Fostering critical multilingual language awareness with teacher candidates in Türkiye through linguistic landscape projects


Ayvaz B. Ç., Çomoğlu H. İ., Warren A. N.

TEACHING AND TEACHER EDUCATION, cilt.176, ss.1-17, 2026 (SSCI, Scopus)

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Cilt numarası: 176
  • Basım Tarihi: 2026
  • Doi Numarası: 10.1016/j.tate.2026.105465
  • Dergi Adı: TEACHING AND TEACHER EDUCATION
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Scopus, Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), IBZ Online, Education Abstracts, Educational research abstracts (ERA), Psycinfo, Public Affairs Index
  • Sayfa Sayıları: ss.1-17
  • Dokuz Eylül Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

This study examines how engagement with linguistic landscapes (LL) can foster critical multilingual language awareness (CMLA) among English language teacher candidates (TCs) in Türkiye. Grounded in a critical perspective, we adopted indexical ordering as a theoretical lens and analytical framework to analyze how TCs’ second-order indexicality evidenced developing CMLA. Data comprised 25 LL projects (collected images and written analysis) from undergraduates in a sociolinguistics course. Thematic analysis yielded three themes: (1) understanding local–global linguistic relationships; (2) adopting situated perspectives through analyses of familiar locations; and (3) recognizing how diverse linguistic practices promote inclusion or reproduce barriers in multilingual spaces. Findings show that LL projects enabled TCs to critically examine ideological hierarchies, power dynamics, and social functions of multilingual signage. We discuss these insights through a heuristic of Relational Critical Topography. The study contributes to the limited scholarship on leveraging LLs to develop CMLA in EFL teacher education.