The Communicative Linguistic Landscape

Production Formats and Designed Environments

Lionel Wee

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9780367898205
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000343076
• Topic: Lingue e linguistica
• Subtopic: Studi sulla comunicazione

How exactly do linguistic landscapes communicate and what theoretical significance might follow from such an inquiry? This book addresses these questions by taking as its starting point the insight that the individual or organisation that is responsible for the production of a sign may not be physically present at the landscape itself. The information to be conveyed is typically designed as a piece of signage to be emplaced at the site. Drawing on Goffman's notion of a production format, the book argues that the constructed piece of sign and its intended placement within the landscape combine to constitute an animator complex. This raises the possibility of a disruption to the sign and its placement in the landscape. The book describes various ways in which the integrity of the animator complex can be disrupted (e.g. the sign may be moved out of place through vandalism or acts of nature, or the organisation that the sign represents may no longer be in business), identifi es different types of animators, and expands on the implications for phenomena such as affect, multivocality, footing and the materiality of language. In doing so, the book also demonstrates the value of bringing in Bakhtin's work on heteroglossia and the dialogicity of communication, integrating the ideas of Bakhtin with those of Goffman.

1Introduction

The communicative landscape

Introduction

Blommaert (2018) reminds us of ‘an often-forgotten function and effect of linguistic landscapes: they exist as sites of social interaction, they “talk”, and people “talk back” to them.’ In making this observation, Blommaert was discussing a specific art-based research project that happened to involve a publicly displayed piece of signage that bore the proposition ‘Capitalism works for me!’. The signage was an installation work created by the artist Steve Lambert and placed at various locations. Lambert and his staff then asked members of the public to respond to the proposition stated in the signage. These members of the public were being requested to reflect on the extent to which they felt that the proposition could be said to actually apply to their own everyday economic experiences. ‘Passers-by can vote “true” or “false”, and this, then, is the point of departure for impromptu interviews on capitalism and how such people experience it’ (Blommaert, ibid., italics added). The data were subsequently used by Chun (2017) for an analysis of how people think and talk about capitalism.

In this example presented by Blommaert, we could perhaps concede that there is both a ‘talking’ from the linguistic landscape (if we think of the piece of displayed art as provoking or stimulating reflections on personal economic experiences) and a ‘talking back’ to the landscape from the people who happen to be present (if we treat the articulations of their personal economic reflections as replies). Both situations, however, can be said to involve talking from and talking back to the landscape only if a number of caveats and provisos are issued.

Consider the case of talking from the linguistic landscape. If there is any part of the landscape that can be described as talking, it is clearly the displayed proposition since it is this specific aspect of the landscape that presents a linguistically encoded assertion about capitalism that passersby might then reflect on.¹ However, while some passersby might spontaneously reflect on the displayed proposition even in the absence of any encouragement from the artist and his staff, others might read it without giving it much thought, and there might yet be others who may not even notice its presence at all. As a form of talk from the linguistic landscape, then, the displayed sign can be ignored or it may even go unnoticed altogether. This contrasts with the kind of talk that emanates from a human interlocutor. The latter is much harder to ignore given its typically aural nature; the fact that individual passersby can be directly approached and hailed by the interlocutor; the possibility of the interlocutor taking offense if he or she is ignored; the further possibility that he or she might even persist in engaging with passersby until some form of response has been elicited; and conversely, the reluctance of passersby to come across as impolite if they were to simply ignore the human interlocutor’s entreaties. Of course, in the case of the example discussed by Blommaert, it is precisely the polite, gentle and encouraging presence of human interlocutors that helps to elicit cooperative responses from various passersby. Absent the presence of the human interlocutors, we would need to be much more qualified about what we mean if we want to say that the linguistic landscape talks.

