The article presents data from a 2013–2019 ethnography of Zhuang language policy to support an analysis of
implications for language policy research and scholarship of findings about the (in)visibility of publicly displayed Zhuang. The
analysis challenges core assumptions of language policy-making, advocacy and scholarship and explicates the general implications
of this challenge beyond China, particularly for minority languages. The most important assumption that this article interrogates
is that a written language on display will be recognised as that language by its speakers. Further, it argues
that literacy, script, and other language policies impact on display policies and must work together; they do not in the Zhuang
case. In making a case for language policy informed by ethnographic research, this article reviews the foundations of
socially-situated analyses of Linguistic Landscapes. To galvanise further such research and articulate it to policy-makers, the
article employs the term ‘lived landscape approach’.
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