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Gendered washrooms and changerooms are sites of tension for many transgender and/or gender non-conforming users. However, these are not the only groups impacted by the exclusive provision of gendered spaces. As gender-neutral facilities become increasingly standardized across multiple sectors, we consider how the rising trend of "universal design" can be realistically adapted within post-secondary institutions. This article proposes the concept of "inclusive design" and provides specific recommendations to improve user experience in gendered and gender-neutral facilities alike on campus.

Chinatowns in Canada and the United States are marked by cultural hybridity, where the translation of various types, verbal and non-verbal, takes place to produce distinct urban meanings. On the basis of an ethnographic observation, this article reveals the role of translation in the signification and imagination of Chinatowns. Cultural diaspora in relation to multimodal translation is designed as a theoretical framework, under which linguistic, aesthetic and cross-cultural tensions are explained. It argues that the urban meanings of Chinatowns are generated through an omnipresent practice of translation enacted by the interplay of text, image and culture across time and space. In the meantime, Chinatowns have evolved from ethnic enclaves into cosmopolitan prototypes for future cities. A translational perspective on Chinatowns incorporates visual semiotics into verbal languages to unpack cross-cultural relations, which informs a great deal about the nature of translation.

This article describes the changing linguistic landscape on the North Shore of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, during the first three months of the COVID-19 pandemic. I present an account of the visual representation of change along the area's parks and trails, which remained open for socially-distanced exercise during the province's lockdown. Following the principles of visual, walking ethnography, I walked through numerous locations, observing and recording the visual representations of the province's policies and discourses of lockdown and social distancing. Examples of change were most evident in the rapid addition to social space of top-down signs, characterised mainly by multimodality and monolingualism, strategically placed in ways that encouraged local people to abide by social-distancing. However, through this process of observation and exploration, I noticed grassroots semiotic artefacts such as illustrated stones with images and messages that complemented the official signs of the provincial government. As was the case with the official signs and messages, through a process of discursive convergence, these grassroots artefacts performed a role of conveying messages and discourses of social distancing, public pedagogy, and community care.

Objectives: To study the influence of a multi-component poster-based intervention to promote stair climbing in a library on a Canadian university campus. Participants: Adults who ascended to upper levels via staircase/elevator. Methods: Individuals who used the staircase/elevators were counted by observers for 28 days, while either in the absence/presence of a poster-based intervention. Chi-square tests were used to compare staircase versus elevator use before, during and after the poster-based intervention. Data from weekdays and weekends were analysed separately. Results: A total of 7,663 stair climbers and elevator users were observed. Compared to the baseline period, the frequency of staircase use on weekdays was significantly higher during the intervention and follow-up periods. This effect was not found at weekends. Conclusion: This study provides evidence that a multi-component poster-based intervention can result in increased staircase use. The increase observed in this study is similar to that in previous research using point-of-choice prompts only.

This article examines the relationship between Pho, a type of Vietnamese soup, and Vietnamese national identity in the linguistic landscape of Edmonton, Alberta (Canada). The study suggests that Pho has not only been used by Vietnamese restaurants in Edmonton for indexical function but also for symbolic evocation associating with Vietnamese cuisine and national identity. The data comes from three Vietnamese restaurants in Edmonton. A multimodal analysis of shop signs, window signs and notices, menus, websites, and other relevant semiotic resources is carried out using geosemiotics, a multidisciplinary framework that analyses the meaning of the material placement of signs and human actions in the material world. The results indicate that Pho has a dominant visibility in the linguistic landscape of three restaurants. Furthermore, the symbolic relationship between Pho and Vietnamese identity is evident in the way it is used to address the feelings of nostalgia among migrant patrons.

This article describes the use of linguistic landscaping as a pedagogical resource [Sayer, Peter. 2010. "Using the Linguistic Landscape as a Pedagogical Resource." "ELT Journal" 64 (2): 143-154] for teaching and learning about multilingualism in a graduate course on ethnographic research methods. We present an account of a student-researcher carrying out a linguistic landscaping project as a means to document, analyze, and engage with multilingualism in Vancouver's Chinatown. The study suggests that using the linguistic landscape as a pedagogical tool allowed for a multimodal/sensory learning experience and text-to-world connections to be made, enabling greater awareness and creative analysis around social language use [Sayer, Peter. 2010. "Using the Linguistic Landscape as a Pedagogical Resource." "ELT Journal" 64 (2): 143-154]. We argue that such a connection can be made due to three key factors: engagement with local practices, researcher agency, and physical immersion within the intersection between theory and lived practice.

This paper documents the linguistic landscape of Saint Catherine Street, a major thoroughfare in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The street is taken as a microcosm of the sociolinguistic variation observable at the various levels of analysis, ranging from the neighbourhood, the city, the province, Canada as a whole, and the globally similar environment of the downtown shopping street. By way of a systematic sampling of signs in the street's linguistic landscape, the interactions between federal policies of bilingualism, provincial laws strengthening the visibility of French, and local linguistic realities is considered, as is the impact of the global connectedness of both the 'grassroots' and the commercial world on the linguistic landscape in this street. While the presence of French and English is largely instrumental in function, many instances of other languages are found to be motivated by more symbolic functions, driven, in no small part, by the globally encoded indexical meanings of the languages in question.

