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Article published In: Linguistic Landscape
Vol. 3:2 (2017) ► pp.101–121

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Monument as semiotic landscape

The contested historiography of a national tragedy

 | San José State University
 | Chulalongkorn University | Thammasat University
Published online: 19 October 2017
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ll.3.2.01hue
Abstract
As semiotic spaces, monuments convey messages through multiple information design modes, including language, materiality and emplacement. As research on semiotic landscape has pointed out (e.g., Shohamy, E. and Waksman, S. (2009). Linguistic landscape as an ecological arena: Modalities, meanings, negotiations, education. In E. Shohamy and D. Gorter, (Eds.). pp. 313–331. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, Abousnnouga, G. and Machin, D. (2010). War monuments and the changing discourses of nation and soldiery. In A. Jaworski and C. Thurlow (Eds), pp. 219–239.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, Train, R. W. (2016). Connecting visual presents to archival pasts in multilingual California: Towards historical depth in Linguistic Landscape. Linguistic Landscape 2 (3), 223–246. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), these messages are often contested in nature and convey competing discourses inherent in the spaces they occupy. This paper explores those competing discourses manifested in a monument dedicated to the 1976 student protest and violent suppression of it by the Thai military and right-wing paramilitary groups. Working within a production of space framework (Lefebvre, H. (1991). The Production of Space. English translation by D. Nicholson-Smith. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) and drawing on insights from the grammar of visual design ( (2006). Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. Second Edition. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) and nexus analysis (Scollon, R. and Scollon, S. W. (2004). Nexus Analysis: Discourse and the Emerging Internet. New York: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), the paper attempts to show how these contested discourses are reflected in the monument’s historiography as conceived, in its physical appearance and emplacement, and as it is experienced today. The analysis is based on photographic data of the monument and its immediate physical context, published accounts of the events of October 6, and interviews with survivors, commemoration planners, and the monument’s designer.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
  • 3.Monuments and the semiotics of space
  • 4.Conceived space – monument as tale of multiple narratives
    • 4.1Perceived space – monument as physical object
  • 5.Lived space as contested histories / narratives / social memories
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (34)
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