Language, Power, and Place: Israel’s Linguistic Landscape through Palestinian Eyes

Abstract

This talk examines the linguistic landscape of Israel from the perspectives of Palestinian students. Focusing particularly on the visibility, marginalization, and representation of Arabic in public spaces, the talk explores what signs reveal about the relationship between language and power, and about whose language is made visible, whose is minimized, and whose presence is rendered absent. The talk presents findings from a linguistic landscape study conducted with Palestinian students in a teacher education college in the Galilee. Using PhotoVoice as a participatory research methodology, students documented signs in their everyday environments, interpreted the meanings they attached to these signs, and reflected on their experiences of language in public space. Their photographs and narratives draw attention to several recurring phenomena, including Hebraization, the prevalence of errors in Arabic signage, and the limited presence of Arabic on official and commercial signs. Rather than treating signs as neutral linguistic objects, the talk approaches the linguistic landscape as a site where identities, histories, ideologies, and power relations are made visible. The Palestinian students’ perspectives offer an alternative reading of public space—one that foregrounds feelings of marginalization, erasure, and exclusion, while also revealing experiences of belonging and collective identity. By bringing Palestinian voices and perspectives to the center of linguistic landscape research, the talk demonstrates how participatory approaches such as PhotoVoice can transform the study of signs into a critical examination of lived experiences and unequal relations of power. Ultimately, the talk argues that examining language, power, and place together enables us to see the linguistic landscape as a reflection of broader struggles over visibility, identity, history, and belonging. It concludes with a call for greater recognition and equitable representation of Arabic in public space and for linguistic landscape research that takes seriously the voices and experiences of those who inhabit these spaces.

Dr. Rawia Hayik (rhayik@sakhnin.ac.il) is a Palestinian senior lecturer and serves as the head of the English Department at Sakhnin Academic College for Teacher Education, Israel. She finished her PhD in the Literacy, Culture, and Language Education Department at Indiana University in the United States. Recently, she was a visiting scholar in the Near Eastern Languages and Cultures department at UCLA, USA. Her academic work bridges theory and practice, examining how language education intersects with power, national narratives, and citizenship.