Contesting Identity in the Linguistic Landscape of Belgrade: An Ethnographic Approach

Abstract

This paper investigates aspects of the Linguistic Landscape of central Belgrade between 2009 and 2017, theorizing its findings at the intersection of sociolinguistics, ethnography, and semiotics, which has gained ground as the platform of choice in “second wave” linguistic landscape ({LL}) research. It focuses on dynamic indexical relations between space and language in the framework of superdiversity, as a way of making sense of language-in-society. To this end, it problematizes how ideologically laden identitarian concerns (such as digraphia/double literacy but also Christian Orthodoxy and heteronormativity as an index of srpstvo) find their way onto Stari Grad walls. Such concerns have considerable – and often lasting – effects on the {LL} which can only be adequately investigated by systematic ethnographic studies of the semiotic means employed in inscribing it.