Visible signatures of power: how politics, economy, art and individual agency influence Guinea's Linguistic Landscape

• Applicant: Dr. Gardy Stein
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 540582947

Linguistic landscape (henceforth LL) research has emerged as a distinct strand of sociolinguistics in which written artefacts – e.g. signs, advertisements and inscriptions – are analyzed against the backdrop of language dominance relations in mostly multilingual settings. The proposed research project explores the LL of the multilingual West-African state Guinea to determine which factors influence the language choice in the creation of written artefacts and what their display (including their linguistic composition, their content, their emplacement and their materiality) can tell us about the linguistic and social power dynamics at play. The situation in Guinea is especially promising to LL research, as: a) the country has experienced a period of a strict endoglossic language policy before adopting an exoglossic one in 1984, a fact that is assumed to have positively influenced the population's appreciation of their indigenous languages; b) there are five writing systems in existence, namely Latin, Arabic, Adlam, Koré Sébèli and N'ko, making multilingual and multiscriptual inscriptions highly likely; and c) the country is currently developing a new government, including the formulation of a new constitution and language policy. An important aim of the proposed research project is to develop a conceptual approach to written artefacts from an Africanist point of view, taking into account the historical, economic, political and social circumstances that shaped the present situation in Guinea (thus allowing for a fully contextualized LL analysis). By studying Guinea's LL in combination with sociolinguistic interviews and questionnaires, the project will document the vibrant everyday multilingualism as well as its ecological and political dimensions. The research project will offer a unique, interdisciplinary view on the LL of Guinea, and by developing a corpus of images of written artefacts and their subsequent analysis, it will answer questions such as: - Where and how are languages publicly displayed in Guinea? - What languages/ language varieties/ scripts are used, and what does their usage tell us about the power dynamics at play? - Which differences exist between the LL of urban and rural areas? - What type of political, social, economic, and artistic discourse is generated by the use of the available resources? So far, no comprehensive description of the linguistic landscape of the country (its urban centres, semi-urban and rural areas) is available, thus the intended project is an important contribution to closing the gap in this research field. It will provide rich empirical data whose analysis will add a perspective from the Global South to sociolinguistic theory on language domination and power negotiation in the public space, as well as adding to the understanding of identity formation (and expression) processes in a dynamic post-colonial African environment.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: USA
• Cooperation Partner: Mamounan Kpokomou