30.4503, Review: Semantics; Sociolinguistics: Schulze (2019)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-30-4503. Tue Nov 26 2019. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 30.4503, Review: Semantics; Sociolinguistics: Schulze (2019)

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Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2019 21:14:15
From: Katharina Tyran [katharina.tyran at univie.ac.at]
Subject: Bilder - Schilder - Sprache

 
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/30/30-1215.html

AUTHOR: Ilona  Schulze
TITLE: Bilder - Schilder - Sprache
SUBTITLE: Empirische Studien zur Text-Bild-Semiotik im öffentlichen Raum
SERIES TITLE: TÜBINGER BEITRÄGE ZUR LINGUISTIK (TBL)-
PUBLISHER: Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG
YEAR: 2019

REVIEWER: Katharina Klara Tyran

SUMMARY

The monography “Bilder – Schilder – Sprache” by Ilona Schulze is an empirical
study on text-image-semiotics in public space. On around 200 pages, the author
presents her findings from a two-year fellowship by Fritz-Thyssen-Stiftung.
Her research is conceptualized by an interdisciplinary approach and framed by
“Sémiologie de l’espace”, understanding space with Henri Lefebvre as
dynamically, socially, culturally and economically determined. The concrete
space examined and documented photographically within this study is a
pedestrian area and a shopping mall in Munich. The data is analyzed
quantitatively as well as qualitatively, showing semiotic processes and
techniques of texts and images in their interplay, demonstrating the dynamics
of public communications with passers-by. The book is composed in six
chapters: the introduction is followed by a section on Linguistic Landscape
research generally and a chapter on the interplay of Linguistic Landscapes and
multimodality. Chapter Four explains the area of research and methodology; and
the following part, actually, is the core analysis and therefore the
substantial and most extensive chapter of the monograph. The final section,
Chapter Six, recapitulates the findings in the context of the theoretical
frame outlined in Chapters Two and Three.

In her introduction, Ilona Schulze explains her research project as an
empirical case study focusing on the semiotic systems of images and language
in the public space, with the aim of explaining to what extent it may by
understood as a semiotic landscape. Therefore, she extends approaches from the
Linguistic Landscape research with image linguistics, both relatively recently
developed research branches, in order to enable a multimodal and
multifunctional view. As Schulze argues, focusing only on the visible written
language would delimit explanations on structure and function of public
“linguistic space”, whereas a complementation with multimodal approaches and
integration of images allows a more encompassing analysis. Schultze’s main
hypothesis, therefore, considers the public semiotic space being constituted
by a dialogical, communicative interaction of the observer with a sign system
in between language, image and medium. As important parameters for her
analysis she indicates already in her introduction intentionality,
informativity, situatedness, intertextuality, culture, and materiality. 

With the approaches of Linguistic Landscape research, yet, being the main
starting point for her research study, Schulze dedicates her second chapter to
this subfield in sociolinguistics, which strongly came to the forefront
starting from Landry’s and Bourhis’ seminal work from 1997. Focusing on
visible language on and in various forms, such as public signs and road signs,
billboards, topographic names, as well as commercial shop signs, they shifted
their interest from spoken to written language in order to examine
manifestations of multilingualism and ethnolinguistic vitality. Not
surprisingly, these issues emerged in areas with language conflicts, such as
Belgium and Canada, focusing on struggles of two or more language communities.
Since the late 1990s, this research focus developed strongly and established
new research issues, approaches and methodologies, questioning the
presentation and representation, and moreover, functions of languages – be it
autochthonous or regional minority languages with a long history or new,
immigrant languages in mostly urban settings. Furthermore, analyzing also the
visual design of written language, such as font, color, size we may not only
speak of linguistic, but of semiotic landscapes as a research area. Schulze
gives an overview of different sign categories, such as private and public,
and their functions. Importantly, she states that signs as such may have an
significant impact on the construction of space, as signs enable the
recipients to functionally evaluate a given space: they indicate what we must
or must not, might or might not do, how we could or should behave. Therefore,
we might grasp space as a condition as well as an outcome of social processes,
which is expressed by the concept of treating space as discursively formed, as
articulated by Jaworski and Thurlow. Schulze interestingly also points out the
important social and economic processes leading to current public spaces and
the importance of advertisement as one of the mayor areas for the production
of private signs in the linguistic landscape, as well as the plotted
narrativization of logos and company names expressed by Corporate Identity or
Design.

The following section on Linguistic Landscapes and Multimodality connects
thereon, including multimodality as a description frame for different
dimensions of signs. Here, graphics are included as important elements,
besides language, to sustain and support the overall statement of a sign,
which marks the concrete form of the language presentation, such as layout,
fonts, and colors, as important factors. Schulze draws on typography as a
semiotic resource for presenting a particular statement or message, thereby
relying on social and cultural connotations or specific attributions evoked.
Subsequently, she points out that linguistic landscape research in general
neglects the interaction of language with graphics and images, thus she argues
for a stronger incorporation of image linguistics approaches, claiming that
the interplay of script and image may be crucial for the overall message of a
sign. As the author states, though, it is not only important looking at the
information content in multimodality, but also on the recipient’s perception. 

