This study demonstrates that linguistic landscape analysis is a powerful tool for assessing the effectiveness of a university language policy, as it provides "in situ" evidence for discursive patterns shaping language use in public space. It uses the official language policy of a Norwegian institution of higher education (Høgskulen på…

This paper examines recent lexical expansion in New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) in the context of change in the status of the language and ongoing contact with other (spoken and signed) languages. We categorised 917 new signs documented in the past five years according to their source, semantic field, and sign formation mechanism(s), both…

This article gives a presentation of the Swedish Language act and its application and reception by the public. Ten years have passed since its introduction, and for this reason a study was conducted by the Swedish Language council about what kind of issues were brought to governmental and local authorities by the public. By the collection of…

Through the British Sign Language (Scotland) Act, British Sign Language (BSL) was given legal status in Scotland. The main motives for the Act were a desire to put BSL on a similar footing with Gaelic and the fact that in Scotland, BSL signers are the only group whose first language is not English who must rely on disability discrimination…