Response to chapter 5 of Language, Society, and Power
Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2018 7:04 pm
There exists a free, online game using Google maps called Geoguessr (www.geoguessr.com) that represents the effect linguistic landscapes have on people. In the game, the player is dropped into Google maps at the ground level and is free to look around in full 360 degree view and move along major roadways and through towns containing a plethora of public signage. The objective of the game is to guess where in the world the player is by placing a marker on a map. Points are awarded in the form of marker distance, in miles, from the actual target. The closest (lowest) score is highest on the leaderboard. For the game, the player is really using the random linguistic landscape they are placed in to find their geographical bearings. People do the same thing every day as they navigate public spaces.
In chapter 5 of Language Society and Power, Mooney and Evans describe how members of society find meaning in spaces through the language of the landscape. Finding ‘space’ through signage is a useful function of semiotics but that usefulness is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of meaning-making and message transference. Applying the physicality of signs to pseudo-spaces like online or mental landscapes can inform our understanding of language and ideas. Shaping geographical spaces into social spaces also turns the shared experience of existence into an ongoing, and ever-evolving, discourse between human actors through physical or digital signifiers.
According to Mooney and Evens, Geo-semiotics is the study of the social meaning of the material placement of signs in the world. By ‘signs’ they mean to include any semiotic system including language and discourse. The theory is that signs act as indexes for geological thresholds while also conveying meaning to the actors who pass between and exist within those spaces. Signs, then, have an Intersociality aspect to them, as well as an intertextuality based on social conventions which are often enacted through the placement of the signs themselves.
The text sorts signs into two broad categories that when compared in a table between the options from both categories point to very specific types of signage. The first category is Top-Down or Bottom-Up and distinguishes authorship. Whoever posts the sign often chooses imagery, style, and location to indicate the authority of the message. Those signs posted by government or other social organizations from above the hierarchy are Top-Down. Signs posted by individuals, and often for individuals, are Bottom-Up. Top-Down messages speak passively from authority, or with conviction, using contemporary social conventions; and Bottom-Up is an individual adding their voice to a space. Additionally, mixing Top-Down conventions with Bottom-Up stylistic choices can alter a message, as when an authority turns a command into a polite request by using a less-official font or pictures appealing to emotions.
The other category distinguishes types of signs and Mooney & Evans have four basic discourses: regulatory, infrastructural, commercial, and transgressive. For the purpose of brevity, I won’t go into definitions, but these options seem to cover the wide gambit of possible effects signs have on a space and the reasons public actors have to place signs and where. They also seem to avoid biases related to authorial intentions by describing the intended audience
rather than the desired effect; though speculation is often fair as we too exist in the cultures which establish linguistic landscapes.
Mooney and Evans also touch on multilingualism and invisible language, which are topics far too complex for the scope of this paper. Social stresses can be exacerbated, or alleviated, dependent on deliberate sign usage in social spaces. And those spaces include online environments as well. Deliberate changes to social systems using signs often come in the form of a campaigns. This chapter successfully covered the impact of ever-changing linguistic landscapes on a society from sign placer and singular action, to complex campaigns spanning global social endeavors. Hopefully, future chapters will cover how the juxtapositional leap between physical geography and online spaces can also be made from digital landscapes to the mental landscape.
In chapter 5 of Language Society and Power, Mooney and Evans describe how members of society find meaning in spaces through the language of the landscape. Finding ‘space’ through signage is a useful function of semiotics but that usefulness is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of meaning-making and message transference. Applying the physicality of signs to pseudo-spaces like online or mental landscapes can inform our understanding of language and ideas. Shaping geographical spaces into social spaces also turns the shared experience of existence into an ongoing, and ever-evolving, discourse between human actors through physical or digital signifiers.
According to Mooney and Evens, Geo-semiotics is the study of the social meaning of the material placement of signs in the world. By ‘signs’ they mean to include any semiotic system including language and discourse. The theory is that signs act as indexes for geological thresholds while also conveying meaning to the actors who pass between and exist within those spaces. Signs, then, have an Intersociality aspect to them, as well as an intertextuality based on social conventions which are often enacted through the placement of the signs themselves.
The text sorts signs into two broad categories that when compared in a table between the options from both categories point to very specific types of signage. The first category is Top-Down or Bottom-Up and distinguishes authorship. Whoever posts the sign often chooses imagery, style, and location to indicate the authority of the message. Those signs posted by government or other social organizations from above the hierarchy are Top-Down. Signs posted by individuals, and often for individuals, are Bottom-Up. Top-Down messages speak passively from authority, or with conviction, using contemporary social conventions; and Bottom-Up is an individual adding their voice to a space. Additionally, mixing Top-Down conventions with Bottom-Up stylistic choices can alter a message, as when an authority turns a command into a polite request by using a less-official font or pictures appealing to emotions.
The other category distinguishes types of signs and Mooney & Evans have four basic discourses: regulatory, infrastructural, commercial, and transgressive. For the purpose of brevity, I won’t go into definitions, but these options seem to cover the wide gambit of possible effects signs have on a space and the reasons public actors have to place signs and where. They also seem to avoid biases related to authorial intentions by describing the intended audience
rather than the desired effect; though speculation is often fair as we too exist in the cultures which establish linguistic landscapes.
Mooney and Evans also touch on multilingualism and invisible language, which are topics far too complex for the scope of this paper. Social stresses can be exacerbated, or alleviated, dependent on deliberate sign usage in social spaces. And those spaces include online environments as well. Deliberate changes to social systems using signs often come in the form of a campaigns. This chapter successfully covered the impact of ever-changing linguistic landscapes on a society from sign placer and singular action, to complex campaigns spanning global social endeavors. Hopefully, future chapters will cover how the juxtapositional leap between physical geography and online spaces can also be made from digital landscapes to the mental landscape.
