Linguistic Landscape in the West Bank: Road Signs as Manifestations of Occupation

Ujvari, Montaser Motia

doi:10.36892/ijlls.v4i1.881

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“…The Israeli dominance in Huwara is visible and manifests in the tight security measures in the town, as many Israeli soldiers were deployed there following the "Huwara Progrom" incident when hundreds of Israeli settlers attacked the town, killing one Palestinian, injuring 350 others, and burning dozens of houses and hundreds of cars. In addition, the Israeli domination of Huwara manifests in the linguistic landscape where Hebrew is the dominant language on the road signs in this town (Ujvari 2022). However, the most salient aspect of Israeli dominance over this town is the frequent blockades imposed there.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“Our Identity is Our Dignity”: Digital Transformations: Palestinian Aspirations, Idealism, Reality and Pragmatism

Scott,

Ujvari,

Smith

2024

EaC

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This article reports on a collaborative project for the digital innovation of language teaching in Palestine, and it argues for the necessity of mobile learning to circumvent disruption created by the Israeli occupation causing challenges that result in marginalisation and disenfranchisement of opportunity. This partly occurs through the oppression of a sovereign curriculum that supports Palestinian self-determination. This oppression is against both the United Nations Development Goals protected rights for education and the Palestinian Ministry’s vision for a society with an education sector that embraces the use of technology to invigorate the value of its culture, produce knowledge and promote emancipation. The article proposes the integration of digital technologies with student-centred learning to enhance and support transformation through three main elements: 1. Digital competence to develop confidence and agency in teachers; 2. Continuous teacher learning to develop autonomy and collaboration within organisations; 3. Problem-solving competencies, which can result in continuous improvement loops and local solutions to barriers. This article will resonate with those recognising the need for critical theory to challenge policy and practice where it deepens disadvantage. It draws upon the voices of 20 teachers from four higher education institutions in Palestine, who reflect on the barriers to innovation and a reclaiming of educational terrain.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“Our Identity is Our Dignity”: Digital Transformations: Palestinian Aspirations, Idealism, Reality and Pragmatism

Scott,

Ujvari,

Smith

2024

EaC

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“…Ujvari's [22] paper demonstrates how Israel's "overt" and "brute" power extends through all aspects and facets of Palestinian life: how even something as simple as road signs in Palestinian areas still have "Hebrew placed on top, followed by Arabic and English, respectively, giving Hebrew greater dominance compared to the other languages in these areas", (p. 378) and "despite the fact that Palestinian towns outnumber Israeli settlements, signs that refer to Israeli settlements are three times more than those that refer to Palestinian towns and cities" (p. 380). Often, the Arabic name is merely left off signage, especially in Jerusalem.…”

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confidence: 99%

Distance Education under Oppression: The Case of Palestinian Higher Education

Smith

2023

Education Sciences

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This paper draws from both empirical research on an EU-funded project in Palestine and from the lived experiences of Palestinian HE educators. The geopolitical situation is precarious at the best of times in Palestine, where Israel monitors and controls the Palestinians’ right to travel, live and work—even more so if they wish to accomplish these activities abroad—and their access to the internet is never free from surveillance. In these circumstances and under these conditions, distance education has played a crucial role in supporting Palestinian students to develop a global voice. This paper captures some of the educational challenges encountered by Palestinian students and teachers generally in their daily contexts and, more specifically, in their experiences of learning and teaching, and the methods used to overcome these barriers. It draws on multiple sources and on studies recently carried out in the field by Palestinian colleagues and will discuss the challenging aspects of learning online from a range of perspectives in each of these studies before offering conclusions and recommendations/implications for other areas of study in situations of oppression. Initial findings indicate that distance education enables a form of continuity in regions exposed and accustomed to extreme and regular disruption. We were also inspired to see throughout responses the values attributed to pursuing education by Palestinian educators and their students. The persistence and perseverance reflect a determination that underlines the importance of education as a fundamental human right, national identity and sovereignty, personal source of hope and strength, and opportunity to open one’s world. In our conclusions, we argue for the importance of digital literacy among educators to facilitate the continuity of distance education and finish with some recommendations as to how technologies can ease disruption to ordinary educational service.