Consider now what it means to be talking back to the linguistic landscape. The conversations that were occurring were in actuality taking place between the people present and the interviewers, who were using the sited artwork as a talking point in order to spark off a line of discussion with them on the specific topic of everyday experiences with capitalism. As already noted, rather than taking place directly between the people present and the landscape itself, the talking back was in fact occurring between the interviewers and the people who agreed to take part in art project. In other words, they were responding to Lambert and his staff; they were their interviewees. And, to return to the point that was made earlier, precisely because these people were being enjoined by the interviewers to reflect on the proposition that was artistically displayed by the sign located in the landscape, it is not at all clear that any ‘talking back’ (such as it was) would have actually occurred on its own in the absence of their cajoling or gentle persuasion. It is certainly conceivable that an individual who noticed the displayed sign might be moved to spontaneously and introspectively reflect on the proposition. Equally conceivable is the possibility of the sign sparking off some heated discussion amongst a group of friends. Neither of these, though, strictly speaking, involves talking back to the linguistic landscape. The former involves talking to oneself. The latter involves friends talking amongst themselves.

Nevertheless, even if we take the activities of Lambert and his team out of the picture and imagine the proposition ‘Capitalism works for me!’ as simply being displayed at the site, we would still need to acknowledge that the sign had been placed there by someone for some purpose. Whether or not we want to characterise this placement of the sign as ‘talk’ from the linguistic landscape, it is undeniable that there is some communicative intent behind its placement. Indeed, many studies of linguistic landscapes begin by taking scenarios such as these as their objects of analysis. Landscapes that are populated by signs of various sorts (linguistic, non-linguistic, and more often than not, some combination of the two) are first identified and their boundaries delimited (e.g. a city, a neighbourhood, a hospital, etc.) for the specific purpose of the investigation at hand. Investigations are then undertaken as to the kinds of languages or diagrams that might be used in constructing the signs, the types of information that are being conveyed, as well as the ideological assumptions that motivate or legitimise the language, the graphics and the informational choices (e.g. Gorter 2013; Jaworski and Thurlow 2010; Shohamy and Gorter 2008; Wee and Goh 2019). So, it certainly can be said that linguistic landscapes do ‘talk,’ or better yet, it cannot be denied that linguistic landscapes are designed to be communicative. But that having been said, it is still actually much less usual for people to actively and directly talk back to the landscapes themselves.

Consider, by way of illustration, the following scene that can be found in a central part of Orchard Road, the premier shopping district in the city-state of Singapore. The side entrance to an Orchard Road shopping mall is also connected to a short walkway that happens to lead to a dead end. Because of this, a sign has been placed just outside this side entrance to advise pedestrians that there is no thoroughfare available. If there should happen to be any pedestrians who find themselves at this location, these pedestrians would need to decide whether to enter the mall or to turn back, unless they happen to have specific reasons for wanting to enter the cul-de-sac. If the pedestrians do decide to enter the mall, they will immediately encounter a notice that informs shoppers of the mall’s opening and closing hours, as well as large boards displaying the brand names of the various high-end retailers located in the mall.

This short illustration demonstrates how much the linguistic landscape communicates. Indeed, the signs in a linguistic landscape are often placed there to help any individuals who happen to be present to navigate the landscape, providing, among others, spatial and temporal information about the kinds of activities or services that may be held or found at the landscape. But this illustration also highlights that any direct talking back to the landscape from the people who may be present is significantly less of an expectation.

There are two observations here that call for further discussion and analysis if we are to claim a better understanding of linguistic landscapes and how they communicate. One observation is that there is a clear directional asymmetry when we look at communication in the linguistic landscape. The landscape communicates with people much more than the other way around given the widespread use of static signs where the information is simply presented and meant to be read. The increasing use of digital technology might lessen this asymmetry since it makes the landscape itself more interactive. For example, interactive signboards allow shoppers in a mall to enter their queries about where a particular shop is located. Here, we have a situation where people and landscape can be said to communicate more symmetrically. However, it is still the case that such interactivity is not yet as common as the use of static signs. The directional asymmetry thus still prevails. Let us call this the issue of communicative asymmetry.

