Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 813

Part of Session 162: Urban linguistic practice and performance in the Greek-speaking city (Other abstracts in this session)

The writing on the wall: Aspects of the linguistic landscape in the Gazi/Kerameikos area in Athens

Authors: Canakis, Costas
Submitted by: Canakis, Costas (University of the Aegean, Greece)

As linguistic beings, people occupy space producing language that endows it with a distinctive character (or “identity”). Public signage, mottos, slogans, graffiti, and advertised commodities are typical ingredients of the linguistic landscape (cf. Curtin 2009). Drawing on recent sociolinguistic research (cf. the contributions in Shohamy & Gorter 2009), this study investigates the role of language in the symbolic/ideological construction of space, focusing on the area of Gazi/Kerameikos, in central Athens. Our goal is to show that linguistic landscapes are formed, among other things, by the discourse currently circulating in a certain place. As aspects of this discourse find their way on city walls in the form of written messages (slogans, etc.), they eventually come to stand in an indexical relation to the place in which they were created (at a certain historical moment).

By the late 1990s, Gazi was gentrified and was emerging as a hub of Athenian nightlife for younger crowds; more significantly for the purposes of this paper, it has since developed into the mainstream Athenian gay neighborhood par excellence (cf. Yannakopoulos 2010). This development is crucially indexed by the various semiotic means (cf. Shohamy & Waksman 2009) composing the linguistic landscape of the area. Specifically, there is a variety of written messages that contribute to the construction of the area as “gay space”; indeed, a space where different views on (homo)sexuality and identity are launched and contested in an attempt to claim and appropriate space (cf. Curtin 2010):

(1) Η ΕΤΕΡΟΦΥΛΟΦΙΛΙΑ ΔΕΝ ΕΙΝΑΙ ΦΥΣΙΚΗ ΕΙΝΑΙ ΝΟΡΜΑ (‘Heterosexuality

is not natural it is the norm’)

(2) ΣΚΑΤΑ ΣΤΗΝ ΟΜΟΚΑΝΟΝΙΚΟΤΗΤΑ (‘Shit on homonormativity’)

(3) ΤΟ GAY LIFESTYLE ΒΡΩΜΑΕΙ ΟΜΟΦΟΒΙΑ (‘Gay lifestyle stinks of homophobia’)

Meanwhile, changes in the social fabric are also marked by the language produced in public space. As Gazi is changing and the mainstream gay scene gradually moves north, so do the slogans in the main square begin to be replaced (by e.g., run-of-the-mill hip-hop graffiti) leaving less prominent space to messages with sexual relevance. This fact underscores the dynamic character of the linguistic landscape and lends support for its investigation as a component of sociolinguistic inquiry.

REFERENCES

Curtin, M. L. 2009. Languages on display: Indexical signs, identities, and the linguistic landscape of Taipei. In E. Shohamy & D. Gorter (eds.), Linguistic Landscape: Expanding the Scenery. New York & London: Routledge, 221-237.

Shohamy, E. & D. Gorter (eds.). 2009. Linguistic Landscape: Expanding the Scenery. New York & London: Routledge.

Shohamy, E. & S. Waksman. 2009. Linguistic landscape as an ecological arena: Modalities, meanings, negotiations, education. In E. Shohamy & D. Gorter (eds.), Linguistic Landscape: Expanding the Scenery. New York & London: Routledge, 313-331.

Yannakopoulos, K. 2010. Ena keno mesa sten pole: Xoros, diafora kai outopia ston Kerameiko kai to Gazi [A void in the city: Space, difference and utopia in Kerameikos and Gazi]. In K. Yannakopoulos & Y. Giannitsiotis (eds.), Amfisvetoumenoi xoroi sten pole [Contested spaces in the city]. Athens: Alexandreia & University of the Aegean, 117-138.

Sociolinguistics Symposium 19

Programme: accepted abstracts

The writing on the wall: Aspects of the linguistic landscape in the Gazi/Kerameikos area in Athens