Book Launch "Geolingual Studies on Urban Space"

How does language influence urban space and how does urban space influence language? The topical volume Geolingual Studies on Urban Space, edited by Carolin Biewer, Lisa Lehnen, Ninja Schulz and Hannes Taubenböck, addresses these questions from an innovative interdisciplinary perspective. The volume focuses on the methodological integration of linguistics, geography/remote sensing and computational humanities for the study of urban space. These are not merely understood as geographical spaces, but as dynamic socio-cultural places in which mobility, identity, connectedness and social transformation become visible and audible. The contributions analyse how language characterises different districts, how language attitudes and identities emerge, and how social developments are reflected in and constructed by urban discourse.

To this end, World Englishes offer an important view as English occurs in diverse forms and functions in cities: as global lingua franca, as local variety or in connection with other languages. A geolingual approach makes visible how specific linguistic resources are used in different urban contexts. At the same time, world Englishes research helps to prevent rash generalisations and to understand linguistic patterns in light of prestige, identity and language ideology. On the basis of case studies from megacities and urban centres, such as London, Edinburgh, New York, Tokyo, Singapore, Hong Kong, Davao City, Accra and Mexico City, the volume offers global perspectives on the linguistic diversity of cities. For this, different methods and data sources from interviews and surveys over soundscaping to geolocated social media data as well as computer assisted procedures, such as topic modelling and sentiment analysis, are used. The book launch offers opportunities to learn about the new volume and its geolingual approach, talk to the editors and contributors and discuss how language, space and society in cities today are interconnected.

We wholeheartedly invite colleagues, students and everyone who is interested to start an exchange with us about new perspectives on space and urbanity.

Full reference to the publication: Biewer, C., Lehnen, L., Schulz, N., & Taubenböck, H. (Eds.). (2026). Geolingual Studies on Urban Space. Edinburgh University Press.