Academic literature on the topic 'Virtual linguistic landscape'

AbstractThis paper seeks to cross the boundaries of what we consider linguistic landscape (LL) and open new spaces, thus examining the Internet as a complex set of linguistic landscapes. The present study is the result of an exploratory research. Virtual linguistic landscape (VLL) provides opportunities for language display that are rare in the geographical LL. This study investigates multilingualism and language practices present on the periphery of cyberscapes analysed in this research (namely the social media), based on questionnaires carried out among bilingual university students at Sapientia University. The conclusion will offer suggestions for further research on how to extend the boundaries of LL studies to the digital domain.

This study examined language policy in the virtual linguistic landscape in the Kingdom of Bahrain as exemplified in its E-Government National Portal. It was carried out with the aim of extending the view of the linguistic landscape beyond the mainstream research that is typically anchored and defined within the parameters of given geographic boundaries. It sought to answer the question of how the linguistic diversity is experienced in cyberspace. Spolsky and Cooper’s (1991) Preference Model Theory of language choice was used to address this question. The findings authenticate the assumption that the Bahraini virtual linguistic landscape shares not only specific features with physical counterparts, but also displays unique attributes

Unlike physical linguistic landscapes, virtual linguistic landscapes (VLL) target speakers who are not confined to a geographical area. Hence, a linguistic landscape created in cyberspace is expected to be multilingual, not English monolingual, regardless of the geographical backgrounds of its creators. Yet, different entrepeneurs may have diverging linguistic preferences when creating a VLL. Hence, the current paper provides, to the best of the writer’s knowledge, a first report on the linguistic choices of Arabic-speaking enterpreneurs in a VLL. The study explores the linguistic choices of 400 randomly selected businesses of Saudi entrepreneurs, listed on a local business website (Maroof). Data from three fields, the business name, logo, and description, were classified as either Arabic monolingual, English monolingual, or multilingual. The multilingual signs were further classified following Reh (2004): duplicating, complementary, fragmentary, and overlapping. The results show that the polled sample had varying preferences depending on the genre of the text. Business names were mostly duplicating, while business logos were mostly English monolingual and business descriptions were predominantly written in Arabic only. Since the data showed a great deal of inconsistency across different text genres, the results call for more systematic analyses of VLLs that pay more attention to the genre of the text rather than to the linguistic backgrounds of those who created these landscapes.

В статье описывается изменение общественного дискурса западного общества, связанного с появлением сетевых движений #METOO и BLACK LIVES MATTER. Предложена авторская методика анализа дискурса - существование фактографической, языковой, аргументативной, невербальной рамок анализа, рамки анализа ключевых коммуникаторов, рамки символической, перформансной коммуникации, рамки виртуальной коммуникации, рамки обратной связи. The article describes the changes in social discourse connected with movements #METOO и BLACK LIVES MATTER. The author suggests the theory of the discourse analysis - the existence of factual, linguistic, argumentative, non-verbal frames of analysis, the frame of key communicators, the frames of symbolic and performance communication, the frame of virtual communication, the feedback frame.

This chapter introduces a sequence of four papers that focus on the theme of knowledge and information flow in hybrid and virtual sites of interaction. As the Internet and the World Wide Web proliferate, people live increasingly hybrid lives where the physical and the digital, the real and the virtual, interact. In this world, online and offline identities may overlap and interdigitate, erasing prior boundaries in social, cultural, linguistic, political, and economic domains. My central argument proposes that we are witnessing an underlying process of technology-spurred blurring, resulting in major shifts in the cultural landscape of the 21st century. Providing context for the papers, I argue that the blurring of boundaries and the fusion of the real and the virtual in hybrid settings may require rethinking conventional ethnographic methods in the future, and beyond that, the actual problem space for anthropology. To frame the papers methodologically, I suggest that we are in a process of experimentation during which conventional ethnographic methods are being adjusted, or will need to be adjusted, to the requirements of a truly hybrid ethnography, i.e., one that combines research in virtual and real-world spaces. I specifically examine some of the issues that arise in and for online and offline research, gauging the impact on core concepts in anthropological ethnography such as "fieldsite" and "participant observation."

Contemporary German-language techno thrillers by Tom Hillenbrand and Marc Elsberg invite readers to imagine a future marked by constant surveillance and predictive technology. New models of data mining and risk assessment are being used to inform decisions and trigger actions, but due to their complete reliance on digital data, they are open to being hacked and gamed. Lack of privacy, an elimination of boundaries between actual reality and the virtual world, and a blurring of the distinction between fact and fiction impacts both crime and detection; it has ramifications on the way we will solve crimes as well as on the types of crime that will be committed. Techno thrillers are uniquely positioned to explore moral grey areas in a security landscape affected by widespread globalisation and neoliberal privatisation, and to map possible developments in imaginative ways. They are today's globalised genre par excellence. These thrillers, that for linguistic reasons have escaped consideration in crime fiction scholarship, reflect and respond to crucial discussions about security, (virtual) reality, and artificial intelligence that are of utmost concern in our rapidly changing world.

Abstract Taking the dispute between East Timor and Australia over their maritime boundary as an illustrative context, this article discusses the role of semiotic resources in constructing chronotopes of protest. Reflecting first on language choice in urban protests during East Timor’s struggle for independence, the paper goes on to analyse the deployment of material and virtual resources in East Timorese-led demonstrations against the Australian government’s stance in the dispute. Using ‘entanglement’ as a structuring metaphor, and looking at language choice, social and grammatical indexicality, imagery, embodied cultural capital, and the choreography of assembly, the paper explores how protesters constructed a set of chronotopes that drew on the injuries of the colonial past, and re-emplaced and re-framed them in the post-colonial present. The paper looks at the linguistic landscape of protest as a semiotic aggregate in which the periphery claims a voice and ‘talks back’ to the centre.

