(In)Visibility and (Non)Existence

Labor Migrants and the St. Petersburg Linguistic Landscape

Abstract

This article deals with the modern linguistic landscape of St. Petersburg, with a focus on the ways it represents the languages of migrants from Central Asia and China. Linguistic-landscape studies are traditionally believed to reflect the actual linguistic situation in a given region. Nevertheless, actual multilingualism of Russian cities, — resulting, for example, from migration to megalopolises — is not always reflected in the linguistic landscape, since both official language policy and a majority’s attitudes and linguistic ideologies can prevent such a reflection. This article is based on data gathered in 2016 during fieldwork in different parts of St. Petersburg (Devyatkino, Parnas, and Apraksin Dvor), and it analyzes directions of communication and main domains in which migrant languages can be used in written form and the level to which these languages can be found in observable and open urban spaces. As a result, this study of public signs, advertisements, signboards, and other written communication in the city’s public spaces not only provides us with information on languages other than Russian, but it evaluates the roles these languages have to play in the context of a domineering linguistic ideology of monolingualism that officially and popularly does not support language diversity.