Rethinking Linguistic Topographies : The Genesis of Multilingual Linguistic Landscapes

The Linguistic Landscape (LL) as a specific branch of Applied Linguistics is investigated as a challenging, growing area of research, while its methodologies and theoretical framework still need to be explored and established in order to become a Linguistic Landscape theory. On a representative sample, the distribution of LL studies around the world is shown so the reader can see how widespread the area already is. Over the years, linguistic landscapes have become a means and a tool to investigate multilingualism, minority languages, the complexities of language, and cityscapes around the world. Yet researchers have often neglected the forces and drives behind LLs; by including these complex structures, LL has the potential to become a theory in its own right. This book tries to give a first holistic insight into the dynamics, mechanisms, and patterns such linguistic landscapes display with a special focus on new methodologies to help LL step out of the shadows of its interdisciplinarity.