ABSTRACT

Oral semiotic resources used by individuals for wayfinding purposes have not received sufficient attention in linguistic landscape (LL) studies. In a bid to contribute to this neglected area, this paper explores oral route directions and the invention of street names in two rural places – Ulco and Delportshoop. Drawing on conceptual frameworks from cognitive geography, this paper uses linguistic landscape photographic material, interview data and oral narrations of place to explore the range of semiotic resources individuals draw on in the navigation of space. The paper focuses on how residents in rural environments draw on a hybrid repertoire of rural and urban spatial markers and strategies in producing oral route directions and inventing oral street names. In so doing, it illustrates the complex interplay between ‘rural’ and ‘urban’ spatial navigation practices and while simultaneously highlighting way-finding practices deemed unique to rural areas. One such unique practice is the repurposing of the word ‘straight’ as a distance indicator.

摘要

个人用于寻路目的的口头符号资源在语言景观 (LL) 研究中没有得到足够的关注。为了对这个被忽视的地区做出贡献，本文探讨了两个农村地区的口头路线方向和街道名称的发明 - Ulco 和 Delportshoop。本文借鉴认知地理学的概念框架，利用语言景观摄影材料、访谈数据和地方口述，探索个人在空间导航中所利用的符号资源范围。这篇论文的重点是农村环境中的居民如何利用农村和城市空间标记的混合库以及生成口头路线方向和发明口头街道名称的策略。这样做时，它说明了“农村”和“城市”空间导航实践之间复杂的相互作用，同时突出了农村地区独有的寻路实践。一种独特的做法是将“直线”一词重新用作距离指示器。