Linguistic Landscape and Language Awareness by Young Children

A Case Study in Montreal

Essay from the year 2011 in the subject English - Grammar, Style, Working Technique, grade: 1,3, Ernst Moritz Arndt University of Greifswald (Amerikanistik), course: Linguistic Landscape, language: English, abstract: Introduction In this term paper I want to present a case study done by Diane Dagenais, Canièle Moore, Cécile Sabatier, Patricia Lamarre and Françoise Armand from 2005 - 2008 in Montreal and Vancouver. In doing so, I will give a background of Montreal, followed by a description of their research method. I will also offer criticism. At the end I will summarize the findings. Montreal Montreal is the second largest city of Canada and the largest city of Quebec. It was founded in 1642 and called 'Ville-Marie', meaning 'City of Mary' (cf. Manzagol 2001: 15). According to Canada Statistics (2006 Census) the Montreal metropolitan area had a population of 3'588'520 and only 8.96 percent of it could not speak the official language of the city, namely French. Most of the immigrants who arrive in Quebec settle in Montreal (cf. Manzagol 2001: 24). 'The immigrants form 45 % of the population of Montreal-City'1 (Manzagol 2001: 25). Statistics show that the number of immigrants (to Quebec) who can speak neither English nor French in the years from 1996 to 2000 has quintupled in the years from 2001 to 20062. Montreal is also a city of growing economy, especially in 'high tech' and pharmacy (cf. Manzagol 2001: 15-17). These facts, together with the good gross domestic product of Canada3, show that Montreal is an ever-growing, multicultural city.