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Article published In: The Linguistic Landscape of Covid-19:
Edited by Jackie Jia Lou, David Malinowski and Amiena Peck
[Linguistic Landscape 8:2/3] 2022
► pp. 281–298

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Signs at work

New labor relations and structures of feeling in Washington, D.C.’s Covid landscape

ORCiD logo with link | The Ohio State University
 | Georgetown University
Published online: 1 September 2022
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ll.21041.mod
Abstract
We use a geographically informed notion of landscape and Williams, R. (1977). Marxism and Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar framework structure of feeling to examine ‘closed’, masking, and social distancing signs on businesses in the Washington, DC central-city neighborhood of Adams Morgan. We argue that the semantic content and discursive structure of the Covid signs, together with the in-the-moment feeling of walking down empty streets while a little-understood virus had just started raging, promoted a reconceptualization of labor relations tied to solidarity, public health, and communal responsibility, and making visible the working conditions of low-wage workers. This new structure of feeling opens up a space – however narrow – of political possibility.
Resumen
Utilizamos una noción de paisaje informada por el campo de la geografía y el concepto teórico de ‘estructura de sentimiento’ (Williams, R. (1977). Marxism and Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) en el análisis de letreros sobre el distanciamiento social, el uso de mascarillas y el cierre de negocios del barrio de Adams Morgan, en el centro de Washington, DC. Argumentamos que el contenido semántico y la estructura discursiva de los carteles relacionados con Covid, junto con la sensación de caminar por calles vaciadas por el surgimiento de un virus poco entendido, promovieron una reconceptualización de las relaciones laborales ligada a la solidaridad, la salud pública y la responsabilidad comunitaria, y hacía visibles las condiciones laborales de trabajadores de salarios bajos. Esta nueva estructura de sentimiento abre un espacio -aunque estrecho- de posibilidad política.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Urban Governance and Labor Deregulation
  • 3.A qualitative, geographically informed perspective on semiotic landscapes
  • 4.A Covid structure of feeling
  • 5.The semiotics of a Covid landscape
    • 5.1Locus of authority, positive face, and communal responsibility
    • 5.2The Covid landscape as a mediator of interaction
    • 5.3Worker safety and public health activism
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (34)
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