Chronotopeography

Nostalgia and modernity in South Delhi’s linguistic landscape

Authors

  • Kate Lyons University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Author
  • Farzad Karimzad Salisbury University Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/sols.36219

Keywords:

linguistic landscapes, chronotopes, commodification, South Delhi, nostalgia, globalization

Abstract

This paper explores the processes through which visceral experience is cultivated, packaged and commodi?ed in the Linguistic Landscape (LL) of South Delhi, India. We engage the theoretical concept of cultural chronotopes (Agha, 2007a) to demonstrate how spatially and temporally entwined experiences of nostalgia and modernity are produced in South Delhi’s commercial LL, and show how such positioning serves to compress or ?atten such experiences for ready consumption (Kockelman, 2006). Focusing on particularized chronotopes tied to a privileged and elite experience, imagination and aspiration, we highlight how discourses of the ‘ideal’ are reproduced and positioned as visceral through speci?c references or semiotic arrangements. In so doing, we discuss the quanti?cation of experience executed by these signs in commodifying the visceral, and the problematic way these instances propagate an idealized, sanitized and simpli?ed understanding of Indian rural communities, Indian history and Indian traditional practices.

Author Biographies

  • Kate Lyons, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

    Kate Lyons is a PhD in Linguistics currently working as a Linguistics Data Analytics Manager at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, United States. Her research interests include the semiotics of social media and study of Linguistic Landscapes.

  • Farzad Karimzad, Salisbury University

    Farzad Karimzad is an assistant professor of Applied Linguistics at Salisbury University, United States. He specializes in sociolinguistics, and his recent work has appeared in the Journal of Sociolinguistics, International Multilingual Research Journal, and Language in Society.

References

Agha, A. (2007a) Recombinant selves in mass mediated spacetime. Language & Communication 27(3): 320–335. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2007.01.001.

Agha, A. (2007b) Language and social relations. New York: Cambridge University Press. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511618284.

Aiestaran, J., Cenoz, J. and Gorter, D. (2010) Multilingual cityscapes: Perceptions and preferences of the inhabitants of Donostia-San Sebastián. In E. Shohamy, E. Ben-Rafael and M. Barni (eds) Linguistic Landscape in the City 219–234. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Doi: https://doi.org/10.21832/9781847692993-014.

Amos, H. W. (2016) Chinatown by numbers. Linguistic Landscape 2(2): 127–156. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1075/ll.2.2.02amo.

Appadurai, A. (ed.) (1986). The social life of things: Commodities in cultural perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Doi: 10.1017/CBO9780511819582.

Bakhtin, M. (1981) The Dialogic Imagination. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

Banda, F., and Jimaima, H. (2015) The semiotic ecology of linguistic landscapes in rural Zambia. Journal of Sociolinguistics 19(5): 643–670. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/josl.12157.

Bandyopadhyay, R. (2008) Nostalgia, identity and tourism: Bollywood in the Indian diaspora. Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change 6(2): 79–100. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/14766820802140463.

Barni, M. and Bagna, C. (2010) Linguistic landscape and language vitality. In E. Shohamy, E. Ben-Rafael and M. Barni (eds) Linguistic Landscape in the City 3–18. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Doi: https://doi.org/10.21832/9781847692993-003.

Barni, M. and Bagna, C. (2015) The critical turn in LL: New methodologies and new items in LL. Linguistic Landscape 1(1–2): 6–18. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1075/ll.1.1-2.01bar.

Baviskar, A. (2003) Between violence and desire: Space, power, and identity in the making of metropolitan Delhi. International Social Science Journal 55(175): 89–98. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2451.5501009

Ben-Rafael, E., Shohamy, E., and Barni, M. (2010) Introduction: An approach to an ‘Ordered Disorder’. In E. Shohamy, E. Ben-Rafael and M. Barni (eds) Linguistic landscape in the city xi–xxviii. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Doi: https://doi.org/10.21832/9781847692993-002.

Ben-Rafael, E., Shohamy, E., Hasan Amara, M., and Trumper-Hecht, N. (2006) Linguistic landscape as symbolic construction of the public space: The case of Israel. International Journal of Multilingualism 3(1): 7–30. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/14790710608668383.

Bhabha, H. K. (1994) The location of culture. London: Psychology Press.

Bhatt, R. M. (2008) In other words: Language mixing, identity representations, and third space. Journal of Sociolinguistics 12(2): 177–200. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9841.2008.00363.x.

Blackwood, R. (2015) LL explorations and methodological challenges: Analysing France’s regional languages. Linguistic Landscape 1(1–2): 38–53. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1075/ll.1.1-2.03bla.

