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Article published In:
Linguistic Landscape
Vol. 3:2 (2017) ► pp.122–148

Printed t-shirts in the linguistic landscape

A reading from functional linguistics

| University of South Australia

While the printed t-shirt remains a prominent form of communication in our contemporary linguistic landscape, little research to date has examined the semiotics of this unique mode of communication. In response to the interdisciplinary ‘invitation’ from Shohamy and Ben-Rafael (2015), this paper draws on principles and methods from social semiotics (van Leeuwen, 2005) and Systemic Functional Linguistics (Halliday, 1989) to explore the meaning-making potential of English words on printed t-shirts. The paper begins by applying Halliday’s concept of mode to the printed t-shirt and then presents a linguistically motivated taxonomy of words on printed t-shirts. In addition to foregrounding the printed t-shirt as a site for future exploration, this paper aims to present a close textual discourse analysis – an examination of the ‘perceived space’ (Malinowski, 2015) – to complement, inform and engage with current trends and methods in linguistic landscape research and pedagogy.

Keywords: printed t-shirt, linguistic landscape, social semiotics, Systemic Functional Linguistics, mode, functional grammar, taxonomy, transitivity
Article outline
  • 1.Background
  • 2.Methods
  • 3.Analysis
    • 3.1The mode of the printed t-shirt
    • 3.2A taxonomy of printed t-shirts
      • 3.2.1Projections
      • 3.2.2Labels
      • 3.2.3Icons
    • 3.3Responding to the taxonomy
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 19 October 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ll.3.2.02cal
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