Spaces of consumption and senses of place: a geosemiotic analysis of three markets in Hong Kong

Abstract

While spaces of consumption have been extensively studied in geography, recent sociolinguistic research on metrolingual markets, semiotic landscapes, and translanguaging space present new ways to examine the linguistic, semiotic, and sensory aspects of these prosaic spaces. Integrating these perspectives in a geosemiotic framework, this paper examines the interactions in three markets in Hong Kong which have emerged as important social spaces for three participants during a larger ethnographic project. Through video walks, interviews, and participant observations, it is found that each market embodies a unique configuration of the geosemiotic aggregate and the customers selectively attended to specific modes of communication and sensory properties of the spaces, which in turn shaped their experiences of the place. Thus, this paper suggests that situated analyses of linguistic, semiotic, and material resources in everyday interactions can contribute to a better understanding of the dialogical relationship between spaces of consumption and senses of place.

Geosemiotics←→Social Geography: Preschool Places and School(ed) Spaces

“…However, a geosemiotic approach must be complemented by (re)presentations of space-as-socially produced as methodological and theoretical considerations of place evolve beyond static representations of place-as-context. It “no longer seems sufficient to conceive space as a neutral container of talk and place merely a location where language is sampled” (Lou, 2017, p. 514) when the construct of context is viewed dialogically (Duranti & Goodwin, 1992). Space is socially constructed by language in its various modalities and material forms and at its relationship with other semiotic resources, such as visual display and spatial arrangement (Lou, 2017).…”

The ordinary semiotic landscape of an unordinary place: spatiotemporal disjunctures in Incheon's Chinatown

“…In addition to these 'units of interaction order', Scollon and Scollon include the five types of perceptual spaces developed by Hall (1966), which in our analysis will be moved under place semiotics, the first component. A modified outline of geosemiotics and its component systems is presented in Table 1 below (see Lou, 2014Lou, , 2016aLou, , 2017 for other applications of this modified geosemiotic framework). Scollon & Scollon (2003, pp.…”

Why is English Green? The Preference for English on Environmental Discourse at a Thai University

“…One way to triangulate such studies is by interviewing the perceived audience or users of such signage. Walking interviews have been one method applied to linguistic landscapes to illustrate how the linguistic landscape is involved in place making itself (Stroud and Jegels 2014;Troyer and Szabó 2017;Lou 2017). To augment the data discussed in the previous section 15 students were interviewed during walking tours at the Thammasat University Rangsit Center Campus.…”