Linguistic landscapes of a minoritized regional majority: Language ideologies among Hungarians in South-West Slovakia

Abstract

[Introduction] This article is an investigation of the linguistic situation in South-West Slovakia and its interpretation by local inhabitants through the notion of linguistic landscape (LL hereafter), here understood broadly as texts displayed in visual space.1 This study has two broad aims. Firstly, the general distribution of the languages in the LL of two historically Hungarian villages is established. This distributional picture is compared to (inter)national and local conceptions about the visual use of different languages in South-West Slovakia. Secondly, using an ethnographic approach and making use of the data gathered during one month fieldwork, a set of individual signs and sign genres are analyzed from the viewpoint of their semiotic characteristics and the analyses focus on language ideologies of the producers and readers of such signs. [Continues, please see the article]