Sociolinguistics Symposium 19
Freie Universität Berlin | August 21-24, 2012
Programme: accepted abstracts
Abstract ID: 239
Part of Session 130: Language in Multilingual Cities (Other abstracts in this session)
The linguistic construction of placeness. The case of Venice.
Authors: Tufi, Stefania
Submitted by: Tufi, Stefania (University of Liverpool, United Kingdom)
The intensification of mass tourism has profoundly affected Venice as visited space and lived space. Sources have in fact gone as far as saying that Venice is not just visited but actually inhabited by tourists (Davis & Marvin 2004), who have therefore appropriated the Venetians’ place as a socio-historical product. This appropriation is both metaphorical and physical and it is historically stratified. The linguistic landscape of Venice can be seen to narrate a city that does not belong to Venetians, but first and foremost to humanity.
The city is so iconic that visiting the most celebrated landmarks such as San Marco and Rialto Bridge simply reinforces the visitor’s acquired images and representations of Venice. Some of Foucault’s attributes of heterotopias or ‘other spaces’ can be applied to Venice. The act of entering Venice is similar to a rite of purification which individuals go through in order to complete a pilgrimage. In addition, in Venice the heterotopia of the Carnival as a transitory event and that of the eternity of an open-air museum coexist.
The paper will discuss the linguistic landscape of Venice in relation to the distribution of its dwellers, be they passing tourists or permanent residents. The analysis will highlight the role of Venice’s languages and how they construct the unique placeness of the city. The discussion will also include considerations about the wider semiotic landscape when constructed in non-linguistic terms and when the display and use of its objects allows the consumption not of Venice itself, but of its images (Baudrillard 1996 [1968]).