3rd lecture: “Otherness in the linguistic landscape of Mytilene”, by Costas Canakis, Professor of Socio-linguistics, University of the Aegean, Department of Social Anthropology and History, Director of the Laboratory for Ethnographic Studies on Language (LESoL).

On-line Linguistics Lecture Series
Otherness, as a notion that runs through all socio-linguistics research, finds fertile ground in the study of linguistic landscapes; that is, in interdisciplinary research of written messages (stenciled, sprayed or otherwise in public space (and their relation to other semiotic resources, such as images, etc.).
Dr Costas Canakis, perceiving the term “otherness” in its wider sense, attributed to it by contemporary research, will focus on the ways in which linguistic otherness materializes in public spaces. Firstly, the presence itself of two or more languages, even if they are not equally represented, is indicative of the existence of dissimilar groups. Secondly, even if we focus on only one -the prevalent- language, the messages written the individual actors in a certain linguistic landscape are typical of different groups of people and of their particular (often clashing) views in a variety of matters. By focusing on the linguistic landscape of Mytilene, Dr Canakis will attempt to highlight the various ways in which human presence and activity is recorded in public space in a given moment, and the characteristically dynamic relationship that is formed between language and space.
You can watch the lecture live:
– On Facebook, Stegi Vitsentzos Kornaros
– On Zoom, https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81181955101
A couple of working days after the lecture it will be available on Stegi Vitsentzos Kornaros You Tube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClrAK7Y6H_QPscSDh2g-VXA