Community Ma(r)king in the linguistic landscape of the Ruhr Metropolis

Abstract Central for this paper is the assumption that the Linguistic Landscape is a complex phenomenon that provides an insight not only into practices of symbolic place-making of communities but also into the relation between place, language, and belonging. According to Tietz (2002) , a community is based on shared norms and attitudes, a collectively binding horizon of values and understanding which also mark the boundaries of a community. Starting from these considerations, we will explore processes of community ma(r)king in the Ruhr Metropolis, Germany, drawing on data collected in the interdisciplinary research project Metropolenzeichen/Signs of the Metropolis ( Ziegler et al., 2018 ). Our multi-method approach combines data of geocoded digital photographs ( N = 25,504) with metalinguistic data collected in on-site interviews ( N = 180) and telephone interviews ( N = 1,000) to gain a deeper insight into the formation of communities in the Linguistic Landscape of the Ruhr Metropolis.