The Use of the Linguistic Landscape of a University Campus for English Language Teaching and Learning Purposes

This study will give account on the possible use of the linguistic landscape of a university campus for pedagogical purposes. The study was conducted at the Department of Foreign Language Education (FLE), in the Eastern Mediterranean University (EMU), the only state university of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Qualitative research has been used for the purpose of receiving direct reactions on the multilingual campus from prospective teachers of English language. 13 MA students from the department of FLE participated in the interview which revealed data on their reflections on signs used in the campus of EMU and their perceptions on the idea of including linguistic landscape into the language learning process. The findings of the study show that prospective teachers of English have positive perceptions about the use of linguistic landscape as a tool for pedagogical purposes, believe in its power and benefits, and are generally willing to include it into their own teaching. Furthermore, the results provide data on how signs are used in the campus of the university and how the participants interpret them. Signs have been categorized and analyzed with a focus on language use and language policy of the university. Moreover, several ways of integrating the linguistic landscape into language education have been summarized and presented in line with previous studies. The findings should make an important contribution to the field of sociolinguistics by demonstrating the usefulness of our surroundings and its benefit in language education and furthermore raise awareness of prospective language teachers. Keywords: Linguistic Landscape, EMU Campus, English Language Teaching, Language Learning, Signs