1887
Volume 8, Issue 2-3
  • ISSN 2214-9953
  • E-ISSN: 2214-9961
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Abstract

Abstract

This article examines how Linguistic Landscapes in the Covid-19 pandemic construct the borders of place and people. We build on ‘semiotic ideology’ (Keane, 2018) and ‘semiotopology’ (Peck, Stroud & Williams, 2018) to analyze the bordering practices in citizen Linguistic Landscapes during the pandemic in Nepal. Our analysis shows that citizens combine multiple semiotic resources, both linguistic and non-linguistic, to create physical boundaries to restrict the mobility of people during the pandemic. However, the findings show that such practices are ideological; they promote the othering of the tenants, returnees from abroad/outside the valley, and non-locals. We argue that keeping place and people at the centre of analysis provides a critical framework to widen the scope of Linguistic Landscapes as a broad visual and semiotic space that embodies the bordering practices and categorization of people and their impacts on emotions, identities, and sense of belonging.

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2022-09-01
2025-02-14
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  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): citizen linguistic landscape; multimodality; Nepal; pandemic; semiotic ideology
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