People and (linguistic) Landscapes in the Theory and Practice of Sociolinguistics (the case of Ulaanbaatar)

This work is devoted to clarifying the theoretical, methodological and terminological issues around the problem “people and (linguistic) landscapes” and to the practical study of linguistic landscape in one of the cities underinvestigated in this respect — Ulaan­baatar. The research is based on a mixed methodology: visual ethnography, questionnaires, interviews, and ethnographic observation. The material for the analysis includes 945 linguistic landscape signs, 100 questionnaires and 6 oral interviews, as well as informal conversations, media and social media materials. Results. From a theoretical and methodological point of view, the article examines the role of ethnography in linguistic landscape research, and comments on several terms used in ethnographically oriented sociolinguistic works: voices, language ideologies, language attitudes. The authors argue that the problem “people and (linguistic) landscapes” is broader than the problem “agency and (linguistic) landscapes”. It is also argued that addressing people directly, their language ideologies will help overcome one-sided researcher’s interpretation. The empirical analysis is based on the theoretical principles described above, also considering the broad geopolitical, economic and other contexts that influence language preferen­ces and visibility of languages in the public space of the Mongolian capital. The analysis showed a certain polarization of society in relation to the “dominance” of three most “active” foreign languages in the linguistic landscape of Ulaanbaatar — English, Korean and Chinese. Awareness of their necessity in the globalized world is combined with a fear of loss of national identity and culture. These common ideologemes have additional specific connotations in the case of each of the aforementioned languages. If English has a global value in the eyes of Ulaanbaatar residents, the value of Korean is due to the attractiveness of the economic “role model” of South Korea and the soft power of Korean pop culture. Attitudes towards Chinese vary the most on a scale from rejection to realization of its necessity. So, by examining the Ulaanbaatar’s case and methodological approaches, the paper argues that ethno­graphy enriches linguistic landscape studies by uncovering the lived experiences and contextual meanings behind linguistic signs.

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