Mikko Laitinen is currently Professor of English Linguistics at Linnaeus University in Sweden.
Anastassia Zabrodskaja is currently Professor of Estonian as a Second Language at Tallinn University and Senior Research Fellow in Sociolinguistics at the University of Tartu (Estonia).

This volume focuses on sociolinguistic landscapes, the use and functions of everyday semiotic items in space. Signs reflect societal change and enable the mapping of how linguistic resources are used and interpreted in various contexts. The articles, drawing from ethnographic observations, make use of both quantitative and qualitative research tools.

Contents: Mikko Laitinen/Anastassia Zabrodskaja: Dimensions and dynamics of sociolinguistic landscapes in Europe - Hagen Peukert: Urban linguistic landscaping: Scanning metropolitan spaces - Amei Koll-Stobbe: Ideofiers in the commercial city: A discursive linguistic landscape analysis of hairdressers' shop names - Karine Stjernholm: Two faces of Oslo: A comparative study of the sense of place - Mikko Laitinen: English on the move: What's beyond modernity and internationalism? - Mia Halonen: Social media landscapes: Tracing the uses and functions of a hybrid sign - Christoph Marx/Marek Nekula: Constructing a cross-border space through semiotic landscapes: A case study of a German-Czech organization - Petteri Laihonen: Linguistic landscapes of a minoritized regional majority: Language ideologies among Hungarians in South-West Slovakia - Sebastian Muth: «Ruralscapes» in post-Soviet Transnistria: Ideology and language use on the fringes of a contested space - Olga Bever: Linguistic landscapes as multimodal and multilingual phenomena - Monica Perotto: The presence of the Italian language in the linguistic landscapes of Moscow.

The articles in this volume investigate everyday textual material of sociolinguistic landscapes in the early 21st century. Sociolinguistic landscapes reflect societal change, and they enable observers to map what linguistic resources are used in various contexts and to study how these resources interact and are interpreted. The articles present not only quantitative results of the presence of languages in signs but also look into how authors and designers make use of an endless pool of linguistic resources, how visible semiotic items contribute to create a sense of space, what types of mental processes are involved in the production, and how various audiences (residents, occasional passers-by, and language regulators) interpret and construct signs and sociolinguistic landscapes to form their own understanding of semiotic space.