Cover not available

Article published In: Linguistic Landscape
Vol. 6:1 (2020) ► pp.29–51

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

Timorese talking back

The semiotic construction of chronotopes in the Timor Sea protests

 | Griffith University
Published online: 16 March 2020
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ll.00016.tay
Abstract
Taking the dispute between East Timor and Australia over their maritime boundary as an illustrative context, this article discusses the role of semiotic resources in constructing chronotopes of protest. Reflecting first on language choice in urban protests during East Timor’s struggle for independence, the paper goes on to analyse the deployment of material and virtual resources in East Timorese-led demonstrations against the Australian government’s stance in the dispute. Using ‘entanglement’ as a structuring metaphor, and looking at language choice, social and grammatical indexicality, imagery, embodied cultural capital, and the choreography of assembly, the paper explores how protesters constructed a set of chronotopes that drew on the injuries of the colonial past, and re-emplaced and re-framed them in the post-colonial present. The paper looks at the linguistic landscape of protest as a semiotic aggregate in which the periphery claims a voice and ‘talks back’ to the centre.
Resumo
Usando a disputa de fronteira marítima entre o Timor-Leste e a Austrália como contexto, este artigo discute o papel de recursos semióticos na construção de cronotopos de protesto. Refletindo primeiramente sobre a escolha linguística nos protestos urbanos durante a luta timorense pela independência, este artigo passa a analisar o uso de recursos materiais e virtuais nas manifestações timorenses contra o posicionamento do governo australiano na disputa. Usando o termo “emaranhamento” como estrutura metafórica, e considerando a escolha linguística, a indexicalidade social e gramatical, as figuras de linguagem, o capital cultural corporificado e a coreografia da manifestação, o artigo explora como os protestantes construíram um conjunto de cronotopos que apropriou-se das feridas do passado colonial, e relocalizou-as e recolocou-as no presente pós-colonial. O artigo olha para a paisagem linguística do protesto como um agregado semiótico no qual a periferia reivindica sua voz e ‘desafia’ o centro.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Introducing the actors and the southern perspectives in this paper
  • 3.Multilingual entanglements
  • 4.Ways of seeing the Linguistic Landscape
  • 5.Narratives of resistance, struggle and injustice in the protests of the 1980s and 1990s
  • 6.The geopolitics of oil
  • 7.Narratives of justice, sovereignty, suffering and theft in the protests of 2013 and 2016
  • 8.Choreography of assembly
  • 9.Summary and closing comments: How the periphery talked back to the centre
  • Notes
  • References
References (55)
References
Aboelezz, M. (2016). The Geosemiotics of Tahrir Square: A study of the relationship between discourse and space. In Martín Rojo, L. (Ed.). Occupy: The spatial dynamics of discourse in global protest movements (pp. 23–46). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Arthur, C. (2015). Writing national identity on the wall: The geração foun, street art and language choices in Timor-Leste. Cadernos de Arte e Anthropologia 4(1), 41–63. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bakhtin, M. (1981). The dialogic imagination. Four essays. Holquist, M. (Ed.). Austin, University of Texas Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ben-Said, S. & Kasanga, L. (2016). The discourse of protest: Frames of Identity, intertextuality and interdiscursivity. In Blackwood, R., Lanza, E., & Woldemariam, H. (Eds.). Negotiating and contesting identities in the linguistic landscape (pp. 71–84). London & New York: Bloomsbury Academic.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bexley, A. (2007). Seeing, hearing and feeling belonging: The case of East Timorese youth. The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, 8(4), 287–295. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Blommaert, J. (2015). Chronotopes, scales and complexity in the study of language and society. Annual Review of Anthropology 441, 105–116. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Borba, R. (2019). Injurious signs: The geopolitics of hate and hope in the linguistic landscape of a political crisis. In Peck, A., Stroud, C., & Williams, Q. (Eds.). Making sense of people and place in linguistic landscape (pp. 161–181). London & New York: Bloomsbury Academic.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bourchier, D. (2000). Habibie’s interregnum: Reformasi, elections, regionalism and the struggle for power. In Manning, C. & van Diermen, P. (Eds). Indonesia in Transition: Social aspects of Reformasi and crisis. Singapore, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bovensiepen, J. (2009). Spiritual landscapes of life and death in the central highlands of East Timor. Anthropological Forum 19(3), 323–38. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Braithwaite, J., Charlesworth, H., & Soares, A. (2012). Networked governance of freedom and tyranny: Peace in Timor-Leste. The Australian National University: ANU E Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cabral, E., & Martin-Jones, M. (2008). Writing the resistance: Literacy in East-Timor 1975- 1999. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 11(2), 49–169. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Castells, M. (1997). The Power of Identity. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Comaroff, J. & Comaroff, J. (2011). Theory from the South: Or, how Euro-America is evolving toward Africa. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Damaledo, A. (2018). To separate is to sustain: Sacrifice and national belonging among East Timorese in West Timor. The Australian Journal of Anthropology 291, 19–34. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fischer, M. & Klatte, S. (2011). Decolonization: Portuguese Territories. Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law [MPEPIL]. [URL]
Flores, N., Lewis, M., & Phuong, J. (2018). Raciolinguistic chronotopes and the education of Latinx students: Resistance and anxiety in a bilingual school. Language and Communication, Volume 621, Part A, 15–25. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fox, J. (2003). Tracing the path, recounting the past: Historical perspectives on Timor. In Fox, J. & Babo Soares, D. (Eds.). Out of the ashes: Deconstruction and reconstruction of East Timor (pp. 1–27). Canberra, ACT: ANU E Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gerbaudo, P. (2012). Tweets and the streets: Social media and contemporary activism. London: Pluto Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gunn, G. (1999). Timor Lorosa’e: 500 years. Macau: Livros do Oriente.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Guterres, E. (2016). Dili protests show Timor-Leste is speaking with one voice on maritime boundary. [URL]
