Analyzes linguistic landscape in bilingual German-English elementary school in Western Canada. some background on LL. Nexus analysis (Scollon & Scollon 2004) may be important?
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This linguistic landscape is analysed
using nexus analysis (Scollon and Scollon 2004) which sheds light on the convergence of (1) the historical body of social actors in which teachers are primarily responsible for sign making, (2) an interaction order in which teachers practise organic sign placement and (3) discourses in place which include the promotion of bilingualism. This research reveals that signage is limited in its promotion of German–English bilingualism, constrained strongly by practices that define sign maker’s responsibility and the GBP’s reach. This study contributes to our understanding of linguistic landscape research by exploring the degree to which a school offering a Bilingual Program promotes bilingualism through signage. Educators and researchers looking critically at school signs are given cause to question accepted practices and strong discourses which limit the promotion of bilingualism.
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Linguistic landscape is defined as the language on signage ‘of a given territory, region, or
urban agglomeration’ (Landry & Bourhis, 1997, p. 25). Previous linguistic landscape research has focused on signage within a city (Boudreau & Dubois, 2005; Curtin, 2009; Lai, 2013), neighbourhoods (Boudreau & Dubois, 2005; Cenoz & Gorter, 2006) or geographic areas (Pietikäinen, Lane, Salo, & Laihiala-Kankainen, 2011), noting how the signs of a setting reflect and inform the language use of a given area. Yet, as linguistic landscape research develops further, investigations are beginning to include schools (Brown, 2012; Dagenais, Moore, Sabatier, Lamarre, & Armand, 2008; Sayer, 2009) and incorporate new methodologies such as nexus analysis (Pietikäinen & Kelly-Holmes, 2011).
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GBP teachers created 34
out of 58 bottom-up signs in the combined GBP wing and common areas of which nine are German-only and three are bilingual. They create German-only or bilingual labels for student work that appear on bulletin boards outside of their classrooms (Figure 5). As revealed in the focus group, these signs are aimed not only at students, but also at parents