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This article explores the carefully managed semiotic complex found in the Corsican village of Pigna with respect to the themes of pride and profit in the valuation of minority languages. This complex includes the careful coordination of color, graphics, the use of the Corsican language, as well as high-tech soundscaping of place through QR codes that tie specific locales to Corsican music and multilingual texts. This display, labeled the "poeticizing of the economy" by a key social actor, is directed both at the many tourists who visit the village as well as Corsican visitors and locals. It is linked to an effort to embed Corsican linguistic and musical heritage in new practices that both create place and integrate tradition and modernity. On the one hand, these practices can be linked to discourses of both "pride" and "profit" (Duchêne and Heller 2012) attested in many minority language contexts. On the other hand, I argue that the Pigna esthetic indexes a shift in the framework for cultural and linguistic revitalization from one that emphasizes a return to past native speaker communicative practice to one that focuses on the collective agency and identity associated with style and stylization and "transactional," or situated authenticities.

Language choices in the economic field of late capitalist societies are shaped by a combination of local, national, and global forces as well as historical, political, and economic factors. This study conducts an analysis of language choices in the linguistic landscape of Macao's heritage tourism (i.e. signposts of tourist attractions) and gaming tourism (i.e. casino promotional brochures). The findings show similarities and differences in the two sectors in terms of language choices and some tensions emerging behind such language choices in constructing Macao with different voices. Unlike previous studies which find the commodification of one national or ethnic language for profit, the case of Macao illustrates the commodification of multilingualism for profit. Despite the similarities and differences, language choices in both signposts and brochures feature reductive translingualism under the neoliberal ideology which values the instrumental function of language for profit-making purposes.

A tailor shop located in Singapore's Chinatown is explored as a case of creative linguistic marketing practice, examining how such practice can be understood in relation to the interaction of local and global forces on the linguistic landscape. The shop uses a range of Scandinavian semiotic resources (language and artefacts) which for us, coming upon the shop, seemed unexpected or, using Sweetland's term, spectacular. Following in the spirit of linguistic landscape analysis, we investigate one particular dimension of the visual semiosis of this shop, namely the signage. Drawing upon photographic and interview data, we trace the history of this semiosis, charting how its purpose and meaning has changed over time. What emerges from our study is that what seems idiosyncratic to researchers can have rich local meaning in context. What appears to be an outlier on the linguistic landscape can offer insight into situated experiences. In this light, our study of a shop and its semiotic landscape contributes to an understanding of the changing sociolinguistic patterns and creativity that occur in spaces like Singapore, and that reflect not just contemporary but also previous eras of globalisation and contact across historical, political and cultural borders.

In the way of commentary, I offer a brief, summative reflection on the complex, multifarious nature of people's semiotic engagements in and with space. Against the backdrop of three snapshot case studies, I suggest there are actually few neat boundaries to be drawn between the linguistic and non-linguistic, between the semiotic and the spatial, and between the creative and non-creative. These kinds of binarized ways of understanding linguistic-semiotic landscapes are neither helpful nor accurate. In a world of 'context collapse', we also need to attend to the ways creativity is often leveraged for its commercial indexicalities and possibilities, blurring the boundaries between play and work, and between communication and commerce. Similarly, we ought not to romanticise 'grassroots' and 'vernacular' actions as necessarily creative, reflexive or benign. It certainly behoves us to stay mindful of the political economies and class ideologies which shape semiotic landscapes and, indeed, our scholarly approaches to them.

The Republic of Cyprus is a country characterised by a long-term conflict which resulted in the geopolitical division of the island. Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots have lived in separation for more than 30 years until the border re-opened in 2003, allowing people to cross and visit 'the other side'. One of the crossing points is located in the heart of the commercial area in Nicosia, the capital. This study explores the visibility of the two official languages, namely Greek and Turkish, and also English in the multilingual public space near the border. Unlike previous quantitative Linguistic Landscape investigations, this study is using a qualitative Semiotic Landscape approach [Scollon and Scollon 2003. "Discourse in Place: Language in the Material World." London: Routledge; Jaworski and Thurlow 2010. "Semiotic Landscapes: Language, Image, Space." London: Continuum] to understand how the public space that divides the two communities interacts with written discourse, visual modalities, spatial arrangements and dimensions of history and culture to create meaning and project ideologies, identities and power relations. The findings show that traditional discourses of separation and conflict are dominant in the public space but at the same time new discourses of unification, peace and integration slowly begin to surface.

