Chapter 2 engages you with both international and local research evidence of the clear connections between teacher support of multilingualism in students, and student wellbeing and school achievement. Understanding the implications of these research findings is core to the argument of the book, and to your engagement with and commitment to developing pedagogy for linguistically diverse classrooms.

This introductory chapter provides the rationale for the book, as well as its organization. As part of the linguistic landscape, public signage provides glimpses of a culture and its changes. The ability to read signs is a practical skill essential for daily survival in the target language environment. But there seems to have been a general neglect of signs in the typical Chinese language curriculum, even at advanced levels of instruction. This book aims to rectify the situation.

This chapter provides a critical review of the blossoming of Linguistic Landscape (LL) as a research field in the early 21st century. Arguing that the LL itself is at least as old as written language, the chapter examines the multiple sources of contemporary LL research in such fields as onomastics, the visual arts, language policy and planning, and examinations of the social and linguistic outcomes of multilingualism, globalisation, and population movement. The chapter argues that the field of LL research did not stem from any one source, but instead developed from bringing together researchers from different interests and parts of the world. The chapter reviews terminology in the field from English and French, and argues for the use of LL as one which is broad enough to include a wide range of modes of expressing meaning, but retains a focus on language that gives it a distinct conceptual identity.

This chapter argues that the Linguistic Landscape (LL) brings together orientations towards past, present, and future in complex ways which distinguish it from other forms of discourse and from language in the grammatical sense. In this analysis, every unit of the LL points to a past act of a sign instigator which is viewed in the framework of present relevance but which also points toward states and actions in a relative future. This complexity determines that each unit in the LL carries its own temporal frame of reference, which may include direct reference to time, time inflections that allow for stylistic means of invoking additional notions of time, and the unit time which follows as a consequence of the unit’s physical features. From this perspective, it is argued that there is no single present in the LL, but, rather, that the LL encompasses a flow of different – sometimes contradictory – temporal references. Fieldwork examples from six countries illustrate the operation in the LL of historical ghost signage and remnants, changes in street naming policies, tourism, nostalgia and repurposing, historical commemoration, and discourse features of political graffiti.

Building on the notions of markedness (which accounts for the special value attached to particular choices in language display) and affordances (which indicate what languages can be used for what purposes in specific contexts) in the Linguistic Landscape (LL), this chapter develops a social indexicality model to account for the role of language choices in pointing to communities of language users. These communities range from the local (such as graffiti crews or friendship groups) through various configurations of territory and community to the truly global. Language choices may make existential claims for marginalised social groups, and they allow for the status enhancement of local communities by enregisterment. Two case studies focus on territory and community. One presents a ‘village model’ in comparing the predominantly Protestant town of Kilkeel with the predominantly Catholic town of Warrenpoint in Northern Ireland, while the other examines ‘urban diversity’ with regard to displays of Greekness in Astoria (New York) and Greektown in Chicago. The chapter further examines the role of transient visitors and remote multinational organisations in shaping the LL.

Contrary to a view of the Linguistic Landscape (LL) as a collection of road and traffic signs, commercial signage, graffiti inscriptions, and other physical objects, this chapter treats the LL as discourse. In this approach, a visible unit of the LL is understood to mediate between a sign instigator and a sign viewer. The sign viewer is often a passing stranger whom the sign instigator will try to engage as an interlocutor. While the sign viewer’s reply is usually not articulated linguistically, it can be understood in light of the viewer’s subsequent behaviour, understanding, affect, or other modes of reply. The LL unit is seen as a performance which displays text in particular ways that are shaped by the pragmatic intentions of the sign instigator, discourse framing, and LL genre. This perspective argues against the restriction of the LL to written units. Urban diversity in the LL is thus understood in terms of a set of separate but interrelated discourses. In addition to examples of conversational maxims and speech acts at work, the chapter examines the overseas Irish pub as a complex LL genre, using data from New York, Chicago, Montreal, Liverpool, and Vienna.

