Exploring the Linguistic Landscape of Cities Through Crowdsourced Data

Abstract

The survey of signage and language in the public sphere (as a central element of everyday social practice) has developed into a vital branch of sociolinguistics called “linguistic landscapes”. The field is currently witnessing processes of methodological consolidation, structural institutionalization, and thematic diversification. These processes foster the emergence of new trends in the field, such as participatory research, mobile crowdsourcing, and engagement in educational settings. In the context of this disciplinary dynamics, the chapter introduces a participatory research project, Lingscape, that focuses on the documentation and analysis of linguistic landscapes worldwide. The project aims at creating awareness for the semiotic complexity and social relevance of public signage by using a mobile research app to collect photos of signs in close cooperation with the public. After a brief introduction to the app and project, the text discusses three related aspects of working with crowdsourced data in linguistic landscapes research: first, the collected data is analyzed quantitatively to compare the linguistic crowdscapes of Luxembourg City and Vienna; second, user engagement in the project is discussed against the backdrop of user activity (photo uploads, months of participation) and different spatial orientation strategies in the linguistic landscape; and, third, the use of the Lingscape app as a digital teaching tool in educational settings is highlighted using the example of a collaborative class project with a German school in Windhoek, Namibia. In doing so, the chapter illustrates the innovative potential of participatory research and crowdsourced data for further development of linguistic landscape research.