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Multilingual Education
Volume 43
Series Editors
Hintat Cheung, Department of Linguistics & Modern Language, Education University of
Hong Kong, Hong Kong, New Territories, Hong Kong
Lixun Wang, Linguistics & Modern Language Studies, Education University of
Hong Kong, Tai Po, New Territories, Hong Kong
Editorial Board
Feng Anwei, The University of Nottingham, Ningbo, China
Kingsley Bolton, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore
Tae-Hee Choi, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK
Ofelia Garcia, The Graduate Center, City University of New York,
New York, USA
Saran Kaur Gill, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia
Mingyue Gu, The Education University of Hong Kong, Tai Po,
Hong Kong
Hartmut Haberland, Roskilde University, Roskilde, Denmark
Andy Kirkpatrick, Department of Humanities, Languages and Social Sciences,
Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia
David C.S Li, Department of Chinese & Biling. Studies, Hong Kong Polytechnic
University, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Low Ee-Ling, National Institute of Education, Singapore, Singapore
Tony Liddicoat, Applied Linguistics, University of Warwick,
Coventry, UK
Ricardo Nolasco, University of the Philippines at Diliman, Manila, Philippines
Merrill Swain, Ontario Institute of Studies in Education, University of Toronto,
Toronto, Canada
Li Wei, Birkbeck College, University of London, London, UK
Zhichang Xu, Monash University, Clayton, Australia
Virginia Yip Choy Yin, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New
Territories, Hong Kong
Gu Yueguo, The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, China
The book series Multilingual Education publishes top quality monographs and
edited volumes containing empirical research on multilingual language acquisition,
language contact and the respective roles of languages in contexts where the
languages are not cognate and where the scripts are often different, in order to be
able to better understand the processes and issues involved and to inform governments
and language policy makers. The volumes in this series are aimed primarily at
researchers in education, especially multilingual education and other related fields,
and those who are involved in the education of (language) teachers. Others who will
be interested include key stakeholders and policy makers in the field of language
policy and education. The editors welcome proposals and ideas for books that fit the
series.
Sílvia Melo-Pfeifer
Editor
Linguistic Landscapes
in Language and Teacher
Education
Multilingual Teaching and Learning Inside
and Beyond the Classroom
Editor
Fakultät für Erziehungswissenschaft
Universität Hamburg
Hamburg, Germany
ISSN 2213-3208 ISSN 2213-3216 (electronic)

Multilingual Education
ISBN 978-3-031-22866-7 ISBN 978-3-031-22867-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22867-4
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG 2023
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse
of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and
transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar
or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or
the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Foreword: Linguistic Landscapes as a Useful
Pedagogical Tool
“The language on display in public spaces is useless for language education”. Reading
the statement will be rather shocking for the authors contributing to this book, but
also for most linguistic landscape researchers, as well as for many teachers. Probably
none of them would agree, because we are all convinced that the languages we can see
and read on signs around us in public spaces can be supportive of language learning
and can make us become more aware of multilingualism and language diversity.
Just a few years ago, however, an English university teacher in Japan analyzed
English used in public signage, and she collected, what she called, quaint uses of
English. She asked the question how this affects the way English is learned by students
in Japan and her conclusion was “the English visible in their everyday environment,
in shops, on clothes, on wrappings, and so forth, is … useless, not because it is
sometimes faulty, but precisely because it is so functionally unlike real English—
divorced from a real speaker and a real listener and any real communicative purpose”
(Hyde, 2002, p. 16). For Hyde the publicly displayed use of English is emblematic
rather than communicative, which for her makes it only superficially English and
thus students will not learn “real English” from the signage.
These ideas stand in stark contrast with the assumptions of the LoCALL project
which are pointing 180 degrees in the opposite direction. On the project-website
(https://locallproject.eu/) the basic premise is stated as follows: “Linguistic land-
scapes comprise real-world linguistic expressions and manifestations of multilin-
gualism. By perceiving them, we can raise language awareness, which is a relevant
feature and goal of language learning.” This fundamental premise is further elab-
orated on the same website by arguing that “linguistic landscapes … are powerful
starting points for valuing the presence of various languages and linguistic resources
in (foreign, second, additional or mother) language teaching, favoring the develop-
ment of multilingual, critical and plurisemiotic literacies (by actively engaging actors
on discussions on language hierarchies and linguistic prestige, language comparison
and language awareness, and translanguaging in public spaces) and, concomitantly,
the development of skills in the languages of the school and the development of
linguistic repertoires”.
v
vi Foreword: Linguistic Landscapes as a Useful Pedagogical Tool
Those are, of course, rather strong claims which suggest that using the linguistic
landscape as a pedagogical resource can contribute to solving a whole range of
issues and challenges in language education. This book is an important outcome of
the LoCALL project and similar ideas about the usefulness of the linguistic landscape
are echoed by Melo-Pfeifer in the Introduction. Also the contributing authors agree
and in their chapters they are able to confirm these ideas, premises and claims about
the potential powerful pedagogical possibilities of linguistic landscapes for language
education. Their empirical studies and applications in different education contexts
succeed in different ways to show how the linguistic landscape can be a powerful
pedagogical tool.
How did we get here? Surely, the earliest studies of linguistic landscapes did
not pay any attention to its pedagogical possibilities, even if a couple of the early
contributions were projects to obtain an education degree: Tulp’s (1978) chapter was
based on a master thesis and Backhaus (2007) turned his Ph.D. into a frequently cited
monograph. It demonstrates that then and now the linguistic landscape is a fitting
topic for a thesis and can help students to fulfill their academic study requirements.
Currently the topic is quite popular among students, and hundreds of theses and term
papers have been written on linguistic landscapes.
It began with a few publications, just like small drops, in which the linguistic
landscape was considered as a useful pedagogical tool. For example, Shohamy
and Waksman (2009, p. 326) claimed that linguistic landscapes can act “as a
powerful tool for … meaningful language learning”. The authors mention that an
investigation into linguistic landscapes in an educational context can lead to a deeper
understanding of issues of inequality and power. Around the same time, we wrote
an article about the idea that language displayed in public spaces can be useful for
language learners as an additional source of authentic input in second language
acquisition (SLA) (Cenoz & Gorter, 2008). We suggested that the written languages
on multilingual signs can be used for enhancing language awareness, developing
multimodal literacy skills and acquiring pragmatic competence. It could be a
coincidence, but it was another Japanese university teacher, Rowland (2013), who
built on those ideas and he composed a list of benefits of the linguistic landscape for
learners of English as a foreign language. He mentioned the following six benefits
(Rowland, 2013, pp. 496–497):
1. Raising students’ awareness of contextualized English;
2. Helping students’ incidental learning;
3. Serving as an important resource for English teaching;
4. Improving students’ English literacy;
5. Fostering students’ critical thinking abilities;
6. Providing an authentic English environment for English learners.
Rowland applied his assumptions in a project for an English writing class, in which
he asked a group of university students: “How and why is English used on signs
in Japan?”. He instructed the students to take photographs of, e.g. advertisements
Foreword: Linguistic Landscapes as a Useful Pedagogical Tool vii
and road signs and then afterwards those signs were discussed in the English class.
The results of the project empirically confirmed the different learning benefits. Along
similar lines, again at a university in Japan, Barrs (2018) continued in this line of work
by asking a group of students (N = 101) to write a short essay about the question
“What interesting things can you notice about English in the linguistic landscape
around you?” He compiled the essays into a corpus and in the analysis he found that
the place, form and reason for English were the most discussed issues. Through the
activity, he could critically engage his students with English in the Japanese linguistic
landscape. In another article Barrs (2020) describes a project based learning activity
on the forms and functions of English in the linguistic landscape. He mentions again
the successful outcomes of these linguistic landscape activities and argues that “one
of the most appealing features of engaging learners with the linguistic landscape is
that it lies immediately beyond the walls of the classroom” (Barrs, 2020, p. 15). He
further argues that students researching linguistic landscapes will learn to critically
reflect on how English is used in society.
The articles mentioned above were among a small, but steady stream of publica-
tions that seeped into the literature on linguistic landscapes. The publications kept
flowing and gained momentum in a Special Issue on studying the visual and material
dimensions of education and learning (Laihonen & Szabó, 2018). The issue contained
seven new studies and we added an exhaustive overview of trends in the study of
schoolscapes which could refer to some 25 publications on the topic (Gorter, 2018).
The contents of several of those publications were more some ideas and sugges-
tions about how to apply the potential of linguistic landscapes, rather than empirical
studies of its real application as a pedagogical tool in an educational context.
In the meantime, the field of linguistic landscape studies in general had become
firmly established. In the Introduction to the current book Melo-Pfeifer presents a
short synopsis of the development of the field, based on the titles of a selection of 13
books. For an extensive inventory of publications in the field, the reader is advised
to consult the online Linguistic Landscape Bibliography that has some 1.150 entries
(Troyer, 2022). Today, linguistic landscape studies cover a complex assemblage of
divergent theoretical approaches, various analytic frameworks and several qualita-
tive, quantitative and mixed research methods. The field is an umbrella for highly
diverse studies, but at the same time there is an identifiable corpus that takes as its
core the visual representation of language in a broad sense of the word. Linguistic
landscape studies have developed into a unique field of studies that offers inno-
vative insights on a large number of issues related to languages in public spaces.
Taken together, the studies point to the complexity of linguistic landscapes, where
signs display languages in dynamic ways and demonstrate the interconnectedness of
different societal levels and institutions, including education. In a proposal for a more
holistic approach, in Gorter (2021) we developed a model of Multilingual Inequality
in Public Spaces (MIPS). The model wants to examine the cyclic processes which
are part of the construction of linguistic landscapes and how the effects of these
processes influence the experiences of people and their language practices. Research
viii Foreword: Linguistic Landscapes as a Useful Pedagogical Tool
questions have to be answered on how public display of signs comes into existence,
how language on signage is patterned, how it is experienced and given meaning by its
creators and perceivers and how it can influence language practices and behavior. The
organization of different languages on signs is seen as fundamentally unequal because
those signs are socially situated, and people perceive them differently. Application
of the model can lead to an encompassing approach, including potential pedagogical
applications.
The theme of linguistic landscapes in education has grown from a small stream
to a richly flowing river of publications. Over the past few years several edited
books have come out (Malinowski, Maxim & Dubreil, 2020; Niedt & Seals, 2021;
Solmaz & Przymus, 2021; Krompák, Fernández-Mallat & Meyer, 2022). Further-
more, there are publications in other languages, such as two edited collections in
German (Badstübner-Kizik & Janíková, 2018; Ziegler & Marten, 2021) and a general
introduction in Italian which devotes a large part to schoolscapes (Bellinzona, 2021).
Likewise, Berra (2020) published a practical guide in Latvian, and also the contribu-
tions to the special issue in Portuguese edited by Melo-Pfeifer and Lima-Hernandes
(2020) demonstrate how linguistic landscapes are useful for language learning and
teaching. Probably this list is incomplete, but taken together these publications and
many others, show the manifold pedagogical possibilities of public signage for
language acquisition and for learning about languages.
The development of the field of linguistic landscape studies has sometimes been
described with a metaphor of waves. To justify the waves, Bolton, Botha and Lee
(2020) undertake an elaborate effort by distinguishing between three waves, which
they label in short as 1st quantitative, 2nd qualitative and 3rd critical. However,
although it may sound nice, this does not fit, because as Bolton et al. (2020, p. 297)
already admit there is “frequent overlap and leakage between the … waves”. Not
only that, but waves also seems to suggest that there is a chronological succession
of one wave after another, which is obviously not the case. Furthermore, it is hard
for the waves-metaphor to work because the analysis by Bolton and his colleagues
included only a few edited books and it thus excluded approximately 90% of all
linguistic landscape publications. At the same time, it is true that the rising flow
of linguistic landscape publications is exponentially spreading out in a great many
directions. The ever-changing field has fluid boundaries and its studies are permeated
by the application of many existing theoretical ideas and research techniques. There
is, as Shohamy (2019, p. 34) reminds us, an ongoing and recurring debate in the
field in which some researchers think that by broadening the scope perhaps it has
“gone too far beyond its ‘legitimate’ boundaries”. Obviously, the field has devel-
oped enormously and covers a wide range of topics, still for most researchers the
core concern remains an effort to analyze the public display of some sort of visible
language that is all around us. This includes besides language in its written form,
also multimodal, semiotic, other visual, material and sometimes oral elements. In
this book, for example, the chapter by Chik would probably fall outside the fuzzy
boundaries of the field of linguistic landscape studies per se. Chik discusses language
Foreword: Linguistic Landscapes as a Useful Pedagogical Tool ix
diversity in Sydney, Australia from a geolinguistic perspective and presents inter-

