@phdthesis{Muth2013,
  author    = {Sebastian Muth},
  title     = {Language, Power and Representation in Contested Urban Spaces: The Linguistic Landscapes of Chisinau and Vilnius},
  journal    = {Sprache, Macht und Repr{\"a}sentation in urbanen R{\"a}umen: Die Sprachlandschaften von Chisinau und Vilnius},
  url       = {https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:gbv:9-001374-9},
  year      = {2013},
  abstract  = {Written language in the public sphere (shop signs, advertisements, placards, graffiti, etc.) constitutes the “Linguistic Landscape” of an urban agglomeration. An examination of such displays gives us an insight into function, status and spread of certain languages. Here, the study of linguistic landscapes does not only bear a purely linguistic dimension, but necessarily links to other fields such as politics, semiotics, urban development, communication and literacy. In this case study the cityscapes of the Moldovan capital Chisinau and the Lithuanian capital Vilnius will be analyzed. Peripheral and central districts of the cities have been chosen. From each of these districts, data on the number of mother tongue speakers have been obtained. Two corpora, each containing 1000 items of specimen of written language have been made and contextualized with the help of GPS tracking to ensure the possibility of future diachronic research. The data for these corpora was collected in December 2010 and March 2011. The aim of this study is two-fold: On the one hand this approach gives an insight into the general use of different languages in Moldova and Lithuanian as well as on the functional domains they fulfill. On the other hand the distribution of different languages on signs in each district shows how minority languages such as Russian are represented in public. The results suggest that the linguistic landscape of Chisinau is actually very diverse and alongside Romanian, English and especially Russian are used frequently. The functional domains differ though. Whereas the national language is part of almost all shop signs and advertising in general, it is usually used in conjunction with Russian. Informal displays of written language such as graffiti or small placards are mostly written in Russian alone. Other minority languages in Moldova such as Gagauz and Ukrainian were almost never visible on written displays of language in the city. In contrast to that the linguistic landscape of Vilnius is far less diverse and although the Lithuanian capital is home to sizeable Russian- and Polish-speaking minorities, these demographic patterns do not show. Yet, apart from Lithuanian English is an integral part of the linguistic landscape, especially in advertising.},
  language  = {en}
}