"Observe overall cleanliness and sound mannerisms at all times!" – Regulating Australian Muslims in mosques and Islamic prayer spaces

This master’s thesis explores how behavioral norms and expectations are communicated to Australian Muslims through signage in mosques and Islamic prayer areas. Set in the context of secular and multicultural Australia, the growing Muslim community is highly linguistically and culturally diverse. It is also subject to higher levels of scrutiny, surveillance, and regulation than other faiths.

Against this background, this thesis undertakes a Linguistic Landscape study of regulatory signage in Australian mosques and Islamic prayer spaces. 130 instruction and prohibition signs were collected from 19 places of worship in three cities through a citizen science approach. These were analyzed for the linguistic and semiotic choices and strategies used to regulate the behavior of worshippers.

The study finds that English language signage predominates in the data collected. The functional use of other languages is extremely rare, and Arabic is used for symbolic purposes. The signs regulate several behaviors and use a range of politeness strategies to mitigate impositions on readers. Observance of religious and civic obligations are constructed as a requirement for inclusion in mosques.

The research contributes to understanding communication practices and behavior regulation in the Australian Muslim community. This has implications for the design and delivery of public service communication in a multicultural society.