esting data about the geographic distribution of different groups of speakers and
about where Chinese and Greek community language schools are located, but she
does not include data on signage. The focus of the chapter is rather different from,
for example, Xu and Wang (2021) who analyzed differences between 2009 and 2019
in the signs and scripts to describe the increase of Chinese restaurants in Hurstville, a
Chinatown of Sydney. Xu and Wang conclude that the changes in the signage reflect
a shift in the composition of the migrant population, whereas Chik can demonstrate
that the distribution of different language groups is much more diffuse.
We should also remember that the concept “linguistic landscape” competes with
other uses of the same term in sociolinguistic and applied linguistics, where the
concept has been used with different meanings. For example, Dunn, Coupe and
Adams (2020) wanted to understand changes in the “linguistic landscape” during the
COVID-19 pandemic. For them this meant measuring linguistic diversity based on
data from Twitter in terms of the number of different languages used in a country and
it had little to do with the sudden changes in signage in public spaces around the world
as documented by various studies (e.g. Hopkyns & Van der Hoven, 2021; Marshall,
2021; Ogiermann & Bella, 2021). In contrast, the chapter in this book by McMonagle
also presents data from Twitter, but she analyzes a small corpus of tweets on the
European Day of Languages under the perspective of a virtual linguistic landscape
and clearly aims to situate her work aligned with other studies of linguistic landscapes
of cyberspace, which are linking online and offline worlds.
In the continuous flood of linguistic landscape publications one can distinguish
the growing stream of pedagogical publications as an important current. There have
already been numerous publications about successful projects about the linguistic
landscape in education. Recently we carried out three case studies of how linguistic
landscapes can contribute to language learning (Gorter, Cenoz & Van der Worp,
2021). First, we developed a module with learning activities around the linguistic
landscape as part of an intervention based on pedagogical translanguaging. Our
aim was, among others, to investigate the development of metalinguistic awareness
among primary school students. Our second case study comes from the experiences
of a group of master students who carried out an assignment on linguistic landscape
and presented the results of their analysis and reflections in class. Third, we examined
again the learning potential of public spaces, this time inside a market in Donostia-San
Sebastián. Each of the three case studies shows the various possibilities of analyzing
the languages on display in public spaces for language learning and teaching, as well
as being a useful tool for raising language awareness. We concluded that in these cases
“the linguistic landscape offers a chance to link the classroom with real language
use in society” (Gorter, Cenoz & Van der Worp, 2021, p. 179). This is of course
in agreement with many other studies and with most of the chapters in this book.
In a recent overview of the literature on the pedagogical possibilities of linguistic
landscapes we claimed that “linguistic landscapes in educational contexts harbour
x Foreword: Linguistic Landscapes as a Useful Pedagogical Tool
considerable potential for language learning, for increased language awareness and
for critical reflection” (Gorter & Cenoz, 2022, p. 287).
Obviously, this new book of the LoCALL project fits well with that growing stream
of publications. The book is an important contribution to the theme of linguistic
landscapes in education contexts and it has a wide geographical scope, covering
14 countries from five continents. New and exciting developments in the field of
linguistic landscape studies, in particular its applications for language learning and
in teacher training, are manifested in the different studies reported in this volume.
For a quick orientation Melo-Pfeifer presents a succinct and informative overview of
each chapter in the Introduction. Different contributions show the huge pedagogical
potential of public signage for enhancing awareness about multilingualism, literacies,
identities or ideologies and for language acquisition. The chapters contain enriching
and captivating ideas on the possibilities of applying linguistic landscape research
or materials in the context of learning about languages, and on its use in teacher
training.
Perhaps here we can highlight just two issues that stand out: translanguaging and
technology. Melo-Pfeifer mentions in the Introduction how students can be actively
engaged in discussions, among others, about translanguaging in public spaces which
then can lead to development of language skills and linguistic repertoires. Linguistic
landscapes can help to propagate pedagogical translanguaging as a resource for the
critical teaching and learning of or about languages. In his chapter, Prada approaches
the linguistic landscape through a translanguaging lens and he moves beyond the
linguistic aspect of the linguistic landscape and relates it to sense- and meaning-
making aspects, which he then applied in his teaching. Similarly, Lourenço, Duarte,
Silva and Batista (this volume) discuss the importance of translanguaging prac-
tices and plurilingual methodologies. They argue how translanguaging is part of
language-related knowledge and skills, next to other skills such as decoding, transfer
and analytical skills, multimodal literacy skills and the use of technology. Another
example is provided by Brinkmann and Melo-Pfeifer who in their chapter observe
how students apply translanguaging strategies, among others in a writing task. For
them this demonstrates the learning potential of translanguaging strategies, and
intercomprehension. The ideas in these chapters are in line with our own ideas on
pedagogical translanguaging (Cenoz & Gorter, 2021).
We mentioned the use of technology, and this is a second recurring issue. It
becomes obvious from some chapters that technological innovations are important
for the field of linguistic landscape studies. The most obvious example from the past
is that technology made data collection of large numbers of photographs of signs
accessible and easy for anyone who can operate a digital camera. In the various
chapters of this book we find, among others, the use of apps, a website, an e-reader
platform, social media, mobile phones and tablets as examples of technology-driven
studies. The LoCALL app was developed by this project. The app is available in
different languages and can be used by primary and secondary students and their
teachers to explore, document and reflect upon the linguistic landscapes in their
Foreword: Linguistic Landscapes as a Useful Pedagogical Tool xi
surroundings. It includes games which provide a link between the classroom and the
real world. In their chapter Marques, Lourenço, Pombo, das Neves, Laranjeiro and
Martins provide a report on a project among teachers who worked with the LoCALL
app in their class. Another example is the description of the LoCALL training week
in the chapter by Araújo e Sá, Carinhas, Melo-Pfeifer and Simões in which, among
others, Google Classroom, the Padlet app and the Perusall platform are used for the
construction of an online learning community.
The examples in the book sharpen the awareness and the critical skills which can
be important in case a person decides to embark on an investigation on their own
(or are told to do so for an assignment, as for example, students in teacher training).
Taken together, the authors prove that using the linguistic landscape is a powerful
pedagogical tool. The chapters provide important additions to the current arsenal
of teaching languages inside or outside the classroom. The book will contribute to
more researchers, teacher trainers, teachers and students to discover the pedagogical
benefits of linguistic landscape materials for the teaching of and about languages. In
general, the application of public signage as a pedagogical tool shows great relevance
to educators and students. It can be linked to important wider issues such as Global
Citizenship Education, as is shown in the chapter by Lourenço, Duarte, Silva and
Batista, who report on a comparative study from five European countries. The authors
emphasize in their conclusion that linguistic landscapes “are a formidable opportunity
to establish connections between the school curriculum and the real world”. Or, as
it is mentioned on the website of the LoCALL project, “the linguistic landscape is a
free, immediate and dynamic educational resource”. However, as Chern and Dooley
(2014) already warned us, learning about language while walking down the street
does not come automatically, because students have to be made aware and they have
to learn to critically examine the signs, otherwise they probably do not notice.
The chapters here represent a timely and significant contribution of insights
concerning linguistic landscapes in education contexts. Through their texts we gain
more knowledge about language-related phenomena, in particular multilingualism.
It can help to make students and teachers understand that the study of the linguistic
landscape is about more than what is superficially visible. Hopefully this Foreword
has given sufficient reasons to pique the curiosity of the reader, who now wants
to learn more about the content of the rest of the book. Of course, there is always
the risk of preaching to the converted, but in any case we can conclude that Hyde
(2002) was whistling in the wind because there was no real hope of succeeding to
prevent students from learning from the public display of language. Perhaps the best
illustration comes from the chapter by Oyama, Moore and Pearce in which they
show how the Japanese six-grade student Yūki becomes a co-researcher of his own
language and literacy practices. By walking and taking pictures, the child starts to
make discoveries, raises questions about language and explores the diversity of his
local environment. Real-life material can provide an engaging way to teach about
literacy and language awareness, and educational purposes can be served by making
active use of the linguistic landscape.
xii Foreword: Linguistic Landscapes as a Useful Pedagogical Tool
We all have to consider that we are submerged in the linguistic landscapes that
surround us and we have to be ready to embark on bold new ventures. This book
will encourage researchers, teacher trainers, teachers and students to go out and
explore (but don’t forget a camera). A master student once told me several years
after accomplishing an assignment on linguistic landscapes, that it had changed her
experience of walking down a shopping street forever. The linguistic landscapes
structure our daily lives. They shape our streets, neighborhoods, cities, and also our
education.
Durk Gorter
University of the Basque Country
Donostia-San Sebastián
Gipuzkoa, Spain
Ikerbasque Basque Foundation for Science
Bilbao, Bizkaia, Spain
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Contents
Introduction: Linguistic Landscapes in Language (Teacher)

Education: Multilingual Teaching and Learning Inside and Beyond
the Classroom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
The Exploration of Linguistic Landscapes in the Classroom

Languages Around Us: (In)visibility Matters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Mónica López Vera and Melinda Dooly
Walking Linguistic Landscapes as Ways to Experience Plurality:
A Visual Ethnography into Plurilingualism with Elementary
School Children in Japan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Mayo Oyama, Danièle Moore, and Daniel Roy Pearce
Empowering Students and Raising Critical Language Awareness
Through a Collaborative Multidisciplinary Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Sonia Cadi, Latisha Mary, Maria Siemushyna, and Andrea S. Young
Thinking Allowed: Linguistic Landscapes-Based Projects
for Higher-Order and Critical Thinking Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Klaudia A. Kruszynska and Melinda Dooly
Linguistic Landscapes in Multilingual Learning and Teaching

Environments
Is There a Place for Global Citizenship Education in the Exploration
of Linguistic Landscapes? An Analysis of Educational Practices
in Five European Countries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Mónica Lourenço, Joana Duarte, Francisco P. Silva, and Bruna Batista
Linguistic Landscape of Maputo: A Space for a Pedagogical
Exploration of Multilingualism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Perpétua Gonçalves and Manuel Guissemo
xv
xvi Contents
The LoCALL App: A Mobile Tool to Promote Learning

from and About Linguistic Landscapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Margarida M. Marques, Mónica Lourenço, Lúcia Pombo,
Alexandra das Neves, Dionísia Laranjeiro, and Filomena Martins
Teachers’ and Students’ Voices on Linguistic Landscapes

Mediation of Language Attitudes Through Linguistic Landscapes
in Minority Language Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Joana Duarte, Sibrecht Veenstra, and Nelly van Dijk
Teacher and Student Perspectives on the Use of Linguistic
Landscapes as Pedagogic Resources for Enhancing Language
Awareness: A Focus on the Development of Cognitive and Affective
Dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Lisa Marie Brinkmann and Sílvia Melo-Pfeifer
Educational Possibilities of Linguistic Landscapes Exploration
in a Context of Pre-service Teacher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Ana Isabel Andrade, Filomena Martins, Susana Pinto,
and Ana Raquel Simões
The Co-Construction of the Concept “Linguistic Landscape”
by Language Educators in an Online Course . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
Maria Helena Araújo e Sá, Raquel Carinhas, Sílvia Melo-Pfeifer,
and Ana Raquel Simões
Expanding Linguistic Landscapes in Education

Sensescapes and What it Means for Language Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
Josh Prada
Material Culture Inside and Beyond the Multilingual Classroom:
Theoretical and Pedagogical Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
Larissa Aronin, Daria Bylieva, and Victoria Lobatyuk
The Visibility of Languages–Connecting Schools to Communities . . . . . . 281
Alice Chik
Virtual Linguistic Landscapes from Below: A Hashtag Analysis
of the European Day of Languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
Sarah McMonagle
Conclusion: Linguistic Landscapes in Education—Where Do We
Go Now? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
Mónica Lourenço and Sílvia Melo-Pfeifer
Editor and Contributors
About the Editor
Sílvia Melo-Pfeifer holds a Ph.D. in language education and is Full Professor at the
University of Hamburg (Germany) in the field of language teacher education.
Contributors
Ana Isabel Andrade Departamento de Educação e Psicologia, Universidade de

Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal
Maria Helena Araújo e Sá Department of Education and Psychology, CIDTFF,
University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal
Larissa Aronin Oranim Academic College of Education, Haifa, Israel
Bruna Batista Department of Education and Psychology, CIDTFF, University of
Lisa Marie Brinkmann Fakultät für Erziehungswissenschaften, Universität
Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
Daria Bylieva Peter the Great Saint-Petersburg Polytechnic University, Saint-
Petersburg, Russia
Durk Gorter University of the Basque Country, Donostia-San Sebastián,
Gipuzkoa, Spain;
Ikerbasque Basque Foundation for Science, Bilbao, Bizkaia, Spain
Sonia Cadi Collège (High School) Henri Meck, Molsheim, France
Raquel Carinhas Universidad de la Republica, Montevideo, Uruguay;
CIDTFF, Universidade de Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal
xvii
xviii Editor and Contributors
Alice Chik Macquarie School of Education, Macquarie University, Sydney,

Australia
Alexandra das Neves Department of Languages and Cultures, CLLC, University
of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal
Nelly van Dijk Faculty of Arts, Minorities and Multilingualism, University of
Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
Melinda Dooly Autonomous University of Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain
Joana Duarte Faculty of Arts, Minorities and Multilingualism, University of
Perpétua Gonçalves Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, Maputo, Mozambique
Manuel Guissemo Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, Maputo, Mozambique
Klaudia A. Kruszynska Autonomous University of Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain
Dionísia Laranjeiro Criamagin; CIDTFF, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal
Victoria Lobatyuk Peter the Great Saint-Petersburg Polytechnic University, Saint-
Petersburg, Russia
Mónica Lourenço Department of Education and Psychology, CIDTFF, University
Mónica López Vera Autonomous University of Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain
Margarida M. Marques Department of Education and Psychology, CIDTFF,
University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal
Filomena Martins Department of Education and Psychology, CIDTFF, University
Latisha Mary INSPE, Université de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France
Sarah McMonagle Faculty of Education, University of Hamburg, Hamburg,
Germany;
Faculty of Humanities and Education, Technical University Braunschweig, Braun-
schweig, Germany
Sílvia Melo-Pfeifer Fakultät für Erziehungswissenschaften, Universität Hamburg,
Hamburg, Germany
Danièle Moore Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada;
DILTEC-Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris, 3, France
Mayo Oyama Faculty of Literature and Human Sciences, Osaka Metropolitan
University, Osaka, Japan
Daniel Roy Pearce Faculty of Education, Shitennoji University, Osaka, Japan
Editor and Contributors xix
Susana Pinto Departamento de Educação e Psicologia, Universidade de Aveiro,

