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Article published In: X-Scapes: New horizons in Linguistic Landscapes
Edited by Crispin Thurlow and Kellie Gonçalves
[Linguistic Landscape 5:2] 2019
► pp. 198–216

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A semiotics of nonexistence?

Erasure and erased writing under anti-graffiti regimes

 | University of Hong Kong
Published online: 22 July 2019
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ll.18023.kar
Abstract
Spatially interested sociolinguistics has cared little about the semiotics of nonexistence. The present article argues that the field would benefit from deepening its interest in questions of erasure and relative absence. A case in point, as the article shows, is graffiti. By analysing some semiotic facets of the erasure of graffiti, the article brings home the point that a semiotics of nonexistence is deeply embedded in the semiotic regimentation of space. The persistence of this condition calls for an analytical sensitisation to less obvious forms of semiosis.
Abstrakt
Rumsligt intresserad sociolingvistik är okänslig för uteblivelsens semiotik. Den föreliggande artikeln hävdar att sociolingvistiken bör fördjupa sitt intresse för frågor om utradering, borttagande och frånvaro. Graffiti, som artikeln visar, är ett fall där sådana frågor gör sig gällande. Genom en analys av klottersaneringens semiotiska dimensioner framhärdar artikeln att en uteblivelsens semiotik är tätt sammankopplad med rumslig regimentering. Detta förhållande belyser nödvändigheten av analytisk känslighet för mindre uppenbara former av semios.
Article outline
  • 1.What if there is nothing?
  • 2.Erasing signs, creating signs
    • 2.1Anti-graffiti regimes
    • 2.2Removing graffiti
    • 2.3Painting over graffiti
  • 3.Nonexistence is not nothing
  • 4.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (39)
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