Given that conservation education is a primary goal for zoos, it is important to study how changes in exhibit design in the same facility (with the same animals and visitor base) can impact short- and long-term conservation knowledge, attitudes, and behavior (KAB) amongst visitors. However, there is very limited research on this topic. Our goal was to conduct a comprehensive post-occupancy evaluation to study this impact at two exhibits that underwent renovations at Zoo Atlanta, using rigorous methodology and addressing limitations in previous research. We did not find significant differences in KAB scores when comparing the pre- and post-renovated exhibits. This is contrary to the existing view that renovations from non-naturalistic to naturalistic exhibits (and/or renovations to displays and signage) will improve KAB. Future researchers should continue to use rigorous methods to obtain valid and reliable measures of the impact of zoo exhibits and exhibit renovations on conservation-related KAB.

Costa Rica attracts one of the highest numbers of migrants per capita in Latin America and it is one of the main destinations for inter-regional migrants. The impact of growing numbers of long-term migrants with a very different socio-economic (and often also linguistic) profile from the majority of local inhabitants is perceptible across various commercial sectors. Previous research has observed an increasing 'Englishization' of the linguistic landscape in selected socially privileged locations. This study focuses on the three provinces with the highest proportion of foreign-born inhabitants in Costa Rica. It employs an ethnographic linguistic landscape approach to investigate the occurrence of foreign languages and cultural references on commercial signage, and the meanings that retail staff attribute to the use of these. Linguistic and cultural diversity were greater in urban centres known to attract labour migrants. References to Colombia and the Chinese language were particularly salient. Particularly notable was the almost complete absence of references to Nicaragua, the origin of Costa Rica's most numerous migrant community. Linguistic diversity was most limited in localities catering for more privileged social sectors in the vicinity of English-speaking migrant communities.

Causal sequences can be segmented into cause and effect. However, some argue causal relations in discourse are by default in "effect-cause" order. Others claim "cause-effect" order is easier to process and the default way of expressing causality, due to iconicity. We conducted experiments testing participants' production choices in two different contexts--narratives and safety/warning signs--to see whether genres/discourse types differ in their preferred cause-effect order. We find that while narratives (which involve temporally anchored events) elicit iconic cause-effect order, safety signs (with generic statements rather than specific temporally anchored events) show a bias toward effect-cause. The present work highlights the importance of differences in text type and communicative purpose and suggests that there is no single answer regarding the primacy/salience of cause versus effect.

In line with a recent trend in sociolinguistic research focusing on the visual dimension of multilingual urban environments, this study investigates multilingualism, as seen in street signage, more particularly shopfronts, in the Parisian neighbourhood of Belleville. Through this illustrative account, the study aims to highlight the ways in which, in spite of a national policy that proclaims the pre-eminence of the French language, immigrant communities in Belleville succeed in gaining visibility in the linguistic landscape. It also seeks to explore the ways in which written signs, as well as other discursive modalities such as images and elements of architecture, enact cultural diversity in Belleville's linguistic landscape. The study also documents the impact of the English language on Belleville's linguistic landscape. Specifically, the analysis highlights the influence of English syntax in shop and business names, and the use of English as a symbol of cosmopolitanism and globalisation. The study is supplemented by the metalinguistic remarks and insights of individual actors regarding their choice of language for their business names.

This parent-research article juxtaposes two theoretical frameworks in support of an analysis of a young child's uses of color in her sign-making; that is, in her efforts at writing and drawing. Perspectives from both social semiotics and the idea of literacy learning as social practice frame the examination and interpretation of the early sign-making of the child, who speaks both English and Japanese. The data sources include observations, reflective notes, transcribed audio recordings, and writing and drawing artifacts collected in the home when the child was between the ages of 3 and 7 years. This article reports how color served the child as an immediate resource for classifying, discriminating, and associating between the attributes of different objects and concepts in her written and pictorial representations. Color enabled her to identify and disambiguate objects and ideas within the signs that she produced. These findings call attention to the complexities of how children become literate, particularly the ways in which they may take active roles in that process, making decisions about the modes and tools they will use to represent ideas and concepts in their sign-making. The article concludes with a discussion of implications regarding approaches to children's writing and drawing in contemporary early childhood classrooms. (Contains 1 table and 11 figures.)

This paper reports on the diversity of languages displayed in the linguistic landscape of Julfa district, a largely Armenian dominated area, in the city of Isfahan in Iran. The data included a corpus of 323 photographs taken from the top-down and bottom-up signage in this quarter of the city. Ethnographic fieldwork was also conducted to reach a deeper understanding of the linguistic landscape in Julfa. The results of the analyses indicated that Julfa, as home to Armenians in diaspora and also a luxurious neighborhood frequented by more modern strata of the Isfahani society, is occupied more noticeably with Persian and English language and to a lesser extent with Armenian language. The findings further revealed that this neighborhood represents not only Iranian but also Armenian and Christian identities. The results are analyzed based on Bourdieu's theory of language as a symbolic power. Furthermore, the collective identity and language ecology of Julfa in Isfahan are discussed. At the end, some lines of research for further studies in the LL of Iran are provided.

