Cover not available

Article published In: Linguistic Landscape
Vol. 12:1 (2026) ► pp.31–52

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
EPUB logo with download linkDownload EPUB
authorization required

Bilinguals’ visual attention in/of the Linguistic Landscape

An eye-tracking study

ORCiD logo with link | Adam Mickiewicz University
Published online: 15 September 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ll.25001.tus
Abstract
While early Linguistic Landscape research concerns the semantic analysis of signs, contemporary studies investigate also the human visual attention of the LL. Three prior studies (Seifi, Pouran (2015). Eye Movements and Linguistic Landscape. Unpublished master’s thesis, University of Groningen.; Vingron, Naomi, Jason W. Gullifer, Julia Hamill, Jakob Leimgruber & Debra Titone (2017). Using eye tracking to investigate what bilinguals notice about Linguistic Landscape images. Linguistic Landscape, 3(3), 226–24. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Wei, Zichao & Yewei Qin (2023). Using eye tracking to investigate what native Chinese speakers notice about Linguistic Landscape images. arXiv. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) investigate how language users look at the LL in a laboratory setting. However, research on bilinguals’ visual attention towards naturally occurring street signs remains limited. This study addresses this gap using a mobile eye-tracker to examine how bilinguals look at public signs, comparing Polish native speakers with English as L2 (N = 29) and non-Polish bilinguals with English as L2 (N = 11). Results reveal that both Polish and non-Polish participants gazed longer on Polish than English texts on bilingual signs and that Polish and non-Polish participants differed in their preferences to types of signs they looked at in the LL.
Streszczenie
Podczas gdy pierwsze badania and krajobrazem (pejzażem językowym) skupiały się na semantycznej analizie znaków, współczesnych badaczy coraz częściej interesuje na jakie elementy użytkownicy języka kierują swoją uwagę wzrokową w krajobrazie językowym. Trzy badania okulograficzne (Seifi, Pouran (2015). Eye Movements and Linguistic Landscape. Unpublished master’s thesis, University of Groningen.; Vingron, Naomi, Jason W. Gullifer, Julia Hamill, Jakob Leimgruber & Debra Titone (2017). Using eye tracking to investigate what bilinguals notice about Linguistic Landscape images. Linguistic Landscape, 3(3), 226–24. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Wei, Zichao & Yewei Qin (2023). Using eye tracking to investigate what native Chinese speakers notice about Linguistic Landscape images. arXiv. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) sprawdziły uwagę wzrokową w krajobrazie językowym, ale żadne z nich nie zostało przeprowadzone w warunkach naturalnych. Celem tego badania jest poszerzenie metodologii badań nad krajobrazem językowym poprzez zastosowanie okulografu mobilnego aby porównać jak dwie grupy osób dwujęzycznych: rodzimi użytkownicy języka polskiego (n = 29) oraz osoby, których drugim językiem nie był język polski (n = 11) kierują swoją atencję wzrokową na znaki naturalnie występujące w przestrzeni publicznej. Analiza danych wykazała że obie grupy badanych częściej skupiały wzrok na znakach w języku polskim, który był językiem dominującym, oraz że osoby dwujęzyczne mówiące po polsku i osoby dwujęzyczne nieposługujące się językiem polskim mają różne preferencje co do rodzaju znaków, na które zwracają uwagę w krajobrazie językowym.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Linguistic Landscape: Then and now
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Survey area
    • 3.2Participants
    • 3.3Apparatus
    • 3.4Study procedure
    • 3.5Data analysis methods
  • 4.Findings and discussion
    • 4.1Research question 1
    • 4.2Research question 2
    • 4.3Limitations of the study
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (42)
References
