Session 6: Semiotics of cultural
space
‘Geosemiotics’ (Scollon &
Scollon 2003)
Ron Scollon
Signs must be studied as
‘signs in place’ ! The
property of indexicality is
a property of all signs.
Suzanne Wong Scollon
That is so because all signs must be
located in the material world to
exist…we advocate paying less heed to
abstract meaning potential and more
towards actual, real-world meaning.
Erving Goffman (1922-82)
• ‘Interaction order’
– The individual constructs
and communicates a
sense of ‘self’ in the
course of interaction
– Social interaction is
organised
• The (public) ‘front stage’
is organised to convey a
particular conception
• The (private) ‘back stage’
serves to project another
(more truthful?) ‘self’
Geosemiotics
We all have our ‘sign
equipment’ at our
disposal when engaging
in social interaction.
Interaction takes place in an environment (which is made of
visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile and thermal signs) and is
directly indexable. Each person brings a personal history of
experience, knowledge and interests, motivations and
dispositions into any moment of interaction. Geosemiotics is
the study of the ‘indexicability’ of the material world.
We simply cannot act in the world
without ‘giving off’ (indexing) a personal
identity or a social position/role. We
see others as performers in a certain
physical space. Places also participate in
discourses that tell us something about
the organisation of social interaction
(private-public; vernacular-modern...)
VISUAL SEMIOTICS
VS. GEOSEMIOTICS
The sign inscription (font,
design, colour) and the sign
placement (upper-lower;
left-right; center-periphery)
within a frame, image,
picture
(decontextualised
semiotics)
vs.
Signs in the material world
(contextualised semiotics)
Two possible points of view concerning discourses in place in the
material world
(Scollon & Scollon 2003)
Place orientation:
Every place features a semiotic
aggregate of many discourses all in
interaction with each other; these
discourses produce a particular place
as a unique place on earth
Discourse orientation:
A particular discourse is distributed
widely across many different times and
places; whatever might be found in any
single place leads out to many other
places and times. The semiotic
interaction between the constitutive
elements of a place, however, is unique.
Semiotic resources for the production of the
interaction order
We can ‘read’ from the picture what the
clients could read in that precise moment
(the lived social circumstance)
We all know (client included) that the waiter
depicted is only performing his social self
(front stage); as clients we are not interested
in the waiter’s ‘backstage’ behaviour
CIVIL INATTENTION (E. Goffman)
the act of acknowledging another person’s existence without imposing upon him/her, thus creating
a sense of boundary and privacy within the context of a public or shared space
The signs we choose not to pay
attention to / not to interpret
verbally …
…tell something about our personal
front and our social selves
Case study: the railroad sign code and subjective
interpretation of signs
(Bade 2011)
• In his article, David Bade (2011) recounts an accident between a
train and a van which involved an acquaintance and his family. The
facts as Bade recalls them are that the van-driver drove around the
lowered crossing gates after the train had passed on his side of the
tracks, and was hit by a second train travelling in the opposite
direction on the far tracks. The whole family of five was killed
instantly as a direct result of the driver’s course of action.
• The incident is remarkable, according to Bade (2011: 713), insofar
as
– “that particular crossing was marked by a standard railroad crossing
sign in front of the tracks and equipped with crossing gates to prevent
passage, flashing red lights and ringing bells. In addition, the
oncoming train as well as the just passed train were blowing their
horns as they each approached their respective crossings”.
With all these signs, how did the
driver of the van fail to get the
message? Did those signs
communicate nothing to him?
the interpretation of railroad
signs is subject to the same
kind of indeterminacy
characteristic of spoken and
written language
•
David Bade goes on to reconstruct the incident involving his friend on the basis of
his own history of experience with railroad crossings, and imagines a situation in
which the signs are in fact ambiguous: the signals continue ‘operating’ for some
time even after the train has passed (in fact, after the train has passed a certain
number of yards beyond the crossing). Thus, even though there is no longer any
danger involved, the signals continue to ‘sign’ danger. It makes sense to assume
that experienced car-drivers are aware of this ‘inconsistency’, i.e. after the train has
passed, they make the signals mean ‘no danger’. Even though it is against the law,
impatient drivers may drive through the crossing by driving round the lowered
gates. In such situations, the allegedly unambiguous nature of the railroad sign
system (as put down in the manuals) enters in conflict with the human sign-maker
experiencing the event of the train passing by:
– In such cases we tend to believe our own perception/interpretation of the
situation we are in and to discount the technical apparatus as irrelevant in the
present situation […] The meaning of the signs from the perspective of the
designers of the systems is invariant in time, but for those waiting on a sign or
using one in a given situation, the timing of the sign is itself significant. (2011:
718)