Aveiro, Portugal
Lúcia Pombo Department of Education and Psychology, CIDTFF, University of
Josh Prada Indiana University (IUPUI), Indianapolis, IN, USA
Maria Siemushyna INSPE, Université de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France
Francisco P. Silva Department of Education and Psychology, CIDTFF, University
Ana Raquel Simões Department of Education and Psychology, CIDTFF, Univer-
sity of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal
Sibrecht Veenstra Faculty of Arts, Minorities and Multilingualism, University of
Andrea S. Young INSPE, Université de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France
Introduction: Linguistic Landscapes
in Language (Teacher) Education:
Multilingual Teaching and Learning
Inside and Beyond the Classroom
Abstract In this introduction, I recall the main trends and evolutions in the concep-
tualisation and study of linguistic landscapes (LLs) and in language education studies
that focus on the exploitation of LLs both as a pedagogical resource (especially in
the language classroom) and approach in teacher training. The constituent chapters
of the present book are situated at the intersection of three turns in applied language
studies: the multilingual turn, the visual turn and the spatial turn. Following a detailed
presentation of each section of the book and its chapters, I end with an acknowledge-
ment of the potential of LLs for a more critical and agentive language education and
teacher training.
Keywords Linguistic landscapes (LLs) · Language education · Multilingual

education · Pedagogical translanguaging · Teacher education
1 Introducing Linguistic Landscapes as a Research Field

in Education
The present volume, dedicated to the exploration of the linguistic landscape (LL)
in educational and teacher training contexts, arises from the collaboration of the
different authors within the LoCALL project—Local Linguistic Landscapes for
Global Language Education in the School Context.1 This project focused on the
pedagogical use of LLs in formal language learning contexts in order to develop the
language awareness of the target groups involved, and to open new tracks in teacher
training for sustainable and structured approaches to working with linguistic diver-
sity in society and with individual plurilingual competence. This book thus follows
1 Erasmus + Project, developed between 2019 and 2022, with five participating universities: the
University of Aveiro (Portugal), the Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain), the University
of Groningen (Netherlands), the University of Hamburg (Germany, coordinating institution), and
the University of Strasbourg (France). More information at: https://locallproject.eu/.
S. Melo-Pfeifer (B)
University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
e-mail: [email protected]
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 1

S. Melo-Pfeifer (ed.), Linguistic Landscapes in Language and Teacher Education,
Multilingual Education 43, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22867-4_1
2 S. Melo-Pfeifer
the ongoing expansion of studies about LLs in educational settings, while at the same
time narrowing its scope to the field of language and teacher education.
At this point, it is important to consider the basic definition of LL. In a seminal
paper from 2006, Gorter explains, “language is all around us in textual form as it is
displayed on shop windows, commercial signs, posters, official notices, traffic signs,
etc.” (2006a, p. 1). These everyday textual forms constitute the object of study for
researchers interested in LL description and analysis. In their preface to Blommaert’s
(2013) work, Pennycook et al. (2013, p. ix), indicate three driving factors in LL
research:
• the growing attention to space and its subjective apprehension by those who inhabit
it, reconsidering the term ‘context’ in studies in sociolinguistics;
• the development of studies in urban plurilingualism, from the perspective of
linguistic ethnography, shifting the focus of observation from the mapping of
linguistic diversity to the direct experience of this diversity;
• the focus on manifestations of public language policies, namely urban signage,
and on signage options in different contexts.
The notion of LL has further expanded in conceptual and disciplinary terms, now
embracing multiple sense-makers beyond written words and languages, in a more
holistic, less logocentric understanding of individuals’ repertoires. Thus, I explain
below how this notion now includes the domains of sound, and even tactile and olfac-
tory LLs. In the same way, the study of LLs has gradually begun to integrate sign
language. I then propose a review, necessarily circumscribed, of studies on plurilin-
gual and multisemiotic LL developed within the framework of different disciplines.
I will focus, given the scope of the present work, on sociolinguistics and language
education. After a brief presentation of the chapters that comprise the present book,
I finish with my personal reading of the advances in the field of LL research.
2 Studying Linguistic Landscapes: The Evolution

of the Field as Seen Through the Lens of Language
and Teacher Education2
Following Gorter’s definition (2006a, 2006b) and studies that primarily considered
language “around us”, Shohamy and Gorter define the LL more ecologically, consid-
ering it to include sounds, images and graffiti (2009, p. 4). The broadening of the
field is indicated by the titles of some of the most popular collections published on
the subject. Table 1 presents, without any pretension of exhaustiveness, books in
English published from 2006 onwards.
Although they cannot give a complete overview of the evolution of studies about
LLs (see Marten et al., 2012 for a synthesis of LL research first steps), and it is not
2Sections 2 and 3 of this introduction expand the synthesis presented in Melo-Pfeifer and Lima-
Hernandez (2020).
Introduction: Linguistic Landscapes in Language (Teacher) … 3
Table 1 Selected publications in English

Year of publication Title Editors or authors
2006 Linguistic Landscape: A new D. Gorter (ed.)
Approach to Multilingualism
2007 Linguistic Landscapes: Comparative P. Backhaus
Study of Urban Multilingualism in
Tokyo
2009 Linguistic Landscape: Expanding E. Shohamy & D. Gorter (eds.)
the Scenery
2010 Linguistic Landscape in the City Elana Shohamy, Eliezer Ben-Rafael
and Monica Barni (eds.)
2010 Semiotic Landscapes. Language, A. Jaworski & C. Thurlow (eds.)
Image, Space
2012 Linguistic Landscapes, Ch. Hélot, M. Barni, R. Janssens &
Multilingualism and Social change C. Bagna (eds.)
2012 Minority Languages in the D. Gorter, H. Marten & L. Van
Linguistic Landscapes Mensel (eds.)
2013 Ethnography, Superdiversity and J. Blommaert
Linguistic Landscapes. Chronicles
of Complexity
2016 Negotiating and Contesting R. Blackwood, E. Lanza & H.
Identities in Linguistic Landscapes Woldemariam (eds.)
2019 Expanding the Linguistic M. Pütz & N. Mundt (eds.)
Landscape. Linguistic Diversity,
Multimodality and the Use of Space
as a Semiotic Resource
2020 Linguistic Landscapes. Beyond the C. A. Seals & G. Niedt (eds.)
Language Classroom
2020 Language Teaching in the Linguistic D. Malinowski, H. Maxon & S.
Landscape. Mobilizing Pedagogy in Dubreil (eds.)
Public Space
2022 Linguistic Landscapes and E. Krompák, V. Fernández-Mallat
Educational Spaces & S. Meyer (eds.)
wise to judge a book by its cover, I nevertheless advance, from the titles listed above,
the following observations:
• studies of LLs seem to start around issues related to social multilingualism,
especially in urban contexts characterised by linguistic hyperdiversity;
• this is followed by a phase of complexification of those studies, extending the
scope of analysis to the interaction of languages with more varied semiotic
elements situated in time and space, in a more multimodal and complex approach;
• authors then focus more intensively on social issues along the lines of symbolic
interactionism and on the way subjects live and contest their multiple identities;
4 S. Melo-Pfeifer
• LL studies have more recently reached education and applied linguistics, in

general, and language education, in particular, thus enabling a bridge between
learning in formal and informal contexts, as is the case of the present volume.
Krompák, Fernández-Mallat and Meyer have called this disciplinary move the
“educational turn in linguistic landscape studies” (2022, p. 1), as a growing number
of studies focus on ‘linguistic and semiotic educationscapes’. The present volume
follows this move and discusses LLs as resources for teaching and learning as well
as for teacher education.
This brief synopsis traces the evolution of the field in very broad terms and
excludes pioneering studies in different strands. For instance, as early as 1991,
Spolsky and Cooper had analysed the languages of Jerusalem, constituting a ground-
breaking study in the field of urban sociolinguistics. From a language education
perspective, Dagenais et al. (2009) and Clemente et al. (2012) carried out research
on LLs in school settings at a relatively early stage in the evolution of such studies,
demonstrating the benefits of engaging children as co-ethnographers in the discovery
of the languages of their surroundings.
Whereas initial studies focused on the description and analysis of the different
languages present in certain (usually urban) public spaces, often from a quantita-
tive and synchronic perspective including an inventory of the respective languages,
researchers have since highlighted the need to go beyond such an approach. Recent
calls embrace more complex dynamics of languages across time and space from
a diachronic and historical perspective. Also, those spaces of consideration now
extend from the physical to the virtual (Androutsopoulos, 2020; see also Chik and
McMonagle in this volume).
Similarly, as these developments suggest, the study of LLs no longer focuses
exclusively on printed language displays, but rather on the interaction of symbols,
materials, colours, shapes, sizes, fonts, materiality and agency, in a multimodal and
multisemiotic (Jaworski & Thurlow, 2010; Pennycook, 2019, on LL as assemblages)
or even multisensorial and synesthetic way (Paraguai, 2019; Pennycook & Otsuji,
2015; Prada in this volume). The linguistic repertoire thus meets the semiotic and
sensorial repertoires in more recent studies. In these multifaceted perspectives, each
element provides information that indexes each semiotic representation to a partic-
ular function in specific spaces and times. In other words, the mere counting of
languages is not enough to illustrate the complexity, dynamics, tensions and disso-
nances present in LLs, rendering it necessary to analyse the ‘ordered indexicality’
and the ‘layered simultaneity’ of the various semiotic components observed and
experienced (Blommaert, 2013).
In this sense, the LL comes to be understood as an artefact that translates the very
materiality of multilingualism (Aronin & Ó Laoire, 2012), thus giving attention to
a little-explored aspect: that of the ‘environment’ (as opposed to the more studied
‘subject’ and ‘language’ aspects). The authors classify the study of LL within the
framework of the “multilingual material culture of places” (2012, p. 314), which
will be handled in chapter “Material Culture Inside and Beyond the Multilingual
Classroom: Theoretical and Pedagogical Perspectives” of this book.
In line with these advances, further studies explore the different materialities and
spacialities of the LL: school LLs (schoolscapes; Androutsoupoulous & Kuhlee,
2021; Dressler, 2015; Gorter, 2017; Gorter & Cenoz, 2015; Szabó, 2015), domestic
LLs (homescapes; Melo-Pfeifer, 2022) and food LLs (foodscapes, Krompák, 2018).
It follows from these new designations that the current study of LLs goes beyond
public spaces (see Benson, 2019 and Benson et al., 2019 for an overview) to embrace
more diverse spacialities and resources (such as textbooks, Chapelle, 2020).
3 Multilingual and Plurisemiotic Linguistic Landscapes

in Language Education
The first studies around LLs (e.g. Spolsky & Cooper, 1991) were developed in the
context of sociolinguistics. However, in 2012, Shohamy and Waksman define this
field as clearly multidisciplinary as it centres research issues around several human
sciences. In sociolinguistics, studies investigate, broadly speaking, the “LL as a site
of political discourses, which need to be deconstructed to make sense of the rela-
tionships between people, language(s), signs, space and power” (Hélot et al., 2012,
p. 19). Or, following Shohamy and Waksman, “language in public space has become
an arena of symbolic struggle and debate about participation and distribution of
resources in cities, workplaces, schools, neighborhoods, national and global spaces”
(2012, p. 111). This unequal distribution of languages in public spaces provides
clues about the presence of different language communities, their hierarchies and
respective status, their socio-economic occupations in the social fabric, their voice
and, paradoxically, also their silence or silencing.
Notwithstanding this interest of sociolinguistics in LLs, Pennycook, Morgan
and Kubota consider that “the benefits of LL research as an accessible pedagog-
ical strategy should also be appreciated” (2013, p. ix), a call that was embraced
by Badstübner-Kizik and Janíková (2018), Krompák et al. (2022), Krompák and
Todisco (2022), Malinowski et al. (2020), Niedt and Seals (2020), among others.
It is in this context that I consider the growing interest in applied linguistics, in
general, and language education, more particularly, in the use of LLs in educational
settings. Janíková (2018) situates the pedagogical interest in LLs in the ‘visual turn’
that the discipline is going through (see Kalaja & Melo-Pfeifer, 2019) and in the
growing disciplinary interest in the development of students’ linguistic and cultural
awareness, aesthetic competence and visual literacy. To this visual turn, I can add
the multilingual and spatial turns (Brinkmann et al., 2022).
The use of LLs, whether in or out of the classroom, can be situated in the so-
called ‘spatial turn’ (Benson, 2021; Kramsch, 2018) in language teaching/learning,
where meaning is constructed and emerges in context, in a given spatial orientation,
depending on individuals’ spatial repertoires. In English, the term ‘emplacement’ is
used to refer to this role of space in the co-construction of meaning (Kramsch, 2018),
as an index of contextualisation. Indeed, work with LLs highlights “the importance
6 S. Melo-Pfeifer
of students’ critical examination of texts and other semiotic resources within and
across different spaces (e.g. classroom, home, school, communities, online) that are
embodied, interactive, multimodal/multisensory, and that evolve over time” (Lozano
et al., 2020, p. 19).
In the same vein, the multilingual turn in education (May, 2014) explains the
growing interest in issues such as multilingualism as lived, multilingualism as
embodied in personal experiences, or the implementation of multilingual pedago-
gies, not only in the language classroom but across the curriculum. The multilingual
turn also explains a research agenda around (linguistic) justice in education (Piller,
2016), the decolonisation of the curriculum (Macedo, 2019) and the opening of
applied linguistic perspectives to the Global South (Pennycook & Makoni, 2020), a
metaphor to refer to the missing voices from marginalised communities around the
globe. The combination of these turns entails consequences for teacher education,
which have also been addressed. Hélot, Jannseens, Barni and Bagna, for example,
claim that “learning to read the LL can be used as a means to understand power rela-
tionships between languages and literacies within society and to drive the attention
of teachers who will necessarily operate in multilingual and multicultural schools not
only to the material world of signs but also to the symbolic meaning communicated
by them” (2012, p. 22).
Melo-Pfeifer and Silva (2021) categorise three uses of LL in the classroom,
according to the linguistic approach (also Brinkmann et al., 2022):
• multilingual focus: the LL serves to raise learners’ awareness of the linguistic and
cultural diversity of their area of residence, region or country and of issues such
as equity, resilience and language maintenance or language struggle; Clemente
et al. (2012), for example, analyse how children develop their multilingual and
symbolic competence and their ability to ‘read the world’ in the first year of
Portuguese primary education.
• monolingual focus: the use of LLs serves to analyse the status, role or situation of a
particular language in a particular socio-demographic and multilingual landscape,
highlighting, for example, in which sectors of economic life that language is most
present or where its vitality is most prominent; it may also serve to enhance, even
incidentally, language learning at lexical and pragmatic level; this trend can be
recognised in the “spot German” approach (Marten & Saagpakk, 2017) or in the
pedagogical materials elaborated by Solmaz and Przymus (2021), for English as
an additional language.
• mixed focus: the use of LL as a pedagogical object serves the two previous focuses.
Regarding the multilingual focus, for example, Dagenais et al. (2009) investigate
how the use of LLs can contribute to the development of students’ linguistic aware-
ness through pedagogical work in the classroom. Dagenais et al. (2012) and Caillis-
Bonnet (2013) propose the pedagogic use and curricularisation of LLs, analysing
their potential as mirrors of societal multilingualism and leading children to reflect
on their individual linguistic repertoires. More recently, in Higher Education, Elola
and Prada acknowledge, in their action-research approach to the use of the LL in
Spanish classes in Texas, that “LL-based pedagogies may provide students with a
toolkit to enhance their sociolinguistic awareness, develop a critical perspective on