The present study points to several potentially universal principles of human communication. Pairs of participants, sampled from culturally and linguistically distinct societies (Western and Japanese, N = 108: 16 Western-Western, 15 Japanese-Japanese and 23 Western-Japanese dyads), played a dyadic communication game in which they tried to communicate a range of experimenter-specified items to a partner by drawing, but without speaking or using letters or numbers. This paradigm forced participants to create a novel communication system. A range of similar communication behaviors were observed among the within-culture groups (Western-Western and Japanese-Japanese) and the across-culture group (Western-Japanese): They (a) used iconic signs to bootstrap successful communication, (b) addressed breakdowns in communication using other-initiated repairs, (c) simplified their communication behavior over repeated social interactions, and (d) aligned their communication behavior over repeated social interactions. While the across-culture Western-Japanese dyads found the task more challenging, and cultural differences in communication behavior were observed, the same basic findings applied across all groups. Our findings, which rely on two distinct cultural and linguistic groups, offer preliminary evidence for several universal principles of human communication.

This article describes three studies that were designed to provide undergraduate students with opportunities for hands-on experience in research. Students were involved in all aspects of the studies--from the development of the research questions to the reporting of the results. The studies examined the effectiveness of signs and posters in influencing three health behaviors: taking stairs instead of elevators, complying with a smoking policy, and cleaning fitness equipment after use. In the stair study and the fitness equipment study, signs and posters were associated with significant increases in the desired behaviors. The smoking policy study results indicated that signs and posters were not effective in motivating people to comply with the policy. (Contains 3 tables.)

Senior drivers are vulnerable to automobile crashes and subsequent injury and death. Safety belts reduce health risks associated with auto crashes. Therefore, it is important to encourage senior drivers to wear safety belts while driving. Using a repeated baseline design (AAB), we previously reported that motivating signs boosted safety belt usage by drivers exiting senior communities from baseline (72% and 68% usage), to postinstallation of signs (94%), to 6 months follow-up (80%). The current study was a 4-year follow-up in which six senior communities, with seat belt signs, were compared to six matched control senior communities with no signs. Safety belt usage was stable, across 4 years, at approximately 80% for both male and female drivers and front seat passengers for the six communities with signs, and was approximately 55% for control sites. These finding suggest that the simple and low-cost intervention of erecting signs to prompt safety belt use has persistent benefits that affect driver and passenger behavior alike.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate hand washing behaviors in public restrooms with and without reminder signs. Gender, race, signage, and time of day were examined to determine if there were differences in hand washing compliance based on these variables. Participants included male and female adults entering restrooms at two public shopping malls in a midwestern city. The total number of observations made was 599. Of those observed, full hand washing compliance (based on CDC guidelines) was accomplished by 190 (31.7%) individuals. Sixty-eight percent either did not wash their hands or washed them in a less effective way. Significant differences were noted in hand washing compliance based on gender and race. Females and non-Caucasians were more likely to wash their hands than were males and Caucasians. No significant differences in hand washing were noted based on signage or time of day. (Contains 2 tables and 1 figure.)

This paper explores linguistic landscapes and the enactment of public visibility and presence of non-majority linguistic groups in EU member states. Non-majority linguistic groups gain power, visibility and presence through the introduction of bilingual or multilingual signposts on roads, streets, squares, and public buildings in towns and cities where a given linguistic group represents a significant population share. The article offers a comparative analysis of language policies of EU member states regarding enactment of official bilingual or multilingual signs in public space. Twenty EU member states have signed the "European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages," while 17 members have ratified it. In addition, the Charter of Fundamental Rights, an integral party of the Lisbon Treaty, stipulates that language diversity is one of the fundamental values respected by the EU. Hence, this comparative research assesses various practices employed by member states in relation to the proclaimed values of multilingualism. Consequently, the paper depicts and compares different language policies that produce linguistic landscapes in EU member states. Finally, it tries to determine whether there is a convergence towards a common EU policy on bilingual and multilingual signs in public space.

