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Abstract

This study develops a framework for analyzing historically layered meaning-making in semiotic landscapes. It integrates indexical order, enregisterment, reindexicalization, and reenregisterment to explain how social semiotic resources acquire and transform meanings over time. The framework is illustrated through a longitudinal analysis of the ‘chop suey’ letterform in the visual branding of , a Southern California Chinese restaurant chain operating since 1965. Drawing on photographs, interviews, and secondary sources, the analysis traces the lettering style’s shift from marking exoticized Chineseness to indexing family and cultural legacy. It shows how expansion beyond Chinatown enables reflexive heritage indexicality, how changes in the social positioning of Chinese Americans alter the value of ethnic marking, and how shifts in design media facilitate new indexical associations. The model conceptualizes meaning-making as a temporally layered process in which semiotic resources acquire higher-order indexicalities and become reenregistered through changing spatial, social, and material affordances.

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2026-07-08
2026-07-16

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/content/journals/10.1075/ll.25078.li
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Phoenix in transformation
John Benjamins ; https://doi.org/10.1075/ll.25078.li
/content/journals/10.1075/ll.25078.li
/content/journals/10.1075/ll.25078.li
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  • Article Type: Research Article
Keywords: indexical order ; chop suey letterform ; social semiotics ; Chineseness ; semiotic landscape ; reindexicalization ; restaurants ; enregisterment ; typographic landscape

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