Books in the Sprachkoennen und Sprachbewusstheit in Europa / Language Competence and Language Awareness in Europe series

This volume focuses on sociolinguistic landscapes, the use and functions of everyday semiotic items in space. Signs reflect societal change and enable the mapping of how linguistic resources are used and interpreted in various contexts. The articles, drawing from ethnographic observations, make use of both quantitative and qualitative research tools.

Different aspects of linguistic standardization are pointed out on the basis of case studies of linguistic transfers into Finnish, Latvian, Lithuanian and Icelandic.

The fourth volume in the series Language Competence and Language Awareness in Europe features contributions from various philologies in the young but rapidly growing research area of linguistic variability. It focuses on sociolinguistic studies of language use as social practice and variability of authentic language use.

This volume unites papers delivered at the Third Conference on Language Contact in Times of Globalization (LCTG3) at the University of Greifswald in 2011. It deals with contact-induced change, linguistic borrowing, code-switching, transcultural literacy, multilingualism in public space as well as language attitudes and linguistic power.

Exploring the genre of advertising in three European languages (British English, French and Polish), this volume offers a contrastive study of the differences between high- and low-context cultures. Aspects covered include the use of foreign languages, the relation between text and images and the interaction between advertising images and readers.

The analysis of 1,507 Facebook posts of German university students participating in the Erasmus exchange program explores how posters "reaccentuate" and "relocalize" mobile semiotic resources. In doing so, they create translocal frames of meaningfulness in concrete heteroglossic interactions among speakers with diverse language backgrounds.

The sociolinguistic study of speech practices for meaning-making has gained momentum after studies of urban adolescents with mixed ethnic and language backgrounds revealed that they cross language borders to construct fluid discursive identities. This book focuses on emerging hybridizing speech practices across genres through contact with English.

In the last decade, issues of language policy had become more mattering in Finland and Lithuania. The detailed surveys focused on the language attitudes of different population groups in both countries. The investigation was based on a uniquely developed methodological mixture, including the matched-guise technique.