes other than education. Even so, at each site, viewers are keenly aware of the lessons being taught to them. At public health institutions in Tanzania, displaying medical and non-medical signs in different languages teaches visitors who has authority in those spaces; similarly, an international airport trains passersby to associate the Māori language with New Zealand's tourism. At each site, the authors assert that learning occurs whenever people interact with the linguistic and semiotic aspects of their environment. Part 3, ‘LLs as activist education’, highlights sites where activists utilize LLs to explore issues of equity and social justice. In Taiwan, the construction of ‘story houses’ attempts to save a threatened way of life by teaching it to others. The final two studies explore how political and activist signage is used to educate passersby about contemporary social and political issues in Ukraine, Germany, and Ireland. The volume closes by taking readers back to the classroom with a methodological chapter where authors discuss how ‘multiple understandings of complex social reality’ are revealed as one moves through a landscape (223).
Contributions from scholars in sociolinguistics and language education make this accessible volume appealing to educators, academics, and students in the social sciences. It is an excellent introduction to linguistic landscapes and their potential to expand students’ intercultural experience.
