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Article published In:
The Linguistic Landscape of Covid-19
Edited by Jackie Jia Lou, David Malinowski and Amiena Peck
[Linguistic Landscape 8:2/3] 2022
► pp. 281–298

Signs at work

New labor relations and structures of feeling in Washington, D.C.’s Covid landscape

ORCID logo | The Ohio State University
| Georgetown University

We use a geographically informed notion of landscape and Williams’ (1977) framework structure of feeling to examine ‘closed’, masking, and social distancing signs on businesses in the Washington, DC central-city neighborhood of Adams Morgan. We argue that the semantic content and discursive structure of the Covid signs, together with the in-the-moment feeling of walking down empty streets while a little-understood virus had just started raging, promoted a reconceptualization of labor relations tied to solidarity, public health, and communal responsibility, and making visible the working conditions of low-wage workers. This new structure of feeling opens up a space – however narrow – of political possibility.

Keywords: Covid, structure of feeling, affective regime, labor, linguistic landscape, semiotic landscape, Washington, DC
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Urban Governance and Labor Deregulation
  • 3.A qualitative, geographically informed perspective on semiotic landscapes
  • 4.A Covid structure of feeling
  • 5.The semiotics of a Covid landscape
    • 5.1Locus of authority, positive face, and communal responsibility
    • 5.2The Covid landscape as a mediator of interaction
    • 5.3Worker safety and public health activism
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 1 September 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ll.21041.mod
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