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The present paper aims to reflect on the development of research in LL, to analyze its role and aims, and in particular to offer a critical discussion of the methods and tools used to collect and interpret data. Our analysis intends to highlight that LL studies have expanded since the flagship study by Landry and Bourhis (1997). The objects, methods, and tools of analysis in LL have changed in order to satisfy different research goals, to describe specific aspects of LL, and to interpret and understand the public space with different and often interdisciplinary approaches — semiotic, sociological, political, geographical, economic. Starting from our research on immigrant languages in Italy and from the existing literature, our objective here is to describe how both methodologies and objects of analysis have developed over the years.

The study of the linguistic landscape (LL) focuses on the representations of languages on signs placed in the public space and on the ways in which individuals interact with these elements. Regulatory, infrastructural, commercial, and transgressive discourses, among others, emerge in these spaces, overlapping, complementing, or opposing each other, reflecting changes taking place and, in turn, influencing them. The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all aspects of life, including cities, neighborhoods, and spaces in general. Against this background, the study of the LL is fundamental not only to better understand the ways in which places have changed and how people are interpreting and experiencing them but also to analyze the evolution of COVID-19 discourses since the pandemic broke out. This contribution aims to investigate how and in what terms the COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact on the Italian LL, considered both in its entirety, as a single body that, regardless of local specificities, responded to and jointly reflected on the shared shock, and specifically, assuming the city of Florence as a case study. The data collected in the three main phases of the pandemic include photographs of virtual and urban LL signs and interviews, which were analyzed through qualitative content analysis with the aim of exploring citizens' perceptions and awareness of changes in the LL of their city. The results obtained offer a photograph of complex landscapes and ecologies, which are multimodal, multi-layered, and interactive, with public and private discourses that are strongly intertwined and often complementary. Furthermore, the diachronic analysis made it possible to identify, on the one hand, points in common with the communication strategies in the different phases, both at a commercial and regulatory level. On the other hand, strong differences emerged in the bottom-up representations, characterized in the first phase by discourses of resilience, tolerance, hope, solidarity, and patriotism, and in the second and third phases by disillusionment, despair, and protest.

The aim of this paper is to present the application of the Linguistic Landscape approach in a context of international students learning Italian as L2. This approach is usually aimed at making learners aware of language diversity and variety during the learning, teaching and assessment process. First of all we will discuss the theoretical basis of this approach and its application to language teaching and then we will present the methodological framework of an experimentation of the Linguistic Landscape approach carried out with international students with different levels of proficiency in Italian. Results of the experimentation will finally be discussed.

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