Cemeteries as semiotic landscapes: The construction of (im)migrant spaces in Canada and Germany

This article focuses on gravestone inscriptions from cemeteries in Canada and Germany. We consider these inscriptions as publicly visible written communication and draw on frameworks from linguistic/semiotic landscape and historical sociolinguistics. Based on a qualitatively and ethnographically rooted analysis of both language and images on selected (multilingual) gravestones, and drawing on positioning theory and the concept of space, we argue that specific (im)migrant spaces and imagined communities are constructed through the ways in which heritage language is used and images are linked with (im)migrant places and identities. Overall, this research explores the complex interplay of socio-historical, linguistic, and semiotic aspects through which gravestone inscriptions come to index (im)migrant spaces.