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“…This practice of renaming is occurring across the West Bank, with relatively few road signs identifying the existence of Palestinian towns and villages. Ujvari (2022) recently published a study of this very issue of road signs, describing, an "excessive placement of [road] signs referring to Israeli settlements compared to signs referring to Palestinian communities, transliteration of Arabic names of sites into Hebrew, and deletion of Arabic, a language associated with the Palestinian identity, from road signs" (p. 374). In short, signs of this nature offer both an informational function as well as a symbolic function, serving to establish (or maintain or defend) hierarchy in ways that leverage language (Landry & Bourhis 1997).…”

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Layers of the linguistic landscape in the West Bank: observations and questions on the roles of language in Palestine

Bright¹

2022

ERL Journal

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Occupied Territories (2022-23) Although my primary role is as a professor at Portland State University, in Portland, Oregon, USA, I am spending this academic year in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, as a Fulbright Scholar, based at Bethlehem University. Through my observations so far, as well as through my collaborations with colleagues and neighbors, it is easy to see the ways language sits at the center of schooling, particularly in considering the ways it may act as a mirror, to reflect and enhance identity, or an eraser, editing or even censoring parts of who one is or aspires to be. I am repeatedly finding myself reflecting on the ways language plays into the constructs of culturally sustaining pedagogies (Paris & Alim 2017), and what this means for children in Palestine today.Even though I am only about a month into this year-long experience as a person from the US in Palestine, I am already marveling at the semiotic landscape (Kress & van Leeuwen 2020) around me, all, of course, filtered through my primary language, which is US English. And I am noting not just the ways in which the linguistic landscape shapes my realities, but also the ways in which it shows up in school settings, raising the question as to how language and power show up in educational contexts.Upon arrival in Israel, which was my main transit point when traveling from the US, I immediately noticed the tri-lingual road signage, which I interpreted as a way to ensure directional information was accessible to a range of travelers. Given that the primary language of Israel is Hebrew, it was unsurprising to me that the first language on each sign was Hebrew, followed by Arabic, and finally by English. As an educator, I cannot help but wonder what it is like for children in this context -particularly in this Hebrew-speaking space -to grow up with this linguistic landscape -and wonder at how this shows up in their educational contexts.After just a few days in Israel to sort out some of my paperwork with the US Embassy, I crossed into the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and specifically the West Bank. Immediately, I noticed that on the road signs -including on the road signs between the Palestinian "islands" in the West Bank (known as "Area A," under the Oslo Agreement, under Palestinian administrative and police control) (Kelly 2016), the convention remained the same as in Israel, with Hebrew at the top, Arabic in the middle, and English at the bottom. This was different from what I anticipated, in that I predicted Arabic would now be first, followed by Hebrew and then English. But upon reflection, I realized these highway-like roads -which thread like corridors through variously controlled jurisdictions of the West Bank (Areas A, B, and C)actually have a number of Israeli drivers on them, as they move to, from, and through Israeli Settlements (as explained in greater detail in the 2022 Office of the European Union Representative's report, included in the references). Again, I am made to wonder what this might mean for the children ...

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Linguistic Landscape in the West Bank: Road Signs as Manifestations of Occupation

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

“Our Identity is Our Dignity”: Digital Transformations: Palestinian Aspirations, Idealism, Reality and Pragmatism

“Our Identity is Our Dignity”: Digital Transformations: Palestinian Aspirations, Idealism, Reality and Pragmatism

Distance Education under Oppression: The Case of Palestinian Higher Education

Layers of the linguistic landscape in the West Bank: observations and questions on the roles of language in Palestine

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