Using the linguistic landscape as a pedagogical resource

This article discusses the idea of linguistic landscape and describes a small-scale research project undertaken in a local EFL community in Mexico using public signs to analyse the social meanings of English. The author presents a framework that distinguishes between intercultural and intracultural uses, as well as iconic and innovative uses of English on signs. He also identifies six social meanings represented on the signs and uses photographs to illustrate each meaning. He argues that the project is useful both for thinking about the innovative ways people use the language in local contexts and as a template for a classroom-based project that teachers can implement that engages EFL students in investigating and talking about social language use. The conclusion presents an approach for using the linguistic landscape as a pedagogical resource in the EFL classroom which casts the students as language investigators and offers ideas for extension activities that connect the language classroom to the streets of the learners’ community.