“Talk the talk but not walk the walk”: residents’ readings of super-multilingual signs in a U.S. Midwestern city

This study examines how residents in Columbus, Ohio, interpret super-multilingual signs within the sociopolitical context of the 2020 U.S. election. Drawing on the framework of spatial repertoire, this study focuses on two signs: a digital ‘Hello’ sign in a commercial arts district and a ‘Hate Has No Home Here’ yard sign in a residential neighborhood. Data were drawn from a larger linguistic landscape study. Ten residents were recruited following an online survey and participated in semi-structured Zoom interviews during which they interpreted the selected signs. Visual-spatial analysis of the signs shows that both signs visually center English and frame multilingualism as a symbolic gesture of inclusivity. Thematic analysis reveals that participants constructed meaning not through linguistic knowledge alone but through affective, spatial, and ideological repertoires shaped by personal and political experience. Their readings suggest that multilingualism has been resemiotized to index liberal political values, while also exposing selective inclusion and symbolic erasure. These findings call for approaches to multilingual signage that attend to the emergent and relational nature of meaning-making while also recognizing the political and socioeconomic inequalities that such displays can obscure.