The paper examines the development of bilingualism in Hong Kong's linguistic landscape. Digital photo archive of the Hong Kong Year Book collection which illustrated signage was analysed to identify changes in language preferences between 1957 and 2014. The transformation in signage from monolingual Chinese to bilingual Chinese-English in Hong Kong's linguistic landscape was a gradual social process, with a transition period of the 'Westernisation' of Chinese signage between 1960 and 1979 before a fully bilingual linguistic landscape emerged between 1980 and 1996. In the current post-colonial era, bilingualism has remained the dominant model of signage in Hong Kong's linguistic landscape, also marked by an increase in sector-specific language choices, including monolingual English signage in high-end shopping areas and written Cantonese (rather than standard written Chinese) in advertising discourse. Power relations and collective identity were key drivers of the evolution of Hong Kong's bilingual linguistic landscape. Monitoring the ongoing development of sector-specific language choices may throw light on whether today's language preferences are indicative of global culture with its heterogeneity has come to dominate or whether we are seeing a tug of war between globalisation and localism.

This article reports on what three white critical whiteness scholars learned about the ways white supremacy was affirmed and resisted during a two-day improvisational, critical whiteness workshop. The authors relied on critical literacy to theorise the castle as a sign or text with implicit, racial meaning. Furthermore, the authors use improvisational theatre to design and make sense of critical pedagogy intended to disrupt the ongoing production of white supremacy. They consider how theatrical improvisation, as a pedagogical tool, might be used in critical whiteness pedagogy to disrupt the affirmation of white supremacy through signs and symbols.

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.

The linguistic repertoire of Palestinian citizens in Israel is complex and diverse. Arabic is the language of personal, cultural, and national identity. Hebrew is important for social mobility, higher education, and shared citizenship. English, as a global language, is a window to the wider world (Amara, Policy and teaching English to Palestinian students in Israel: An ecological perspective to language education policies, 2014). As to language education, Arabic is the language of instruction in Palestinian schools. Hebrew is studied as a second language by all the Palestinian students from the second grade on, or even earlier. English is studied as a foreign language from the third grade on, and in many schools even earlier (Amara, Policy and teaching English to Palestinian students in Israel: An ecological perspective to language education policies, 2014; Hebraization in the Palestinian language landscape in Israel, 2015). This study investigates the reflection of the three languages studied in the Palestinian schoolscapes. More specifically, the schoolscapes in six Palestinian high schools located in three towns in the Little Triangle in Israel are studied. The distribution of the languages in the schoolscapes was examined by exploring the functions of signs, distinguishing between informative and symbolic content, and determining the authorship of signs (top-down vs. bottom-up). Altogether 1216 photographs of signs were taken and analyzed. In addition, the 'tourist guide technique', developed by Szabó (Journal of Applied Language Studies 9:23-51 2015), was used. The findings reveal that Arabic, Hebrew, and English are used in the schoolscapes of the Palestinian schools in Israel. Arabic is the most ubiquitous language, and Hebrew is also present. While there is evidence of English, its use lags far behind that of the two other languages. The schoolscapes are largely monolingual (mainly Arabic) or bilingual (Arabic-Hebrew). Trilingual signs almost do not exist. Though Palestinian students are trilingual since they learn three languages at school, multilingualism is not truly reflected in their schoolscapes.

This paper examines the schematic underpinnings in the drawings of a four-year-old girl, Thea. The paper reviews literature on graphic representations, signs and meaning-making before discussing schematic "form" in children's drawings, the theoretical background for the study. The paper discusses ethical issues and methodological approaches to the study where data include drawings made at home and school, Thea's recorded talk about drawings, and video recordings of her drawing sessions over a four-month period. These were coded manually and using "NVivo" to identify schemas. The paper discusses examples of Thea's exploration of enclosure and trajectory schematic "form," which are represented by rich "content" derived from her experiences and imagination. The paper concludes that Thea's drawings included many schematic signifiers with clear evidence of complex thinking around enclosures and of vertical and horizontal trajectories. The paper evidences the importance of listening to children's talk as they draw in order to understand more fully, the meanings they are making. Through signs, symbols and personal narratives, Thea used drawing as a meaningful semiotic space where her persistent schematic concerns were manifest.

Hospital signage is a critical element in the patients' and visitors understanding of directions, instructions and warnings in the facility. In multilingual environments organizations need to make sure that the information is accessible in the languages of the people who consume their services. As part of a large-scale study that examined the status of cultural competence in public hospitals in Israel (Elroy and Schuster 2016), we examined the signage in ten large hospitals. We developed an "accessibility index", a mathematical tool that quantifies the level of language accessibility of the hospital signage. According to the data, many geographical areas in the hospitals, as well as certain informational domains, appear in Hebrew only. A lack of clear and unified language policy regarding the nature and scope of multilingual signs in the healthcare system results in loss of critical information for people speaking the minority languages. The further one proceeds into the hospital, the less accessible it becomes. Moreover, certain sign types, such as behavior in emergencies, prohibition and information, are inaccessible for speakers of English, Arabic and Russian. The paper concludes with policy and practical recommendations that will help policy makers to apply linguistically accessible signage, thus enabling patients to orientate in the hospitals and make the best of their stay there.

