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Shannon Ludwig

Dr. Nicholes

English 90

23 November 2018

Career Services as a Linguistic Landscape

Introduction

The University of Wisconsin Stout provides many student resources throughout campus.

Student resources are very beneficial to us in many ways, anything from financial questions to

questions about what classes to take. There's a place on campus for about any question you may

have to get through the school year.

There are many student resources, but I decided to narrow mine down to the Career

Service Center. Career Services is a center that provides resources to undergraduate, graduate

and online students. They help assist in the career development of students. If you have questions

about resumes, cover letters, co op/internships and even professional job searching, Career

Services is the place to go. Career Services is important to students because not everyone knows

exactly what they want to do as a career, and they can help guide you and answer any questions

you may have.

According to Rodrigue Landry and Richard Bourhis linguistic landscape is defined as

“The language of public road signs, advertising billboards, street names, place names,

commercial shop signs, and public signs on government buildings combines to form the

linguistic landscape of a given territory, region or urban agglomeration. The linguistic landscape

of a territory can serve two basic functions: an informational function and a symbolic function”
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(Landry and Bourhis, 1997). Turner king says welcoming places should be accessible, convivial,

and belonging.

The purpose of this report is to conduct primary and secondary research to analyze the

“linguistic landscape” of a public space where a student resource is located at UW-Stout. I will

be researching the Career Service center as a linguistic landscape and how welcoming it is. My

report will be aimed towards the UW-Stout administration and the career service center.

Methods

My methods involved me walking down the hall to the career center and into the career

center as well. I then captured pictures with my phone showing what the hallway leading up to

the career center looked like. In the hallway there were images displayed and a sign that read

“Welcome to Career Services”. I also captured pictures of what inside career services looked like

when you first walk in. They have a homepage that can be found if you type in “Stout Career

Services”to google and the first one is their website. I was in seminar in career explorations

because in the beginning of the year I was undecided, and career services helped me

tremendously by figuring out what career path I wanted to pursue.

I analyzed the data I found by studying the pictures I took and referred back to linguistic

landscape and a welcoming space. In my photos I looked for the language of signs, and if the

photo portrayed an accessible, convivial and belonging place. For example in Figure 2, there is a

sign that reads “welcome to career services” to me this would be a good use of signage and a

very accessible place. Another example is figure 4, this photo makes it look very convivial with

the decorations they put up and the nice open space they provide with signs explaining where to

go and what they offer.


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Results

Figure 1.

This is a picture of the hallway leading up to Career Services. This is a view that a person would

see walking into the career center. The hallway is nice and wide with lots of natural lighting that

makes this feel more open and welcoming.


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Figure 2.
This picture is taken right outside the entrance of the Career Center. This represents a framing of

signage. The sign reads “Welcome to Career Services”. This sign makes it very convivial,

without this sign it might not seem as inviting to people passing by.
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Figure 3.

This is the area outside of the career center, the big sign that reads “Career Services” makes is

very accessible and hard to miss. This is another use of signage.


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Figure 4.

This is a view of inside the career center. They make it very welcoming by putting up

decorations and looking very organized.

In my results I found that career services is a very welcoming place that provides lots of

decorations and signs. They provide easy access, a warm lively, and a belonging space. I copied

the homepage information on career services website into a website called LIWC they gave the

emotional tone for the website 56.4 percent. Although this number isn't very positive, from what
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I experienced by personally walking into career services and gathering data they express a very

welcoming area. The information on there website is more to inform you. What they offer who

they offer it to and so on. Their website got a 56.4 percent, that may be a reasonable number for

their website but I don't think that portrays how welcoming they are when you physically walk

into their office.

Discussion

It is important for student resources to be accessible, convivial, and belonging. You want

to be able to access the resource you need easily without it being a hassle. You also want the

resource to be friendly and enjoyable to be in. You want to feel like you belong in that

environment and are welcomed. According to Robert M. Moore “Student resources may be

defined as any service provided by an educational institution which aids in the fulfilling of its

mission which should ultimately be enabling students to grow personally and professionally”

(Moore, 1). I think career services does an excellent job of providing all of these things. The

advice I would like to give to the UW-Stout administration and career services is the resources

they have used and images and signs they have displayed around make it a very welcoming

place. I personally have visited career services a few times and all times they have been

beneficial to me, and made me feel very welcomed.


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References

Moore, R., & University of Wisconsin--Stout, degree granting institution. (2008). ​An

Analysis of the Importance of Specific Student Resources at Milwaukee Area

Technical College.​

Landry, R., & Bourhis, R. Y. (1997). Linguistic landscape and ethnolinguistic vitality:

An empirical study. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 16(1), 23-49.

doi:10.1177/0261927X970161002

Turner-King, R. (2018) Creating welcoming spaces in the city: Exploring the theory

and practice of "hospitality" in two regional theatres. Research in Drama

Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 23(3), 421-437.

doi:10.1080/13569783.2018.1477583 Links to an external site.


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