Blurring the boundaries between ‘urban’ and ‘rural’: oral route directions and the invention of street names in Ulco and Delportshoop

Abstract

Oral semiotic resources used by individuals for wayfinding purposes have not received sufficient attention in linguistic landscape (LL) studies. In a bid to contribute to this neglected area, this paper explores oral route directions and the invention of street names in two rural places – Ulco and Delportshoop. Drawing on conceptual frameworks from cognitive geography, this paper uses linguistic landscape photographic material, interview data and oral narrations of place to explore the range of semiotic resources individuals draw on in the navigation of space. The paper focuses on how residents in rural environments draw on a hybrid repertoire of rural and urban spatial markers and strategies in producing oral route directions and inventing oral street names. In so doing, it illustrates the complex interplay between ‘rural’ and ‘urban’ spatial navigation practices and while simultaneously highlighting way-finding practices deemed unique to rural areas. One such unique practice is the repurposing of the word ‘straight’ as a distance indicator.

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