The position of languages in the schoolscape: the case of the oldest university in the Philippines and in Asia

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper is an initial attempt to characterise the schoolscape of a four-century old higher education institution in the Philippines and the oldest existing university in Asia, The Royal, Catholic, and Pontifical University of Santo Tomas (UST). Through a systematic inventory of 2,410 visual signs, the analysis of the functional sign categorisations, the sign distributions (i.e., top-down and bottom-up), and the languages (un)represented in the UST schoolscape was conducted. The critical approach to language ideology and the linguistic landscape approach likewise afforded the present study an analytic lens that examines the schoolscape of UST that is able to project messages about the school’s hidden curriculum and the language ideologies it promotes and legitimises. The study offers a discussion on the position of English in the university schoolscape and how it seems to have othered, silenced, and peripheralized Philippine languages.