local/community languages in their area, and how these languages co-exist alongside
official/majority languages” (2020, p. 223). These studies demonstrate the flexibility
of LL use, with children, young people, and adults.
In addition to these uses, which can be considered within the sphere of pedagog-
ical translanguaging (Cenoz & Gorter, 2022) and pluralistic approaches in teaching
(generally from the ‘Éveil aux Langues’; see Candelier et al., 2007), as they aim to
develop multilingual and intercultural competence, other studies use the LL as an
additional input in the target language (Cenoz & Gorter, 2008), due to its potential as
a “rich learning environment” (Ballweg, 2018). In terms of the monolingual focus,
Lisek (2018) explores the use of Polish in the LL as authentic material to foster the
learning of this language in academic and non-academic contexts in Germany, also
by analysing teachers’ and students’ responses to the use of the LL in the classroom.
Rowland (2013), focusing on English learning in Japan, maintains that pedagog-
ical LL projects can be valuable to students in a variety of ways, particularly in
the development of students’ symbolic competence and literacy skills. According
to these studies, there are four spheres of pedagogical action in which the use of
LLs can favour the learning of the target language: learning of linguistic elements,
such as vocabulary, even if accidental; development of pragmatic skills; develop-
ment of multimodal literacies; and development of competences in various languages
(Cenoz & Gorter, 2008).
The use of LLs in the classroom enhances understanding of the synergies between
formal and informal contexts of language learning and use (see, for specific exam-
ples, Araújo e Sá et al. 2022 and Carinhas et al. 2020), enabling a more authentic
and less school-related contact with the so-called ‘target language’ or with linguistic
diversity (Malinowski et al., 2020; Niedt and Seals, 2020; Tjandra, 2021). These
publications allow us to postulate that it is possible to learn with the LL in immer-
sion and through LLs by moving them into the classroom (Brinkmann et al., 2022).
More specifically, Brinkmann et al. (2022) refer to the possibility of bringing the LL
into the classroom through multimodal transposition, i.e., the capture of elements
of the LL and its pedagogical use in the classroom, meaning a decontextualisa-
tion and recontextualisation of its elements with an educational goal. Other studies
have exploited the potential of leaving space for the learner to analyse LLs outside
the classroom and then discuss them in a formal context (Roos & Nicholas, 2019;
Tjandra, 2021). Roos and Nicholas (2019), with a monolingual focus, studied how
German primary school learners of English engage with examples of English that
they were asked to identify in their local environments and describe their reflection
skills in the classroom. Also in a study with children but combining a monolingual
and a multilingual focus, Tjandra (2021) explores newcomer children’s perspectives
and interpretations of their LL as they learn English in Canada. She examines the
extent to which activities around LL influence these students’ language awareness
and learning, their identity negotiations, and their sense of belonging.
8 S. Melo-Pfeifer
4 Volume Overview
This book draws clearly on the works cited in the review presented in the previous
sections and provides an international account of the use of LLs to promote multilin-
gual education, from primary school to university to teacher education programmes.
It brings the LL to the forefront of multilingual education in school settings and
teacher education, thus expanding the disciplinary domains through which it has
been almost exclusively studied: sociolinguistics, (urban) multilingual studies and
social change, and language policy. The empirical studies presented in this book,
while drawing on such multidisciplinary research to date, locate the LL in the field
of language (teacher) education. Developed on five continents (in twelve countries),
they illustrate how multilingual pedagogies can be enhanced through the use of LLs in
mainstream education, while at the same time being beneficial to teacher professional
development.
It has been argued that LL bridges formal and informal (language) learning
settings. Nevertheless, the extent to which the pedagogical use of LL resources can
benefit global citizenship, intercultural learning, language awareness and compe-
tencies in target (additional) languages, as well as develop teachers’ professional
identities, has been ill-researched, with little empirical evidence available to support
those claims. Showcasing a wide variety of methodologies, including classroom
observation, teacher and student inquiries, content and discourse analysis of teacher
interviews and classroom interactions and documental analysis, this book provides
the reader with closer analyses of school actors’ discourses and practices around the
use of LLs for pedagogical purposes.
The book acknowledges that linguistic landscaping (and also ‘schoolscaping’ and
‘homescaping’) can be a powerful starting point for evaluating and valuing the pres-
ence of various languages and linguistic resources in (second, additional or heritage)
language teaching. As such, pedagogical work with LLs favours the development
of multilingual, critical and plurisemiotic literacies, by actively engaging actors in
discussions on language hierarchies and linguistic prestige, language comparison and
language awareness, and translanguaging in public spaces. Concomitantly, the devel-
opment of language skills and linguistic repertoires can be understood as byproducts
of contact with such resources.
All chapters included in this book share the understanding that to cultivate global
language education—a cross-linguistic and interdisciplinary education that promotes
an identity that is open to linguistic and cultural diversity, thereby fostering lifelong
learning—it is necessary to bring students’ lifeworld and the multilingualism of
the school into (additional) language teaching. This may assist the development of
a sense of belonging through active participation in multilingual and intercultural
spaces.
In the field of teacher education, a field of inquiry explicitly addressed in this
book, it has been acknowledged that teachers develop a deeper understanding of
pupils’ plurilingualism (following Hancock, 2012) through the joint description and
interpretation of the semiotic artefacts that surround them. Various contributions in
this book address issues of professional development, showing that work with LLs
is beneficial to both the students and teachers.
The book is structured in four parts, according to the focus of analysis and contexts
covered. The first part, entitled “The Exploration of Linguistic Landscapes in the
Classroom”, comprises 4 chapters that deal with the integration of LLs as pedagogical
resources, leading to the implementation of multilingual pedagogies from primary
to higher education.
Monica López and Melinda Dooly, in their chapter “Languages around us:
(in)visibility matters”, outline how a LL project in a primary school in Catalonia,
Spain, aimed to raise young language learners’ (ages 10–11) awareness. The authors
analyse quantitative and qualitative data from student output gathered during a LL
project, aimed at promoting inquiry-based learning amongst the pupils. Through a
series of guiding questions, the learners engaged in discovering ‘visible but not seen’
languages in their homes and communities. The learners’ discoveries were then used
to develop a school project to make all the school languages visible to all.
In the next contribution, “Walking linguistic landscapes as ways to experience
plurality. A visual ethnography into plurilingualism with elementary school chil-
dren in Japan”, Mayo Oyama, Danièle Moore and Daniel Roy Pearce observe the
development of creative plurilingual pedagogies based on the documentation of the
local LL as ways to experience and reflect on plurality. Within a perspective where
knowledge is grounded in experience and movement, they explore how learners aged
8–10 years go through a series of interdisciplinary activities and visits that focus
on experiential social scientific inquiry. The tasks engaged children with multilin-
gual writing practices, art and disciplinary learning. The research and inquiry-based
methodology adopted a visual and sensory ethnography of/in movement, anchored in
collaborative research-action. Multimodal data sources include child-and-researcher
initiated visual documentation and reflective journals, digital photographs, teachers
and researchers’ field notes and video recordings of children’s interactions.
Sonia Cadi, Latisha Mary, Maria Siemushyna and Andrea Young, in their chapter
“Empowering pupils and raising critical language awareness through a collaborative
multidisciplinary project”, present research on a LL project with a lower secondary
school class (children aged 12–13) in the east of France. The project involved teachers
from a range of subjects (French, sport, geography, maths, English, Latin) who
collaborated to develop a multidisciplinary project focussing on the LLs of the school
and local town, and raising children’s knowledge about language(s) through a process
that centred them as key actors and decision makers. Based on observations and
recordings of classroom activities, interviews with teachers and other educational
actors as well as student’s written contributions, the authors discuss how such an
interdisciplinary project can contribute to the construction of “interpersonal spaces
of reciprocal empowerment between teachers and students” (Cummins, 2021), thus
maximizing their “communicative potential” (García, 2009, p. 140).
In “Thinking allowed: Linguistic landscapes-based projects for higher-order
thinking skills”, Klaudia Kruszynska and Melinda Dooly present data collected
ethnographically during the implementation of a LL project in Catalonia, delivered
10 S. Melo-Pfeifer
in a hybrid format due to the Covid-19 crisis. The project aimed to make 27 middle-
school students more reflective about the LL in their surroundings by exposing them
to the multilingualism in which they live and then encouraging them to explore their
own linguistic ecology. The project also intended to prompt students to interrogate
definitions of language in the hopes of expanding their conceptualisations towards
the notion of language and engaging them in a sociolinguistic discussion on language
hierarchies and linguistic prestige. The data for the analysis were gathered from a
video recording of an English as a Foreign Language lesson and teacher’s obser-
vations completed after LL project lessons. Taking an emic, qualitative approach,
the authors address the principal question: Did LL projects help to connect foreign-
language learning and language awareness through sociolinguistic discussions on
language presence, hierarchies and dynamics in broader social contexts?
The second part of the book is called “Linguistic landscapes in multilingual
learning and teaching environments” and includes three chapters exploring the
use of LL as pedagogical resources connecting ‘indoor’ and ‘outdoor’ language
learning environments. The authors explore analogue and virtual multilingualism
in their ‘visuality’ and materiality, and address issues related to global citizenship,
post-colonialism, and gamification.
Mónica Lourenço, Joana Duarte, Francisco P. Silva and Bruna Batista, in their
chapter “Is there a place for global citizenship education in the exploration of
linguistic landscapes? An analysis of educational practices in five European coun-
tries”, address the potential of LL in contributing to global citizenship education, an
educational perspective that aims to prepare students to fully embrace the opportu-
nities and challenges of a globalised world. The study investigates whether, to what
extent and how the activities designed and staged by the teachers in the different
partner cities of the LoCALL project (see footnote 1) address topics, learning goals
and methodological approaches aligned with global citizenship education. To do
this, a qualitative methodology was adopted and a taxonomy for deductive content
analysis was created drawing on key global citizenship education literature.
Perpétua Gonçalves and Manuel Guissemo, in “Linguistic landscape of Maputo:
A space for a didactic exploration of multilingualism”, investigate the multilin-
gualism of Maputo’s LL, taking into account linguistic and socio-cultural dimen-
sions. Maputo, the capital city of Mozambique, represents a complex multilingual
region of the Global South where, in addition to Portuguese as official language,
several Bantu languages, English and, more recently, Chinese, play an important
role in economic activities. Although Portuguese is the dominant language, all these
languages are present in Maputo’s LL. In this study, through a random collection of
photos of the LL in urban scenarios, the authors show how the elements of ‘grassroots
literacy’ (Blommaert, 2010) and the symbolic value of the languages in Maputo’s
LL can be taken into account as pedagogical resources for language teaching and
teacher education.
In “The LoCALL app: a mobile tool to promote learning from and about linguistic
lanscapes”, Margarida M. Marques, Mónica Lourenço, Lúcia Pombo, Alexandra das
Neves, Dionísia Laranjeito and Filomena Martins explore how an app can create
a bridge between pupils’ plurilingual experiences and their multilingual learning
pathways at school. Firstly, the authors describe the app and the interface of game
creation. Secondly, they analyse how a class of pupils of low secondary education
(aged 11–13) explored this tool in the streets of Aveiro (Portugal), and collaboratively
discovered and discussed the local LL. Interviews with participating teachers show
that they perceive multiple benefits from working with LLs, ranging from enhanced
language awareness, critical thinking, and activation of curricular and non-curricular
knowledge.
The third part of the book, focusing on “Teachers and students’ voices on linguistic
landscapes”, explicitly addresses the benefits of using LLs as a resource for learning
and in teacher education programmes. The four chapters in this section predominantly
focus on pre-service teacher education.
The chapter “Mediation of language attitudes through linguistic landscapes in
minority language education”, by Joana Duarte, Sibrecht Veenstra and Nelly van
Dijk, addresses the role of LL in the context of minority-language education, in
Fryslân (the Netherlands). The authors explore how the integration of LL in Frisian-
language education may lead to emancipatory ways of addressing minority/majority
language representations and tensions among adolescents in urban areas of the
province of Fryslân. In a multiple case-study design, the authors investigate how
secondary school pupils (aged 15–17) in two schools engaged in inquiry-based
research, analysing the LL in their school surroundings, and formulated language
policy advice for their regional government.
In a chapter called “Teachers and students’ perspectives on the use of linguistic
landscapes as pedagogic resources for enhancing language awareness: a focus on
the development of cognitive and affective dimensions”, Lisa Marie Brinkmann and
Sílvia Melo-Pfeifer crisscross teachers’ and students’ perspectives on the use of
LLs as resources for language education. The authors observe how two teachers of
French in German secondary schools integrate LL modules. Teacher and student
perspectives on those implementations are then compared. This study highlights
convergences and divergences between teachers, and between teachers and students,
illustrating the pedagogical potential of a sociolinguistic object in formal language
education settings, both for students and teachers, in urban and non-urban areas, for
the development of their language awareness.
The chapter by Ana Isabel Andrade, Filomena Martins, Susana Pinto and Ana
Raquel Simões focusses on the “Educational possibilities of linguistic landscapes
exploration in a context of pre-service teacher education”. The authors claim
the importance of developing teacher education programmes that privilege under-
standing of the (in)visibility of linguistic and cultural diversity and its valuation in
educational contexts. Following this belief, the authors reflect on the potential of
LLs as pedagogical context and pedagogical resource for initial teacher education.
Trainee teachers’ representations are analysed around two categories: educational
relevance of LLs and educational possibilities for the exploration of LLs. Data was
collected through trainees’ written reflections regarding LL pedagogical projects for
educational exploration. The analysis allows us to understand the pedagogical and
didactic knowledge developed by trainee teachers when focusing on the concept of
LL.
12 S. Melo-Pfeifer
The final chapter of this section, by Maria Helena Araújo e Sá, Raquel Carinhas,
Sílvia Melo-Pfeifer and Ana Raquel Simões, is called “The co-construction of
the concept ‘linguistic landscape’ by language educators in an online course”.
This contribution analyses teachers’ and mentors’ participation in an online teacher
training event (one-week duration) about the use of LLs in language education.
The authors examine how the participants collaboratively construct the meaning of
‘linguistic landscape’ in multilingual discussions around specific literature using the
social e-reader Perusall. More specifically, the authors analyse how the participants
dialogically expand or reduce the scope of the concept LL and appropriate it for
pedagogical purposes.
The fourth part of the book, called “Expanding linguistic landscapes in education”,
covers emergent perspectives on LL and beyond, such as sensescapes, the materiality
of multilingualism, geolinguistic approaches to LL, and virtual LL.
Josh Prada, in the chapter “Sensescapes and what it means for language educa-
tion”, lays out the groundwork to understand LLs from a perspective that encom-
passes multisensoriality. Based on the presentation of two proyectos, he discusses
what the studies of LLs in language education have to benefit from integrating a
sense-making viewpoint, understood in a cognitive and a sensorial way. The author
ends with a reflection about the complementarity between studies focusing on the
languages of LLs and those focusing on the sensory apprehension of LLs.
In “Theory and pedagogical perspectives on the use of material culture in the
classroom: experiences in multilingual contexts of Israel and Russian Federation”,
Larissa Aronin, Daria Bylieva and Victoria Lobatyuk address the material culture of
the contemporary and highly multilingual world. Material culture includes LL as an
important constituent but goes beyond it. According to the authors, material culture
encompasses private and in-between spaces and possesses dynamic, portable and
tangible dimensions. This chapter discusses the significance of material culture for
acknowledging the benefit of superdiversity in education, in particular in additional-
language classroom. Based on the theoretical postulates of the material culture of
multilingualism and experiential data from Israel and the Russian Federation, the
authors propose new methods and collaborative learning tools to be brought to the
classroom. Among them, creating and manipulating external representations of indi-
vidual dominant language constellations and the use of materialities in language
classrooms of Saint Petersburg are described and their pedagogical implications
discussed.
Alice Chik, in her chapter “The visibility of languages—connecting schools to
communities”, proposes an alternate geolinguistics approach to the use of census and
online public access information to map the new urban diversities of multilingualism.
Following historical migration patterns, earlier multilingualism studies in Australia
tended to focus on European language speech communities in specific locales. These
studies created a public impression linking specific languages to certain neighbour-
hoods or ‘ethnoburbs’. This chapter acts first to demystify ‘ethnoburbs’ or homo-
geneity of speech communities, showing multiple scales of multilingual hetero-
geneity. Second, while census data reveal multilingual heterogeneity, the author
shows the absence of online visibility of multilingualism on local institutional and
business websites. The chapter concludes with new directions for using a critical
geolinguistic approach to make the school-community LL connection.
Sarah McMonagle explores (potentially) multilingual practices on social media in
“Virtual linguistic landscapes from below: A hashtag analysis of the European Day
of Languages”. The author aims to identify the diversity of languages used in Tweets
about the European Day of Languages (EDL)—an annual event inaugurated by the
Council of Europe to highlight and promote linguistic diversity in Europe as well
as the importance of language learning. A corpus of tweets, compiled from the
official EDL hashtag, is both quantitatively and qualitatively examined using a coding
scheme for hashtag analysis. While it can be argued that virtual LLs (VLLs) present
opportunities for language display not usually possible in physical LLs, not least
as social media users co-construct the VLL in which they are active, tech company
algorithms seem to determine the VLLs to which those same users are exposed.
The book ends with a contribution by Mónica Lourenço and Sílvia Melo-Pfeifer,
titled “Conclusion: Linguistic Landscapes in Education—Where do we go now?”,
in which they recall the main contribution of the present volume to the studies on LL
and address LL as both a theoretical and an ethical lens for promoting multilingual
education and translanguaging. They call for an understanding of LL attached to
individuals’ material, sensorial, spatial, multimodal, and linguistic repertoires, issues
that emerge from this volume and deserve a further conceptual expansion. Following
from this holistic and integrated understanding, they propose future perspectives for
research and practice on and about LL, focusing on epistemological, pedagogical
and teacher education issues.
5 Synthesis and Acknowledgements
This book advances the field of LLs in language education and teacher education
in many ways by underlining the value of interdisciplinarity, both in research and
educational contexts. It shows the potential of LLs for multilingual education, both
in language education across the curriculum and in teacher education programmes.
It shows how LLs can help to promote and implement multilingual pedagogies
in mainstream classrooms and thus to propagate pedagogical translanguaging as a
resource for the critical teaching and learning of/about languages. A common strand
in these studies is the acknowledgement that other—less logocentric and writing-
oriented pedagogies—ways of teaching and learning languages are possible, based
on discovery and creativity, on intervening, inventive and engaging pedagogies.
To achieve these results, the five teams of the LoCALL project would like to
thank all the teachers, schools and students for accepting us and our work, which
often meant a disruption to their daily practices. We would like to thank, in alpha-
betical order: the Agora School, (San Cugat, Barcelona, Spain), the Agrupamento de
Escolas de Ílhavo (Aveiro, Portugal), the Collège Henri Meck (Molsheim, Strasbourg,
France), the CSG Comenius (Leeuwarden, the Netherlands), the Gymnasium Dörp-
sweg (Hamburg, Germany), the Gymnasium Zeven (Zeven, Hamburg, Germany), the
14 S. Melo-Pfeifer
Marion Dönhoff Gymnasium (Hamburg, Germany), the NHL Stenden Hogeschool

