160131 SE Empirical seminar in this subject area (2021S)

For many years Applied Linguistics has been dealing with linguistic and visual signs in public space. Linguistic or semiotic landscapes were initially defined as spatial representations of multilingualism – for example in the form of signs, posters, graffiti, stickers or flyers – and later in other linguistic-indexical traces in (especially urban) space. Recently, this space has also been expanded into the virtual world, for example Digital Ethnographic Linguistic Landscape Analysis (Blommaert & Maly 2018) compares space and place representations offline and online (e.g. Google Maps).

In this seminar you will get to know different variants of linguistic landscape research. But you will also explore the semiotic landscape yourself, under the methodologically and empirically specific conditions of the pandemic, which, through curfews and contact restrictions, impose a specific view of a strange space around us as well as special challenges. But it is precisely this view and this specific space that interests us in this seminar. One focus of the seminar will be on health communication, which in times of the pandemic has gained eminent importance in public space. However, linguistic landscape research has only just begun to explore this realm.

On successful completion of the course you will will be able to:
* describe what languages and discourses related to the pandemic appear and to what extent they do so in the public (urban/rural) sphere
* refer to central concepts, theories and methods of relevance for the study of linguistic landscapes as well as medical communication
* Explain the history and philosophy of medical communication studies as well as its core values, concepts, and functions across the globe and in society.

The course will take place either online or in hybrid form (depending on possibilities). In any event the course is designed to allow both theoretical and empirical (field) work to be conducted in distance learning mode.