The Linguistic Landscape of the Mediterranean - (Language and Globalization) by Stefania Tufi & Robert J Blackwood (Hardcover)

About the Book

"This book explores the Linguistic Landscapes of ten French and Italian Mediterranean coastal cities, analysing the ways in which the public space is managed by different individuals and groups for a range of purposes. Engaging with scholarship on border studies, insularity, peripherality, cosmopolitanism, and social representations, Blackwood and Tufi test the ways in which research beyond sociolinguistics can meaningfully inform Linguistic Landscape studies. The authors privilege four specific perspectives, namely the visibility of national languages, the claiming of space for regional languages and dialects, the creation of transnational spaces for migrant languages, and the role of English in cosmopolitan place-making. Drawing on their own data from along the Mediterranean shoreline, Blackwood and Tufi provide the first in-depth and cross-referenced examination of written language use in the public space in Perpignan, Trieste, Nice, Monaco, Genoa, Palermo, Cagliari, Ajaccio, Marseilles, and Naples"--

Book Synopsis

This book explores the Linguistic Landscapes of ten French and Italian Mediterranean coastal cities. The authors address the national languages, the regional languages and dialects, migrant languages, and the English language, as they collectively mark the public space.

Review Quotes

"This book provides a very interesting account of a large survey research done in the coastal region of the Mediterranean Sea. The book is comprised of an introduction followed by seven other chapters through each of which the LL of one region in the Mediterranean Sea is reported and analyzed from a particular theoretical framework. ... this book is highly recommended to researchers and students in the field of LL, language policy, language and identity, multilingualism and minority languages/dialects." (Saeed Rezaei, Sociolinguistic Studies, Vol. 10 (3), 2016)

About the Author

Robert J. Blackwood is Reader in French Sociolinguistics at the University of Liverpool, UK. His researches focuses on aspects of French sociolinguistics, including the position and status of Corsican, language policy, new media, language revitalization, and the Linguistic Landscape. He is Associate Editor of the journal Linguistic Landscapes.

Stefania Tufi is Lecturer in Italian Studies at the University of Liverpool, UK. She has published on variationist sociolinguistics, minority languages, and the linguistic landscape. Her research interests include Italian sociolinguistics, particularly the linguistic landscape, minority languages, language policy, language variation and change, and Italian dialectology.