(Stenden, the Netherlands), the OSG Singelland (Drachten, the Netherlands), and
the Purificación Salas i Xandre School (San Quirze de Vallès, Barcelona, Spain).
A word of gratitude and appreciation goes to Professor Durk Gorter for creatively,
critically and innovatively advancing the field of LL studies and for agreeing to write
the forward to this book. Many thanks from the whole LoCALL team.
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Sílvia Melo-Pfeifer holds a Ph.D. in language education and is Full Professor at the Univer-
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language, and arts-based approaches in teacher education and research.
The Exploration of Linguistic Landscapes
in the Classroom
Languages Around Us: (In)visibility
Matters
Mónica López Vera and Melinda Dooly
Abstract This chapter addresses the question of how students in primary education
might gain awareness of the languages in their immediate environment as well as
critical skills for reflecting on the value of multiple languages in their lives through
the pedagogical use of Linguistic Landscapes. To consider this issue, the chapter
describes and analyses the implementation of a project based on the discovery of
linguistic landscapes and the adaptation of this approach for Homescapes with
students in 5th and 6th grade in a primary school in Catalonia. This adjustment
to the project was necessary due to the school closing during the global pandemic.
During the online implementation the authors collected data sets in different formats
(collages, individual and collectively authored language lists, surveys) and then
analyzed them both qualitatively and quantitatively, according to the nature of the data
collected. The data analysis corroborates previous studies on linguistic landscapes
within the pedagogical field which show that young learners, even in asynchronous,
digitalized instruction, can gain critical skills and reflect on the value of multiple
languages in their lives.
Keywords Linguistic landscapes · Homescapes · Asynchronous teaching ·

Critical skills · Multicultural diversity
M. López Vera (B) · M. Dooly

Autonomous University of Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain
M. Dooly
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 21

S. Melo-Pfeifer (ed.), Linguistic Landscapes in Language and Teacher Education,
Multilingual Education 43, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22867-4_2
22 M. López Vera and M. Dooly
1 Introduction: Raising Young Learners’ Awareness

of Linguistic Diversity
Increasingly over the years, there have been calls from educators and applied linguists
regarding the need for critical pedagogy and transformative praxis that will help raise
students’ awareness of their social context and enhance critical thinking (Crookes &
Ziegler, 2021; Ortega, 2017; Piller, 2016). In a world where globalization (and subse-
quent diversity) is increasingly associated with a negative impact on local life while
international commerce and opening of borders are seen as beneficial only for the
wealthy and elite, we are consequently seeing “serious deterioration of solidarity
and respect for human diversity” (Ortega, 2017, p. 1). With these issues in mind, this
chapter outlines how a linguistic landscape project in a primary school in Catalonia,
Spain, aimed to raise young language learners’ awareness and appreciation of social,
cultural and linguistic diversity by guiding them to think about the following ques-
tions: Why are some languages more (in)visible than others for primary school
learners? How can we make our schoolmates’ invisible languages visible to all?
As will be outlined below, the project, which was initially designed in 2019 to be
carried out in-person, had to be quickly changed to adapt to the crisis of the Covid
19 pandemic and subsequent shutting of public schools.
In this chapter we analyze student output which was gathered during the linguistic
landscape project carried out between March and June of 2020 to explore (1) whether
the project had any impact on young learners’ awareness of lesser noticed languages
in their immediate environment; (2) did they gain critical skills for reflecting on the
value of multiple languages in their lives? The project, entitled ‘What languages
are living in our homes?’ aimed to promote inquiry-based learning amongst the
pupils, supported through a series of guiding questions. Working through detailed
instructions, the learners engaged in discovering ‘visible but not seen’ languages in
their homes and communities in order to first make the young pupils aware of the
multiple languages in their quotidian contexts. Following this phase, the learners’
initial discoveries were used to develop a school project to make all the school
languages visible to everyone. We will briefly describe how the project was originally
envisioned and then how it was actually implemented, taking into consideration the
changes made due to the Covid 19 shut-in. We then discuss the challenges that
emerged from the enforced modality of online delivery and how these were resolved.
Finally, we explore and analyze key learner output in order to determine whether the
project aims were fulfilled.
2 Situating Our Project Within Recent Linguistic

