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Unseen Spanish in Small-Town America: A Minority Language in the Linguistic Landscape

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Conflict, Exclusion and Dissent in the Linguistic Landscape

Part of the book series: Language and Globalization ((LAGL))

Abstract

As we navigate urban spaces, the lived environment of the public sphere becomes a semiotic construct with discursive functions. Especially in multilingual contexts, we are awash in language, and studies in the burgeoning field of Linguistic Landscape (LL) research seek to document and explain the meanings of public displays of language in multilingual settings. The central concern of this study is with the role of a minority language, Spanish, in the life of a rural Oregon town that to the casual observer is a typical monolingual community but which is actually home to a population in which 34% report speaking Spanish as their home language. This research begins with an analysis of quantitative data on the number and types of displays of language that are visible in public places, and this is followed by qualitative data that was gathered from interviews with resident participants in the LL. This ethnographic methodology answers the call of recent LL scholars (Malinowski, 2009; Blommaert, 2013) for more qualitative approaches that can adequately describe the roles played by competing languages.

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Authors
  1. Robert A. Troyer
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  2. Carmen Cáceda
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  3. Patricia Giménez Eguíbar
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

    Rani Rubdy

  2. The Chinese University of Hong Kong, China

    Selim Ben Said

Copyright information

© 2015 Robert A. Troyer, Carmen Cáceda and Patricia Giménez Eguíbar

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Troyer, R.A., Cáceda, C., Eguíbar, P.G. (2015). Unseen Spanish in Small-Town America: A Minority Language in the Linguistic Landscape. In: Rubdy, R., Said, S.B. (eds) Conflict, Exclusion and Dissent in the Linguistic Landscape. Language and Globalization. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137426284_3

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