The research paper deals with theoretical and applied analysis of communication problems in social online networks. It is shown that due to the specifics of the communication channel a virtual community with unique linguistic, cultural and psychological properties are formed (in this case described the change in the landscape of using Internet resources which arose as a result of deployment of the socio-political crisis in Ukraine). The phenomenon of fragmentary brikolage thinking is described, which arises as a result of influence of the hypertext structure and information load of the Internet environment. The nature of network communication gives grounds to speak about the formation of a special form of speech - oral in terms of essence and printed in terms of realization. The personality is presented in the online discourse in a reduced form: as a set of text and visual messages produced by it. Typical forms of communicative activity in the network environment that have a diagnostic and prognostic value are described. The topical prospects of psycholinguistic studies of the discourse of social online networks are identified: the problem of perception and interpretation of text messages; the problem of the relationship between the technological capabilities of the communication channel and the forms of user communicative behavior: the problem of self-presentation and design of effective communications; the problem of adequate “reading” of the linguistic personality being the partner in communication, recognition of markers of certain psychological disorders; the problem of manipulative and mobilizing influence, the need to develop critical thinking skills regarding perceived information, its falsifications and distortions; the problem of influence of online communication on a particular person, his/her outlook and behavior, as well as on society as a whole; the importance of information technology in the ontogenesis of speech. The methodological problem of developing and improving tools for evaluating human behavior on the Internet is presented through the analysis of texts.

Magister Artium - MA
The year 2015 and 2016 marked a period of heightened turmoil for the universities in the Western Cape. The three leading institutions in the province were each affected by student-led protest during that year. The Rhodes Must Fall Campaign occurred at the University of Cape Town (UCT), followed by Luister at Stellenbosch University (SU) and later the Fees Must Fall Campaign happened at the University of the Western Cape (UWC). Of the three universities, UWC was the most affected by the student-led protest in the province. Aside from the financial costs incurred by the physical damages to the university, the effects of the movement also lead to the extended shutdown of UWC in 2015 and again in 2016.
2021-11-25

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD
This study investigated the semiotic resources used by Vagina Varsity, a campaign by sanitary towel brand Libresse on the social media platform YouTube to construct meanings around the female body. Vagina Varsity is a South African online advertising campaign on YouTube which marketed their sanitary products, whilst educating, as well as breaking the social stigma, around the black female body. In this study, YouTube was utilized as a space in which to analyze online identities and communication. The study was located within the field of linguistic landscape (LL) studies, including the sub-field virtual linguistic landscapes (VLL), later reformulated as virtual semioscapes. The conceptual framework was undergirded by multimodality/multisemioticity and feminist theory. The study used a mixed methods approach to data collection, and used a virtual linguistic ethnography (VLE) framework to collect the data sources, which included YouTube videos, YouTube comments, and emails. A focus group interview was also conducted, where the Vagina Varsity videos were shown to a group of diverse youth at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. The embodied discourses which emerged, as well as the discourse strategies of the commentators, were multimodally analysed. The study found that the Vagina Varsity course makes use of multiple modes, including embodied semiotics such as gestures and stylizations of voice, visual modes such as cartoon figures, as well as the strategic use of sound. In addition, the study found that educational content and marketing strategies are both embedded in this campaign, with the educational content overshadowing the advertising aspect. It is for this reason that the YouTube comments and focus group interview were centered on the program itself and not the advertisement. Furthermore, when looking at the medium this campaign used, one sees that the virtual space allows for the teaching of taboo topics, which would not be allowed in traditional educational domains. The virtual space is not only bridging the knowledge gap in the topic of sex education, it also bridges the gap between different communities, as the YouTube comment section allows for people to interact across regional, national and even cultural boundaries. This study also found that Vagina Varsity not only recontextualized the educational genre, but they have also recontextualized the production and consumption of a topic which would otherwise be considered taboo. In terms of the implications for the study, one finds that the stigma that is attached to this subject is removed from this content. Although one cannot say for certain that this type of education will take over the African traditional initiation ceremonies for girls, for example, it can be used to complement some of the content that traditional counselors and social workers use to teach young African women. The fact that the program is formalized in a curriculum that can be found online opens up possibilities for open dialogue across cultures and nations in terms of feminine hygiene. This study contributes to the field of Linguistic Landscapes studies, with specific focus on virtual linguistic landscapes. The study also illustrates that the affordances of the online space allows for a hybrid edutainment space where people can learn about topics which are considered taboo in the domain of formal education. This study also extends the concept of multimodality, by including notions such as semiotic remediation and resemiotization, as well as immediacy and hypermediacy, as tools of multimodal analysis. This study also contributes to studies on gender and sexuality.
2022-08-31

The changing cultural and social landscape of our world today, along with the emergence of various technologies, has redefined 21st century societies. In light of these changes, new pedagogical approaches have been implemented to support civic life, education, and communication in our highly complex, digitised era (Pegrum, Dudeney, & Hockly, 2018). One such approach is virtual exchange, a technologically-mediated practice which involves engaging classes in online intercultural interaction and collaboration projects with geographically dispersed partners (O’Dowd, 2007, 2019). Many studies (Helm, 2014; Hauck & Satar, 2018; Vinagre, 2016) have examined the role of technology in virtual exchange projects as well as the development of various digital competences, along with linguistic and intercultural learning. The present study contributes to the discussion pertaining to the role of technology in the virtual exchange context adding a critical digital literacies perspective manifested in the use of technology for global competence development and as a social praxis (Ávila & Pandya, 2013). Specifically, the study aims at exploring the students’ perceptions about digital skills development through their participation in a global competence virtual exchange project, as well as the ways in which students interact with technology in order to develop global competence and active citizenship.