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Linguistic Landscape
Vol. 2:1 (2016) ► pp.1–25

Complexity perspectives on linguistic landscapes

A scalar analysis

| Stockholm University
Linguistic landscape studies (LLS) have become popular tools to investigate multilingual settings; yet they often lack theoretical elaboration. This paper tries to contribute to filling this gap by combining the postulates of complexity theory with the concept of ‘scale’. Taking Tallinn as a case study, I conceptualise scales as nodes of complexity, dynamically produced and reproduced by the inter-connection of different agents in interaction. The results show a significant degree of language heterogeneity in Tallinn’s LL, but one that adopts different forms in different places, something that indexes the diverse types of mobility in those settings. What appears as multilingual messiness becomes logically coherent when we look at how different semiotic resources are mobilized to co-construct different scalar frameworks. In conclusion, it is argued that a scalar analysis informed by a complexity perspective can be beneficially exploited for theoretical and methodological purposes in LLS.
Keywords: complexity theory, Tallinn, scale, multilingualism, linguistic landscapes, Estonia
Published online: 19 May 2016
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https://doi.org/10.1075/ll.2.1.01sol
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