The other observation is this. The signs and messages that populate the landscape are typically present even when there may not be anyone around. This is a situation that warrants special attention and investigation. A human interlocutor who continues to speak even when his or her fellow interlocutor has departed the scene might be considered mentally unstable. In contrast, the signs that are present in a given landscape are usually left in situ rather than taken down or removed. This difference between how human interlocutors and the signs in a landscape are expected to conduct their communication obligates us to be more precise about what it means to say that the linguistic landscape communicates. Let us call this the issue of communicative implacability, where the landscape’s communicative state remains largely unchanged even if no one is around to read the signs that have been placed there. Communicative asymmetry and communicative implacability are of course not unrelated. The latter is responsible for the former since it is the continued presence and largely unchanged state of the signs in the landscape that allows the landscape to maintain a communicative stance even as the people in the landscape come and go.

That having been said, it is still necessary to note that the issues of communicative asymmetry and communicative implacability hold – in varying and complex ways – even in those cases where the linguistic landscapes can be described as literally talking. Not all communication from the linguistic landscapes is in the form of written signs that are intended to be read. There are pre-recorded messages, such as announcements at train stations that tell travellers what the next stop is going to be or that remind travellers to be vigilant at all times. Other messages are not pre-recorded but are live announcements that inform travellers of unexpected delays or other changes in scheduling, or about found items or lost children. These announcements may have to be issued even if there are ostensibly no passengers at the station. The issuance is needed just in case someone might actually be present who would need to be told about the schedule changes or about found items. And at fast food restaurants, in addition to digital displays that allow customers to track the progress of their orders, workers may use microphones to inform customers that their meals are ready for collection. Here, communicative implacability holds to a lesser extent. This is because without any customer to initiate an order, there would not be any need to prepare a meal much less inform the relevant customer of its readiness.

In all these cases, people, if present, are expected to respond to communication from the landscape in behaviourally appropriate ways. For example, travellers are expected to take note of what the next train stop is going to be, or they are supposed to reschedule their respective appointments in the light of information about delays. Customers are expected to go up to the counter to collect their meals and, if necessary, interact with the fast food workers to ask for more ketchup or extra napkins. But there is still no actual direct talking back to the linguistic landscape, though this is a situation that may well change as advancements in artificial intelligence come to be used more widely in public spaces, as noted above. Of course, in the case of the fast food restaurant, we can accept that there is direct talking back to the landscape if we decide to treat the workers themselves as part of the landscape so that customers interacting with the workers can indeed be said to be talking to the landscape. This decision is not without merit of course. However, it still doesn’t absolve us of the need to account for those cases where signs are being posted and are expected to be communicative without the presence of any worker. Even in the case of the fast food restaurant, there are such signs present. For example, the displayed menu, entrance and exit signs, signs pointing to the location of the restroom, decals requesting that customers clear their tables out of consideration for other customers, are all signs that are intended to be communicative without the interactive presence of fast food workers.

The validity of Blommaert’s observation – that the linguistic landscape talks and that people talk back to the landscape – therefore has to be understood in a much more qualified manner, and, specifically, in a way that takes into account both the issues of communicative asymmetry and communicative implacability. Linguistic landscapes communicate with people through the presentation of various kinds of information, and correspondingly, people (if they happen to be present) are oftentimes expected to respond to the presented information in various ways – which, more often than not, does not necessarily involve any actual talking back to the landscape itself.

In this book, then, I want to examine those situations where linguistic landscapes can be said to talk or communicate and where talking back directly to the landscapes is less likely, but where it is nevertheless still conceptually possible to understand the behaviours and activities of the people present as responding in some sense to the communication from the landscapes. These are the kinds of situations that are much more ordinarily encountered, and this book addresses the conceptual issue of how to understand the ways in which linguistic landscapes communicate.

This is an issue of fundamental importance. Much of the work in the field has been concerned with the particularities of signage in specific landscapes...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Information
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of figures
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction: The communicative landscape
• 2 The production formats of linguistic landscapes
• 3 Animators: Four different types
• 4 Epigraphs and the emotional labour of linguistic landscapes
• 5 Graffiti and the ratification of animators
• 6 Social movements
• 7 The intelligent landscape
• 8 Conclusion: The rise of the animators
• References
• Index