Imperial & Global Forum

This is the third in a series of blog posts created by students of the 2026 ‘Linguistic Landscapes‘ Summer School at Venice International University, in conjunction with the University of Exeter and KU Leuven.

Mona Mezhoud

Public space is never neutral. As Michel Foucault argues in his influential essay on heterotopias, places are always embedded in relations that either reveal or obscure power structures: heterotopias function as counter-sites where social orders are “simultaneously represented, contested, and inverted” (Foucault, 1986 [1984]: 24). Applied to Venice, this observation can be sharpened considerably — and, as the following comparison suggests, it is not merely an external theoretical import grafted onto the case. Tufi’s own linguistic landscape study of Venice arrives independently at the same framework, describing the city’s linguistic landscape as the product of a “dislocation of (real) place and the creation of a heterotopia” (Tufi, 2017: 89), a liminal space that is “simultaneously real and unreal.” Venice is no longer an everyday living space for its residents but a site where representation, contestation, and inversion of spatial order are constantly layered on top of one another under the sign of mass tourism. As Tufi notes, “In the LL [Linguistic Landscape] of Venice’s most visited areas there is evidence that Italian is undergoing a minoritisation process and, as a result, social levelling with respect to the languages ascribed to the main tourist groups” (Tufi, 2017: 85).

Language plays a central, though often underestimated, role in this negotiation of space. Norman Fairclough showed that language is not a neutral resource but a social practice that both reflects and (re)produces power relations (Fairclough, 1989: 26) — a framework applicable directly to Venice’s linguistic landscape, from multilingual, tourist-oriented signage to official municipal announcements: decisions about who may place which language where are never merely stylistic, but are always already questions of power.

This paper examines how a specific form of linguistic dominance has taken hold in the area around Santa Maria Maggiore in Venice, one that has increasingly adapted public space to an international, English-speaking tourism economy — and how this dominance has progressively marginalized the Venetian population, prompting residents, in turn, to reclaim that same space through language.

Continue reading “Linguistic Dominance and Resistance in the Linguistic Landscape of Venice” →

This is the second in a series of blog posts created by students of the 2026 ‘Linguistic Landscapes‘ Summer School at Venice International University, in conjunction with the University of Exeter and KU Leuven.

Wout Huygens, Horace Lee & Ellie Nicholls

During the Summer School on Linguistic Landscapes in Venice, we analysed the linguistic landscape of the area around the Basilica dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo in the northern part of the main island. By adopting Lynch’s framework on the elements of the city image (Lynch, 1960), we identified the major paths, edges, districts, nodes and landmarks in the region. In this blog post, we argue that transportation has a clear effect on the linguistic landscape, that the graffiti and stickers reveal certain political tensions and that there is clear asymmetry of multilingualism in our chosen area of the city.

Mapping the area

By following Lynch’s elements of the city (Lynch, 1960), we started by tracing the edges, which are all clearly defined waterways, as well as the waterways within our region. Next, we plotted all bridges on our map acting as a base for the paths. Then, we added the public transportation nodes and landmarks, consisting of two water bus stops for the vaporetti, a hospital, the basilica and 3 churches. After carefully analysing the linguistic landscape and the transport streams, we added the main walking paths (see Image 1).

Image 1: Mapping process of the Santi Giovanni e Paolo region in Venice

Based on these data, we also divided the region into different districts (see Image 2), coinciding with Lynch’s categorization (Lynch, 1960). Districts 1 and 5 cover the waterfront areas near the touristy Fondamente Nove area and the hospital area respectively, characterized by the public transportation nodes. These districts are characterized by movement from/to a specific node within the district. Districts 2, 4, 7 and 8 each symbolize a path, characterized by pedestrian through-traffic. Instead of movement from/to a specific point within the district, this area acts as a passageway from a point outside the district to another point outside the district. Finally, districts 3, 6, 9 and 10 refer to areas around landmarks, in this case a church, the basilica or the hospital. Similar to the node districts, the movement within these districts is also oriented towards a specific point within the district, but these districts usually act as destinations as opposed to intermediate transfer points in districts 1 and 5.

Image 2: Identified districts in the Santi Giovanni e Paolo region in Venice

Continue reading “Santi Giovanni e Paolo: a region filled with linguistic, transportation and political contrasts” →

This is the first in a series of blog posts created by students of the 2026 ‘Linguistic Landscapes‘ Summer School at Venice International University, in conjunction with the University of Exeter and KU Leuven.

Karin Swahn, Shinhaz F. N. & Wenhan Kang

Space can be understood through the interrelated dimensions of perceived, conceived, and lived space (Lefebvre, 1991). Walking through the Rialto Pescheria and Beccarie area in Venice, we encountered the city primarily through the perceived dimension of space. We understood the area through what we saw, heard, and noticed through our senses. As visitors, we experienced the space without inhabiting it as part of our everyday lives and without the planner’s perspective through which urban space is conceived. Wenhan Kang, our only Italian-speaking member, was also the only one who had previously visited Venice, leaving the other two of us to encounter the area as tourists with analytical gazes.

To analyse this, we decided to frame our material through the concept of authenticity. According to Zukin (2008, 2010), authenticity has become increasingly important as a way of marketing and selling urban spaces since the 2000s. Zukin challenges the conventional idea of authenticity as something inherent, traditional, or sincere by presenting it, instead, as a quality that is socially constructed and externally recognised. It does not necessarily represent local residents and often reflects the tastes of the middle and/or upper classes. In this sense, authenticity can function as a form of power that contributes to gentrification and the displacement of an area’s original inhabitants.

What does “authentic” look like in urban spaces? According to Zukin (2008, 2010), it often appears through small shops, “ethnic” restaurants, alternative forms of lifestyle consumption, and carefully constructed narratives attached to venues or products. We know what these narratives look like: “this shop started as a dream between two friends…”, or “our cicchetti continues the fish market’s tradition of combining fresh fish, international influences and old recipes…”. Zukin (2010, p. xiii) describes such authentic spaces as using, “bits and pieces of cultural references: artfully painted graffiti on a shop window, sawdust on the floor of a music bar, an address in a gritty but not too thoroughly crime-ridden part of town.” While this description is rooted in an American context, similar authenticity markers can be found in Venice, for example in wooden signs, chalkboards, and the mixing of Italian and English.

In Venice, tourists’ search for authenticity produces a space that is constantly judged by its appearance, cosmopolitan character, and performance of heritage. It creates a city of heightened representation and romanticisation, in which locals’ lived space is given very little room. Residents often have to navigate streets crowded with tourists who suddenly stop to take photographs. It is, therefore, fitting that Venice has been described as a “museum city” (Blackwood & Tufi, 2015; Tufi, 2017). Venice can also be understood as an assemblage of heterotopias in Foucault’s sense: spaces that are simultaneously real and unreal, situated within time yet somehow outside of it (Foucault & Miskowiec, 1986; Tufi, 2017). In the following, we present our assemblage of authenticities and heterotopias through three themes: heritage as branding, homogeneous door signs and ghost doors, and vernacular authenticity.

Continue reading “Authenticity in Cities: The Example of Venice” →