In this paper, we explore the connections between a linguistic landscape and language ideologies in an elementary school in a village within the Hungarian region of Szeklerland in Romania. This "schoolscape" is analysed as a display or materialization of the "hidden curriculum" regarding the construction of linguistic and cultural identities. We draw on fieldwork carried out in 2012 and 2013 and examine two dimensions of change in progress: (1) changes in the use of Hungarian and Romanian as languages of teaching and learning and as languages of written administration; and (2) changes in the display of these languages in the schoolscape. Since 1990, there has been a tendency towards rehungarization of the schoolscape and a conscious replacing of Romanian signs from the dictatorship period with Hungarian signs. Cultural symbols have a local Szekler connotation. New traditions and emblems on display show how the rehungarization process has had new momentum recently. With regard to language, the schoolscape is characterized by clear dominance of standard Hungarian over Romanian, while the local Hungarian vernacular is hidden from the schoolscape. The scope of rehungarization in the schoolscape can be explained by the fact that the hegemony of the Hungarian language use was never challenged locally.

The visibility and salience of specific languages in public spaces are important parameters of their ethnolinguistic vitality in a society. Drawing upon data from first-hand fieldwork, this paper explores the display of multiple languages in shop names presented in Singapore's neighbourhood centres in order to reveal how local shop owners address multilingualism in this ethnically heterogeneous and linguistically hybrid society. In addition to spelling out the commercial drive to seduce potential clients, shop names also serve to mark off shop owners' identity and prioritisation of relevant languages. It is found that English is prevalent in all types of shop signs, though Chinese is the preferred code on bilingual and multilingual signs and tends to be used to represent the primary shop names. The other official languages are rarely presented on shop signs. We argue that the disparate vitality of languages might result from a mixture of social factors such as the state's macro language policy, demographic structure, as well as ethnic and cultural identity construction. The linguistic landscaping in Singapore's neighbourhood centres suggests that for grassroots individuals, pragmatic and affective adequacies are top priority in their discourse construction.

This paper focuses on the linguistic composition of commercial signs in the linguistic landscape (LL) of Athens, Greece. Previous studies have mainly been carried out in officially multilingual and multi-ethnic areas [Ben-Rafael, E., Shohamy, E., Amara, M. H., & Trumper-Hecht, N. (2006). "Linguistic landscape as symbolic construction of the public space: The case of Israel." In D. Gorter (Ed.)," Linguistic landscape: A new approach to multilingualism" (pp. 7-28). Clevedon: "Multilingual Matters"; Cenoz, J., & Gorter, D. (2006). "Linguistic landscape and minority languages." In D. Gorter (Ed.), "Linguistic landscape: A new approach to multilingualism" (pp. 67-80). Clevedon: "Multilingual Matters"; Huebner, T. (2006). "Bangkok's linguistic landscapes: Environmental print, code mixing and language change." In D. Gorter (Ed.), "Linguistic landscape: A new approach to multilingualism (pp. 31-51). Clevedon: "Multilingual Matters"]. Greece, however, is characterised by official monolingualism and a great degree of ethnic homogenisation, which suggests that apart from tourist areas, one would expect that languages and scripts other than Greek would not be as visible as in contexts characterised by official or "de facto" multilingualism. A total of 621 shop signs were collected and analysed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The findings indicate that a significant number of shops employ--often creatively--languages other than Greek, either monolingually or in combination with Greek, resulting in a situation of written multilingualism, with English emerging as the strongest linguistic player. The results also strongly suggest that the multilingual character of commercial signs is not primarily informational but symbolic reflecting a desire to project a cosmopolitan, sophisticated, and trendy outlook.

The city of Toulouse is a major contributor to the public visibility of Occitan, a regional language (RL) associated with southern France. Whilst French law recognizes the country's RLs in terms of national heritage, the official supremacy of French remains constitutionally unchallenged. This means that, along with other public texts, street names are only officially sanctioned in French. The bilingual street signs in central Toulouse recognize this hegemony by consistently displaying French above Occitan. However, they also suggest a covert preference for the RL, where Occitan overshadows French in the meaning associations of street names, and their translation and adaptation on the lower plaques. This challenges the linguistic hierarchy as determined by code preference, as Occitan emerges as a dominant code hidden in plain sight. This article proposes several methods for quantifying Occitan vitality as seen on street signs. Based on current notions of code preference and inter-text translation, it offers some new approaches to classifying and analysing multilingual signs in the Linguistic Landscape.

