Gastronomy, football, and resistance : the multi-faceted visibility of Corsican in the linguistic landscape

This chapter discusses a variety of settings in which the Corsican language is visible in the contemporary Corsican linguistic landscape. Examples are drawn from an empirical corpus of 5638 signs, sampled on 20 prominent streets in each of Ajaccio and Bastia, the island’s largest towns. Quantitative assessments reveal contextual, authorial, and material trends in Corsican sign-writing, whilst qualitative analyses inform detailed discussions of the language in the fields of gastronomy, support for the cities’ rival football clubs, and resistance to national identity through texts linked to the independence movement. Whilst regional languages in France are frequently associated with minorities, tradition, and the past, the data discussed in this chapter demonstrate the widespread visibility of Corsican, and its use in multiple aspects of contemporary life