Linguistic landscape (LL) is a thriving strand of inquiry in sociolinguistics to interpret the multilingual representations in public space. Taking city residents as LL readers, this paper examines their opinions about the urban multilingualism visible in Eastern China’s big cities in order to find out how the language displays are perceived and evaluated by the public. LL-related language policies and the LL practices in three representative cities are sketched out as the backdrop for the language attitude exploration. A questionnaire survey was administered among 1302 participants from Eastern China to investigate their perception of and attitudes towards the urban multilingualism in their lived space. It is found that most participants are aware of the multilingual practices in the written environment, and they respond positively to the Chinese-dominant, English-rich multilingual practices in the LL. The inscriptions of English and other foreign languages are generally conceived of as instrumental in the construction of an international-oriented city image. Moreover, the non-standard language variations (e.g. Chinglish) in the LL tend to be seen as a problem, though traditional Chinese characters are not turned down. The findings in the study can help us gain an understanding of the bottom-up language ideologies in China and contribute to the ‘experiential’ dimension of LL studies.
Sometimes, in both popular and academic literature, a toponym is attributed to someone who did not bestow the name. Such attributions are based on mere conjecture, folk-etymology, or are perpetuate...
The intertwined relationship between rights and responsibilities are reciprocal between people and the State. Citizenship and land ownership are fundamental means through which people's relationship with the State is adjudged and determined. The study explores how the lack of accessibility of land ownership and citizenship certificate affects peoples' civil, political and social rights. The same is concluded through the case study of landless Dalits. To factor the relationship between landlessness, citizenship and social security; unstructured interviews with 60 household heads were conducted. The study found that the lack of citizenship certificate and land ownership certificate promotes the feeling of statelessness, without a change in patriotic impulse. Despite the government’s attempts to redistribute land in the area, the gradients of socio-economic and political power determine the fate of landless Dalits. The Dalits, inept and minority stakeholders, continue to be landless after more than four decades, whereas the elites are able to obtain land ownership certificate through their influence on the local authorities. Landless Dalits are being ignored not only by the State and political parties, but also by national and international organizations. Discriminatory behaviour of the State towards Dalits is an ongoing process without the provision of basic fundamental rights. This has affected their sense of citizenship.
Blueback charts were nautical charts, so named because blue paper backing was used to stiffen and strengthen many of them. Before governments took on maritime mapping, it was these commercially published maps that provided the cartographic record of European discovery. Bluebacks remained popular, even after the British Admiralty started selling its own charts from 1821. They distilled onto one, often massive, sheet sufficient up-to-date information for the merchant seaman to navigate oceans, coastlines, straits and ports and allow for a safe and successful voyage. Today they provide valuable insights into European discovery and exploration, the challenges of navigation in the era of sail, patterns of commerce and trade, and the evolution of ports and coastal communities. Robert Sayer, Aaron Arrowsmith, Laurie & Whittle, Norie and Wilson, Robert Blachford and James Imray were among the firms that published important Bluebacks relating to Australia and New Zealand. They were careful, cautious and highly professional publishers, yet the charts themselves, or informal notations left on them by seamen, can add a delightful informality and humanity, not a feature of mapping genres as a rule.
The present article explores ways of speaking and writing about nature in the Judeo-Christian tradition which many researchers consider important causes for the current environmental and ecological crisis. Moreover, the article analyses another perspective, namely how the present Pope Francis formulates an alternative understanding of the relationship between God, human beings and nature in his encyclical Laudato Si. In this encyclical, he advocates an attitude of respect, protection and safeguarding of nature that requires a different way of life. In order to understand the meanings and consequences of these different understandings and ways of describing nature, the article uses the philosophy of language and, especially, the religious language of Wittgenstein; particularly his claim regarding the importance of religion as language game, which is different from the language of science. According to Wittgenstein, religion enables us to value everything that exists, and together with ethics and art, religion provides us with guidelines of how to live and relate to the world. Other important concepts used in the analysis of the different religious perspectives are metaphors and models.
