The semiotics of lamppost stickers in Birmingham (new study)

“This article set out to examine the role of stickers in urban semiotic landscapes by focusing on their spatial distribution, agency, and linguistic practices involved in their design and production, function and discursive distribution. The analysis of 1191 signs recorded on Digbeth, a street in central Birmingham, UK, has revealed that stickers form the predominant genre in this corpus (60%).”

The study revealed that the majority of stickers (329) were located on lampposts. [see below]

And also showed (for example) that 22.5% were commercial, and 18.5% were artistic in nature. [see below]

See: ‘Lamppost networks* : stickers as a genre in urban semiotic landscape’ authored by Professor Gertrud K. Reershemius of the School of Languages and Social Sciences, Aston University, Birmingham, UK. It’s scheduled for publication in the journal Social Semiotics

*This term was coined by Leonie Gaiser and Yaron Matras as part of their presentation for the conference “Multilingual Landscapes: Planning, Policy, and Contact Linguistic Perspectives”. 21–22 May 2018, University of Manchester. ‘Toward an integrated approach to urban linguistic landscapes’

_{[ Research research by Martin Gardiner ]}