#linguisticlandscape

[daves2022]

Daily pic #16: NO DOG POOP signs are some of my favorites in how they depict relationships between dogs and their people, and in their various logics of persuasion and prohibition. This one from my neighborhood jumped out at me for its little lesson in morality, having the audacity to suggest that people should do the right thing even when nobody is watching. Sheesh!

[thegrsp-blog]

Mythos: the way every night walk begins and ends. 📷 @myidiotdonald41 (thanks!) #mythos #graecoromanlandscape #ancientgreeklanguage #ancientgreekinthestreet #linguisticlandscape #restaurant #madrid (en Madrid, Spain)

[rescuedbyjesus]

#WritingOnTheWall It would be really great for the City of Balanga to provide more spaces where our graffiti/street art artists could do more and express themselves! This is art and a form of expression/language. Sydney and Melbourne havr already capitalized on it as a tourism strategy, something no city in the Philippines has done yet! Graffiti and street art has been going on and very popular from Berlin, to Sydney and Melborne, to the streets of London and New York to Mexico City, Buenos Aires and Bogota in Colombia. #semiotics #linguisticlandscape

[katrinatravelsthroughasia]

Linguistic Landscape: Koganei and Akihabara

For this assignment I chose to focus on Koganei Park and Akihabara. Although they are not so far apart by train, they are quite different atmospherically. I chose these two locations for their extreme oppositeness, but also because the time it takes me to get there from ICU is fairly similar, surprisingly. Therefore, the journey to arrive at these location from when I’ve started the ritual is the same, but the results of output in the different locations is very different.

Arriving in Koganei Park is like walking onto an early morning train. It’s cheerfully quiet and the sun is warmly shining. Many of the locals are out and about running, having a picnic, biking, practicing tai chi, walk their dog, playing with their kids. Everyone is doing their own thing in their own space. If I am in the path of a runner who has to adjust around me, I’ve changed her ritual for the day, or perhaps even longer.

Coming out of the Akihabara train station is like entering an anime fairy tale world. It is filled with the sounds, colors, smells and sights of every video game, manga, and anime ever. The people are quite colorful; many are actually colorful in hair and dress, but others are colorful in personality. It’s as if the societal mold in which all of these Japanese people grew up in has been momentarily cast aside. Besides the locals (who are the true fans), foreigners tour around the area to gawk at the extremeness of everything. Similar to the freedom of entering Harajuku, the people in Akihabara are free to be whomever they want to be, whether that be extreme otaku or beginning Pokémon trainer.

Koganei is distinctly lacking a linguistic landscape. It is a bit of a blank in order to allow for one’s own ritual to take precedence. The only words are for the safety of oneself or others, for the safety of the natural area, or for the upmost important rules of the area. There is also a very tiny welcome sign, letting one enter the space as they will. The utter lack of words makes me curious as to how Japanese newcomers first respond to the area (and perhaps what it is), or how they first enter the space.

Akihabara’s very wordy welcome is unique to its purpose. The words that can be see inform, but also excite. Even if one is not a fan of maid cafes, words on the side of a building advertising a nearby café or the shouted word from an advertising maid on a street corner may be all the linguistic information needed to excite an avid fan of electronics. Or perhaps the symbol of a taiyaki treat seen from afar will immediately bring to mind a taste and a smell that is distinctly unique to one shop on one corner of Akihabara.

In the spring, I hope to continue to explore the idea of an equal journey resulting in a very different experience in the end, and how this idea relates to the idea of utopia. Although I was a little surprised by the extreme amount of words on the buildings in Akihabara, I think it will make a particularly excellent contrast to the absence of words to be found in Koganei.

Follow #linguisticlandscape for related images.

[asianconportfolio]

Figure 1. A tall, red sign with the words “Fire Hydrant” in English in smaller print than the kanji with a business sign underneath completely in Japanese and a company logo with a sign pointing to the direction of the business.

Figure 2. This sign is on the pavement with a lit cigarette crossed out, reminding people to not smoke in four languages: Japanese, English, Chinese, and Korean.

Figure 3. Ikebukuro’s mascot En-chan at one of Ikebukuro Station’s exit with a family of owls made from shrubs in the background.

[the-h-artofnewtown-blog]

This is a street wall mural HIV/AIDS campaign nestled at an intersection  in Newtown. We found that this mural is painted in four different languages including visuals, namely IsiZulu, English, SeSotho and Venda in that order. This is a reflection of the demographics of the area which is predominantly Black/African. 3 of of 4 languages are vernacular for most black people in South Africa and 1 is English out of the 3 that is widely spoken in South Africa. Assuming that these 4 languages are the 4 most predominantly spoken languages of the  linguistic community of Newtown but it can speculated that it is presented this way because it reflects the variety of languages used in this community and to appeal to a greater audience.

Newtown is also a tourist attraction destination and the use of different languages in this mural may be to cater to tourists and to those who do not speak either one of these languages.

All these four languages are four different narratives about people talking about their experiences with HIV/AIDS and the mural have the namess of the people who were telling these narratives along with their experiences about the virus .Translating the first IsiZulu narrative into English the person says that: I lost my brother because of HIV/AIDS. It hurts because there was no need for him to die. He did not have in enough knowledge. The SeSotho narrative says: December told the stars and the moon to bring light to those who have HIV/AIDS so that on other days they can find a cure. The Venda one briefly translate to: A person who is foolish is the one who does not know if the have the virus. The only way to find out is if they test for it, so a person could know. However we did not translate the one in English because it is understandable and assuming that most people can read and understand the English language.

[signsonjutastreet-blog]

This notice was found on a door of an old building on Juta Street.

It contains multilingual information in both English and Afrikaans. The signage is a duplication.

The building in which it was found was very old and lacked maintenance. This signage was probably put up during the apartheid era- this is speculated based on the fact that the language choice is English and Afrikaans, and there are no Bantu languages present.

[thegrsp-blog]

A biergarten named after the god Hephaestus (in a weird spelling) at Vulcano street vindicates the Greek origins of Roman mythology