As you might generalize, language is all around us from the way we speak and communicate with one another, to the books that we read, even when we use our body to give away signals of pleasure, pain and excitement. And as our world transitions to the online age, when communication is no longer personal, linguists still continue to study the emerging language mediums. The field of linguistics is particularly interested with the use of language in everyday landscape in different contexts. Since the Internet is highly used and online content suggests defining contexts to the netizen, linguists consider pictures, signs, and photos as having ideologies that talk to people exposed in these kinds of multilingual landscape. As part of the online age, you have to be good in examining how signs communicate with you in the context of the author and the reader/recipient in the emerging linguistics landscapes. A. LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPES When you find yourself lost in an unfamiliar place, you would first look around for signs that may tell you where you actually are. You would look for street names, billboards, signage, or even bills posted on walls and posts. Those signs will help you familiarize yourself in the surrounding and may signal you about a familiar thing that may make you identify your location. The things that you can actually see that do not necessarily need words to express a thought is called linguistic landscape.Wherever you are, there linguistic and semiotic materials are. These may come in the form of billboards, signage, street names, traffic regulations, or graffiti. These materials go unnoticed most of the time. Advertisements, flyers and written notices are part of our everyday life. Memes, troll posts, and tweets are prevalent online. All of these are part of the linguistic landscapes. Linguists consider signs to express symbolic meaning and messages. It is both a language and medium of communication on its own. Researchers tend to analyze the purpose of the author/writer, how these signs and symbols are produced, and to whom they are directed to. In some cases, signs can usually be identified on the basis of form of the signage or symbol. Official signs are produced with a top down discourse, while signs produced by an individual or a group, but not officially recognized has bottom up discourse. Knowing where to draw the line between top down and bottom up is not always easy. Ben-Rafael, et al. (2006; in Mooney & Evans, 2015) suggest that the signs on individual shops are bottom up as these allow for personal choice in their composition and display. However, within the context of the shop itself, they could be regarded as top down. Leeman & Modan (2009; in Mooney & Evans, 2015) argue that the distinction between top down and bottom up signage practices is untenable in an era in which publicprivate partnerships are the main vehicle of urban revitalization initiatives in urban centers in many parts of the world, and when government policies constrain private sector signage practices. Nevertheless, Mooney & Evans (2015) said, if the distinction is thought of as a continuum whose orientation points may shift in different contexts, it is helpful in understanding how signs are constructed and consumed. Examine the signage that follows: The example above is a signage in Britain. The sign contains two languages, British and Welsh. This has a top down approach because it is an official rule which you can attribute to the authority. It shows authority in making a request. Now, examine the picture that follows: put your trash in the trasheg https://www.pinterest.com The picture shown above is a sign made by an elementary pupil. It is an example of a bottom up discourse because it is a personal plea or request. The kind of signage and symbols vary depending on culture for the reason that each cultural environment has different reading practices. Some language are written from left to right, top to bottom, or the semantics, context and structure of language is different from one another. B. GEOSEMIOTICS Looking at a particular sign, you may notice that the various elements used in it have meaning, and elements symbolic in the message they want to convey. Try to pay attention to the various features including color, size, shape, and where the sign is placed. They may be used in analyzing the symbolic and contextual meaning of signs. This is what linguists call as geosemiotics. It is a mode of analyzing signs. Geosemiotics the study of the social meaning of the material placement of signs in the world. By signs we mean to include any semiotic system including language and discourse (Scollon & Scollon, 2003; in Mooney & Evans, 2015). If you look at a sign more critically, you would likely understand the intention of the maker and his purpose. This is why signs are placed in a location that has relevance to the message it wants to convey. Imagine a one-way sign in a two-way street. Most drivers would surely get confused because it does not relate to the place where it is supposed to be. C. KINDS OF SIGNS Although it is often assumed that signs only differ in features, signs are divided into different kinds based on the contextual meaning and discourse, thus, a sign may be: 1. Regulatory, if it indicates authority and is official or legal prohibitions, 2. Infrastructural, if it labels things or directs for the maintenance of a building or any infrastructure, 3. Commercial, which advertises or promotes a product, an event, or a service in commerce, or 4. Transgressive, if it violates (intentionally or accidentally) the conventional semiotics or is in wrong place, like a graffiti (In English, graffiti is used both as a singular and plural noun. In Italian, though, the singular form is graffito.) Being all too common, it is easy to imagine the first three kinds of signs, hence, the emphasis on the fourth one in this chapter. Now, examine the sign that follows. Identify the linguistic contents (words, phrases) in the graffiti and what each means. Also, identify the symbols used and what each tries to convey. http://maxpixel.freegreatpicture.com This is an example of a graffiti, a transgressive sign. We have defined a transgressive sign as one which intentionally or accidentally violates the conventional semiotics at that place such as a discarded snack food wrapper or graffiti, or any sign in wrong space (Scollon & Scollon, 2003; in Mooney & Evans, 2015) As already mentioned, graffiti are transgressive signs. A graffiti may have varied meanings. The idea of the people is to have a medium of public voice is shown in the production of graffiti. Grafitti is an unsanctioned urban text (Carrington, 2009; PURPOSIVE COMMUNICATION in Local and Global Contexts in Mooney & Evans, 2015). This kind of transgressive discourse conveys power and control to the person or group behind the production of graffiti. Most of these graffiti express a narrative outside the boundaries of the conventional language. Carrington (2009; in Mooney & Evans, 2015) describes a graffiti as vernacular. We can also understand it in relation to the bottom up scheme described above. As these signs are not top down, they allow the viewer to see the contributions of other people to the built environment. Graffiti is a way for disempowered people to make a visible mark, to disrupt the landscape that is increasingly occupied by the increasingly powerful. As argued by linguists, a graffiti creates a narrative and is a form of participatory culture. The people who live in the space provide evidence of their experiences, views and actions. In this sense, it is a form of citizenship. It allows for the visibility of a hidden community and permits this community to see itself in this environment. Having said that, examine now the narrative in the graffiti that follows. What could be the story behind the graffiti? How did the artist disrupt the landscape? Was the artist successful in communicating his views, and in making the community to which he belongs visible? People who go online are called netizens - an abstraction of the words Internet and citizen. Netizens are metaphorically considered as the citizens of the virtual world. We now live in a time when almost every one has at least one social media account. We communicate now through these virtual landscapes more than ever. This virtual space is also a language landscape. Looking at it as landscape rather than PUR PURPOSIVE COMMUNICATION in Local and Global Contexts a language should prompt you to see the semiotic options in the context of social spaces in this environment. Three of the many media in this landscape are the following: â–ºYouTube 1. YouTube. Although YouTube (Be mindful as to how the word is spelled because it is a proper noun.) videos cannot specifically be considered as https://winbuzzer.com signs or symbols, YouTube video producers use symbols and signs, generally inclusive in the language used, to convey the message they want to express. It is difficult to generalize the use of YouTube whether for research, entertainment, or extensive advertisement. As such, the YouTube videos are language landscapes that can be analyzed in its context and features. While there is certainly some similarities between television and YouTube, it is has also been described as being post-television (Lister, et al.; in Tolson, 2010; cited by Mooney & Evans, 2015). Some media researchers believe that television differ from YouTube. Television tends to be filmed and recorded from a studio and is centered, while YouTube videos may be recorded by people who have recording gadgets at home which can be decentered. You Tube https://miceliproductions.com PURPOSIVE COMMUNICATION in Local and Global Contexts Also, television tends to be to have a hierarchy of discourse, with some channels and programs being more prestigious than others. This may depend on the institutional voice of the channel or program or the kind of people producing the content YouTube, however, is not hierarchical. While content is searchable and ordered so that viewers can find material, none of it is presented by the platform as more prestigious than anything else. In addition to this, rather than having an institutional voice, the voices on YouTube are individual voices, with ordinary people becoming celebrities and experts. Finally, what a viewer can watch is dictated by the television program schedule; while YouTube provides very little direction what to watch when. Just as producers can choose what to broadcast, viewers can choose what to watch and when to watch it (Tolson, 2010; in Mooney & Evans, 2015). 2. Twitter. This virtual landscape is described by Mooney & Evans (2015) as ubiquitous. What this virtual landscape looks like depends on the technology and on the choices the user makes. An individual's experience of Twitter, for which hashtags he/she is interested in, and so on. Moreover, the way people use Twitter can vary widely. It may be used for keeping up with developments in work and career, making sure the train is running on time, following favorite celebrities, or interacting with friends. Twitter celebrities, (and Karen: Are you for the RH Law? other Ako: Yes Karen: Yes in all forms or yes w/ reservations? Ako: Reservation, 1 table good for 4 person. Charot! online platforms), provides opportunities (though always with limitations) and resources for making choices in how we create a personalized linguistic and semiotic landscape. Gillen & Merchant (2013; in Mooney & Evans, 2015) refer to these choices in terms of constructing a point of view. Further, because of the user-generated content on Twitter, users are changing the very landscape they inhabit, even given the small amount of space allowed for each tweet (140 characters). 11/16/15, 10:44 AM http://s3-ap-southeast-1.amazonaws.com Therefore, in dealing with and thinking about the linguistic landscape, we are no longer just thinking about signs, posters, billboards, and notices (Mooney & Evans, 2015). 3. Memes. One of the things that the World Wide Web makes possible is the quick circulation of memes. Memes are prevalent in social media, and if we ask a student no matter how young if he/she has encountered one or two, it is most probably that he/she has already. To make the definition short, meme is a term given to any posts, language or photo that has an uptake to a social, moral, or political idea that most of the time seems funny. Memes are contagious patterns of cultural information that get passed from mind to mind and directly generate and shape the mindsets and significant forms of behavior and actions of a social group. Memes include PURPOSIVE COMMUNICATION in Local and Global Contexts such things as popular tunes, catchphrases, clothing fashions, architectural styles, ways of doing things, icons, jingles and the like, said Knobel & Lankshear (2007; in Mooney & Evans, 2015). Memes are a striking example of extensive, bottom up activity that changes the linguistic landscape (Mooney & Evans, 2015). Memes do not only become viral, it also embeds a lasting impression to people who can relate to the meme. Since memes are naturally comic in nature, replicability of memes is one of its best elements. People who create memes tend to carefully consider the photo that will be used, the relevance of the message it wants to convey and the relationship of the photo, the symbols used, the message, and the font style and sized used. Now, examine the meme that follows. What does the meme is trying to convey? How does this meme relate to most students like you? MOMS BE LIKE BACK TO SCHOOL TIME! https://usauknews.com The problem with this landscape is this: Too many memes are cringe worthy for their blundered grammar and erroneous spelling and/or punctuation. Some are even culturally insensitive, gender/class insensitive, and/or politically incorrect. Yet, people like and share them. Remember: Memes like that should never be patronized, especially by the educated and critical.
