Abstract
Public signs (both advertising and informational) are analyzed here as narrative. This allows us to see the parallels between abbreviated texts in public spaces and extended discourse that has a long history of analysis. It also reveals parallels between literary and linguistic treatment of discourse. Included in the analysis is a description of how reference and indexicality function in the discourse we see all around us on what might be called ‘the linguistic landscape’, as well as how point of view operations, focalization, and voice are manipulated to authors' specific ends.
Acknowledgments
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2008 Association of Asian Studies conference in Atlanta. I am indebted to colleagues at that meeting for their input. I am also grateful to Fulbright and Waseda University for making it possible for me to pursue this research topic during research visits in 2005 and 2006. Assistance from Satomi Hayashi at Portland State was invaluable in setting up the illustrations.
Notes
1Backhaus has commented extensively on the variety of scripts in Tokyo signs (and the use of English in particular) in terms of ‘layering’– the numbers of languages (and scripts) represented, their proportions, as well as the kind of information that is conveyed; see Backhaus, Linguistic Landscapes, and Backhaus, ‘Signs of Multilingualism’. His focus is the mix of language on the Japanese horizon, and he cites Coulmas, ‘Changing Language Regimes’, in concluding that ‘[t]he total of Tokyo's linguistic landscape can be read as reflecting ongoing changes in the Japanese language regime’ (146).
2See papers in Herman, Narrative Theory.
3Barthes, ‘An Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative’, 237.
4Berkenkotter and Huckin, Genre Knowledge in Disciplinary Communication, 4.
5Bakhtin, Speech Genres and Other Late Essays, 63.
6Cook, The Discourse of Advertising, 171.
7Ibid., 180–181.
8This is mentioned by scholars as varied as Beasley and Danesi, Persuasive Signs; Goddard, The Language of Advertising; Goffman, Gender Advertisements; Myers, Words in Ads; and Williamson, Decoding Advertisements.
9Turner, The Anthropology of Performance, 27.
10Gundel, Hedberg and Zacharski, ‘Cognitive Status’, 274.
11Lyons, Semantics, 636.
12Wetzel, ‘Uti and Soto’, ‘A Movable Self’, and ‘Japanese Social Deixis’.
13Wetzel, ‘A Movable Self’, 76. Maynard calls this Other ‘thou’ and goes into some detail on the distinction between Japanese and Western (Cartesian) subjectivity; see Maynard, Discourse Modality, 16–17. The difference hinges on autonomy: the Western self is defined in terms of autonomy while the Japanese self is defined in terms of its relation to Other(s).
14Myers, Words in Ads, 83.
15Cook, The Discourse of Advertising, 158–159.
16Myers, Words in Ads, 80.
17Levenston and Sonnenschein, ‘The Translation of Point-of-view’, 50.
18Brown and Levinson, Politeness, 118.
19See Genette, Narrative Discourse.
20Bakhtin, Speech Genres and Other Late Essays, 177.
21Genette, Fiction and Diction and Narrative Discourse.
22Derrida, Of Grammatology.
23Briggs and Bautnan, ‘Genre, Intertextuality, and Social Power’, 567.
24Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice.
25Hanks, Language and Communicative Practices, 246.