Linguistic Geographies: Street Advertisement on a Language-Diverse Highway in a Southeast U.S. Town

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 2
  In Roundtable Session: Disquieting Materialities: Foucault and Contemporary Theories in Education (Table 2)

Abstract

Latino cultures, and their cultural heritage in the United States, continue to be present in geographical places known as the “New South.” In this research, we explore Spanish, bilingual Spanish/English and English-only street advertisements located in one main street of this region. This main street, comprised of small businesses, target their potential customers and use Spanish to offer products/services to the Spanish speaking, Bilingual, and English-only communities. We used street-ad-ethnography and assemblage theory to localize Spanish, bilingual Spanish/English, and English only advertisement in this main street. This study aims to geographically elucidate the type of products/services offered in these languages through street advertisement, to analyze how these languages are used, and to explore the language density in street advertisement.

Authors

• Max Vazquez Dominguez, University of North Georgia

• Lourdes Cardozo-Gaibisso, Mississippi State University

• Westry A. Whitaker, The University of North Georgia

• James P. Burns, Florida International University