Blommaert, J. (2015) Chronotopes, scales, and complexity in the study of language in society. The Annual Review of Anthropology 44: 105–116. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-anthro-102214-014035.

Blommaert, J. (2017) Durkheim and the internet: On sociolinguistics and the sociological imagination. Working Papers in Urban Language and Literacies. Paper 204.

Blommaert, J. and de Fina, A. (2017) Chronotopic identities: On the timespace organization of who we are. In A. de Fina and J. Wegner (eds) Diversity and super-diversity. Sociocultural linguistic perspectives 1–15. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press.

Blommaert, J. and Maly, I. (2014) Ethnographic linguistic landscape analysis and social change: A case study. Tilburg Papers in Culture Studies 100: 11–33.

Boym, S. (2001) The Future of Nostalgia. New York: Basic. Print.

Bucholtz, M. (2003) Sociolinguistic nostalgia and the authentication of identity. Journal of Sociolinguistics 7(3): 398–416. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9481.00232.

Cavanaugh, J. R., and Shankar, S. (2014) Producing authenticity in global capitalism: Language, materiality, and value. American Anthropologist 116(1): 51–64. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/aman.12075.

Cenoz, J. and Gorter, D. (2006) Linguistic landscape and minority languages. In D. Gorter (ed) Linguistic Landscape: A New Approach to Multilingualism 67–80. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Doi: https://doi.org/10.21832/9781853599170-005.

Coupland, N. (2010) Introduction: Sociolinguistics in the global era. In N. Coupland (ed.) The Handbook of language and globalization 1–27. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444324068.ch.

Coupland, N. (2012) Bilingualism on display: The framing of Welsh and English in Welsh public spaces. Language in Society 41(1): 1–27. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404511000893.

Durkheim, E. (2002 [1961]) Moral education. New York: The Free Press.

Fernandes, L. (2000). Nationalizing ‘the global’: Media image, cultural politics and the middle class in India. Media Culture & Society 22(5): 611–628. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/016344300022005005.

Goffman, Erving (1974) Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.

Heller, M. (2010) The commodi?cation of language. Annual review of Anthropology 39: 101–114. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.anthro.012809.104951.

Heller, M., Jaworski, A., and Thurlow, C. (2014) Introduction: Sociolinguistics and tourism–mobilities, markets, multilingualism. Journal of sociolinguistics 18(4): 425–458. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/josl.12091.

Henke, K. (2013) Postmodern authenticity and the Hipster identity. Forbes & Fifth 3: 114–129. Doi: https://doi.org/10.5195/FORBES5.2013.12.

Huebner, T. (2006) Bangkok’s linguistic landscapes: Environmental print, codemixing and language change. International Journal of Multilingualism 3(1): 31–51. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/14790710608668384.

Jaworski, A. (2015) Globalese: a new visual-linguistic register. Social Semiotics 25: 217–235. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/10350330.2015.1010317 .

Jaworski, A. and Thurlow, C. (2010) Introducing semiotic landscapes. In A Jaworski and C. Thurlow (eds) Semiotic landscapes: Language, image, space 1–42. New York: Continuum.

Kallen, J. and Ní Dhonnacha, E. N. (2010) Language and inter-language in urban Irish and Japanese linguistic landscapes. In E. Shohamy, E. Ben-Rafael and M. Barni (eds) Linguistic landscape in the city 19–36. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Doi: https://doi.org/10.21832/9781847692993-004.

Karimzad, F. (2016) Life here beyond now: Chronotopes of the ideal life among Iranian transnationals. Journal of Sociolinguistics 20(5): 607–630. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/josl.12211.

Kelly-Holmes, H. (2005) Advertising as multilingual communication. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230503014.

Kelly-Holmes, H. (2010) Languages and global marketing. In N. Coupland (ed.) The handbook of language and globalization 475–492. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444324068.ch21.

Khilnani, S. (1998) The idea of India. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

Kockelman, P. (2006) A semiotic ontology of the commodity. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 16(1): 76–102. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/jlin.2006.16.1.076.

Landry, R. and Bourhis, R. Y. (1997) Linguistic landscape and ethnolinguistic vitality: An empirical study. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 16(1): 23–49. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X970161002.

Lanza, E. and Woldemariam, H. (2009) Language ideology and linguistic landscape: Language policy and globalization in a regional capital in Ethiopia. In E. Shohamy and D. Gorter (eds) Linguistic Landscape: Expanding the Scenery 189–205. London: Routledge.

Leeman, J. and Modan, G. (2010) Selling the city: Language, ethnicity and commodi?ed space. In E. Shohamy, E. Ben-Rafael and M. Barni (eds) Linguistic Landscape in the City 182–198. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Doi: https://doi.org/10.21832/9781847692993-012.