The fourth chapter is dedicated to the methodological frame of the empirical
study. Schulze first gives a detailed description of her research area, two
deliberately chosen differing spaces. The pedestrian zone Kaufingerstraße –
Neuhauser Straße – Weinstraße – Theatinerstraße in Munich’s city center is one
of the most frequented shopping promenades in Germany, with a good
transportation infrastructure and therefore quite accessible. In the survey
period in spring 2016, there have been almost 340 businesses and companies in
place. The author also explains changes during the last centuries, as the
investigated pedestrian zone has a strong trade and commerce tradition. The
shopping mall Olympia Einkaufszentrum (OEZ), though, is one entity and
therefore structurally differs from the pedestrian zone. Established in 1972,
the shopping mall was planned not only in the context of the Olympic games in
Munich but also as an urban project of its time. The data collected in both
examination areas during spring 2016 generated a data base of more than 2.000
pictures and around 170 short video sequences. The collected data has been
subdivided into three different units – signs, visible surfaces, and images /
pictures of an overall scene – which were described with differing analytical
parameters, integrating approaches, annotations, and variables from linguistic
landscape research and image linguistics. 

Chapter Five, the analysis section, is introduced by a brief description of
the research area’s structure, presenting numbers and their historical
developments on for instance retail shops, gastronomy, service providers,
infrastructure in the pedestrian zone in Munich’s city center and outlining
the particular structure of the shopping mall OEZ. The following first part of
the analysis focuses on the language presented on signs and visible surfaces
such as shop windows. Schulze provides a detailed evaluation of her corpus
with tokens subdivided according to actors. When comparing the pedestrian zone
and the shopping mall, the author concludes a considerably lower presence of
language in the latter which she explains by missing actors and the structure
of shopping malls. In the analysis of different languages, the provided data
shows a strong dominance of the German language, with English assignable
tokens on the second rank, followed by French, Italian, and Spanish.
Interestingly, the signs documented are predominantly of rectangular shape
with white being the dominant color, which might be explained by its high
contrast to any other color. Subsequently, the data is analyzed according to
the different sign production actors carved out, namely trade, service
providers such as medial or legal practice, gastronomy, church, culture, and
infrastructure. Schulze states here, that according to her examination, a
linguistic or semiotic space is not so much structured by legal requirements,
but the composition of actors and their self-presentation. In a second part of
her analyses, the author draws on the interaction, positioning and function of
images, signs and language in the construction and interpretation of public
space, firstly drawing on various sign types, such as hanging signs or label
signs. The most prominent topic, indeed, are visible surfaces generally, and
shop windows precisely. Schulze explains various levels of such visible
surfaces, namely the background, the middle section and the glass front. She
introduces five level linking models for the information structures of
text-image-figure and their acquisition or reception. Following from that, she
presents visualization models for the shop windows, analyzing the connection
and correlation of text, image and figure. The last important unit of analysis
is images / pictures, here defined as the most complex sign cluster and an
extended perspective on the overall scene of one building complex, arguing
that signs in the bigger picture enable recipients to narrow down the choice
in the public space, activating frames and sub-frames regarding the function
of particular entities and shaping the space and its utilization. In a last
step, Schulze describes interaction structures of signs, visible surfaces and
the “bigger picture” for the specific actors (trade, service providers,
gastronomy, church, culture, and infrastructure) as well as the referring
information and triggered frame for recipients. 

The last chapter (Chapter Six) provides a summary of Schulze’s results. She
states, that both areas of investigation, the pedestrian zone as well as the
shopping mall, show stereotype structures as a consequence of economic
processes and urban planning, with parallels in semiotic structures and
functionality, thereby demonstrating established patterns of communication and
infrastructure in public space. Schulze points out that when accessing public
space, we firstly refer to greater structures, than examine the semiotic of
the space via signs, and only in a third step, language becomes important to
identify individual players. Here, the question remains whether the
information is actually processed via language or as a graphical unit.
Therefore, the structure of a commercial macro frame is not so much
linguistically, but visually shaped. In a last statement, Schulze argues that
Linguistic Landscapes may be constantly in a process of change, but still
stick to recurring topics and themes. It is only the form of presentation,
which is specifically adapted to certain target groups, and additionally
shaped and affected by wider and stable collective ideas and concepts.  

EVALUATION

Schulze’s monography presents a very extensive and detailed analysis of two
semiotic landscapes in Munich and is especially noteworthy as she combines
qualitative and quantitative methods. Her elaborated analysis models and the
corresponding illustrations allow substantial statements especially on the
interaction structure of signs, images, and language. Schulze’s
interdisciplinary approach starts from Linguistic Landscape research,
incorporating concepts of linguistics, visual culture and cultural studies,
sociology as well as cognitive science. Nevertheless, some of those concepts
important for the study may have been elaborated in more detail. Especially
image linguistics would have needed a more in-depth demonstration. Schulze’s
empirical case study, though, is an important contribution to the mentioned
research areas as she includes multimodality as an extension to the Linguistic
Landscape research, therefore enhancing this approach and the study of
semiotic structures in public space. The monograph may therefore be
particularly interesting for researchers familiar with concepts of linguistic
landscape and semiotic landscape research as well as image linguistics and
visible culture. 

REFERENCES

Jaworski, Adam & Crispin Thurlow (eds.). 2010. Semiotic Landscapes: Language,
Image, Space. London, New York: Continuum. 

Landry, Rodrigue & Richard Y. Bourhis. 1997. Linguistic Landscape and
Ethnolinguistic Vitality. An Empirical Study. Journal of Language and Social
Psychology 16(1). 23-49.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Katharina Tyran is a university assistant (post-doc) of Slavic philology at
the Department of Slavonic Studies of the University of Vienna. She gained her
PhD at the Humboldt-University of Berlin with a work on language codification
processes and identification attitudes in the Burgenland Croatian community,
with a cross-border perspective. Her research interests cover sociolinguistic
topics with a focus on minority languages, language and identity, border
studies, linguistic landscape research, and script linguistics. Currently, she
is working on a new research project with a focus on discourses on and visual
implications of writing systems in a south Slavic context. 
Email: katharina.tyran at univie.ac.at





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