Hajek, J. (2000). Towards a language history of East Timor. Quaderni del Dipartimento di Linguistica – Università di Firenze 101, 213–227.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kerfoot, C. & Hyltenstam, K. (Eds.). (2017). Entangled discourses: South-North orders of visibility. New York & London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kent, L. (2016). Sounds of silence: Everyday strategies of social repair in Timor-Leste, Australian Feminist Law Journal 42(1), 31–50. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Koven, M. & Simões Marques, I. (2015). Performing and evaluating (non) modernities of Portuguese migrant figures on YouTube: The case of Antonio de Carglouch. Language in Society 441, 213–242. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Leach, M. (2002). Valorising the Resistance: National Identity and Collective Memory in East Timor’s Constitution. Social Alternatives 21(2), 43–47.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2013). Turbulence in the Timor Sea. Retrieved from [URL]
(2016). How far is fair enough? New moves in Timor Gap’s 40-plus years of boundary battles. Retrieved from [URL]
McWilliam, A. & Traube, E. (2011). Land and life in Timor-Leste: Introduction, in (Eds.). McWilliam, A. & Traube, E. Land and Life in Timor-Leste: Ethnographic Essays (pp. 1–22). Canberra: ANU E Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Malinowski, D. (2019). Afterword. In Peck, A., Stroud, C., & Williams, Q. (Eds.). Making sense of people and place in Linguistic Landscape (pp 223–229). London & New York, Bloomsbury Academic.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Marcos, A. (1995). Timor timorense: Com suas línguas, literaturas, lusofonia. Lisboa: Edições Colibri.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Martín-Rojo, L. (2014). Occupy: The spatial dynamics of discourse in global protest movements. In Martín-Rojo, L. (Ed.). Occupy: The spatial dynamics of discourse in global protest movements (pp. 1–21). Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ministry of Finance, República Democrática de Timor-Leste (RDTL). (2015). State budget approved 2015. Book 5 Development partners. Dili: RDTL.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nicolai, S. (2004). Learning independence: Education in emergency and transition in Timor-Leste since 1999. Paris: International Institute for Educational Planning.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nuttall, S. (2009). Entanglement: Literary and cultural reflections on post-apartheid. Johannesburg: Wits University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pinto, C. (2001). The student movement and the independence struggle in East Timor. In Tanter, R., Seldon, M., & Shalom, S. (Eds.). Bitter Flowers, Sweet Flowers: East Timor, Indonesia and the world community (pp. 31–41). Sydney: Pluto Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Perrino, S. (2011). Chronotopes of story and storytelling event in interviews. Language in Society 401, 91–103. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ramos Gonçalves, M. (2012). Beyond the visible: Perceptions of human rights in Timor- Leste street art. In Leach, M., Canas Mendes, N., Da Silva, A., Boughton, B., & Da Costa Ximenes, A. (Eds.). Peskiza foun konaba novas investigações sobre/New research on/Penelitian baru mengenai Timor-Leste (pp. 1–9). Melbourne, Australia: Swinburne Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ramos-Horta, J. (1987). Funu: The unfinished saga of East Timor. Trenton, NJ: Red Sea Press Inc.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Santos, B de Sousa. (2014). Epistemologies of the South: Justice against epistemicide. Boulder, Co: Paradigm.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Scambary, J. & Wassel, T. (2018). Hybrid Peacebuilding in Hybrid Communities: A Case Study of East Timor. In Wallis, J., Kent, L., Forsyth, M., Dinnen, S., & Bose, S. Hybridity on the Ground in Peacebuilding and Development: Critical Conversations (pp. 181–199). Canberra: ANU Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Scollon, R. & Scollon, S. (2003). Discourses in place: Language in the material world. London, UK: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Seals, C. (2013). Creating a landscape of dissent in Washington, DC. In Hélot, C., Barni, M., Janssens, R., & Bagna, C. (Eds.). Linguistic landscapes, multilingualism and social change: Diversité des approaches. New York: Peter Lang Verlagsgruppe.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shepherd, N. (2002). Heading South, looking North. Archaeological Dialogues 9(2), 74–82. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Silva, K. (2008). Reciprocity, recognition and suffering: Political mobilizers in Independent East Timor. Vibrant – Virtual Brazilian Anthroplogy 5(2), 156–178.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sinatora, F. (2019). Chronotopes, entextualization and Syrian political activism on Facebook. Multilingua 38(4), 427–458. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stasch, R. (2011). Textual iconicity and the primitivist cosmos: Chronotopes of desire in travel writing about Korowai of West Papua. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 21(1), 1–21. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Strating, R. (2018). The Timor Sea Dispute: Territorialising the sea? Retrieved from [URL]
Stroud, C. & Mpendukana, S. (2009). Towards a material ethnography of linguistic landscape: multilingual, mobility and space in a South African township. Journal of Sociolinguistics 13(3), 363–386. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Taylor, J. (1991). Indonesia’s forgotten war. The hidden history of East Timor. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Taylor-Leech, K. (2012). Language choice as an index of identity: linguistic landscape in Dili, Timor-Leste, International Journal of Multilingualism, 9(1), 15–34. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Train, R. (2016). Connecting visual presents to archival pasts in multilingual California: Towards historical depth in linguistic landscape. Linguistic landscapes 2(3), 233–246.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wigglesworth, A. (2016). Activism and aid: Young citizens’ experiences of development and democracy in Timor-Leste. Clayton, Vic: Monash University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Williams, Q. & Lanza, E. (2016). The visualisation of multilingualism and voice in spaces of consumption: Linguistic landscaping in a South African urban space. In Blackwood, R., Lanza, E., & Woldemariam, H. (Eds.). Negotiating and Contesting Identities in Linguistic Landscapes (233–249). London: Bloomsbury Academic.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Williams van-Klinken, C. & Williams, R. (2015). Mapping the mother tongue in Timor- Leste: Who spoke what where in 2010? Retrieved November 1, 2016 from: [URL]
Woolard, K. (2013). Is the personal political? Chronotopes and changing stances toward Catalan language and identity. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 16(2), 210–224. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (8)