This chapter presents a panoramic view of elements in the Linguistic Landscape (LL), using photographs from Ireland, North America, England, and continental Europe. The discussion focuses on the operation of language policies and language choices, the regulation of space in the landscape, discourse elements in graffiti and social protest, and the position of the LL in reflecting and commemorating history. The chapter argues that while language display is crucial to the LL, any written display of language also includes visual and spatial elements which are part of the LL. Some elements such as orthography, letter shape, and text colour, are close to the language system. Others include visual images, the physical medium and ground used for the message, and the size and placement of the message. The chapter takes an inclusive view of language, referring to a wide range of displays that involve lexical elements and copresent modes of expressing meaning. A focus on the LL as discourse shows that restricting the LL to written language is overly limited, and that oral tradition and discourse must also be taken into account.

In this chapter, language choices in the Linguistic Landscape (LL) are examined in relation to official language policy and personal language choices. Particularly significant are signage units which express messages using two or more languages or other linguistic codes. Different codes can express the same message, but they may display different messages which may be aimed at different audiences. Rather than simply putting messages into particular linguistic envelopes, units of the LL develop intricate communicative actions in the choices of size and placement for particular languages, and in the different ways in which languages make references to texts and cultural features which lie outside the signage itself. Using photographs from 11 countries, the chapter also shows that the LL provides a forum for language play, displays of elite language, cross-linguistic typographical effects, and the incorporation of visual images into writing systems.

This chapter understands the Linguistic Landscape (LL) as a flow of discourse in time. LL units are structured as texts, materials, and discourse, but the LL only unfolds when these units engage the sign instigator and the sign viewer in discourse in the public eye. Using the foodscape as a focal point, the boundaries between the LL and other social practices are examined. A review of LL research methodology examines the role of photographs and the photographer’s point of view, fieldwork approaches that include interviews and reflexive ethnography, and the position of quantitative analysis. The chapter discusses relationships between the material LL and online linguistic landscapes (OLL), examining language displays in the OLL and ways in which users transcend the apparent boundaries between the two. Pointing out the long history of representing the LL in literature, the chapter discusses James Joyce’s Ulysses for its portrayal of the outer forms of the LL and its representation of the inner world of characters who move through the LL. Recommendations are made for further expansion of the field geographically, temporally, materially, and ethnographically.

This chapter explains the importance of a sustained study of the linguistic/semiotic landscape of global Korea not only in obvious ways for scholars of Korean studies but also to readers more generally interested in language and globalization even without a stated interest in Korea per se. Doing so comes with the related task of providing necessary background on Korea as a national imaginary with a particular focus on aspects of its ethnic national heritage that are relevant to its iterations across the linguistic/semiotic landscape of global Korea. In other words, this chapter describes what some of the generalizable characteristics of Korea are (for readers interested in the globalization of culture) while also describing what makes Korea “unique,” which is particularly important given the focus of the book, to explore the mechanics by which a given cultural entity can come to be semiotically salient (i.e., distinguishable) across global space. This chapter also serves as the space to provide some background to the study that informs this book, describing the various iterations it has taken since 2012.

This chapter considers the significance of viewing cultural entities not only directly but “obliquely” as well, especially as they are encountered in translingual contexts. In order to do so, it outlines the various theoretical advancements of translingualism with a particular emphasis on the importance of attending to spatial and temporal considerations within linguistic/semiotic landscape research. In addition, while translingualism has been presented as a linguistic theory critical to establishing and sustaining cosmopolitan relations across cultural difference, this chapter raises the question of what it means to conceive of another cultural entity as “different” if such differences are semiotically produced in ways that are tenuous if not arbitrary. The chapter thus asks readers to explore culture as it is produced and reproduced within contexts of semiotic precarity, when the presumed essence of an entity is unable to be taken for granted (whether by an “outsider” or even an “insider”) and therefore demands affirmation or reaffirmation via semiotic distinction (semiotic acts that distinguish it from another cultural entity).

This chapter considers the excess of signification, or the semiotic “traces” of global Korea. It first explores the question of the trace in relation to conspicuous municipal designations of Korean spaces in various Koreatowns, which are in turn juxtaposed with the Gwanghwamun in Seoul, a gate to the royal Gyeongbokgung Palace that has been destroyed, relocated, and restored over the years. The chapter then examines how cultural meaning emerges through semiotic traces that would normally be dismissed as having any significatory value, focusing on the case of European semiosis and the role it plays in signifying Koreanness. Finally, it turns to the unusual case of signage in bathrooms of restaurants and other establishments advising patrons to not flush paper down the toilet, reflective of a uniquely Korean preoccupation that can be traced to the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. These examples collectively show that Korea can be encountered through semiotic traces that seem to have nothing to do with Korea at all. This in turn not only raises questions about what Korea is but also invites considerations of what to look for when trying to make sense of Korea or another cultural entity.

This chapter introduces a framework of translingual inversion, which facilitates our effort to make sense of the ways in which a given culture can be rendered visible across global space. “Translingual inversion” describes both a theoretical heuristic by which to inquire into what may be the core semiotic features of a given cultural imaginary, which distinguish it from another cultural imaginary, and also the phenomenon of recognizing such features, of locating culture. The application and understanding of translingual inversion are made possible by adopting a global locus, but also “obliquely.” Due to the fact that a given culture typically need not be expected to differentiate itself from other cultures on an everyday basis, translingual inversion is about making sense of the ways in which culture can be located across global space. This chapter also outlines some of the complexities inherent to semiotically representing a particular kind of culture, namely the national imaginary, and then briefly describe how translingual inversion can therefore be instrumental to the task of “locating” national imaginaries across global space.

This chapter attempts to inspire readers to pursue complementary inquiry into considerations of global Korea and analogous research into global iterations of other cultural imaginaries. This chapter also attempts to answer the broader question of why the interdisciplinary study of language remains important in today’s global era. On the one hand, contact across cultures and the realities of transculturation are increasingly the norm. However, more importantly, approaching language in this manner enables us to arrive at a more comprehensive understanding of the complex dynamics by which cultures can be rendered distinguishable across global space. It further enables us to attend to the reality that questions of what it means to belong to a given cultural entity to begin with are undergoing radical and unprecedented permutations. Therefore, this chapter suggests that perhaps the question is not so much how today the study of language is more important than ever, but how we can continue to adapt it and be flexible enough so that we can continue to try and make sense of the role of language in relation to the ever-changing contours of cultural belonging today and into the future.

This chapter focuses on the phenomenon of representing the nation as a problem of scale but also as a contingency of scale. It approaches the idea of Korea as a discrete cultural entity as a question of scale, which I define as a discursive framing device that enables us to orient or reorient ourselves toward a given element of our social worlds that is otherwise difficult or impossible to make sense of. Korea, in this sense, is treated both in terms of being able to be scaled and perhaps only ever being subject to scale. The chapter first looks at the scaling of Korea via the color red, which emerged as synonymous with the nation following the 2002 FIFA World Cup, and how such a chromatic association, even if highly unstable, has been embraced since. It then looks to examples of scaling Korea via historical allusions to the ancient Koryo dynasty, a process which demands a strategic manipulation of historical fact. Finally, it analyzes the global allusiveness of a small series of islets whose ownership remains disputed between Korea and Japan, and unpacks the implications of the impossibility of representing the territory to scale.

This chapter focuses on locating the nation via language, in particular written language. It focuses on written language in part due to the fact that the script of the Korean language, known as Han-geul, is frequently referenced as a distinguishing aspect of Korean national identity. More generally, code choice on signage is perhaps the most obvious and simplest way to see cultural difference in the linguistic/semiotic landscape. However, this chapter is not merely an effort to enumerate or catalog instantiations of Koreanness via written language. Instead, it looks at moments of what can be described as “weird language,” or instances of translation, transliteration, and translingualization that are “unfamiliar,” which through their unfamiliarity render intelligible cultural distinctiveness. Examining “weird language” across spaces in Beijing, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Oakland, São Paulo, Shanghai, and Tokyo, the chapter explores what such encounters tell us about our assumptions about the familiar: the taken-for-granted aspects of culture that in a given moment may be expected to stand in for a culture and differentiate it from another.