Landscape Theory and Praxis
A seminal definition of linguistic landscapes was proposed by Landry and Bourhis

who described them as the “visibility and salience of languages on public and
commercial signs in a given territory or region” (Landry & Bourhis, 1997, p. 23). In a
Languages Around Us: (In)visibility Matters 23
nutshell, linguistic landscapes are the displayed semiotic resources in public spaces;
these might be text, images or a combination of both. Linguistic landscape research
has many branches of foci, ranging from sociolinguistics to architecture. While this
research covers many (non-education) areas, including semiotic resources such as
images and even to a lesser extent auditory cues (e.g. recording languages heard in
a community, cf. Dagenais et al., 2009), most linguistic landscape research tends
to focus on textual aspects of multilingual contexts such as signage, street art, and
commercial products or propaganda.
Interest in the application of linguistic landscape in education has grown over
the past few decades, in particular in language learning. The aim is to raise learners’
awareness of the rich linguistic complexity around them. As Malinowski et al. (2020)
point out, the pedagogical applications of linguistic landscapes (in particular for
language learning) can help teachers “Capitalize on this wealth of language and
literacy opportunities in the discursive world of public texts and textual practices”
(p. 1) that their pupils have around them in their daily lives.
Applications of linguistic landscape can cover multiple educational domains
(linguistic, social sciences, citizenship education, arts, geography, tourism studies,
etc.). In our case, we aimed to train the learners to be ethnographers (Antoniadou &
Dooly, 2017; Bucknall, 2012; Campbell & Lassiter, 2010; Prasad, 2013), thereby
raising their awareness of the linguistic and social dynamics of their communities.
By promoting the learning of skills necessary for students to become ethnographers
of their own neighbourhoods, it was hoped, too, that the young language learners
could explore more deeply the sociocultural and socioeconomic context in which
they live (Bucknall, 2012). Following the lines of more recent work with linguistic
landscapes in pedagogy, the inquiry-based project aimed to prompt reflection on why
are some languages in their communities are more visible than others and what this
says about the implicit values of languages and cultures where the learners live (Li &
Marshall, 2020).
3 The Project Context: How It Began
The first author of this chapter became familiar with the term linguistic landscape
after being invited to join the Erasmus+ KA2 Project LoCall. As an English teacher in
primary education, she had not been introduced to this teaching approach before but
found it immediately appealing because she could readily see the potential benefits
of using linguistic landscape activities in primary education in the core subjects of
English and Arts and Crafts lessons. In her school, Arts and Crafts is offered through
a CLIL approach (Content and Language Integrated Learning) in the third cycle (5th
and 6th graders). Given that this approach consists of providing a learning context
and materials wherein the students learn about a subject and a second language at the
same time, through an integrated approach, she perceived an opportunity to introduce
English as the principal (foreign) target language, along with an introduction to other
languages, while at the same time fomenting research skills that will be necessary
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poi, il dolore s’assopiva, ed egli picchiava come un sordo scorgendo,
come attraverso un nebbione, la larga faccia e gli occhi
fiammeggianti di Testa di formaggio. Egli non vedeva altro che quella
faccia; tutto il resto non era che vuoto turbinante. Non esisteva per
lui che quella faccia: non avrebbe conosciuto riposo, il divino riposo,
se non quando i suoi pugni sanguinanti non avessero fracassato
quella faccia, o quando i pugni sanguinanti dell’altro non avessero
fracassato la sua. Allora soltanto avrebbe riposato in tutti i modi. Ma
abbandonar la lotta, da parte sua, di lui, Martin? era impossibile.
Ed ecco che un bel giorno — Martin s’era trascinato sino al vicoletto
cieco — Testa di formaggio non comparve. I monelli lo
complimentarono e gli annunziarono che egli aveva vinto Testa di
formaggio. Ma Martin non era soddisfatto; egli non aveva vinto Testa
di formaggio, come questi non aveva vinto lui. La questione non era
risolta: si seppe poi che il padre di Testa di formaggio era morto
improvvisamente, quel giorno.
Martin saltò alcuni anni e si vide una sera in piccionaia,
all’Auditorium. Ha 17 anni, e ritorna da un viaggio di mare. Scoppia
una rissa; Martin s’interpone e si trova a faccia a faccia con Testa di
formaggio, i cui occhi fiammeggiano.
— Ti accomodo io dopo lo spettacolo, — gli fischia l’antico nemico.
Martin fa cenno di sì; il verificatore della piccionaia si dirige alla lor
volta.
— Dopo il primo atto, fuori, — sussurra Martin. — Voglio seguire
quello che succede sulla scena.
Il verificatore li fulmina con lo sguardo e se ne va.
— Hai i tuoi secondi? — domanda Martin a Testa di formaggio,
nell’intervallo.
— Certamente!
— Allora vado a cercare i miei.
Durante gl’intermezzi egli aduna i secondi; tre individui conosciuti
alla fabbrica dei chiodi, un fuochista ferroviario, una mezza dozzina
di tipacci della banda dei «Boo-Gang», e qualcuno della terribile,
banda dei «Diciotto del Mercato».
Dopo il teatro, i due gruppi avanzarono senza dar nell’occhio, a
ciascun lato della via, poi si riunirono in un cantuccio tranquillo e
tennero consiglio.
— Il ponte dell’ottava via andrò benissimo, — dichiarò uno della
cricca di Testa di formaggio. — Si batteranno nel mezzo, in piena
luce; e se sopravviene uno sbirro, ci «squagliamo» da una parte e
dall’altra.
— Sta bene! — fece Martin dopo aver consultato i capi della sua
banda. Il ponte dell’ottava via, che attraversa un braccio dell’estuario
di Sant’Antonio è lunghissimo. Alle due estremità e nel mezzo vi
sono delle lampade elettriche. È impossibile che una guardia si
avvicini senz’essere vista. Il posto è bene scelto, per la sfida di cui
Martin rivede ora lo svolgimento con gli occhi della mente. Egli vede
le due bande, silenziose, aggressive che si tengono alla distanza
stabilita, rigorosamente, e sostengono il rispettivo campione.
Testa di formaggio e lui si svestirono; furono poste delle sentinelle
non lontano, per sorvegliare le due estremità del ponte. Uno dei
«Boo-Gang» tiene la giacca, la camicia e il berretto di Martin, pronto
a portarle via, al galoppo, se la polizia dovesse intervenire.
Martin s’avanza al centro del «ring», di faccia a Testa di formaggio,
e, alzando la mano, lancia l’avvertimento finale:
— Niente riconciliazione in quest’affare! Capito? Uno dei due sarà
spacciato. — Testa di formaggio esita. — Martin lo vede, — ma
davanti alle due bande, si lascia trascinare dall’orgoglio d’un tempo.
— Fa’ pure! — risponde lui. — È inutile far tante chiacchere. Io sono
sicuro di buggerarti!
Allora, come giovani torelli, essi balzano l’uno addosso all’altro, a
pugni nudi, con tutta la loro violenza giovanile e tutto l’ardore del loro
odio, con tutto il desiderio di distruggere, di ammazzare. Che sono
diventate le migliaia d’anni di civiltà e di nobili aspirazioni? Non
rimane altro che la luce elettrica, per segnare il cammino percorso
dalla grande avventura umana: Martin e Testa di formaggio sono
ridiventati due selvaggi dell’età della pietra: sono ridiscesi nel più
profondo degli abissi fangosi, nel fango primordiale, e lottano
ciecamente, istintivamente, come tutta la polvere delle stelle, come
lotteranno gli atomi dell’universo, eternamente.
— Dio! noi non eravamo che animali, tetri bruti! — mormora Martin
che segue sempre, come in un caleidoscopio, le peripezie della
battaglia d’un tempo. Spettatore e attore insieme, l’essere raffinato
ch’egli è diventato, rabbrividisce dal disgusto, a questo spettacolo;
poi il presente si cancella, i fantasmi del tempo passato lo
possiedono: non c’è altro che Martin Eden, a diciassette anni, che
lotta con Testa di formaggio sul ponte dell’ottava via. Egli soffre,
picchia, suda, sanguina, ed esulta quando i suoi pugni colpiscono al
segno. Simili a due turbini d’odio, essi si colluttano furiosamente. Il
tempo passa, e le due bande tacciono stranamente; non hanno mai
sentito tanta intensità di ferocia, e sono colpiti, perciò, da una specie
di rispetto. Quei due bruti lì, sono superiori.
Il primo impeto di giovinezza e le forze eccellenti si sono logorate;
essi lottano, ora, più prudentemente, con maggiore calcolo. Sino a
questo punto, la lotta dà risultati pari. «È una lotta qualunque», sente
dire Martin. In quel momento, una finta col destro e col sinistro riceve
una risposta feroce, e la guancia gli s’apre fino all’osso. Effetto d’un
colpo di pugno nudo!
Mormorii spaventati si fanno udire; egli è pieno di sangue, ma non
dice nulla. Sente un peso al cuore, perchè s’accorge dell’astuzia
bassa, della sorniona vigliaccheria dei suoi pari. Aspetta, spia, finge
un assalto fulminante e si ferma a mezzo: ha visto luccicare un
bagliore di metallo.
— In alto le mani! Che cos’hai in mano?
Le due bande si precipitano, brontolando e ringhiando. In un
secondo avviene una mischia generale, ed egli teme d’essere
privato della sua vendetta; è fuori di sè.
— Indietro, voialtri! — ruggisce, con la voce rauca. — Capito?
indietro, per Dio!
Essi indietreggiano: sono bruti, ma egli è superbruto: un essere
terribile che li domina con tutta la sua potenza.
— È una faccenda che riguarda me, e io vi proibisco di mettervi di
mezzo!... Tu, dammi l’oggetto.
Testa di formaggio, raffreddatosi, e vagamente preoccupato, stende
l’arma traditrice.
— Oè, Testa Rossa, l’hai passata tu poco fa! — continua Martin,
lanciando gli anelli d’acciaio nell’acqua. — Io ti ho visto scivolargli
dietro e mi domandavo che cosa tu facessi là. Se ricominci un colpo
del genere, ti picchio a morte. Capito?
Ripresero la lotta con la schiena rotta, mezzo morti, sino al momento
in cui quel pubblico di bruti, saturo di sangue, non li prega
imparzialmente di cessare. E Testa di formaggio, sul punto di morire
per terra o in piedi, — un Testa di formaggio mostruoso,
irriconoscibile, — esita, ma Martin balza e picchia, picchia sempre.
Passano alcuni minuti che parvero un secolo, durante i quali Testa di
formaggio viene meno, a quanto pare. A un tratto, in un corpo a
corpo, uno scricchiolio si fa udire, e il braccio destro di Martin ricade,
floscio, al fianco. Tutti comprendono, e Testa di formaggio, balzando
come una tigre, precipita colpi su colpi. I secondi di Martin vogliono
interporsi, ma Martin, abbrutito da quella valanga terribile, li respinge
insultandoli e singhiozza ad alta voce la sua impotenza disperata.
Con la sinistra soltanto, ora egli colpisce, semi-incosciente, e ode,
come se provenissero chissà da quale lontananza, dei mormorii di
orrore e una voce tremante che dice: «Ormai non è più una lotta,
ragazzi... È un assassinio, e dovremmo far cessare questo.» Ma
lasciano fare, ed egli ne è contento: colpisce in modo monotono e
continuo, con l’unico braccio sulla cosa sanguinante che è in faccia a
lui: non più un volto umano, ma un orrore senza nome, vacillante,
oscillante davanti agli occhi che lappolano, e che non vuole sparire.
E picchia sempre, sempre più debolmente, con quel po’ di vitalità
che gli resta, e gli sembra che passino secoli e che ciò non finirà
mai, quando ad un tratto si rende vagamente conto che l’orrore
senza nome, dolcemente, cade sul parapetto del ponte... Poco dopo,
vacillando sulle gambe tremanti, egli si china sulla cosa caduta e
dice con una voce che non riconosce:
— Ne vuoi ancora?... di’?... Ne vuoi ancora?...
Ripete a più non posso queste parole, lo scongiura, minaccia perchè
gli risponda se «ne vuole ancora», sino al momento in cui i
compagni gli battono amichevolmente sulla schiena e si sforzano di
fargli indossare il soprabito...
Poi un ondata di oscurità, e l’oblìo lo sommerge.
Come allora, Martin Eden, col volto fra le mani, non ode più nulla: ha
vissuto con tanta intensità l’orribile scena d’un tempo, che è venuto
meno, come allora.
Un lungo minuto: tutto in lui è oblìo, oscurità... Poi, come un uomo
che si svegli fra i morti, balza in piedi con occhi scintillanti, il viso
madido di sudore, gridando:
— Te le ho suonate. Testa di formaggio! Ho perduto undici anni di
vita, ma te le ho suonate!
Le ginocchia gli venivano meno, ed egli ricadde sul letto. Ancora mal
desto, si guardò attorno, perplesso, domandandosi ove fosse.
Finalmente il suo occhio incontrò la pila dei manoscritti ammucchiati
in un canto. Allora egli riprese piede nel presente, si ricordò dei libri
letti e delle ricchezze infinite che vi aveva attinte, dei suoi sogni,
delle sue ambizioni. Ricordò il suo amore per un pallido fiore di
serra, sensitivo, irreale, che sarebbe morto d’orrore se fosse stato
presente, sia pure per un attimo, alla scena da lui rivissuta, se fosse
vissuto solo un attimo tra il fango ond’egli era invaso.
S’alzò e andò allo specchio.
— E così, sei uscito dal fango, Martin Eden, — diss’egli
solennemente: — tu hai immerso i tuoi occhi in un divino chiarore e,
innalzandoti sino alle stelle, hai ucciso «il serpente e la tigre», per
conquistare il più gran tesoro che vi sia.
Poi si guardò più attentamente e si mise a ridere.
— Un po’ d’isterismo e un bel po’ di melodramma, eh? — diss’egli
con tono ironico. — Ma non importa: tu hai conciato per le feste
Testa di formaggio, e concerai per bene gli editori, dovessi aspettare
undici anni. Tu non puoi fermarti così: bisogna continuare. È una
lotta senza quartiere, sai?
CAPITOLO XVI.
Suonò la sveglia, strappando Martin dal sonno, con una brutalità

