In:Occupy: The spatial dynamics of discourse in global protest movements
Edited by Luisa Martín Rojo
[Benjamins Current Topics 83] 2016
► pp. 23–46
The Geosemiotics of Tahrir Square
A study of the relationship between discourse and space
Published online: 11 May 2016
https://doi.org/10.1075/bct.83.02abo
https://doi.org/10.1075/bct.83.02abo
The year 2011 saw unprecedented waves of people occupying key locations around the world in a statement of public discontent. In Egypt, the protests which took place between 25 January and 11 February 2011 culminating in the ouster of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak have now come to be known as the Egyptian Revolution. Media reporting of the revolution often portrayed it as a ‘spectacle’ playing out on the stage of Tahrir Square which was dubbed ‘the symbolic heart of the Egyptian revolution’. Tahrir Square quickly became a space serving various functions and layered with an array of meanings. This chapter explores the relationship between the discourse of protest messages and the space of Tahrir Square during the January 25 revolution, demonstrating how the two were mutually reinforcing. The messages are drawn from a corpus of approximately 2000 protest messages captured in Tahrir Square between 25 January and 11 February 2011. The analysis is presented in the form of six conceptualising frames for the space of Tahrir Square which take into account both its geographical and social context. The conceptualisation draws from the field of geosemiotics, which posits that all discourses are ‘situated’ both in space and time (Scollon & Scollon 2003), and on the Lefebvrian principles of the production of space which provide a useful framework for interpreting urban space (Lefebvre 1991).
References (21)
Aboelezz, Mariam. 2009. “Latinised Arabic and Connections to Bilingual Ability.” In Papers from the Lancaster University Postgraduate Conference in Linguistics and Language Teaching, 2008., ed. by S. Disney, B. Forchtner, W. Ibrahim, and N. Millar, 1–23. Lancaster, UK: Department of Linguistics and English Language.
Ali, Abdullah Yusuf. 1946. The Holy Qur’an: Text, translation and commentary. Washington, DC: American International Printing.
BBC. 2011. “Q&A: Egypt’s New Protests.” (23-11-2011). Available from [URL]. [accessed 19-01-2016].
El Amrani, Issandr. 2011. Three Decades of a Joke That Just Won’t Die: Egyptian humor goes where its politics cannot. Foreign Policy.
Ezzat, Heba Raouf. 2011. “ʃurfa tutil ʿalā maydān at-Taḥrīr: mirʾāt li-taḥawwulāt watan… wa murtakaz lil-waʿy wal-ẓikrayāt [A balcony overlooking Tahrir Square: A mirror to the transformations of a nation… and a pedestal for consciousness and memories].” Al-Mustaqbal no. 3940 (15-03-2011): 20.
Fisher, Alan. 2011. “The ‘Last Warning’ from Tahrir Square.” (18-07-2011). Available from [URL]. [accessed 19-01-2016].
Goodman, Douglas J. 2007. “Globalization and Consumer Culture.” In The Blackwell Companion to Globalization, ed. by George Ritzer, 330–351. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing.
Husni, Ronak. 2012. The Role of the Poet and Poetry in the Arab Spring. In The Annual Conference for the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES), 26–28 March 2012. LSE, London.
Keraitim, Sahar, and Samia Mehrez. 2012. “Mulid al-Tahrir: Semiotics of a Revolution.” In Translating Egypt’s Revolution: The Language of Tahrir, ed. by Samia Mehrez, 25–67. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press.
Lefebvre, Henri. 1991. The Production of Space. Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing.
Matar, Dina. 2012. “Contextualising the Media and the Uprisings: A Return to History.” Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 5 (1): 75–79. .
Nassar, Aya. 2011. “Ramziyyat Maydān al-Taḥrīr [The Semiotics of Tahrir Square].” Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies (21-04-2011). Available from [URL]. [accessed 27-07-2012].
Robertson, Roland, and E. Kathleen White. 2007. “What Is Globalization?” In The Blackwell Companion to Globalization, ed. by George Ritzer, 54–66. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing.
Sabry, Tarik. 2012. “On Historicism, the Aporia of Time and the Arab Revolutions.” Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 5 (1): 80–85.
Salem, Heba, and Kantaro Taira. 2012. “al-Thawra al-DaHika: The Challenges of Translating Revolutionary Humor.” In Translating Egypt’s Revolution: The Language of Tahrir, ed. by Samia Mehrez, 183–211. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press.
Scollon, Ronald, and Suzanne B. K. Scollon. 2003. Discourses in Place: Language in the Material World. London, UK: Routledge.
Tawil-Souri, Helga. 2012. “It’s Still About the Power of Place.” Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 5 (1): 86–95.
Zack, Liesbeth. 2012. ““Leave, I want to have a Shower!” The Use of Humour on the Signs and Banners Seen During the Demonstrations in Tahrir Square.” In Between West and East. Festschrift for Wim Honselaar, ed. by Rene Genis, Eric de Haard, Janneke Kalsbeek, Evelien Keizer, and Jenny Stelleman, 711–729. Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Pegasus.
Cited by (5)
Cited by five other publications
Hamerlinck, Jeffrey D., Anna McKinlay & Claudia Baldwin
Hanna Lantto, Paula Sjöblom, Jaana Vaahtera & Minna Hjort
Porto, Melina & Silvana Julieta Barboni
Taylor-Leech, Kerry
Seals, Corinne A.
2017. Analyzing the linguistic landscape of mass-scale events. Linguistic Landscape. An international journal 3:3 ► pp. 267 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 11 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.