Alhaider, Siham Mousa (2023). Linguistic Landscape of Arabs in New York City: Application of a Geosemiotics Analysis. ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, 12(5), 192. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Artar, Pinar (2012). Tracking translation process: the impact of experience and training. In Anthony Pym & David Orrego-Carmona. (Eds). Translation research projects 4. Tarragona: Universitat Rovira i Virgili.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Backhaus, Peter (2007). Linguistic Landscapes: a Comparative Study of Urban Multilingualism in Tokyo. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ben Rafael, Eliezer & Miriam Ben Rafael (2019). Multiple globalizations. Linguistic Landscapes in world cities. Leiden: Brill. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cenoz, Jasone & Durk Gorter (2006). Linguistic Landscape and minority languages, International Journal of Multilingualism, 3(1), 67–80. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Conklin, Kathy, Sara Alotaibi, Anna Pellicer-Sánchez & Laura Vilkaitė-Lozdienė (2020). What eye-tracking tells us about reading-only and reading-while-listening in a first and second language. Second Language Research, 36(3), 257–276. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cop, Uschi, Denis Drieghe & Wouter Duyck (2015). Eye Movement Patterns in Natural Reading: A Comparison of Monolingual and Bilingual Reading of a Novel. PLoS ONE, 10(8), e0134008. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dąbrowska, Marta (2020). Linguistic Landscapes: The Multilingual Cityscape of Kraków. In Magdalena Szczyrbak & Anna Tereszkiewicz (Eds.), Languages in Contact and Contrast: A Festschrift for Professor Elżbieta Mańczak-Wohlfeld on the Occasion of Her 70th Birthday (pp. 121–132). Kraków: Jagiellonian University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
deMeurisse, Grace & Edith Kaan (2024). Bilingual attentional control: Evidence from the Partial Repetition Cost paradigm. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 27 (4), 599–609. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dong, Yanping & Ping Li (2020). Attentional control in interpreting: A model of language control and processing control. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 23 (4), 716–728. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Duchowski, Andrew (2007). Eye Tracking Methodology: Theory and Practice. Cham: Springer.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gorter, Durk (2013). Linguistic Landscapes in a Multilingual World. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 33, 190–212. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grosjean, François (1992). Another View of Bilingualism. Advances in Psychology, 831, 51–62. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hanauer, David (2015). Occupy Baltimore: A Linguistic Landscape analysis of participatory social contestation of an American city. In Rani Rubdy & Selim Ben Said (Eds.) Conflict, exclusion and dissent in the Linguistic Landscapes (pp. 207–222). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Harwood, Tracy & Martin Jones (2014). Mobile eye-tracking in retail research. In Mike Horsley, Matt Eliot, Bruce Allen Knight & Ronan Reilly (Eds.), Current trends in eye tracking research. (pp. 183–199) Cham: Springer International Publishing. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Holmqvist, Kenneth & Richard Andersson (2017). Eye-tracking: A comprehensive guide to methods, paradigms and measures. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hornsby, Michael (2008). The Incongruence of the Breton Linguistic Landscape for Young Speakers of Breton. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. 29(2), 127–138. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jankowiak, Marcin (2019). Linguistic landscape of the historic centre of Poznań. Unpublished bachelor’s thesis, Adam Mickiewicz University.
Just, Marcel. A., & Patricia A. Carpenter (1980). A theory of reading: From eye fixations to comprehension. Psychological Review, 87(4), 329–354. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kaushanskaya, Margarita & Viorica Marian (2007). Bilingual Language Processing and Interference in Bilinguals: Evidence From Eye Tracking and Picture Naming. Language Learning, 57(1), 119–163. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kuperman, Victor, Noam Siegelman, Sascha Schroeder, Cengiz Acartürk, Svetlana Alexeeva, Simona Amenta, Raymond Bertram, Rolando Bonandrini, Marc Brysbaert, Daria Chernova, Sara Maria Da Fonseca, Nicolas Dirix, Wouter Duyck, Argyro Fella, Ram Frost, Carolina A. Gattei, Areti Kalaitzi, Kaidi Lõo, Marco Marelli, Kelly Nisbet, Timothy C. Papadopoulos, Athanassios Protopapas, Satu Savo, Diego E. Shalom, Natalia Slioussar, Roni Stein, Longjiao Sui, Analí Taboh, Veronica Tønnesen & Kerem Alp Usal (2023). Text reading in English as a second language: Evidence from the Multilingual Eye-Movements Corpus. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 45(1), 3–37. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Landry, Rodrigue & Richard Y. Bourhis (1997). Linguistic Landscape and Ethnolinguistic Vitality: An Empirical Study. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 16(1), 23–49. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Leimgruber, Jacob, Naomi Vingron & Debra Titone (2020). What do people notice from real-world Linguistic Landscapes? A review of the literature and recommendations for future eye-tracking research. In David Malinowski & Stefania Tufi (Eds.), Reterritorializing Linguistic Landscapes: Questioning Boundaries and Opening Spaces (pp. 16–30). London: Bloomsbury. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mahanama, Bhanuka, Yasith Jayawardana, Sundararaman Rengarajan, Gavindya Jaya-wardena, Leanne Chukoskie, Joseph Snider & Sampath Jayarathna (2022). Eye Movement & Pupil Measures: A Review. Frontiers in Computer Science, 31. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Michalak, Sylwia (2019). The Linguistic Landscape of three historical districts of Poznań. Unpublished bachelor’s thesis. Adam Mickiewicz University.
Rak, Julia (2023). Multilingualism in the Linguistic Landscape of Poznań. Unpublished bachelor’s thesis. Adam Mickiewicz University.
Scollon, Ron & Suzie Wong Scollon (2003). Discourse in place: Language in the material world. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Seifi, Pouran (2015). Eye Movements and Linguistic Landscape. Unpublished master’s thesis, University of Groningen.
Sui, Longjiao, Evy Woumans, Wouter Duyck & Nicolas Dirix (2024). The word frequency effect in first- and second-language reading by Chinese and Dutch bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 1–16.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Troyer, Robert, Patricia Giménez-Eguíbar & Carmen Cáceda (2015). Unseen Spanish in Small-Town America: A Minority Language in the Linguistic Landscape. In Rani Rubdy & Selim Ben Said (Eds.) Conflict, exclusion and dissent in the linguistic landscape (pp. 52–76). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tusk, Julia (2024). Polska dzielnica? Reprezentacja mniejszości językowych w krajobrazie językowym dzielnicy Ealing i jej związek z poczuciem tożsamości polskich imigrantów. [A Polish Borough? Linguistic Landscape of Ealing and its relationship with the sense of identity of Polish immigrants], Socjolingwistyka, 38, 1: 159–174. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Uddin, Lucina Q. (2017). Salience Network of the Human Brain. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vingron, Naomi, Jason W. Gullifer, Julia Hamill, Jakob Leimgruber & Debra Titone (2017). Using eye tracking to investigate what bilinguals notice about Linguistic Landscape images. Linguistic Landscape, 3(3), 226–24. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wasilewski, Michał (2024). Code choice, humour, intertextuality, and the expression of emotions in the Linguistic Landscape of the women’s protest in Poland 2020–2021 versus the 1980s. In Isabelle Buchstaller, Małgorzata Fabiszak & Melody Ann Ross (Eds.), Space-Time (Dis)continuities in the Linguistic Landscape: Studies in the Symbolic (Re)appropriation of Public Space (pp. 310–324) New York: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wei, Zichao & Yewei Qin (2023). Using eye tracking to investigate what native Chinese speakers notice about Linguistic Landscape images. arXiv. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Whitford, Veronica & Marc F. Joanisse (2018). Do eye movements reveal differences between monolingual and bilingual children’s first-language and second-language reading? A focus on word frequency effects. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 1731, 318–337. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Whyatt, Bogusława, Ewa Tomczak-Łukaszewska, Olga Witczak & Olha Lehka-Paul (2024). Readers have to work harder to understand a badly translated text: an eye-tracking study into the effects of translation errors. Perspectives, 1–21. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wu, Yan Jing, Filipe Cristino, Charles Leek & Guillaume Thierry (2013). Non-selective lexical access in bilinguals is spontaneous and independent of input monitoring: Evidence from eye tracking. Cognition, 129(2), 418–425. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wu, Yingying, Zhenxing Wang, Wanru Lin, Zengyan Ye & Rong Lian (2021). Visual salience accelerates lexical processing and subsequent integration: an eye-movement study, Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 33(2), 146–156. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yeari, Menahem, Marja Oudega & Paul van den Broek (2016). The effect of highlighting on pro-cessing and memory of central and peripheral text information: evidence from eye movements. Journal of Research in Reading, 40(4), 365–383. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue