Linguistic Landscape
choices in how we create a personalized linguistic
 is the "visibility and salience of languages on public
and commercial signs in a given territory or region"
(Landry and Bourhis 1997:23)
 is a thing that one can see that do not necessarily
need words to express a though
 Official signs are produced with a top down
discourse
 Signs produced by an individual or a group but not
officially recognized has bottom up discourse
Geosemiotics
 is the study of the social meaning of the material
placement of signs in the world. By signs, we mean
to include any semiotic system including language
and discourse (Scollon & Scollon, 2003; in Mooney &
Evans, 2015).
Kinds of Signs
1. Regulatory- if it indicates authority and is official or
legal prohibitions
2. Infrastructural- if it labels things or directs for the
maintenance of a building or any infrastructure
3. Commercial- advertises of promotes a product, an
event, or a service in commerce
4. Transgressive- if it violates (intentionally or
accidentally) the conventional semiotics or is in
wrong place
Varieties of Language
Graffiti
 is an unsanctioned urban text (Carrington, 2009; in
Mooney & Evans, 2015). It conveys power and
control to the person or group behind the
production of graffiti.
 It is a way for disempowered people to make a
visible mark, to disrupt the landscape that is
increasingly occupied by the increasingly powerful.
Netizen
 These are people who go online. The term netizen is
an abstraction of the word’s internet and citizen.
 Netizens are metaphorically considered as the
citizens of the virtual world.
Examples of Online Landscapes
1. Youtube
- is an American video-sharing platform
headquartered in San Bruno, California, USA.
2. Twitter
- is an American microblogging and social networking
service
- on which users post and interact with messages
known as TWEETS.
- provides opportunities and resources for making
and semiotic landscape (Gillen & Merchant, 2013; in
Mooney & Evans, 2015).
3. Memes
- is a term given to any posts, language or photo that
has an uptake to a social, moral, or political idea that
most of the time seems funny.
- - are contagious patterns of cultural information that
get passed from mind to mind and directly generate
and shape the mindsets and significant forms of
behavior and actions of a social group. Memes
include such things as popular tunes, catchphrases,
clothing fashions, architectural styles, ways of doing
things, icons, jingles, and the like (Knobel &
Lankshear, 2007; in Mooney & Evans, 2015).
Language Varieties
Variety
 refers to any variant of a language which can be
sufficiently delimited from one another.
✘ Social
✘ Historical
✘ Spatial
✘ Or a combination of these
 Pidgin
o is a new language which develops in
situations where speakers of different
languages need to communicate but do not
share a common language.
o A lexifier is a particular language where the
vocabulary of a pidgin comes from.
o Examples:
✘ Nigerian pidgin
✘ Bislama (spoken in Vanuatu)
 Creole
o is a pidgin that becomes the first language
of the children and the mother tongue of a
community
o Examples:
✘ Gullah
✘ Patwa (Jamaican creole)
✘ Pidgin (Hawai’I Creole English)
 Gullah, also called Gullah-English, Sea Island Creole
English and Geechee, is a creole language spoken by
the Gullah people (also called "Geechees" within the
community), an African-American population living
in coastal regions of South
 Carolina and Georgia (including urban Charleston
and Savannah) as well as extreme
northeastern Florida and the extreme southeast
of North Carolina.Closely related varieties are
spoken in the Bahamas and are called Bahamian
Creole.
 Regional Dialect
o is not a distinct language but a variety of a
language spoken in a particular area of a
country.
o Examples:
✘ Hillbilly English (from the
Appalachians in the USA)
✘ Geordie (from the Newcastle upon
Tyne in the UK)
 Minority Dialect
o is a variety used as a marker of identity,
usually alongside a standard variety, by the
members of a particular minority ethnic
group.
o Examples:
✘ African American Vernacular
English in the USA
✘ London Jamaican in Britain
✘ Aboriginal English in Australia
 Indigenized Variables
o are spoken mainly as second languages in
ex-colonies with multilingual populations.
o Examples:
✘ Singlish (spoken in Singapore)
Register
According to Nordquist (2018), a register is:
 defined as the way a speaker uses language
differently in different circumstances
 determined by factors as social occasion,
context, purpose, and audience
 determine the vocabulary, structure, and some
grammar in one’s writing and even in one’s oral
discourse.
