Recontextualisation and reappropriation of social and political discourses in toilet graffiti at the University of the Western Cape

Abstract

Applying notions of interdiscursivity, commodification of discourse (Fairclough 1993) and semiotic remediation (Bolter and Grusin 2000), this paper analyses toilet graffiti in men's and women's toilets at the University of the Western Cape in order to capture how the toilet walls become platforms where texts associated with other genres and discourses are appropriated, remediated, and transformed for expanded production and consumption of meaning. In turn, it explores the ideological and identity manifestations of the inscriptions in the transformed and remediated semiotic material, and the dialogicality and the trajectory of the texts across space and time. Thereafter, a discussion is presented of the implications of the expanded meaning potentials resulting from blended and recontextualized discourses from other genres and cultural contexts.

Inscribed versus Invoked Attitudes: Appraisal Among Indonesian Teenagers in English Captions on Instagram

“…The study by Ferris (2010), which investigates the attitude using appraisal theory shows that female participants reconstruct themselves as aggressive, independent, and unencumbered by male domination when showing their attitude through the graffiti toilet. This suggests that the social roles of males and females are not unchanging.…”

Inscribed versus Invoked Attitudes: Appraisal Among Indonesian Teenagers in English Captions on Instagram

“…The study by Ferris (2010), which investigates the attitude using appraisal theory shows that female participants reconstruct themselves as aggressive, independent, and unencumbered by male domination when showing their attitude through the graffiti toilet. This suggests that the social roles of males and females are not unchanging.…”

Linguistic Variation in Iranian University Student Graffiti: Examining the Role of Gender

“…Based on the results of this study, Schreer and Strichartz observed that "private restroom graffiti appear to provide a useful and unobtrusive method for investigating controversial and sensitive social issues" (p. 1067). Ferris and Banda (2018) investigated graffiti in men's and women's toilets at the University of the Western Cape and found out that pictorial graffiti serves to demonstrate ideological and identity manifestations that can represent idiosyncrasies across space and time. Ball (2020) used desktop graffiti as an unobtrusive way to study the campus climate at Virginia Tech, where the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history occurred.…”