Linguistic Landscapes: Using Signs and Symbols to Translate Cities

This course focuses on the growing interdisciplinary field of Linguistic Landscapes (LL), which traditionally analyses “language of public road signs, advertising billboards, street names, place names, commercial shop signs, and public signs on government buildings”, usually as they occur in urban spaces. More recently, LL research has evolved beyond studying only verbal signs into the realm of semiotics, thus extending the analytical scope into the multimodal domain of images, sounds, drawings, movements, visuals, graffiti, tattoos, colours, smells as well as people.

Course leader

Professors Kurt Feyaerts (KU Leuven) and Richard Toye (University of Exeter)

Target group

Applications are welcome from current final year Undergraduates (finalists, BA3), MA and MPhil/PhD Students in Linguistics, Sociology, Classical Studies, (Business) Communication Studies, History, Cultural Studies, Political Studies, Translation Studies or any other related discipline.

Course aim

This Summer School aims
- to familiarize students with the standard tools and concepts required for collecting, annotating and analyzing data in Linguistic Landscapes research;
- to make students familiar with the latest LL scholarship;
- to enable students to carry out and present LL research in situ in Venice;
- to make students aware of social, economic and political issues such as diversity, racism and discrimination, in- and exclusion, activism and glocal controversies, ideologies and justice, sexual identity, gender equality, etc.;
- to introduce students to discourses and research on LL impacting;
- the cultural profile of our cities (and Venice in particular) and affecting the way we interact with the urban environment;
- to enable students to apply interdisciplinary LL approaches.

Credits info

2 EC
A Certificate of attendance will be issued at the end of the course.

Fee info

EUR 350: Students of VIU member universities.
EUR 700: The fees will cover tuition, course materials, lunches in the VIU cafeteria and Social events.
Student participants will be responsible for covering their own travel expenses to and from Venice, accommodation and local transportation.
VIU Alumni are eligible for a reduced fee.

Scholarships

PhD candidates and post-docs from universities in EU universities may be eligible for Erasmus+ mobility grant support.