This article looks at the presence of Italian in the linguistic landscape (LL) of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Rather surprisingly, Italian is quite visible, and it might even be the most used European language after English. After a general introduction on the Italian language and Malaysia, including the latter's LL, the article goes on to outline the methodology employed, which made use of both a quantitative and a qualitative approach, and the results obtained. There follow a brief discussion on the recognisability of written Italian on the part of people who do not know the language and an analysis of the actual examples of Italian recorded. The article closes with an in-depth discussion on the reasons that account for the relative popularity of Italian and some general conclusions.

An evaluation of increased response effort to dispose of items was conducted to improve recycling at a university. Signs prompting individuals to recycle and notifying them of the location of trash and recycling receptacles were posted in each phase. During the intervention, trashcans were removed from the classrooms, and one large trashcan was available in the hallway next to the recycling receptacles. Results showed that correct recycling increased, and trash left in classrooms increased initially during the second intervention phase before returning to baseline levels.

Purpose: This paper aims to explore the development narrative and usage of environmental sustainability tours available at universities and takes an in-depth look into the Western Kentucky University (WKU) Green Tour. Design/methodology/approach: Questionnaires and interviews were conducted with sustainability leaders involved in tours at their university to discover how they were developed and used. An assessment of the WKU Green Tour used surveys and pre- and post-tests to determine the reach of the tour to the campus population, student learning and faculty use. Findings: There is a lack of data on sustainability tours, making it difficult to design new tours and validate their status as an essential tool. In the case of WKU, the need for data was confirmed, as current practices that were assumed to be effective proved ineffective. Multiple suggestions for improved tours are provided. Research limitations/implications: The case study used in this paper is not representative of all university sustainability tours as they can vary widely. Given the lack of research on the subject, especially quantitative research, it is a valuable study. Practical implications: Though sustainability tours are touted as a valuable tool for all campuses, more data are needed to validate this claim. Data suggest the tours are effective tools for increasing knowledge, but there is need for further assessment of tours and how they can be used to create a sustainably literate campus. Originality/value: This study is the first to assess sustainability tours using mixed-methods.

Throughout the Arab Gulf States, bilingual road signs are the norm, employing both Arabic and a romanized counterpart for the large expatriate population. The existing romanization is inconsistent, with potentially misleading variant spellings of place names signposting the region. This study provides a linguistic analysis of signs on the arterial road running from Muscat, Oman, toward Dubai in the United Arab Emirates in an effort to identify linguistic factors leading to discrepant renderings. The authors identify the wavering between transcription and transliteration and the hesitancy between the local and the standard language varieties as the main sources of discrepancies. These findings constitute the groundwork for initiatives intent on addressing the situation. Guidelines are provided for policy makers indicating the various aspects remedial work on signage in Oman should take into account.

For this study, we designed learning activities in which students applied newly acquired knowledge to solve meaningful daily life problems in their local community--a real, familiar, and relevant environment for students. For example, students learned about signs and rules in class and then applied this new knowledge to create their own rules for a location in their community (e.g., playground rules that tell visitors what is or is not allowed to do in a local playground) to make it more environmentally friendly. To facilitate this, we developed a mobile learning system equipped with a dictionary as well as textual annotation, recording, and sharing functions. This mobile learning system enables students to take pictures of objects, describe them verbally or in writing, and share their work with peers. Our goal was to study the effectiveness of learning activities supported by a mobile learning system on the cognitive learning process by examining the changes in students' cognitive processes and the distribution of students who reach a certain level of cognition before and after learning. Fifty-seven junior high school students participated in the research, and their views of the mobile learning system and interest in continuing use were also explored. Students were divided into one control (n=26) group and one experimental (n=31) group. The control group completed learning activities using a traditional approach while the experimental group used a learning system installed in tablet PCs. The effectiveness of the mobile PC system on students' cognitive processes was tested by comparing the control and experimental groups' pre-test and post-test outcomes. Changes in students' cognitive processes were measured by calculating the differences in student scores among three tasks. The distribution of students who reached a certain level of cognition was derived based on their learning performance. Students' perceptions were evaluated using a questionnaire survey. The mobile learning system kept records of how students used it. Our results show that the experimental students significantly outperformed the control students on test items related to high cognitive levels. Students made clear cognitive progress from the second topic to the third one. Most students rated the learning system highly and want to use it in the future. Finally, the results show that creating text annotations is the best indicator of learning. Based on these results, we recommend applying appropriate learning activities supported by a mobile learning system to facilitate students' cognitive processes when they are studying English as a foreign language in an authentic environment.

