Abstract
The multilingual condition of Brussels’ population in the present time is unprecedented to the extent that certain scholars refer to Brussels as “a new Babylon” marked by increasing “superdiversity” in terms of the languages spoken and the wide range of nationalities and cultures residing in the city. This chapter presents a data-driven empirical perspective on the Belgian and Brussels context, in particular, regarding how this multilingual reality amongst the Brussels population finds reflection in language choices and multilingual language use on signage in the public sphere, i.e., in what is commonly referred to as the linguistic landscape. The first part of this chapter outlines the nature and historical development of societal multilingualism in Brussels, as well as the fieldwork and methodological approach adopted in this study. This is followed by a discussion and interpretation of the main tendencies in multilingual discourses in Brussels, viz. partial demographic mirroring and discourses of representative, cost-cutting or highly visual multilingualism. As such, the nature of multilingual landscapes in Brussels provides a noteworthy case to illustrate some of the insights put forward by scholars working in the Linguistic Landscape paradigm.
References
Atrium. (2011). Voetgangersstromen 2011. Brussel: Atrium.
Backhaus, P. (2005). Signs of multilingualism in Tokyo – A diachronic look at the linguistic landscape. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2005(175–176), 103–121.
Baeten, G. (2001). The Europeanization of Brussels and the urbanization of ‘Europe’: Hybridizing the city. Empowerment and disempowerment in the EU district. European Urban and Regional Studies, 8(2), 117–130.
Barni, M., & Bagna, C. (2009). A mapping technique and the linguistic landscape. In E. Shohamy & D. Gorter (Eds.), Linguistic landscape: Expanding the scenery (pp. 126–140). London: Routledge.
Barni, M., & Bagna, C. (2010). Linguistic landscape and language vitality. In E. Shohamy, E. Ben-Rafael, & M. Barni (Eds.), Linguistic landscape in the city (pp. 3–18). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Barni, M., & Bagna, C. (2015). The critical turn in linguistic landscape: New methodologies and new items in linguistic landscape. Linguistic Landscape: An International Journal, 1(1/2), 6.
Ben-Rafael, E. (2009). A sociological approach to the study of linguistic landscapes. In E. Shohamy & D. Gorter (Eds.), Linguistic landscape: Expanding the scenery (pp. 40–54). London: Routledge.
Ben-Rafael, E., & Ben-Rafael, M. (2012). Le paysage linguistic belge: un chaos intelligible. In C. Hélot, M. Barni, R. Janssens, & C. Bagna (Eds.), Linguistic landscapes, multilingualism and social change (pp. 69–85). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
Ben-Rafael, E., Shohamy, E., Amara, M. H., & Trumper-Hecht, N. (2006). Linguistic landscape as symbolic construction of the public space: The case of Israel. International Journal of Multilingualism, 3(1), 7–30.
Bourhis, R. Y., Giles, H., Leyens, J. P., & Tajfel, H. (1979). Psycholinguistic distinctiveness: Language divergence in Belgium. In H. Giles & R. S. Clair (Eds.), Language and social psychology. Oxford: Blackwell.
Cassiers, T. (2010). Transnationale etnische handel in de Brabantstraat. Agora, 26(2), 28–31.
Cenoz, J., & Gorter, D. (2006). Linguistic landscape and minority languages. International Journal of Multilingualism, 3(1), 67–80.
Cook, V. (2013). The language of the street. Applied Linguistics Review, 4(1), 43–81.
Demaj, U., & Vandenbroucke, M. (2016). Post-war Kosovo landscapes in Pristina. Discrepancies between language policy and urban reality. Nationalities Papers, 44(5), 804–825.
du Plessis, T. (2010). Bloemfontein/Mangaung, ‘City on the move’. Language management and transformation of a non-representative linguistic landscape. In E. Shohamy, E. Ben-Rafael, & M. Barni (Eds.), Linguistic landscape in the city (pp. 74–95). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Edelman, L., & Gorter, D. (2010). Linguistic landscapes and the market. In H. Kelly-Holmes & G. Mautner (Eds.), Language and the market (pp. 96–108). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Gorter, D. (2006). Introduction. The study of the linguistic landscape as a new approach to multilingualism. International Journal of Multilingualism, 3(1), 1–6.
Haarmann, H. (1986). Language in ethnicity: A view of basic ecological relations. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Janssens, R. (2012). The linguistic landscape as a political arena: The case of the Brussels periphery in Belgium. In C. Hélot, M. Barni, R. Janssens, & C. Bagna (Eds.), Linguistic Landscapes, multilingualism and social change (pp. 39–52). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
Janssens, R. (2013). Meertaligheid als cement van de stedelijke samenleving [Multilingualism as cement of urban society]. Brussels: VUB Press.
Janssens, R., Mamadouh, V., & Maracz, L. (2013). Multilingual higher education in European regions. Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, European and Regional Studies, 3, 5–23.
Järlehed, J. (2015). Ideological framing of vernacular type choices in the Galician and Basque semiotic landscape. Social Semiotics, 25(2), 165–199.
Jaworski, A., & Thurlow, C. (2010). Introducing semiotic landscapes. In A. Jaworski & C. Thurlow (Eds.), Semiotic landscapes. Language, image, space (pp. 1–40). London: Continuum.
Kelly-Holmes, H. (2000). Bier, parfum, kaas: Language fetish in European advertising. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 3(1), 67–82.
Kelly-Holmes, H. (2014). Linguistic fetish: The sociolinguistics of visual multilingualism. In D. Machin (Ed.), Visual communication (pp. 135–151). Berlin: de Gruyter.
