Language, Space and Cultural Play: Theorising Affect in the Semiotic Landscape

By: Lionel Wee and Robbie B. Goh

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Synopsis: This multimodal approach to linguistic landscapes examines the role of linguistic and semiotic regimes in constructing landscape affect. Affect, as distinct from emotion, is object-oriented, and can be analysed in terms of structures of language and signs which operate on individuals and groups in specific spatial settings. Analysing a series of landscape types - including 'kawaii', 'reverenced', 'romance', 'friendly', 'luxury' and 'digital' landscapes - Lionel Wee and Robbie B. H. Goh explore how language plays a crucial role in shaping affective responses to, and interactions with, space. This linguistic and semiotic construction of different spaces also involves cultural contestations and modulations in spatial responses, and the book offers an account of the different conditions under which 'affective economies' gain or lose momentum.