The USA is commonly portrayed as a country dominated by the ideology of monolingualism [Dick, Hilary Parsons. 2011. "Language and Migration to the United States." "Annual Review of Anthropology" 40: 227-240; Silverstein, Michael. 1996. "Monoglot 'Standard' in America: Standardization and Metaphors of Linguistic Hegemony." Chap. 14 in "The Matrix of Language: Contemporary Linguistic Anthropology," edited by Donald Brenneis and Ronald K. S. Macauley, 284-306. Boulder: Westview], yet such a portrayal misses the recent changes in the marketplace brought on by globalization. Duchêne [2009. "Marketing, Management and Performance: Multilingualism as Commodity in a Tourism Call Centre." Language Policy 8: 27-50] and Heller [2010. "The Commodification of Language." "Annual Review of Anthropology" 39: 101-114] argue that in the global economy, multilingualism has become a commodity adding value to the product and a business strategy opening up niche markets in an oversaturated marketplace. In the USA, Spanish has become such a commodity--on TV, in billboards, in ATMs, and in the Lowe's Home Improvement chain. The present paper discusses a case study of a business in a free market economy valorizing language for purely economic gain. Lowe's was the first home improvement chain to react to an increase in Hispanic home ownership implementing a nationwide English-Spanish packaging and signage policy in 2005 [Lowe's Company Inc. 2005. "What Does Lowe's Have in Common with This Home?: 2005 Annual Report." Mooresville, NC]. This study explains the company's motivation for the policy and reveals adjustments made at the local level in response to the local environment. The results show that English remains the dominant language at all levels and compliance to policy varies depending on the amount of corporate involvement, the intent of the policy, and the location of the store.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how Russian became a commodity in the global service industry in the decade between 2004 and 2014 and, in some places, much earlier. I will begin with a discussion of sociolinguistic theory of "commodification of language", focusing on aspects critical for this case study. Then, I will trace the process of commodification of Russian, starting with "why" (reasons) and "when" (timeline), proceeding to "where" (locations) and "how" (forms), and ending with the "so what." I will also talk about "what next," identifying the opportunities for research on global Russian and the many gaps that are waiting to be filled.

Service-Learning (SL) has been defined as an experiential teaching methodology. Through SL, students participate in activities that benefit their community and enhance their learning experience. In the current study, Spanish as a second language (L2) and heritage language learners (HLLs) engaged in a SL project in which they translated English language zoo signage into Spanish. The objectives of this investigation were to determine whether SL mediates lexical knowledge, and to what extent learners' linguistic background affects that knowledge. Participants included ten L2 learners and ten HLLs that translated signage in mixed dyads. A pre-test, a post-test, and a delayed post-test of target words were administered and analyzed via a paired sample t-test. Results indicate that vocabulary learning occurred as a result of the project. A qualitative analysis of learner reflections demonstrated the intricacies of learning. For instance, all learners gained an understanding of synonymic relations between low and high frequency words. With regard to HLLs, all four pedagogical goals outlined for heritage language pedagogy were met through the project, including language maintenance. The study concludes with pedagogical implications for the implementation of SL in the language classroom.

This study demonstrates how a single type of sign can be connected to language policy on a larger scale. Focusing on the relationship between language policy and language ideologies, I investigate the private Linguistic Landscape (LL) of Hungarians living in two villages in Slovakia. Through an examination of "beware of the dog" signs, it is shown how such signs can be indicative of different language policies. In Slovakia, the Hungarian public LL is often referred to as a threat to the state language and public order. This ideology is reflected on the LL so that there are mostly Slovak-only public signs in bilingual and Hungarian dominant villages. The private realm is the only significant area where a certain Hungarian dominance is present. In a bilingual village, Hungarians prefer Slovak in their public signage, while in a village with Hungarian majority people invest on having private Hungarian signs by purchasing them in Hungary as well as through hand-making signs. The counter-normativity of having monolingual Hungarian signs is underlined by several factors. First, the language policy referred to as laws have put an emphasis on warning signs. Secondly, a Hungarian language rights leaflet has elevated "beware of the dog" signs as normatively bilingual. Thirdly, the context of Slovakia, engaged in nation building disfavors the public use of Hungarian. This paper illustrates the importance of considering ideologies as reflected in private LL in multilingual contexts in transition.

This paper presents an experiment that attempts to mobilise an arithmetic-algebraic way of thinking in order to articulate between arithmetic thinking and the early algebraic thinking, which is considered a prelude to algebraic thinking. In the process of building this latter way of thinking, researchers analysed pupils' spontaneous production using a triangular numbers activity. Based on a specific collaborative learning methodology, this study explores the possibility of constructing an Arithmetic-Algebraic Work Space around the process of constructing signs as framed by both activity theory and a technological approach, showing the spontaneous representations produced by seventh grade pupils and their evolution in a socio-cultural environment.

