This article, grounded in sociolinguistics, examines the identity building, language transmission and educational strategies of immigrant d/Deaf multilingual learners (IDML). The scientific literature mainly focuses on a single pair of languages -- the national spoken language and the national signed one. For example, Deaf Studies traditionally…

To have a better understanding of the sociolinguistic surroundings of Japanese Brazilians as return migrants in Japan, this study investigates language use in their communities from a perspective of linguistic landscape (LL), paying particular attention to their ethnic identity as to how they are viewed by the host society, including language…

Upon arrival in Sweden, adult migrants are required to learn Swedish at the earliest opportunity. This requirement also extends to deaf migrants, regardless of their linguistic and educational backgrounds. This paper presents findings and experiences derived from a project focused on the multilingual situation of deaf migrants in Sweden. Some deaf…

Language assessment is a central aspect not only of language education in the general population, but also amongst heterogeneous, low-incidence populations. One such population are immigrant deaf and hard-of-hearing learners (IDML) who are bimodal-multilingual and whose languages development often includes the spoken, written, and/or signed…

Since the end of the twentieth century, there have been a large number of Africans in Guangzhou occupying multiple emplacements and engaging in diverse activities so that a whole zone of the urban area is designated 'Little Africa.' The article investigates the linguistic landscape in the African living areas of Guangzhou from a multimodality…

Tiny though it is, The Hague's Chinatown is clearly presented as such, with Chinese lanterns, municipal street signage in Chinese characters, and sayings in Classical Chinese lining the streets. Doing fieldwork in the area, however, has shown that it proves to be less Chinese than its visual representation suggests. Few Chinese still inhabit the…

Chinatowns in Canada and the United States are marked by cultural hybridity, where the translation of various types, verbal and non-verbal, takes place to produce distinct urban meanings. On the basis of an ethnographic observation, this article reveals the role of translation in the signification and imagination of Chinatowns. Cultural diaspora…

The aim of this paper is to advance an understanding of power in linguistic landscape research. After setting out and discussing the concepts of 'power over', 'power to' and 'power through', we present a case study of Chinese semiotic assemblages in the Australian regional city of Bendigo. Our research includes ethnographic details of the…

Chinatowns around the world have been much studied in the linguistic landscape literature. The bulk of this research has focused on Western enclaves resulting from the Chinese diaspora of the Nineteenth Century, which share certain semiotic characteristics and histories. Less research has been conducted on Chinatowns in the East or on newly…

This paper addresses the complex multilingual linguistic landscapes (LLs) of three strategically-chosen areas in global city Brussels by examining how language displays on public signage in these areas are used for different purposes, functions or intentions. The focus will be on meaning-construction in the post-Fordist globalised era as shaped by…