A multimodal discourse analysis of the material culture of multilingualism at three Western Cape universities

Abstract

The advent of semiotic/Linguistic Landscapes (LL) as a new sociolinguistic enquiry has received considerable attention in the field of Language and Communication Studies. Although LL studies have been done in South Africa, none has problematised the languages and cultural objects such as statues and names of buildings and streets as constructing, including or excluding certain social- types. The aim of the study was to examine the material culture (languages and cultural objects) constituting the landscape at three established Western Province universities, namely the University of the Western Cape (UWC), the University of Cape Town (UCT), and Stellenbosch University (SU). Using the qualitative ‘walking method’ adapted by Stroud and Jegels (2014) and a handheld recording device/camera, the total collection of data consisted of [312] images captured at the selected research sites. The images were taken of varying street sign names (within a 2.5km radius), building structures – including their names, monuments, statues, artworks – and historically significant space(s) in place.