Lou, J. J. (2016) The linguistic landscape of Chinatown: A sociolinguistic ethnography. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Doi: https://doi.org/10.21832/9781783095636.

Lyons, K. and Rodríguez-Ordóñez, I. (2017) Quantifying the linguistic landscape: A study of Spanish-English variation in Pilsen, Chicago. Spanish in Context 14(3): 329–362. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1075/sic.14.3.01lyo.

Malinowski, D. (2009) Authorship in the linguistic landscape: A multimodal-performance view. In E. Shohamy and D. Gorter (eds) Linguistic landscape: Expanding the scenery 107–125. London: Routledge.

Malinowski, D. (2010) Showing seeing in the Korean linguistic cityscape. In E Shohamy, E. Ben-Rafael and M. Barni (eds) Linguistic landscape in the city 199–218. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Doi: https://doi.org/10.21832/9781847692993-013.

Mehta, R. B. and R. Pandharipande (2011) Bollywood and globalization: Indian popular cinema, nation, and diaspora. London: Anthem Press.

Moriarty, M. (2014) Contesting language ideologies in the linguistic landscape of an Irish tourist town. International Journal of Bilingualism 18(5): 464–477. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/1367006913484209.

Moriarty, M. (2015) Indexing authenticity: The linguistic landscape of an Irish tourist town. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 232: 195–214. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2014-0049.

Peirce, C. S. (1955). Philosophical writings of Peirce. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications.

Pietikäinen, S. (2014). Spatial interaction in Sámiland: Regulative and transitory chronotopes in the dynamic multilingual landscape of an indigenous Sámi village. International Journal of Bilingualism 18(5): 478–490. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/1367006913484210.

Ramaswamy, S. (2009) The goddess and the nation: Mapping Mother India. Durham: Duke University Press. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822391531.

Rosa, J. (2016) Racializing language, regimenting Latinas/os: Chronotope, social tense, and American raciolinguistic futures. Language & Communication 46: 106–117. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2015.10.007.

Roy, D. (2010) City markers and city breakers. In M. Dayal (ed.) Celebrating Delhi 143--162. Delhi: Penguin India.

Sengupta, S. (1997) Beyond yoga, curry and nehru jackets into ?lm, publishing and body painting. New York Times, August 30.

Schroeder, J. E. (1992) Materialism and modern art. In F. W. Rudmin and M. Richins (eds) SV - meaning, measure, and morality of materialism 10–13. Atlanta: Association for Consumer Research

Scollon, R. and Scollon, S. W. (2003) Discourses in place: Language in the material world. London: Routledge. Doi: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203422724.

Shohamy, E. and Gorter, D. (2009) Linguistic landscape: Expanding the scenery. London: Routledge.

Stroud, C. and Mpendukana, S. (2009) Towards a material ethnography of linguistic landscape: Multilingualism, mobility and space in a South African township. Journal of Sociolinguistics 13(3): 363–386. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9841.2009.00410.x.

Tarlo, E. (2003) Unsettling memories: Narratives of the Emergency in Delhi. Delhi: Permanent Black.

The Times of India (1989) India assailed for import licensing [May 26].

Thurlow, C. and Jaworski, A. (2010) Tourism discourse: Language and global mobility. Palgrave Macmillan. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110239331.285.

Toor, S. (2000) Indo-Chic: The cultural politics of consumption in post-liberalization India. Soas Literary Review, no. 2. Retrieved from: http://www.soas.ac.uk/soaslit/2000_index.htm.

van Mensel, L., Vandenbrouke, M., and Blackwood, R. (2016) Linguistic landscapes. In O. García, N. Flores and M. Spotti (eds) The Oxford handbook of language and society 423–449. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190212896.013.5.

Wirtz, K. (2016) The living, the dead, and the immanent: Dialogue across chronotopes. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 6: 343–369. Doi: https://doi.org/10.14318/hau6.1.019.

Woolard, K. A. (1998) Introduction: Language ideology as a ?eld of inquiry. In B. B. Schieffelin, K. A. Woolard and P. V. Kroskrity (eds) Language ideology: Practice and theory 3–47. New York: Oxford University Press.

Woolard, K. A. (2013) Is the personal political? Chronotopes and changing stances toward Catalan language and identity. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 16: 210–224. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2012.720670.

Published

2019-07-17

How to Cite

Lyons, K., & Karimzad, F. (2019). Chronotopeography: Nostalgia and modernity in South Delhi’s linguistic landscape. Sociolinguistic Studies, 13(1), 83-105. https://doi.org/10.1558/sols.36219

Most read articles by the same author(s)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 > >>