Multilingual voices of unification in ‘No man’s land’: evidence from the linguistic landscape of Nicosia’s UN-controlled buffer zone

Themistocleous, C. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0657-1376 (2020) Multilingual voices of unification in ‘No man’s land’: evidence from the linguistic landscape of Nicosia’s UN-controlled buffer zone. Linguistic Landscape, 6 (2). pp. 155-182. ISSN 2214-9961 doi: 10.1075/ll.19030.the

Abstract/Summary

The island of Cyprus and Nicosia, its capital, have been divided by a UN-controlled buffer zone since the 1974 war. The ease of movement restrictions in 2003 saw Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots crossing into each other’s area after 30 years of complete separation and increased mobility, especially through the UN-controlled buffer zone at the Ledras street crossing-point in Nicosia, interjected a new dynamic in the area. The analysis of photographic data collected over a period of three years from the Linguistic Landscape of the buffer zone reveals that ephemeral signs in Greek, Turkish and English are used to establish connections and strengthen social ties between the former enemies and project ideologies that go against popular nationalist narratives. By adopting new conceptualisations of the term ‘community’ (Blokland, 2017), this study discusses how a new, imagined community can emerge in conflict-ridden contexts through the display of written public signs in the Linguistic Landscape.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/89469
Identification Number/DOI	10.1075/ll.19030.the
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Interdisciplinary Research Centres (IDRCs) > Centre for Literacy and Multilingualism (CeLM) Arts, Humanities and Social Science > School of Literature and Languages > English Language and Applied Linguistics
Publisher	John Benjamins
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