THE SPIRIT OF MEANING: THE LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPE OF ATSUTA SHRINE

Abstract

Linguistic landscape is essentially publicly displayed language. In their seminal paper, Landry and Bourhis define a linguistic landscape as the languages on public and commercial signs in a given area. This study examined the multilingual landscape of Atsuta Shrine, one of the most important shrines in the Japanese indigenous religion of Shinto. As very few studies have looked at the linguistic landscapes of sacred spaces, this unique context provided clues as to what is sacred to a community, what (non-commercial) values are represented here, and who this sacred space is for. This study used Scollon and Scollon’s theory of geosemiotics, which analyzes the meaning systems that place language in the material world, to explore the cultural meanings (both Japanese and global) that are found in the linguistic landscape of the shrine and how the multilingual landscape forms a sense of place. For my analysis, I conducted a content analysis to look at how the semiotic systems work in interaction order, visual semiotics, and place semiotics. The findings showed emphases on authority, travel, tourism, worship, and celebration materialized in the direction of text, differing messages across translation, the use of silence, and blurring of discrete language boundaries. In the final chapter, I explored the ramifications of these findings by conducting a mini-study to explore the usefulness and implications for classroom applications of using the linguistic landscape as an out-of-the-classroom experience in foreign language learning.