HOLLYWOOD:The political economy and global citation of an emblematic language object

The HOLLYWOOD sign is arguably the world's most famous language object. Emblematic of prestige and cultural capital, the sign can be found not just in Los Angeles, but in citations all over the world. Beginning with the history of its valorization, HOLLYWOOD is shown to emanate symbolic value through a set of enregistered semiotic features. Drawing upon a set of globally sourced citations of HOLLYWOOD, the circulation and stratified bundling of size, emplacement, alignment, typeface, and color indicates how the citation of language objects is mediated by political economy. A process of diffuse citation is further observed, in which the quotation of language features is not overt, but the source of emanation is still tangible, revealing HOLLYWOOD as the source of a global linguistic-semiotic register. As this register circulates in citations overt and diffuse, language objects are revealed as key sites for the reproduction of commodity values. (The Hollywood sign, language object, citation, enregisterment, global emblems, recontexualization)

Euskaraz : lengua e identidad en los textos multimodales de promoción del euskara, 1970-2001

This dissertation is also available in full text, new edition (2008) at http://hdl.handle.net/2077/2847

Navigating whiteness from the margins: Finnish, Somali, and Arabic speakers’ experiences of racialization, (in)visibility, and (im)mobility in Gothenburg, Sweden

This paper examines the relationship between language, (in)visibility, and (im)mobility in racialized spaces, focusing on Finnish, Somali, and Arabic speakers in Sweden. Using a theoretical framework based on hegemonic whiteness and intersectionality, the study explores how multilingual practices and subjectivities intersect with race, religion, gender, and class to shape social visibility and mobility. The research draws on linguistic ethnographic data, including interviews, linguistic landscape documentation, and an analysis of the media discourse. The study finds that while Finnish speakers have become invisible due to assimilation policies, Somali and Arabic speakers are hypervisible in Swedish public spaces and discourse, although Arabic speakers are sometimes, and in relation to other migrants, nearing Swedish whiteness. However, all three languages and their speakers are constrained by a white normativity that reproduces inequality. The paper challenges simplistic notions of mobility/immobility and visibility/invisibility in the context of a changing racial order in Sweden, where whiteness serves as a binary sorting mechanism that perpetuates inequality. Overall, this research sheds light on the complex entanglement of language, visibility, and mobility in white spaces and contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the intersectional dynamics of race and language.I denna artikel undersöks förhållandet mellan språk, (o)synlighet och (im)mobilitet i rasifierade rum, med fokus på finsk-, somalisk- och arabisktalande i Sverige. Med hjälp av ett teoretiskt ramverk som utgår från hegemonisk vithet och intersektionalitet undersöks i studien hur flerspråkiga praktiker samverkar med ras, religion, kön och klass, och hur det påverkar social synlighet och mobilitet. Studien bygger på lingvistisk etnografisk data såsom intervjuer, dokumentation av det språkliga landskapet och analys av mediediskurs. I studien visas att medan finsktalande genom dåtidens assimilatoriska migrationspolitik osynliggjorts, är somalisk- och arabisktalande närmast översynliga i svenska offentliga rum och diskurser, även om arabisktalande, i relation till vissa andra migrantgrupper, i vissa situationer närmar sig den svenska vitheten. Alla tre språken och deras talare begränsas dock av en vit normativitet som reproducerar ojämlikhet. I artikeln utmanas förenklade föreställningar om rörlighet/immobilitet och synlighet/osynlighet genom den svenska föränderliga rasordningen där vithet fungerar som en binär sorteringsmekanism som upprätthåller ojämlikhet. Sammantaget kastar denna forskning ljus över det komplexa sambandet mellan språk, synlighet och mobilitet i vita rum och bidrar till en mer nyanserad förståelse av den intersektionella dynamiken mellan ras och språk.Språkets roll i segregations- och gentrifieringsprocesser: språkliga landskap i Götebor

What are analog bulletin boards used for today? : Analysing media uses, intermediality and technology affordances in Swedish bulletin board messages using a citizen science approach

Anslagstavlan: ForskarFredags Massexperiment 201