Indigenous Conceptual Cartographies and Landscape Pedagogy: Vibrant Modalities Across Semiotic Domains

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter explores how aspects of the landscape can be incorporated in language teaching practices. Drawing on the area of research known as “linguistic landscape,” language teachers have recently begun to see the linguistic landscape as a pedagogical resource. Jaworski and Thurlow’s (2010) work broadens these ideas. They use the termsemiotic landscape, which is “any (public) space with visible inscription made through deliberate human intervention and meaning making” (p. 2). In addition, we link this approach to the notion ofindigenous conceptual cartographies, which we use to describe the multiple ways that indigenous teachers conceptualize language, landscape, and cosmology. This includes physical artifacts of cartographic representation such as maps, signs, and the landscape itself, as well as metaphorical cartographies such as ideas of the landscape, concepts of sustainability, and the relationships between language, landscape, and cosmology. We apply these concepts to one lesson that was organized as a narrated walking tour on the grounds of an indigenous community school, arguing that indigenous ways of learning in the landscape offer a rich experience that promotes not only language learning but also other learning that may help create a sustainable future.