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Article published In: Linguistic Landscape
Vol. 3:1 (2017) ► pp.1–24

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Linguistic landscaping and the assertion of twenty-first century Māori identity

 | The University of Waikato
Published online: 29 June 2017
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https://doi.org/10.1075/ll.3.1.01joh
Abstract
The Base, one of New Zealand’s largest retail and commercial centres, is situated approximately 7 km north-west of the central business district of Hamilton, New Zealand’s fourth largest city. It is built on a block of land which was requisitioned by the New Zealand government prior to World War II and used as an Air Force Base during the war. The land was returned to the Waikato-Tainui Māori tribal confederation in 1995 as part of a package of reparations relating to the Crown’s mistreatment of the tribe, including its misappropriation of tribal lands. The research reported here, located theoretically within the domain of critical discourse theory, suggests that the semiotoscape of The Base, including, in particular, its linguistic landscape, plays a role in the formation and assertion of contemporary Māori indigenous identity.
Abstrakt
The Base ist eines der größten Einzelhandelszentren in Neuseeland und befindet sich 7 km nördlich des zentralen Geschäftsviertels von Hamilton, Neuseelands viertgrößter Stadt. Es ist auf einem Gebiet erbaut, das vor dem Zweiten Weltkrieg requiriert und während des Krieges als Luftwaffenstützpunkt Verwendung fand. Dieses Land wurde 1995 an die Waikato-Tainui Māori Konföderation rückübereignet und zwar als Teil eines Pakets von Reparationen im Zusammenhang mit Fehlverhalten der Britischen Krone gegenüber dem Stamm, insbesondere der Veruntreuung von Landbesitz. Die hier erläuterte Forschung verortet sich theoretisch im Bereich der kritischen Diskurstheorie und verdeutlicht, dass die semiotische Landschaft von The Base im Besonderen die linguistische eine Rolle bei der Ausformung und der Geltendmachung einer zeitgenössischen indigenen Identität spielt.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Aotearoa/ New Zealand: Colonisation, loss and resistance
  • 3.The study
    • 3.1Rationale and immediate context
    • 3.2Theoretical and methodological framework
  • 4.The data
    • 4.1Architecture, building materials and naming
    • 4.2Signage
    • 4.3Clientele
  • 5.Discussion: Revisiting the research questions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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