Acceso usuarios
Xinyue Lu
, Bethany Martens, Peter Sayer
This study examines how socioeconomic status (SES) and linguistic diversity shape the multilingualism in the linguistic landscape (LL) of Columbus, Ohio, a Midwestern U.S. city. Using a social-spatial framework (Lefebvre, Citation1991) of LL in lived, perceived, and conceived spaces, a systematic survey of the LL was conducted across nine city areas. The photographic data were used to design a survey probing residents’ language ideologies related to their everyday LL encounters. Findings reveal that while the overall percentage of multilingual signs aligned with the city's foreign-born population, the languages represented in the LL did not reflect the significant populations of Somali and Arabic speakers in Columbus. Neither SES nor linguistic diversity straightforwardly predicted the prevalence of multilingual signs; however, they shaped language ideologies in specific survey items, with middle-class participants showing more aligned views than low and high SES groups. The data also suggested that while multilingualism was widely visible and accepted in Columbus, it remained contested in certain domains. English dominance and linguistic prestige continued to influence how linguistic diversity was perceived and manifested in public spaces. The absence of formal policies supporting multilingualism leaves signage largely in the hands of private establishments, where resistance to such policies persists.