capace di far venire un’emicrania a un altro uomo robusto. Sebbene
profondamente addormentato, egli si svegliò di botto, come i gatti,
tutto contento del fatto che le sue cinque ore d’incoscienza erano
trascorse. Già prima che la pendola avesse terminato il suo trillo,
eccolo che col capo immerso nel catino, si sciacquava, sotto il morso
dell’acqua gelida.
Ma quel giorno egli non seguì il solito programma. Nessuna storia
incompiuta l’attendeva; nessun poema nuovo richiedeva un definitivo
ritocco: i suoi studi gli avevano fatto far tardi, e l’ora della colazione
era prossima. Egli tentò di leggere un capitolo di Fiske, ma
sentendosi il cervello snervato, chiuse il libro. Quel giorno
cominciava una nuova lotta, e per un periodo di tempo bisognava
metter da parte la letteratura. La tristezza ch’egli ne provò fu simile a
quella di chi abbandoni la famiglia e il focolare. Ecco! Egli
abbandonava quei suoi miseri disonorati figliuoli che nessuno
voleva. S’accostò ad essi e incominciò a sfogliarli, rileggendo qua e
là brani prediletti; rilesse anche «La Marmitta», ad alta voce, come
«L’Avventura», «Gioia», il suo ultimo nato del giorno prima, ch’egli
aveva gettato in un cantuccio, per la stizza di non aver francobolli, gli
piacque più che mai.
— Non capisco, — mormorò, — o meglio: sono gli editori che non
capiscono... C’è qualche cosa di bizzarro qua dentro. E intanto gli
scritti ch’essi pubblicano diventano peggiori, di mese in mese! Quasi
tutto è cattivo...
Dopo la colazione, mise la macchina da scrivere nella custodia e la
portò ad Oakland.
— Io vi sono debitore di un mese, — diss’egli all’impiegato. — Ma
direte al padrone che vado a lavorare; che di qui a un mese circa
sarò tornato e rifornito.
Egli prese il battello per San Francisco e corse all’agenzia di
collocamento.
— Un lavoro qualsiasi, purchè non si tratti di commercio, — disse
egli all’agente. Fu subito interrotto da un nuovo venuto, vestito con la
ricercatezza vistosa di certi operai portati, d’istinto, all’eleganza.
L’agente scosse negativamente il capo.
— Niente che possa andar bene, eh? — fece l’altro. — Non c’è che
dire, bisogna che trovi qualcuno, oggi.
Voltatosi, egli vide Martin, e Martin a sua volta, lo guardò.
L’individuo, delicato e bello, aveva un volto pallido, gonfio; si sentiva
che aveva digerito una sbornia di quelle solenni!
— Lei cerca impiego? — interruppe egli. — Che cosa sa fare?
— I lavori più faticosi; posso anche navigare, scrivere a macchina,
andare a cavallo; posso fare qualunque cosa e applicarmi a tutto. —
fu la risposta.
L’altro scosse il capo.
— Potrebbe andare! Io mi chiamo Dawson, Joe Dawson, e cerco un
lavandaio.
— È troppo difficile per me. — Martin, divertito, s’immaginava in atto
di ripassare la biancheria da donna. Ma siccome l’altro gli piaceva,
aggiunse:
— Veramente, saprei fare il bucato di grosso. Ho imparato sul mare.
— Joe Dawson riflettè un momento:
— Aspetti un po’! Vediamo se c’è modo di combinare. Lei mi
ascolta? — Martin fece segno di sì.
— È una piccola lavanderia, in campagna, alle Acque Termali di
Shelley — l’Hôtel, lo conosce? Due uomini pel lavoro, uno capo e
l’altro dipendente. Il capo sono io. Lei non lavora per me, ma ai miei
ordini. Le va?
Martin tacque; quel miraggio lo tentava; qualche mese di
quell’occupazione, e del tempo per studiare... Avrebbe potuto
lavorare molto, studiar molto.
— Vitto buono e una camera separata per lei.
Una camera a sua disposizione, dove avrebbe potuto tenere il lume
acceso fino a mezzanotte! L’affare fu deciso.
— Ma un lavoro d’inferno! — aggiunse l’altro.
Martin accarezzò i suoi bicipiti rigonfi, con gesto significativo.
— Allora, senta. — Joe si portò la mano al capo. — Ho la testa che
mi schiaccia. Ci vedo a malapena. Ieri sera «ne ho presa una», una
di quelle...
Ecco di che si tratta: per due, lo stipendio è di 500 lire, vitto e
alloggio. Io ne prendo 300, il mio aiuto 200. Ma lei è novizio;
bisognerò che le insegni, e, a principio specialmente, mi toccherà
lavorare più di lei. Supponiamo che lei cominci con 150 lire? In
parola! appena lei si sarà impratichito, avrà 200 lire.
— Va bene! — rispose Martin porgendogli la mano, che l’altro
strinse. — Nessun anticipo pel biglietto ferroviario e le prime spese?
— L’ho bevuto! — disse tristemente Joe, con un gesto espressivo.
— Non mi resta altro che il biglietto di ritorno.
— Ed io avrò le tasche pulite quando avrò pagato la pensione.
— Non la paghi!
— Impossibile: la debbo a mia sorella.
Joe, perplesso, emise un lungo sibilo e parve scavarsi il cervello.
— Ho ancora tanto, da bere in due, — disse finalmente. — Venga:
forse troveremo un’idea.
Martin rifiutò.
— Bevitore d’acqua fresca?
Martin fece segno di sì, e Joe gemette:
— Vorrei esserlo anch’io! Ma, incredibile: non posso! — fece egli con
aria disperata. — Dopo aver lavorato come un dannato tutta la
settimana, bisogna che prenda una sbornia. Se non la pigliassi mi
taglierei la gola o darei fuoco alla baracca. Ma son contento che lei
beva acqua. Continui.
Martin, nonostante l’enorme distanza che lo separava da quell’uomo,
abisso che i libri avevano scavato, non provava alcuna difficoltà a
mettersi al suo livello. Durante la sua vita era stato in compagnia di
operai, e il cameratismo che nasce dal lavoro era in lui una seconda
natura. Egli risolse il problema del viaggio, troppo arduo, data la
siccità dell’altro, in questo modo: col biglietto di Joe avrebbe spedito
il suo baule alle Acque Termali di Shelley, e sarebbe andato in
bicicletta. Il luogo era distante 75 chilometri circa; partendo la
domenica, sarebbe al lavoro lunedì, di mattina. Intanto sarebbe
andato a casa a ordinare la sua roba. Non c’era gente da salutare:
Ruth e la sua famiglia passavano l’estate sulla Sierra, sul lago di
Tahoe.
La domenica, a sera, arrivò alle Acque Termali di Shelley, stanco e
polveroso, e fu accolto a braccia aperte da Joe, che, con un
tovagliolo bagnato, attorno alla sua testa malata, usciva dal lavoro.
— La biancheria dell’ultima settimana s’è ammonticchiata, mentre
venivo a cercarvi, e ho del lavoro arretrato, — spiegò lui. — Il vostro
baule è arrivato senza incidenti; è in camera vostra. Ma è una bella
idea quella di chiamarlo un baule! che c’è dentro?... delle sbarre
d’oro?...
Egli sedette sul letto, mentre Martin sballava. Il baule non era altro
che una vecchia cassa da imballar generi alimentari, che il signor
Higgingbotham gli aveva ceduto mediante il corrispettivo di Lire 2,50.
Due impugnature di corda, fissate da Martin, l’avevano trasformata
in una specie di valigia. Joe con occhi spalancati, ne vide trarre fuori
alcune camice, qualche arnese da toeletta, poi libri e libri.
— Ce n’è ancora sino in fondo? — interrogò egli. Martin fece cenno
di sì, e seguitò a disporre i libri sulla tavola della cucina, che serviva
da lavandino.
— Sst, allora! — esclamò Joe, poi riflettè lungamente, e infine
dichiarò:
— Dite un po’, voi non dovete curarvi molto delle donne, no?...
— No, — rispose Martin. — Prima di dedicarmi alla lettura, le
coltivavo mica male; ma dopo, mi è mancato il tempo.
— E vi mancherà anche qui. Qui non c’è da far altro che lavorare e
dormire.
Martin pensò alle sue cinque ore di sonno per notte e sorrise. La sua
camera era sopra la lavanderia, nello stesso fabbricato dov’era la
macchina che pompava l’acqua, produceva l’elettricità e faceva
andare il lavoro pel bucato.
Il meccanico che abitava nella camera vicina, venne a far la
conoscenza del nuovo impiegato, e aiutò Martin a collocare una
lampadina elettrica all’estremità d’un filo abbastanza lungo per
poterla trasportare dalla tavola al letto.
Il mattino dopo, Martin fu strappato dal letto alle sei meno un quarto,
e fece stupire Joe, prendendo una doccia fredda.
— Sei un uomo straordinario! — dichiarò egli, quando furono seduti
per la colazione in un cantuccio della tavola di cucina dell’hôtel.
C’erano anche il meccanico, il giardiniere, l’aiutante e due o tre
palafrenieri. Essi mangiarono alla svelta, con aria arcigna, in
silenzio, e Martin ascoltandoli, potè vedere quanto egli fosse lontano
da loro. La loro bassa mentalità lo depresse, cosicchè, quand’ebbe
terminata la poco appetitosa colazione, s’alzò, sospirò con un senso
di liberazione, chiudendosi alle spalle la porta della cucina.
La piccola lavanderia era perfettamente organizzata; le macchine più
moderne vi facevano tutto ciò che è possibile, per delle macchine.
Martin dopo alcune indicazioni, fece la cernita dei grossi mucchi di
biancheria sporca, mentre Joe avviava la macchina e preparava
nuove provviste di sapone molle, la cui mordente composizione
l’obbligava a salvaguardarsi il naso, la bocca e gli occhi, con un
tovagliolo, così che rassomigliava a una mummia. Finita la cernita,
Martin lo aiutò a torcere la biancheria, immergendola in una rotativa
che, con qualche migliaio di giri al minuto, ne spremeva l’acqua. Poi
Martin alternò la sua opera tra lo stenditoio e la torcitrice, scuotendo
di tanto in tanto, sottane e calzette. Alla fine del pomeriggio, Joe
stendendole e Martin sovrapponendole, assestarono sottane e calze
sotto il cilindro, mentre i ferri si riscaldavano. Poi venne la stiratura
dei capi più grossi, sino alle sei. Allora Joe scosse il capo, con aria di
dubbio.
— In ritardo, — disse. — Bisognerà lavorare dopo pranzo.
E così, dopo pranzo, lavorarono fino alle dieci, sotto l’accecante luce
elettrica, e stirarono tutte le camìce, sino all’ultima; poi piegarono il
tutto in un’altra camera. Era una calda notte californiana, e, sebbene
le finestre fossero aperte, la camera, col suo fornello da stiro
riscaldato al calor bianco, sembrava una vera fornace.
— Rassomiglia allo stivaggio d’un carico, sotto il sole tropicale, —
fece Martin, quando risalirono in camera.
— Farai un affare, — rispose Joe. — Tu ti applichi con bravura. Se
continui, avrai 200 lire, dal prossimo mese. Ma non venirmi a
raccontare che non hai stirato mai: non sono un idiota.
— Parola! non ho mai stirato neppure un fazzoletto, — assicurò
Martin. Fu sorpreso di sentirsi tanto stanco entrando in camera sua,
avendo dimenticato che era in piedi da 14 ore, lavorando senza
sosta. Egli mise la sveglia sulle sei, e calcolò che, tolte cinque ore di
sonno, avrebbe potuto leggere sino all’una. Si tolse le scarpe per
lasciar liberi i piedi gonfi, sedette a tavolino davanti ai libri, aprì
Fiske, che aveva cominciato due giorni prima, e incominciò la lettura.
Ma dalle prime parole, stentò a concentrar l’attenzione e si accinse a
rileggerle. Poi... si svegliò, rattrappito dal vento della montagna che
penetrava dalla finestra. Guardò la pendola: segnava le due di notte.
Aveva dormito quattro ore! Si svestì in fretta, si ficcò nel letto e si
addormentò.
Anche il martedì, lavorarono senza tregua. La sveltezza con la quale
Martin compiva il lavoro destava l’ammirazione di Joe. Questi era un
vero demonio nel lavoro; non avendo altro che quello pel capo, non
perdeva neppure un minuto, cercando senza posa il modo di
guadagnar tempo; mostrava a Martin come si poteva eseguire in tre
movimenti ciò che l’altro faceva in cinque, e in due ciò che l’altro
faceva in tre. Processo d’eliminazione, diceva Martin imitandolo. Egli
stesso, era però un buon lavoratore, accorto, rapido, che
considerava come un punto d’onore il fatto di non permettere a
nessuno di aiutarlo o sorpassarlo. Egli assimilò dunque rapidamente
i consigli del compagno, e inamidò colletti e manichini in modo da
non lasciar adito alla minima bolla d’aria, per la stiratura; con una
sveltezza e accortezza tale da meritare i complimenti di Joe.
Non c’era mai sosta. Joe non attendeva nulla nè alcuno, e balzava
da un compito all’altro. Inamidarono duecento camìce bianche:
afferrando, con la destra con un solo movimento circolare, la
camicia, in modo da far cadere polsini, colletti e petto, con la mano
sinistra alzava il corpo per preservarlo dall’amido. Poi, la mano
sinistra s’immergeva nell’amido caldo, talmente caldo che bisognava
continuamente bagnar le mani in un catino d’acqua fredda per
distaccarne la pasta. E quella sera inamidarono, sino alle dieci e
mezza, civettuole e leggere cianciafruscole di donna.
— Benedetti, per me, i tropici e la foglia di fico, — disse Martin
ridendo.
— E allora io perderei il posto, — rispose Joe seriamente. — Non so
nulla, tranne la stiratura.
— Ma questa la conosci a fondo.
— Sì, ma per mia disgrazia. Ho cominciato alla Contra Costa, a
Oakland, che avevo undici anni, a scuotere le calze pel cilindro.
Sono diciassette anni di questo mestiere, e non ho mai fatto altro.
Ma questa faccenda è la più dura di tutte, per me. Bisognerebbe
avere un altro uomo almeno. Lavoreremo anche la notte, domani.
Cilindreremo sempre tutti i mercoledì colli e manichini.
Martin ricaricò la sveglia, sedette a tavola e aprì Fiske; ma non potè
finire il primo paragrafo: le righe gli s’imbrogliavano davanti agli occhi
e la testa gli ricadeva ogni momento sul petto. Camminò su e giù, si
diede dei gran colpi di pugni sul capo, ma tutto ciò fu inutile. Allora si
piantò il libro davanti, sostenne le palpebre colla punta delle dita... e
s’addormentò con gli occhi spalancati; così che finì col confessarsi
vinto, e si coricò. Un pesante sonno di bruto gli gravò addosso per
sette ore; quando ne fu bruscamente tratto dal suono della sveglia,
sentì di non aver dormito abbastanza.
— Letto molto? — domandò Joe.
Martin scosse la testa.
— Non importa! stasera si cilindra, ma giovedì avremo terminato alle
sei, e tu potrai rifarti.
Quel giorno, Martin lavò della laneria a mano, in una gran tinozza
con sapone molle e con l’aiuto d’un congegno ch’era causa di
grande orgoglio per Joe.
— Mia invenzione, — disse questi, orgogliosamente. — Sostituisce
l’asse, fa risparmiare le ginocchia, e perlomeno quindici minuti di
tempo; il che non è da disprezzare in questo inferno!
La cilindratura dei manichini e dei colli era anch’essa invenzione di
Joe. Quella notte, durante il lavoro alla luce elettrica, egli glielo
spiegò.
— Nessuno lo fa, tranne me. E bisogna farlo, se voglio aver finito pel
pomeriggio di sabato alle tre. Ma conosco il modo, e in questo
consiste tutta la diversità. Occorre il calore adatto, la pressione
adatta, poi passar tre volte. Guardate questo! — E sollevò un
manichino in aria. — A mano non si potrebbe far meglio.
Il giovedì, Joe fu preso da una vera e folle rabbia; una balla
supplementare «di roba fantasia» da stirare, era stata portata.
— Io me ne vado! — urlò. — Ne ho abbastanza. Io me ne vado
tranquillamente. A che serve lavorare come uno schiavo tutta la
settimana, senza perdere un minuto, per vedersi poi appioppare un
«lavoro di fantasia», per colmo di tutto?... Noi siamo in un paese
libero, e voglio dire a quel grosso olandese il fatto mio. E non glielo
mando a dire. Gliele darò io le fantasie supplementari!... Lavoriamo,
questa sera, — fece un momento dopo, rassegnato alla sua sorte.
E quella sera, Martin non tentò neppure di lottare. Durante tutta la
settimana non aveva letto il giornale, che pure (strano) non gli
mancava: le notizie non lo interessavano più. Era troppo stanco,
troppo abbrutito per interessarsi di qualsiasi cosa, benchè pensasse,
se il lavoro fosse terminato per sabato alle tre, di partire per Oakland
in bicicletta. Settantacinque chilometri all’andata, altrettanti pel
ritorno, nel pomeriggio della domenica, non erano certo una buona
preparazione pel lavoro della settimana seguente. Sarebbe stato più
pratico prendere il treno, ma il biglietto costava dieci e cinquanta, ed
egli voleva fare economia.
CAPITOLO XVII.
Martin imparò a fare parecchie cose. Nel corso della prima