Krizsán, A., & Erkkilä, T. (2014). Multilingualism among Brussels-based civil servants and lobbyists: Perceptions and practices. Language Policy, 13(3), 201–219.
Landry, R., & Bourhis, R. (1997). Linguistic landscape and ethnolinguistic vitality. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 16, 23–49.
Lanza, E., & Woldemariam, H. (2014). Indexing modernity: English and branding in the linguistic landscape of Addis Ababa. International Journal of Bilingualism, 18(5), 491–506.
Leeman, J., & Modan, G. (2009). Commodified language in Chinatown: A contextualized approach to linguistic landscape. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 13(3), 332–362.
Mackey, W. (1981). Urban language contact: Common issues in Brussels and abroad. Taal and Sociale Integratie, 3, 19–37.
McRae, K. (1986). Conflict and compromise in multilingual societies: Belgium. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.
Mettewie, L., Lamarre, P., & Van Mensel, L. (2012). Clins d’oeil bilingues dans le paysage linguistique de Montréal et Bruxelles: Analyse et illustration de mécanismes parallèles. In C. Hélot, M. Barni, R. Janssens, & C. Bagna (Eds.), Linguistic landscapes, multilingualism and social change (pp. 200–215). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
Milani, T., & Zabrodskaja, A. (2014). Signs in context: Multilingual and multimodal texts in semiotic space. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 228, 1–6.
O’Donnell, P., & Toebosch, A. (2008). Multilingualism in Brussels: ‘I’d rather speak English’. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 29(2), 154–169.
Oosterlynck, S. (2012). From national capital to dismal political world city: The politics of scalar disarticulation in Brussel. In B. Derudder, M. Hoyler, P. Taylor, & F. Witlox (Eds.), International handbook of globalization and world cities (pp. 487–496). Cheltenham: EE Publishing.
Papen, U. (2012). Commercial discourses, gentrification and citizen’s protest: The linguistic landscape of Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 16(1), 56–80.
Piller, I. (2001). Identity constructions in multilingual advertising. Language in Society, 30(2), 153–186.
Shohamy, E. (2012). Linguistic landscape and multilingualism. In M. Martin-Jones, A. Blackledge, & A. Creese (Eds.), The Routledge handbook on multilingualism (pp. 538–551). London: Routledge.
Shohamy, E., & Gorter, D. (Eds.). (2009). Linguistic landscape: Expanding the scenery. New York: Routledge.
Stroud, C., & Mpendukana, S. (2009). Towards a material ethnography of linguistic landscape: Multilingualism, mobility and space in a South African township. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 13(3), 363–386.
Treffers-Daller, J. (2002). Language use and language contact in Brussels. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 23(1), 50–64.
Tulp, S. (1978). Reklame en tweetaligheid. Een onderzoek naar de geografische verspreiding van Franstalige en Nederlandstalige affiches in Brussel [Advertising and bilingualism: A study of the geographical distribution of French-speaking and Dutch-speaking billboards in Brussels]. In E. Witte (Ed.), Taal en sociale integratie (pp. 261–288). Brussels: VUB Press.
Van der Plank, P. H. (1978). The assimilation and non-assimilation of European linguistic minorities: A sociological retrospection. In J. A. Fishman (Ed.), Advances in the study of societal multilingualism. The Hague: Mouton.
Van Parijs, P. (2007). Brussels Capital of Europe: The new linguistic challenges. Brussels Studies, 6, 1–10.
Van Velthoven, H. (1987). Historical aspects: The process of language shift in Brussels: Historical background and mechanisms. In E. Witte & H. Baetens Beardsmore (Eds.), The interdisciplinary study of urban bilingualism in Brussels (pp. 15–46). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Vandenbroucke, M. (2015). Language visibility, functionality and meaning across various TimeSpace scales in Brussels’ multilingual landscapes. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 36(2), 163–181.
Vandenbroucke, M. (2016). Socio-economic stratification of English in globalized landscapes: A market-oriented perspective. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 20(1), 86–108.
Vandenbussche, W. (2009). Historical language planning in nineteenth-century Flanders: Standardization as a means of language survival. In H. Omdal & R. Røsstad (Eds.), Språknormering – i tide og utide? (pp. 255–268). Oslo: Novus Forlag.
Verlot, M., & Delrue, K. (2004). Multilingualism in Brussels. In G. Extra & K. Yağmur (Eds.), Urban multilingualism in Europe: Immigrant minority languages at home and school. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Vertovec, S. (2006). Super-diversity and its implications. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 30(6), 1024–1054.
Wenzel, V. (1998). Reclame en tweetaligheid in Brussel. Een empirisch onderzoek naar de spreiding van Nederlandstalige en Franstalige affiches [Advertising and bilingualism. An empirical investigation of the geographical distribution of Dutch-speaking and French-speaking advertising signs in Brussels]. In Brusselse thema’s (Vol. 3, pp. 45–73). Brussels: VUB Press.
Willaert, D., & Deboosere, P. (2005). Buurtatlas van de Bevolking van het Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest bij de Aanvang van de 21e Eeuw. Brussels: Brussels Instituut voor Statistiek en Analyse.
Publisher’s note:
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Vandenbroucke, M. (2019). Mapping Visible Multilingualism in Brussels’ Linguistic Landscapes. In: Brunn, S., Kehrein, R. (eds) Handbook of the Changing World Language Map. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73400-2_98-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73400-2_98-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-73400-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-73400-2
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Earth and Environm. ScienceReference Module Physical and Materials ScienceReference Module Earth and Environmental Sciences