Efforts toward controlling secondhand smoke in public places have been made throughout China. However, in contrast to the western world, significant challenges remain for effectively implementing smoke-free regulations. This study explores individual and regional factors which influence smoking in smoke-free public places. Participants included 16,866 urban residents, who were identified through multi-stage sampling conducted in 21 Chinese cities. The reported smoking prevalence in smoke-free public places was 41.2%. Of those who smoked in smoke-free public places, 45.9% had been advised to stop smoking. Participants stated that no-smoking warnings/signs with "please" in the statement had a better likelihood of gaining compliance and preventing smoking in public spaces. Multilevel logistic regression analysis showed that ethnicity, education, occupation, type of smoking, age of smoking initiation, smoking situation, stress, household smoking restrictions and city population were all associated with smoking in smoke-free public places. Interestingly local smoke-free regulations were not associated with smoking in public places. The findings underscore that efforts to restrict smoking in public places in China should emphasize strong enforcement, while simultaneously raising public awareness of the perils of second hand smoke.

In this empirical study we analyse how children (aged four- to six-years-old) through communicative engagement with their teachers around their own drawings are supported in developing representational insight, that is, going from indicative sign-making to symbolic understanding. Theoretically, the analysis is informed by a sociocultural perspective, particularly Vygotsky's work on concept development. The empirical data consist of approximately five hours of video observations of teacher-child communication in preschool. The activities analysed were designed by the teachers according to two different principles for facilitating discernment of the conventional meaning of symbols: contrast and induction. While one design is seen to be more powerful than the other in supporting children's symbolic development, these patterns are, in the study and in everyday early childhood practice, intertwined with other communicative features such as establishing intersubjectivity. The implications for research and educational practice are discussed.

This article defines the concepts related to symbolic and sign representations, cognition and learning in the early years. The first study experiment of teaching 33 preschool children (19 boys and 14 girls; M = 68, 5 months) the notion of rainbow phenomenon proved the equal effectiveness of the use of both sign and symbolic tools. The second study experiment of teaching 49 schoolchildren (23 boys and 26 girls; M = 102 months) the complex notion of a mathematical function furthered our understanding of the impact of sign and symbolic tools and showed that the use of symbolic tools (metaphors and imagery) as mediators for successful transference to sign representation is effective for children who otherwise experience difficulties mastering new and complex content. The authors discuss the importance of children's play in the early years as a space where children experience and acquire operations with symbols, and the role of symbolic tools in transference to sign representation. The article furthermore provides considerations regarding the challenges and potential policy directions suggested by these research findings.

This article contextualises and presents to the academic community the full dataset of the Isan Culture Maintenance and Revitalisation Programme's (ICMRP) multilingual signage survey. The ICMRP is a four-year European Union co-sponsored project in Northeast Thailand. This article focuses on one aspect of the project, four surveys each of 1,500 participants regarding attitudes towards multilingual Thai-Isan (Thai Lao)-English signage in municipal areas in Khon Kaen Province, which have already led to the installation of some permanent signs, together with one follow-up survey. The survey data also include information on self-reported ability in Thai Lao and on frequency of usage and domain usage. It is the largest survey of this nature in Thailand and reveals a population which appears to approve of the installation of multilingual signage. However, Thai Lao identity is an especially sensitive issue following the 2014 coup, and the local population, municipalities, and academic institutions have come under heavy scrutiny by the Thai military government, which may have affected survey results. [For Part I of this study, see EJ1023991.]

Home language literacy education in Australia has been pursued predominantly through Community Language Schools. At present, some 1,000 of these, attended by over 100,000 school-age children, cater for 69 of the over 300 languages spoken in Australia. Despite good intentions, these schools face a number of challenges. For instance, children may lack motivation and perceive after-hours schooling as an unnecessary burden. Trained teachers and suitable teaching materials are often not available. Moreover, not every language can be offered in each city or region. Hence, home language speakers' needs are often not met. This situation has detrimental effects for children, families and communities, and entails a loss of opportunities for the country. Reporting on an alternative approach, this paper presents a pilot study conducted in Australia with English-German bilinguals. We sought to investigate whether primary school-aged children can self-direct their home language literacy acquisition through playing online educational games in the privacy of their homes and with little adult input. Results indicate that the games can be effective in promoting emergent literacy development. Thus, such a grassroots approach could become a viable option for multilingual societies, addressing some of the practical challenges faced by, for instance, Community Language Schools.