settimana, in un pomeriggio, i due uomini apparecchiarono duecento
camìce bianche. Joe manovrava la macchina — composta d’un ferro
caldo infisso a una molla d’acciaio che lo premeva, — stirava così il
petto, i polsi, il collo, ch’egli rivoltava ad angoli retti, e terminava con
una perfetta lustratura. Finita così la camicia, la lanciava su una
rastrelliera, donde Martin la prendeva e ne stirava tutta la parte non
inamidata. Era un lavoro sfibrante, che durava ore od ore senza
tregua, con la massima sveltezza.
Sotto la spaziose verande dell’Hôtel, intanto, uomini e donne,
biancovestiti, sorbivano ghiacciate, mantenendosi in uno gradevole
temperatura. Ma nella stiratoria, l’aria era opprimente; il gran fornello
ronfava, arroventato, e dai ferri passati sulla biancheria umida
s’alzavano nubi di vapore. Quei ferri erano diversi da quelli di cui si
servono le massaie provandone il calore con la punta del dito
inumidito; essi richiedevano un gran calore, ch’essi provavano
accostandoli alle guance.
Martin ammirava quel procedimento, pur non comprendendolo.
Quando i ferri erano troppo caldi, venivano fissati a delle bacchette
di ferro e immersi in acqua fredda. Questa operazione richiedeva
anche essa un occhio accorto e sicuro; bastava immergerli un attimo
di secondo più del necessario, per ricominciare da capo. Martin si
rallegrò della precisione acquistata quasi automaticamente e fondata
sull’osservazione di sintomi quasi imponderabili. Ma non aveva
molto tempo per riflettere e rallegrarsi; tutto il suo io cosciente era
applicato al compito; il suo cervello e il suo corpo, incessantemente
attivi, erano ormai una macchina intelligente nella quale i problemi
insondabili dell’universo non trovavano più àdito nè posto. Tutta la
sua persona era come uno stretto vano, la cabina direttrice che
guidava i muscoli delle braccia e delle agili dita, le quali, a loro volta,
guidavano i ferri rapidi e le loro lunghe scivolate fumanti, misurate
quasi a millimetro, lungo interminabili maniche, dorsi e fianchi. Poi, lo
stesso braccio, meccanicamente, lanciava la camicia sulla
rastrelliera apposita, senza gualcirla, e afferrandone
immediatamente un’altra. E tutto ciò durante ore e ore torride,
quando tutti boccheggiavano quasi, sotto il sole californiano. Ma
nella stiratoria surriscaldata mancava persino il tempo di ansare; i
clienti al fresco sotto la veranda avevano bisogno della biancheria
pulita.
Martin era madido di sudore; beveva un’enorme quantità d’acqua,
ma il calore era così grande, che tutta quell’acqua se ne andava in
sudore, prima d’arrivare allo stomaco. Un tempo, in mare, il lavoro gli
lasciava quasi sempre il piacere di ritemprarsi in se stesso. Il
padrone del battello era padrone del suo tempo, ma il padrone
dell’hôtel era anche padrone dei pensieri di lui; tutti i suoi pensieri
erano assorbiti da quel lavoro che sfibrava il corpo ed esasperava i
nervi. Oltre quello, impossibile pensare. Non sapeva più se amasse
Ruth; lei non esisteva, giacchè egli, che sentiva l’anima quasi
spenta, non aveva il tempo di ricordarsi di lei. Soltanto la sera,
quando cadeva sul letto, oppure all’ora della prima colazione, la
mattina, delle fugaci visioni gli apparivano.
— È l’inferno, eh? — disse un giorno Joe.
Martin rispose con un cenno irritato; rilevare un fatto così evidente
era inutile. Durante il lavoro non parlavano, giacchè una
conversazione avrebbe interrotto il procedere automatico di esso.
Questa volta accadde a Martin di sbagliare un colpo di ferro e di
essere costretto a fare due movimenti di più per riprendersi.
La mattina del venerdì fu il turno del bucato. Due volte la settimana
essi facevano la «biancheria grossa» dell’hôtel: lenzuola, federe,
tovaglie e tovaglioli. Poi si posero all’inamidatura della biancheria
fine: lavoro lungo, noioso e delicato che Martin affrontò con maggior
senso di difficoltà e che non poteva essere appreso se non
procedendo con tatto, giacchè il minimo errore poteva essere
disastroso.
— Guarda questo. — fece Joe mostrandogli un copribusto che
pareva un lavoro di ragno, e che egli avrebbe potuto nascondere nel
cavo d’una mano. — Rovinami questo, e ti costerà cento lire sullo
stipendio.
Ma Martin, sebbene la sua tensione nervosa aumentasse sempre
più, allentò la tensione muscolare e non guastò nulla; anzi porse
persino con simpatia l’orecchio alle bestemmie di Joe che sibilava e
penava sulle attraenti cianfrusaglie che portano le donne che non
lavano la biancheria con le proprie mani.
La stiratura della biancheria fine era l’incubo di Martin e di Joe,
privati perfino di qualche minuto per ripigliar fiato. Tutto il giorno essi
vi lavoravano intorno. Alle sette di sera lo interrompevano per
cilindrar la biancheria dell’hôtel; alle dieci, quando i clienti andavano
a dormire, i due stiratori sudavano nuovamente nello stirare la roba
fine, sino a mezzanotte, all’una, qualche volta alle due del mattino.
Alle due e mezza se ne andavano. La mattina del sabato, a furia di
raddoppiare, alle tre il lavoro della settimana fu terminato.
— Non vorrai accollarti 75 chilometri di qui a Oakland, dopo quest’ira
di Dio! — domandò Joe quando, seduti sulla scalinata, ebbero
acceso una sigaretta trionfale.
— Debbo, — fu la risposta.
— Perchè: per una donna?
— No: per risparmiare dieci e cinquanta e cambiare dei libri in
biblioteca.
— Perchè non li mandi coll’accelerato? Spenderesti una lira e
sessanta centesimi.
Martin riflettè.
— Così riposerai domani: ne hai bisogno. Anch’io sono fiaccato.
Si vedeva; instancabile com’era, a furia di lavorare senza fermarsi
mai, di lottare tutta la settimana per guadagnare un minuto o un
secondo di più, di sviare tutte le difficoltà, di superare tutti gli
ostacoli, colosso d’energia indomita, demonio d’acciaio, qual era,
appena finito il proprio compito, cadeva in una specie di coma. Egli
si trascinava con aria torva, col bel volto incavato ed estenuato: tutto
l’ardore, tutto lo slancio erano spariti: e il morale era basso.
— E la settimana prossima bisognerà ricominciar da capo, —
diss’egli tristemente. — E per far che? per ottenere che cosa? eh?...
In certi momenti vorrei essere vagabondo; non si lavora e si è nutriti.
Sst! un bicchiere di birra mi piacerebbe, ma non ho il coraggio
d’andare sino al villaggio, per questo. Rimani dunque qui e manda i
libri per espresso, o sei un imbecille.
— Ma che farò tutta la domenica? — domandò Martin.
— Ti riposerai; non hai neppure coscienza di tutta la tua stanchezza.
Io sono così sfibrato, la domenica, che non posso leggere neppure i
giornali. Una volta mi sono ammalato di tifo, e sono stato due mesi e
mezzo all’ospedale senza far nulla. Quella sì, ch’era vita.
— Era la vita! — ripetè egli fantasticando, un momento dopo.
Martin, dopo aver preso un bagno, s’accorse della sparizione del
capo stiratore. — Deve essere andato a bere un bicchiere di birra, —
fece Martin fra sè, e riconobbe che i settecento metri da fare sino al
villaggio erano un viaggio troppo lungo per lui. Si distese sul letto,
dopo essersi tolte le scarpe, e si sforzò di riprender coscienza. Non
tentò neppure di leggere, e intanto si sentiva tanto stanco, da non
aver sonno. In uno stato di semi-incoscienza, quasi istupidito dalla
spossatezza, egli rimase lì, sino all’ora di pranzo. Joe non tornò. E
quando Martin udì il giardiniere annunziare che probabilmente stava
dando fondo al bar, capì la ragione dell’assenza. Martin andò a
coricarsi subito dopo, e fu certo, la mattina dopo, di aver molto
riposato.
Siccome Joe era ancora assente, Martin si procurò un giornale e
sedette all’ombra di un albero. La mattinata passò, senza che egli se
ne accorgesse. Non aveva dormito, nessuno lo aveva disturbato, ed
egli non aveva terminato il giornale. Ritornò allo stesso punto, nel
pomeriggio, dopo colazione e, questa volta, s’addormentò. Così
passò la domenica, e la mattina del lunedì fu nuovamente al lavoro
di cernita della biancheria, mentre Joe, che gemeva e bestemmiava,
metteva in moto la macchina del bucato e preparava il sapone molle.
— Non posso farne senza! — spiegò. — Quando viene la sera del
sabato, bisogna che mi ubriachi.
Passò un’altra settimana di giorni sfibranti, d’intollerabili notti al
chiarore della luce elettrica, sino al pomeriggio del sabato, alle tre,
quando Joe gustò un momento di soddisfazione di sè e partì subito
pel villaggio... per dimenticare. La domenica di Martin fu come la
precedente; egli dormì all’ombra degli alberi, diede una vaga scorsa
al giornale e passò lunghe ore disteso sul dorso, senza far nulla,
senza pensare. Era troppo abbrutito per pensare, sebbene
scontento di sè; sentiva disgusto di se stesso, come se si fosse
assoggettato a una degradazione morale, a una diminuzione del suo
valore intrinseco. Tutto ciò che lo rendeva simile agli dei era
annientato: nessuna ambizione lo spronava, ormai; la sua anima
sembrava morta. Non era altro che una bestia, una bestia da soma.
La bellezza del sole che penetrava colle sue frecce d’oro nel
fogliame, non lo colpiva più: l’azzurro del cielo non gli sussurrava
nulla; i segreti della natura e l’immensità del misterioso universo non
l’attraevano più. La vita era intollerabilmente monotona,
stupidamente amara al gusto. Una specie di tetro parafuoco
ricopriva lo specchio della sua visione interiore, e la fantasia dormiva
in una camera di malato dove non penetrava nessun raggio di sole.
Egli invidiava Joe laggiù nel villaggio, che trascinava i gomiti sullo
zinco del bar, ruminava le sue idee fisse, rilevava in modo inetto
delle inezie qualunque, dimenticando nell’ebbrezza il lunedì mattina
e la sfibrante settimana che incominciava.

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Full download test bank at ebookmeta.

Linguistic Landscapes in Language and Teacher

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About the Editor

Ana Isabel Andrade Departamento de Educação e Psicologia, Universidade de

Alice Chik Macquarie School of Education, Macquarie University, Sydney,

Susana Pinto Departamento de Educação e Psicologia, Universidade de Aveiro,

Keywords Linguistic landscapes (LLs) · Language education · Multilingual

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© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 1

2 Studying Linguistic Landscapes: The Evolution

Table 1 Selected publications in English

• LL studies have more recently reached education and applied linguistics, in

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5 Synthesis and Acknowledgements

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Suonò la sveglia, strappando Martin dal sonno, con una brutalità

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