Ameyoko Shopping Street in Tokyo: Urban Space as an Ideological Palimpsest

The linguistic diversity of cities has necessitated new forms of research because variation can no longer be simply tied to geographic space. Typical demolinguistic practices such as mapping language across geographic space, counting languages, or identifying set domains of language cannot grasp the mobility of language, its piecemeal acquisition, the employment of linguistic features across language boundaries, the resultant contested meanings, nor the employment of the contextual and spatial resources that are characteristic of urban language life. It is this plurality of languages, semiotic resources, encounters, and behavioural norms that make cities feel citylike. Living in the city results in a necessity to learn how to get along under conditions of diversity.