Drawing on ethnographic data from Sharif University of Technology, widely considered as Iran’s leading institution for Engineering and Physical Science disciplines, in Tehran, Iran, this study investigates the linguistic... [ view full abstract ]
Drawing on ethnographic data from Sharif University of Technology, widely considered as Iran’s leading institution for Engineering and Physical Science disciplines, in Tehran, Iran, this study investigates the linguistic landscape of a number of faculties of the University. Deploying ethnographic fieldwork and photographs as data, the paper sets out to explore semiotic landscape in relation to the activities carried out within each faculty by drawing on tools from geosemiotics (Scollon & Scollon, 2003) and nexus analysis (Scollon & Scollon, 2004). It focuses on the way that objects, language and space are all used as resources by the situated social actors. The article demonstrates that such resources are always set against each faculty’s institutional and cultural backgrounds and that each faculty embodies a unique configuration of the geosemiotic aggregate. For instance, the Center for Islamic Theology and Social Sciences may index various facets of Islamic identities, which seems to send out a message that particular codes and rules are operated in this social field to specific audiences.The study views the semiotic landscape of each faculty as a particular social practice which carries specific cultural meanings (discourses in place), the types of social identities and social relationships that the signs make possible (interaction orders), while simultaneously aspects of their identities are formed into their social spaces (historical bodies). We argue that situated analyses of semiotic, linguistic and cultural tools imbricated in the semiotic landscape of the faculties in question can contribute to a finer understanding of the relationship between space and senses of place.
References
Scollon, R., & Scollon, S. W. (2003). Discourses in place: Language in the material world. London and New York Routledge.
Scollon, R., & Scollon, S. (2004). Nexus analysis: discourse and the emerging internet. London: Routledge.
