What is it about?
This project looks at the different languages and writing you see on signs, posters, ads, and other public displays in public transportation in a major city of the United States. By studying these “linguistic landscapes,” we can learn a lot about the language policies, and the power dynamics between different groups within the same region. This research focuses on how certain languages are more visible than others, and how this visibility reflects social status, inclusion, or exclusion. This kind of analysis helps us understand how language use in public spaces can shape our experience of cities and even influence how people feel about where they belong.
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Photo by Lucas Santos on Unsplash
Why is it important?
This study offers a perspective by analyzing how language appears in public transportation at a time of growing social awareness around inclusion, diversity, and linguistic rights. By focusing on one major city in the United States, a place marked by linguistic and cultural diversity, the study highlights how visual and aural language choices reflect broader issues of social inequality, migration, and identity politics.
Perspectives
As someone deeply committed to understanding how language shapes social experiences, this project is especially meaningful to me. Walking through major cities in different countries, I’ve always been struck by how much public signage can reveal about power, identity, and belonging , often without people even noticing. This study gave me the opportunity to document those everyday language choices and think critically about whose voices are made visible, and whose are left out.
Katherin Vargas Henao
Georgetown University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Navigating the roads of language policy, Linguistic Landscape An international journal, April 2025, John Benjamins,
DOI: 10.1075/ll.23081.var.
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