5 distinct registers (nordquist, 2018)
 Frozen
o it refers to historic language or
communication that is intended to remain
unchanged, like a constitution or a prayer.
o Examples: The Holy Bible, The United States
Constitution, The Bhagavad Gita, and
Romeo and Juliet
 Formal
o is used in professional, academic, or legal
settings where communication is expected
to be respectful, uninterrupted, and
restrained. Slang is never used, and
contractions are rare.
o Examples: a TED talk, a business
presentation, the Encyclopedia Brittanica,
and Gray’s Anatomy by Henry Gray
 Consultative
o is used in conversation when they are
speaking with someone who has specialized
knowledge or who is offering advice. Tone
is often respectful (use of courtesy titles)
but may be more casual if the relationship is
longstanding or friendly.
o Examples: the local TV news broadcast, an
annual physical examination, a service
provider like a plumber
 Casual
o is used when they are with friends, close
acquaintances and co-workers, and family.
o Examples:
 a birthday party, a backyard BBQ
 Intimate
o is reserved for special occasions, usually
between only two people and often in
private
o Examples:
 an inside joke between two college
friends or a word whispered in a
lover’s ear
Language Register are classified as:
 Formal Language Register
o is more appropriate for professional writing
and letters to a boss or a stranger
o is impersonal, meaning, it is not written for
a specific person and without emotion
o Examples:
 business letters
 letters of complaint
 some essays
 reports
 official speeches
 announcements
 professional e-mails
Rules in Formal Writing
 Do not use contractions. cannot instead of can’t
have not instead of haven’t is not instead of isn’t
 Spell out numbers less than one hundred
o Nineteen, seventy-eight
 Write in third person point of view. avoid using the
following:
 o I, We, You, Us  Neutral Language Register
 Avoid using too much passive verbs o is not necessarily formal or informal.
o Passive: The bone was eaten by the dog. o is used to deliver facts
o Active: The dog ate the bone. o Example:
 Avoid using slang, idioms, exaggeration (hyerboles)  Reviews
and clichés.  Articles
o awesome/cool check it out  Some letters
o ok/okay  Technical writing
 Avoid abbreviations and acronyms.
Text
o National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA)  A language unit
o Department of Education (DepEd)  With a definable communicative function
o influenza (flu)  Can be spoken or written
o Philippine Pesos (PhP)  Size doesn’t matter:
 Do not start sentences with words like, and, so, o “Don’t Litter!”
but, also. Here are some good transition words and
phrases to use in formal writing Text Types
o Nevertheless  Different texts serve different purposes
o Additionally o To tell a story
o However o To describe an entity or event
o In Addition o To provide instructions on how to operate a
o As a result of device
o Although o To convince someone of something
 Always write in complete sentences. o To explain how something works
 Write longer, more complex sentences. o Etc.
 Our society has evolved standard ways of writing a
text for a given purpose, e.g.,
 Informal Language Register o To tell a story-narrative
o is conversational and appropriate when o To describe-descriptive
writing to friends and people you know very o To provide instructions-instructional
well. o To convince-argumentative
o Example: o To explain-expository
 personal e-mails
 phone texts Narrative texts
 short notes  Labov’s Schema
 friendly letters o Orientation (time and setting of the story)
 most blogs
o Complication of story, a quest, an obstacle,
 diaries and journals
or a series of obstacles,
 There are no major rules to informal writing, but you o a Resolution to the complication.
can include things such as: o (optional) a Coda, which signals the story is
ended
 slangs and clichés  Real narratives go through cycles of this narrative
 figurative language structure
 symbols and abbreviations o What happened first.
 acronyms o What happened next.
 incomplete sentences o Etc.
 short sentences
 Characteristics of a Narrative
 first person, second person POV
o Detail what happened and in which order
 paragraphs or no paragraphs
o Contain mainly actions: She bit the apple.
 jokes
 some verbal: The bad witch said
 personal opinions
o Mainly in simple past tense
 extra punctuation
 Some past perfect to skip back to
 passive and active voice
the past:
  She had lost her way
Descriptive Texts
 Information describing a scene, person or object
 Characteristics of a Descriptive Text
o Use of relational processes: It is big, it has
2 sides
o Use of adjectives: He has very large eyes.
o General structure is a LIST of attributes or
facts
o Mostly simple present tense (universal
truths)
Instructional texts
 Information about how to achieve a goal
 Give the steps to follow
 Characteristics of Instructional Texts:
o Sequences of actions: To clean the device:
(1) (2) (3)
o Use of imperatives: Open the lid.
o Conditional Adjuncts: When the machine
has stopped…
o Purpose Adjuncts: To open the case…
Argumentative Texts
 Present arguments for or against a case
Expository Texts
 Texts that explain some natural or sociocultural
phenomena
 Provide factual information rather than try to
convince (not an argument)
 Can include a variety of texts, such as newspaper
articles and reports, textbooks, and scientific and
academic essays, which present factual information.
 Generic structure:
o A general statement to position the reader
o sequenced explanation of why or how
something occurs
 Characteristics:
o Focus on generic participants
o Temporal and causal circumstances and
conjunctions
o Use of simple present tense
-