Community cityscape: modes of engagement and co-construction of the streetscape

Isabelle Buchstaller

doi:10.1515/lingvan-2020-0150

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Community cityscape: modes of engagement and co-construction of the streetscape

Isabelle Buchstaller

Veröffentlicht/Copyright: 17. August 2021

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Abstract

This contribution explores the bottom-up processes via which a community – or indeed special interest groups within a community – can influence the semiotic choices in the street-scape around them. I start by discussing the question to which extent the decision-making processes about street naming in different locales are transparent and open to public involvement. I also explore the instruments used by city councils and other administrative agencies to invite or indeed stifle public debate about street names, such as citizens surveys, op-eds in local newspapers and discussion fora as opposed to closed-off systems and exclusionary strategies. The paper moves on to consider grassroots movements opposing top-down decisions, including the mobilization of guerilla activity resulting in semi-spontaneous re-naming of street names and polls/lists of names and letters sent to the city council by concerned citizens. Finally, I consider politically motivated acts of vandalism resulting in semiotic erasure as well as resistance to official naming via inertia. The article closes with a brief discussion of the increasing commercialization of the linguistic streetscape, exploring the impact of market forces which claim authorship of the city text.

Keywords: commercialisation of the city-text; grassroots movement; linguistic landscape; semantic erasure; semiotic vandalism; top-down strategies vs. bottom-up strategies

Corresponding author: Isabelle Buchstaller, Sociolinguistics Lab, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany, E-mail: i.buchstaller@uni-due.de

This paper developed out of a residential workshop on street naming held at the Harnack Haus in Berlin in Summer 2018. I would like to thank the ISRF for funding this workshop, as well as the participants (Malgorzata Fabiszak, Seraphim Alvanides, David Wrisley, Rani Rubdy, Peter Tan, Maoz Azaryahu and Christoph Purschke) for the fruitful discussions and debates that have germinated this article. All remaining errors are obviously my own. I would also like to thank the joint German Research Foundation (DFG) – Polish Science Foundation (NCN) Beethoven Grant, which is supporting Malgorzata Fabiszak’s and my ongoing research on the commemorative streetscape in East Germany and Poland.

Funding source: ISRF

Funding source: German Research Foundation (DFG)

Funding source: Polish Science Foundation (NCN)

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Received: 2020-12-31

Accepted: 2021-01-07

Published Online: 2021-08-17

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https://doi.org/10.1515/lingvan-2020-0150

Schlagwörter für diesen Artikel

commercialisation of the city-text; grassroots movement; linguistic landscape; semantic erasure; semiotic vandalism; top-down strategies vs. bottom-up strategies