MILL - Memory and ideology in the linguistic landscape. Commemorative (re)naming in East Germany and Poland 1916-2016

• Applicant: Professorin Isabelle Buchstaller, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages
• Term: from 2017 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 381590131

Commemorative street (re-)naming is the outcome of a complex interplay of forces, including the creation of memory, the indexing of officially sanctioned identity and ideology as well as the appropriation of human space, all of which are performed by and in turn index state-hegemonic politics of memory. Eastern Europe offers an unparalleled case study for transformations in representational politics as a result of multiple waves of ideological reorientations. But whereas memory studies and linguistic landscape (LL) research have documented street (re)naming in Eastern Europe as a result of changes in state-ideology, most of this research is historically shallow and it rarely transgresses disciplinary and geopolitical boundaries. To date, thus, systematic comparative research is scarce and cross-fertilisation between Western and Eastern European countries is almost non-existent. The MILL project aims to take a comprehensive approach to commemorative (re)naming by investigating ideologically-driven changes in the urban landscape of two countries throughout the past century. More specifically, we aim to develop a coherent model of the complex processes underlying, accompanying and contesting changes in urban toponymy in Eastern Europe. To this aim, the project will focus on three pairs of cities in Poland and Eastern Germany: two large regional centres, Leipzig and Poznan; two towns of local importance Annaberg-Buchholz and Zbaszyn; and Frankfurt (Oder) / Slubice, which since WWII have been divided by the Oder river.The choice of these cities contrasts the processes underpinning street-naming along three dimensions (1) nation/state (across country), (2) size (within country) and (3) time: 1916-2016. The MILL project capitalizes on the research strengths of an interdisciplinary team which includes LL research, social geography, collective memory and urban ethnology. The unifying element of the project is the empirically-driven quantitative and qualitative modelling of the ideological processes that continue to shape Eastern European linguistic landscapes. The triangulation of research methods will give us important insights into the role of public discourses in influencing the transformation of the commemorative cityscape. By integrating insights from linguistic landscape research and collective memory studies we propose the concept of the commemorative cityscape, understood as a constantly re-negotiated spatial expression of the collective memory of the city inhabitants that is influenced by socio-political and ideological factors at the national level as well as by local public debates. More specifically, the results of the MILL project promise to open new horizons in LL studies by examining the complex processes underlying ideologically-driven changes in commemorative street naming including "relations of power, language ideologies and [users'] views of their own and other's identities" (Pavlenko & Blackledge 2004:1-2).

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Poland
• Cooperation Partners: Dr. Anna Brzezinska; Professorin Dr. Malgorzata Fabiszak