Cited by eight other publications

Montes Sánchez, Alba
2025. Traducción y Paisaje Lingüístico feminista: los grafitis del 25N. ELUA: Estudios de Lingüística. Universidad de Alicante :44 ► pp. 241 ff. DOI logo
Zhang, Hong & Siyi Wu
2025. Multilingual, multicultural and multi-religious diversity: chronotopic affect in the semiotic landscape of Zhongshan Road, Quanzhou. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Li, Songqing
2024. The politicization of place: chronotopes, authenticity, and semioscaping Fujialu as a site of “red tourism” in China. Social Semiotics 34:5 ► pp. 870 ff. DOI logo
Macalister, John
2024. Language policy and national identity evolution in a new nation. Linguistic Landscape. An international journal 10:2 ► pp. 111 ff. DOI logo
Volvach, Natalia
2023. Manoeuvres of dissent in landscapes of annexation. Linguistic Landscape. An international journal 9:2 ► pp. 113 ff. DOI logo
Shvetsova, T. V. & V. E. Shakhova
2021. Chronotope of Russian Works about Robinson. Nauchnyi dialog :5 ► pp. 287 ff. DOI logo
Albuquerque, Davi & Nuno Carlos Almeida
2020. Paisagem linguística de Timor-Leste. Domínios de Lingu at gem 14:4 ► pp. 1197 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2025. Multilingualism and Linguistic Landscapes of Protest and Conflict. In The Handbook of Linguistic Landscapes and Multilingualism, ► pp. 127 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 26 november 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.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue