In their latest edited volume, Buchstaller, Fabiszak, & Ross explore the intricate and evolving relationships between language, space, and time in public spaces. Featuring contributions from both established and emerging scholars, the book presents an opportune investigation into the tempo-spatial constitution of linguistic landscapes (LLs).
Organized into three parts, the book scrutinizes post-colonial, post-communist, and contemporary transformations of LLs. Attended in the first part are the negotiation and reinterpretation of colonial pasts in contemporary public spaces. Derek H. Alderman critiques the use of colonial toponyms in the American South for its perpetuation of racialized histories and identities. Colonial street names are reappropriated, as observed by Wenchuan Huang, in Hongkong for identity differentiation. Tove Rosendal uses nexus analysis to manifest the internalization of Rwanda's post-genocide language policy changes in public signage. Melody Ann Ross explores the function of semiotic disruptions during an election campaign in Timor-Leste to foster symbolic solidarities. Rani Rubdy discusses India's nationalist agenda in city renaming that symbolically erases the Muslim past. Stefania Tufi, Robert Blackwood, & Jemima Andersen present an autoethnography of Ghana's former slave prisons characterized with space-time disjunctures.
The second part pivots to post-communist transformations of LLs that erase or recontextualize communist scripts. Patryk Borowiak's study on Bulgarian street art, as well as Maida Kosatica's analysis of murals in Bosnia-Herzegovina, elucidates the instrumentalization of artistic production as political commentary. Meanwhile, Małgorzata Fabiszak, Isabelle Buchstaller, Anna Weronika Brzezińska, & Seraphim Alvanides compare street-naming practices in German-Polish border towns that underscore divergent paths of (de)communization, a contestation similarly observed by Oleksiy Gnatiuk & Anatoliy Melnychuk in Ukraine.
The final part addresses sociopolitical movements that redefine public spaces. David I. Hanauer documents an evolving narrative of a community LL in Pittsburgh in the aftermath of an antisemitic attack. Similar discursive evolvement has also been noticed by Michał Wasilewski in 2020/21 Women's Protests in Poland. Hannah Sawall examines the semiotic (non)representation of queer communities through the transient textuality of the 2019 Cologne Pride Parade. Jessica Velásquez Urribarrí well captures the fluidity of LLs of protest with the concept of ‘assemblages in Venezuela, while Ece Yoltay maps politically motivated renaming of public spaces in Turkey post-2016 coup attempt.
One of the book's key strengths lies in its theoretical and methodological diversity. For instance, Bakhtinian ‘chronotope’ is employed to decode the time-space boundedness in human social action, particularly the inscription of historical events and social changes in LLs. Moreover, the use of nexus analysis, critical toponymy, and multimodal social semiotics provides robust methodological tools to capture the complexity of LLs. Despite such strength, the analytical depth can be further enhanced by an explicit discussion on the interplay between global and local forces in shaping LLs. Additionally, while the case studies are diverse, the inclusion of more non-Western contexts could have provided a more balanced global perspective.
Overall, the book is an invaluable addition to the field of LL research. It not only expands the theoretical and methodological boundaries of LL studies but also provides a rich empirical base for understanding the symbolic (re-)appropriation of public spaces over time. It is an essential read for scholars and students in sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, semiotics, and related fields.