This project provided baseline risk communication practices to the Canadian Wildlife Service (CWS) for its consideration in developing new policies and management direction for outdoor recreation. This essay provides a summary of the project with a discussion of the practice recommendations. The CWS manages 54 National Wildlife Areas and 92 Migratory Bird Sanctuaries in Canada. To make protected areas more relevant to Canadians, the Government of Canada launched a federal initiative in 2013 to connect Canadians to nature. This initiative is opening 10 near-urban National Wildlife Areas to Canadians through the provision of infrastructure for the creation of new outdoor recreation opportunities. We provide evidence-informed recommendations for risk communication gathered from protected area document analysis and a focused review of the literature on risk management, risk communication, and outdoor recreation. Further, we discuss implications for protected area managers.

This study is an examination of signage and sign-making practices in one elementary (Kindergarten to sixth grade) public school which offers a German Bilingual Program (GBP) for the development of German-English bilingualism. Schools are public spaces in which the visible language choice on signs reveals the circulating discourses around language status. Surprisingly, little is known about the creation of these signs and the decision-making behind their creation. This linguistic landscape is analysed using nexus analysis which sheds light on the convergence of (1) the historical body of social actors in which teachers are primarily responsible for sign making, (2) an interaction order in which teachers practise organic sign placement and (3) discourses in place which include the promotion of bilingualism. This research reveals that signage is limited in its promotion of German-English bilingualism, constrained strongly by practices that define sign maker's responsibility and the GBP's reach. This study contributes to our understanding of linguistic landscape research by exploring the degree to which a school offering a Bilingual Program promotes bilingualism through signage. Educators and researchers looking critically at school signs are given cause to question accepted practices and strong discourses which limit the promotion of bilingualism.

There's no question that in airports, train stations, and student unions alike, digital signage solutions have become efficient and effective ways of communicating important information directly to broad bases of users. The solutions are affordable; they're eco-friendly; and they're growing in popularity every year. Still, particularly in the world of higher education, the question remains: How can colleges and universities get the most out of the money they spend on this technology? In this article, the author provides five smart tips to maximize that outlay--all best practices from digital signage pros and academic technologist peers at Purdue University-Calumet (Indiana), Northwestern University (Illinois), Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, and The Ohio State University. (Contains 6 online resources.)

Background: Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis has an uncertain and rapid trajectory after diagnosis. Palliative care is rarely utilized, although both patients and caregivers experience a distressingly high symptom burden. Most patients die in hospital. Aim: The purpose of this study was to explore bereaved caregivers' experiences and perceptions of an early integrated palliative approach implemented at a Multidisciplinary Interstitial Lung Disease Clinic. Design: A narrative approach was used, with thematic and content analysis of open-ended interviews. Setting/participants: The clinic is located in a large western Canadian city. Caregivers of deceased patients were recruited through purposive sampling. The eight participants were either spouses or adult children. Results: Five major themes were identified: Having a Terminal Disease; Planning Goals and Wishes for Care; Living Life and Creating Memories; Feeling Strain and Responsibility; and Nearing the End. Caregivers had little understanding of prognosis prior to advance care planning conversations at the clinic. Advance care planning conversations enabled caregivers to know and support patients' goals and wishes. Caregivers described feeling informed, prepared, and supported when death was near. They expressed neither distress nor anxiety related to patients' symptoms or strain of relationships. Conclusion: Collaboration and close communication among caregivers, respirologists, and home care enabled effective symptom management and out of hospital deaths. Patients and caregivers had opportunities to enjoy events, create memories, determine preferences, and make plans. Further research on an early integrated palliative approach in Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis is warranted related to quality of life, experience with death and dying, and caregiver bereavement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how children and families of diverse ethnic backgrounds perceive, understand and treat symptoms related to functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGIDs). It is questioned how different ways of dealing with medical uncertainty (symptoms, diagnosis) may influence treatment pathways. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 43 children of 38 family groups of immigrant and non-immigrant backgrounds. The analysis takes into account (a) the perceived symptoms; (b) the meaning attributed to them; and (c) the actions taken to relieve them. The social and cultural contexts that permeate these symptoms, meanings and actions were also examined. It is found that, in light of diagnostic and therapeutic uncertainty, non-immigrant families are more likely to consult health professionals. Immigrant families more readily rely upon home remedies, family support and, for some, religious beliefs to temper the uncertainty linked to abdominal pain. Furthermore, non-immigrant children lead a greater quest for legitimacy of their pain at home while most immigrant families place stomach aches in the range of normality. Intracultural variations nuance these findings, as well as family dynamics. It is concluded that different courses of action and family dynamics reveal that uncertainty is dealt with in multiple ways. Family support, the network, and trust in a child's expression of distress are key elements in order to tolerate uncertainty. Lastly, the medical encounter is described as a space permeated with relational uncertainty given the different registers of expression inherent within a cosmopolitan milieu. Narrative practices being an essential dynamic of this encounter, it is questioned whether families’ voices are equally heard in these clinical spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]