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. 202–218
Hybrid places
The reconfiguration of domestic space in the time of Covid-19
Published online: 1 September 2022
https://doi.org/10.1075/ll.21043.tuf
https://doi.org/10.1075/ll.21043.tuf
Abstract
This article is about adaptations to the regimentation of public and private living through the reorganisation of domestic space and time routines a year into changeable Covid-related restrictions. The discussion is based on narratives and audio-visual artefacts generated by participants from 20 UK households through the methodology of photovoice and that articulate domestic-related boundary-making processes and forms of space hybridisation in the ongoing changes caused by the pandemic. In the article, Covid-19 signage is represented by language and other semiotic markings that engender an inside spatial and social semiotics and that stands in a dialogic relationship with the outside spatial and social semiotics as dictated by the pandemic, and where domestic landscapes articulate forms of transmedia code-mixing that invest written words, sounds, and screens.
Keywords: hybrid, domestic, space, linguistic landscape, Covid-19
Sommario
L’articolo verte sui processi di adattamento alla regolamentazione della sfera pubblica e privata tramite la riorganizzazione dello spazio domestico e della temporalità quotidiana a un anno dall’introduzione delle restrizioni imposte dalla pandemia. Testi scritti e audio-visivi prodotti da 20 partecipanti residenti nel Regno Unito, e raccolti secondo la metodologia photovoice, evidenziano processi di ripartizione e ibridazione spaziale in un contesto di cambiamento continuo dovuto alle evoluzioni pandemiche. Nell’articolo per ‘segni’ si intende sia quelli esplicitamente linguistici che quelli di altra natura semiotica ingeneranti una semiosi spaziale e sociale del ‘dentro’ in rapporto dialogico con una semiosi spaziale e sociale del ‘fuori’ entro la cornice delle restrizioni imposte dalla pandemia. In tale contesto modalità singolari di code-mixing che interessano parole scritte, suoni e schermi riscrivono l’ambiente domestico.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Methodology
- 3.Data and discussion
- 3.1Domesticating the public, or taking the inside outside
- 3.2Thresholds
- 3.3Un-domesticating the private – Bringing the outside inside
- 3.4Staging the self, gazing the self
- 4.Conclusive remarks
- Notes
References
References (32)
Bick, A., Blandin, A. & Mertens, K. (2021). Work from Home Before and After the COVID-19 Outbreak. SSRN: [URL] or
Boivin, N. (2021). Homescapes: Agentic space for transmigrant families’ multisensory discourse of identity. Linguistic Landscape, 7(1), 37–59.
Blommaert, J. & Maly, I. (2019). Invisible Lines in the Online-Offline Linguistic Landscape. Tilburg Papers in Culture Studies, 2231.
Castiglioni, M. and Gaj, N. (2020). Fostering the reconstruction of meaning among the general population during the COVID-19 pandemic. Frontiers in Psychology, 111, 27–41.
Cinelli, M., Quattrociocchi, W., Galeazzi, A. et al. (2020). The COVID-19 social media infodemic. Scientific Reports 101, 16598. (accessed 14 October 2021)
Dear, M. & Flusty, S. (1998). Postmodern Urbanism. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 88(1), 50–72.
Doling, J. & Arundel, R. (2020). The Home as Workplace: A Challenge for Housing Research. Housing, Theory and Society,
Dou, G. Y. (2021). Toward a non-binary sense of mobility: insights from self-presentation in Instagram photography during COVID-19 pandemic. Media, Culture & Society, 43(8),1395–1413.
Edensor, T. (2006). Reconsidering National Temporalities. Institutional Times, Everyday Routines, Serial Spaces and Synchronicities. European Journal of Social Theory 9(4), 525–545.
Foucault, M. (1984). Of other spaces: Utopias and heterotopias. [Des Espace Autres, 1967]. Translated by Jay Miskowiec. Architecture, Mouvement, Continuité, 51, 46–49.
Gal, S. (2002). A semiotics of the public/private distinction. differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies, 13(1), 77–95.
Hern, A. (2020). Covid-19 could cause permanent shift towards home working. [URL] (accessed 19 October 2021)
Horner, K. & Dailey-O’Cain, J. (eds) (2019) Multilingualism, (Im)mobilities and Spaces of Belonging. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Iveson, K. (2003). Justifying exclusion: The politics of public space and the dispute over access to McIvers Ladies’ Baths, Sydney. Gender, Place and Culture, 10(3), 215–228.
Malinowski, D. (2020). Linguistic landscape: The semiotics of the public of public signage?. Linguistic Landscape, 6(1): 23–28.
McDonald, C. (2020). Pandemic-Informed Proxemics: Working Environment Shifts Resulting from COVID-19. Available at SSRN: [URL] or (accessed 16 September 2021)
Mehta, V. (2020). The new proxemics: COVID-19, social distancing, and sociable space. Journal of Urban Design, 25(6), 669–674.
Modan, G. & Wells, K. J. (this issue). Signs at work: New labor relations and structures of feeling in Washington, D.C.’s Covid landscape. Linguistic Landscape.
Nguyen, M. H., Hargittai, E. & Marler, W. (2021). Digital inequality in communication during a time of physical distancing: The case of COVID-19. Computers in Human Behavior, 1201. [URL] (accessed 4 October 2021)
Phyak, P. & Sharma, B. K. (this issue). Citizen Linguistic Landscape, bordering practices, and semiotic ideology in the COVID-19 pandemic. Linguistic Landscape.
Qian, J. (2020). Geographies of public space: Variegated publicness, variegated epistemologies. Progress in Human Geography, 44(1), 77–98.
Scollon, R. & Scollon, S. W. (2003). Discourses in Place: Language in the Material World. London: Routledge.
Sorkin, M. (ed.) (1992). Variations on a Theme Park: The New American City and the End of Public Space. New York: Hill and Wang.
Tufi, S. (2021). The transformative power of linguistic mobility: Evidence from Italian borderscapes. In Blackwood, J. R. & Dunlevy, D. A. (eds) Multilingualism in Public Spaces. Empowering and Transforming Communities. London: Bloomsbury. 89–110.
Turner, V. W. [1969] (2008). The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Piscataway, NJ: Aldine Transaction.
Wang, C. C. (1999). Photovoice: A participatory action research strategy applied to women’s health. Journal of Women’s Health, 81, 185–192.
(2003). Using photovoice as a participatory assessment and issue selection tool. Available at 3.pdf (u-tokyo.ac.jp) (accessed 22 March 2021)
Zhou, F. (this issue). Aggressive banners, dialect-shouting village heads, and their online fame: Construction and consumption of rural Linguistic Landscapes in China’s anti-Covid campaign. Linguistic Landscape.
Cited by (12)
Cited by 12 other publications
Buso Jr, Nelson Mangaldan
Peltoniemi, Aaron Joshua, Tamás Péter Szabó & Raija Hämäläinen
2025. The tempo and presence of university students’ learning across schoolscapes. Linguistic Landscape. An international journal 11:3 ► pp. 265 ff.
Tufi, Stefania & Amiena Peck
Hayik, Rawia
McInerney, Erin
2024. Authorship, ownership, and ethics in datafied discourse on Instagram. Linguistic Landscape. An international journal 10:4 ► pp. 425 ff.
Molina-Jaramillo, Astrid Natalia, Luz Adriana Muñoz-Duque & Nidia Elena Ortiz
Gu, Chonglong
Comer, Joseph
Milak, Eldin
Modan, Gabriella & Katie J. Wells
Strange, Louis
2022. Covid-19 and public responsibility. Linguistic Landscape. An international journal 8:2-3 ► pp. 168 ff.
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.
