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Article published In:
Linguistic Landscape
Vol. 9:1 (2023) ► pp.5–35

Towards a taxonomy of arguments for and against street renaming

Exploring the discursive embedding of street name changes in the Leipzig cityscape

ORCID logo | University of Duisburg-Essen
 | Universiteit Utrecht
ORCID logo | GESIS | Northumbria University
In 2016, a special issue of the Linguistic Landscapes: An International Journal explored the nexus between LL and collective memory studies, calling for more research at the interface of these disciplines. Our analysis adds to recent studies by exploring the ways in which commemorative street renaming processes are discursively embedded. We build on research on memorialisation as well as critical toponymy to analyse media discourses that accompany, support or contest commemorative naming practices in the urban streetscape of a large East German city during the last century. Based on this dataset, we develop a typology of arguments against or in favour of street renaming. The longitudinal analysis of discourses in the local press vis-à-vis ongoing resemioticisation reveals a complex relationship between lived political history, freedom of the press, the type of argument and the stances encoded therein.
Keywords: collective memory, commemoration, street names, critical toponymy, media discourse, East Germany
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The historical and geographical context of commemoration
  • 3.The city of Leipzig as a case study
  • 4.Commemoration, memory formation, and regime change
  • 5.Data sources
  • 6.Developing a typology of discourses surrounding street renaming
    • 6.1Historical-preservational arguments (n = 20)
    • 6.2Moral-ideological arguments (n = 95)
      • 6.2.1Indexing of officially sanctioned identity and ideology (n =  33)
      • 6.2.2Retaining memory/ ideology (n = 15)
      • 6.2.3Reversing the erasure of memory (n = 6)
      • 6.2.4Institutionalisation of cultural memory (n = 17)
      • 6.2.5Over- and underrepresentation of groups and individuals (n =  15)
      • 6.2.6Legimitisation of instigators of change (n = 10)
    • 6.3Practical concerns (n = 68)
      • 6.3.1Cost (n = 13)
      • 6.3.2Administrative burden (n = 16)
      • 6.3.3Orientational aspects (n = 20)
      • 6.3.4Avoidance of disgruntlement and potential future complaints (n = 3)
      • 6.3.5Linguistic reasoning (n = 8)
      • 6.3.6Legal issues and customs (n = 7)
    • 6.4Didactic arguments (n = 5)
    • 6.5Ideological instability (n = 9)
  • 7.Tracing arguments surrounding renaming over the last 100 years
  • 8.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 8 February 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ll.21016.buc
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