Multilingual Landscapes in Telecollaboration: A Spanish-American Exchange

Abstract

AbstractIn this chapter we aim to explore the role that the linguistic landscape (LL) can play in intercultural telecollaborative exchanges. Although research in the field of LL has gained worldwide interest over the last decade and some studies have analyzed its potential for foreign language learning (Cenoz J, Gorter D, Int Rev Appl Linguist Lang Teach 46(3):267–287, 2008; Gorter D, Cenoz J, Knowledge about language and linguistic landscape. In: Hornberger N (ed), Encyclopedia of language and education. Springer Science, Berlin, pp. 1–13, 2007; Dagenais D et al, Linguistic landscape and language awareness. In: Shohamy E, Gorter D (eds), Linguistic landscape: expanding the scenery. Routledge, New York, pp. 253–269, 2009; Gorter D, Ann Rev Appl Linguist 33:190–212, 2013; Malinowski D et al, Language teaching in the linguistic landscape: mobilizing pedagogy in public space. Springer, Berlin, 2020; Niedt G, Seals C (eds) Linguistic landscapes beyond the language classroom. Bloomsbury Academic, New York, 2020; Krompák E et al (eds) Linguistic landscapes and educational spaces. Multilingual Matters, Bristol, 2021; Solmaz O, Przymus S (eds) Linguistic landscapes in English language teaching: a pedagogical guidebook. Available from https://www.llineltproject.com/, 2021), works that analyze its impact for language and culture awareness in telecollaboration are still scarce (Vinagre M, Engaging with difference: integrating the linguistic landscape in virtual exchange. System 105:102750. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2022.102750,2022).In order to explore these issues, we organized an exchange between undergraduate students of English at Autónoma University in Madrid (UAM) and undergraduate students of Spanish at Columbia University. Over the course of two and a half months the students worked together and discussed a series of topics relating to each other’s and their own cultures. As a final task they were required to take photos of shops, posters, announcements, and walls in their respective cities that showed how English was used in Madrid and how Spanish was used in New York. Findings suggest that attending to the LL as an activity within a telecollaborative exchange provides an ideal opportunity for learning about language diversity from an intercultural perspective. The project also provided evidence of its potential for the creation of a dialogic third space in which participants negotiated their cultural identities.