4. Linguistic Landscapes and Semiotic Assemblages

Abstract

© 2019 Martin Pütz. Once studies of linguistic landscapes start to open up to a broad set of semiotic possibilities, the issue of how much can be included and how different elements fit together poses a number of theoretical and empirical questions. This chapter explores the implications of studies of the linguistic landscape that move beyond the logocentric approaches of early work to engage instead with space, place, bodies, languages and senses. Not only do we need to add multisensorial relations to multilingual and multimodal analysis, but we also need to be able to account for the ways languages, people, objects and places come together in temporary, ad hoc assemblages. Developing the ideas of spatial repertoires and semiotic assemblages, and looking at data from a Bangladeshi corner shop, this chapter suggests that we cannot merely add more semiotic items to our linguistic landscape inventories, but need instead to seek out a way of grasping the relationships among different ways of meaning.

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