Inclusive ethnographies

Abstract

In ethnographically oriented linguistic landscape studies, social spaces are studied in co-operation with research participants, many times through mobile encounters such as walking. Talking, walking, photographing and video recording as well as writing the fieldwork diary are activities that result in the accumulation of heterogeneous, multimodal corpora. We analyze data from a Hungarian school ethnography project to reconstruct fieldwork encounters and analyze embodiment, the handling of devices (e.g. the photo camera) and verbal interaction in exploratory, participant-led walking tours. Our analysis shows that situated practices of embodied conduct and verbal interaction blur the boundaries between observation and observers, and thus LL research is not only about space- and place-making and sense-making routines, but the fieldwork encounters are also transformative and contribute to space- and place-making themselves. Our findings provide insight for ethnographic researchers and enrich the already robust qualitative and quantitative strategies employed in the field.

A Panorama of Linguistic Landscape Studies

“…He called it the 'tourist guide technique' and he was able to compare the interpretations of the signs in the schoolscapes of informants in different schools. In a follow-up publication, Szabó and Troyer (2017) discussed various methodological issues of the same study. They explain in detail the use of a combination of walking, interviewing, taking photographs and recording videos with informants, among those teachers, parents and pupils.…”

Covid-19: Methodological Considerations, Design and Experience in Linguistic Landscape Studies

“…Interviews undertaken in the environment being researched are, as Szabó and Troyer (2017) highlight, important in understanding how, given the embodied nature of the LL, the discourses in place are affected by the presence of people. An approach that allows interviewees to respond to open questions in the environment encourages them to better direct the conversation.…”

Kindergartens in Northern Norway as semiotic landscapes

“…Anja Maria Pesch, Maria Dardanou, and Hilde Sollid historical (belonging to the past), authentic or exotic, depending on the groups of actors who used them and the visual construction of being Sámi within the city's community. The fact that different actors may have different views on semiotic landscapes is emphasised by Laihonen and Szabó (2017), Szabó (2015) and Szabó and Troyer (2017) and is used as an argument for combining different methods of semiotic landscape research that include both the researchers' and participants' perspectives.…”