An analysis of the presence and attitudes towards the English language in Mitrovica’s linguistic landscape

Abstract

This dissertation examined the LL of Mitrovica, a divided city located in the central Balkans that has gone through significant unrest over the past twenty years with the break-up of Yugoslavia, Kosovo war (1998-1999) and Kosovo’s declaration of independence in 2008. The aim of this research is to determine whether the English language may function to unite the opposing Albanian and Serbian sides of the city. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used in the study. Over 300 photographs were taken and 10 interviews conducted with both Serbian and Albanian participants in order to determine how much English was visible in Mitrovica’s LL and to explore residents’ attitudes towards seeing the language in the LL of their home city. The key finding is that the English language is present in well over a third of signage in North and South Mitrovica. In addition, none of the subjects interviewed believed that having the language in their LL was a negative. Therefore, it may be stated that the English language could potentially function as Mitrovica’s lingua-franca.