Fuck the Patriarcat!
FUCK THE PATRIARCAT!
Transgressive ephemeral identities in English accommodated in LLeida
Transgressive ephemeral identities in English accommodated in LLeida
Authors: David Torres, Badredene Yassin, Núria Rubau
The Linguistic Landscape token that will be analysed throughout this project was found on a bench in the bridge of the Segre river located in Cappont, more especifically, in Passarel·la del Liceu Escolar “41.61223, 0.62609”. As a curiosity, this picture was taken the same day this project was assigned and it got erased two days later .
The activity domain that prevails in this LL token is a piece of a street art work in view of the fact that it is a communicative inscription making space: LL's are communicative descriptions represented by signs. The aim of this signs is to represent demographic power, ethnic or racial ossies and language ideologies. They are also tools to discover speakers and a description of the history of languages. Besides, this particular LL is a claim towards the patriarchy. Its production is bottom-up, since it is a non-official language policy; it is also polyglossic because there are two languages, Catalan and English, and both combined within the same sentence, this is why it is not monoglossic.
The name of this LL Token, as can be seen in the picture (see Figure 1), is "Fuck the Patriarcat!". This linguistic landscape, the graffiti, is written on a bench; due to the fact that the bench is brown and this is a dark colour, the people who wrote it used a bright colour (white) so it can be read without difficulties. We have a transgressive element since it is using a swear word in this message against the patriarchy, which is a predominant element.
"Graffiti is a transgressive global art. [...] First, since it is often viewed as [...] vandalism, inconsiderate doodling on the bourgeois façades of society, it is seen as transgressive social behavior. Second, [...] graffiti is aimed not at the conveying of messages to a broader community [...] but rather at the creation of a subcultural community, its use of language as style rather than communication may be seen as semiotically transgressive." (Pennycook, 2008)
"Graffiti is a transgressive global art. [...] First, since it is often viewed as [...] vandalism, inconsiderate doodling on the bourgeois façades of society, it is seen as transgressive social behavior. Second, [...] graffiti is aimed not at the conveying of messages to a broader community [...] but rather at the creation of a subcultural community, its use of language as style rather than communication may be seen as semiotically transgressive." (Pennycook, 2008)
This piece of graffiti starts in English however, it finishes with the word "Patriarcat", which is a word in Catalan, so it can be said that the main language used is English, and Catalan is the secondary language, it is a case in which English is accommodating into Catalan local life. Furthermore, an exclamation sign (!) is used in this token in order to make it sound much more powerful and strong, as if shouting; this is a clear orality trait in the written form.
2. Contextualisation
Figure 1: Map of Cappont (Google Maps,2020)
Figure 2: Passarel·la del Liceu Escolar (Google Maps, 2020)
Passarel·la del Liceu Escolar (see Figure 2) connects two important parts of the city, which are ‘’La plaça de Blas Infante’’ (in Cappont) and ‘’Avinguda de Blondel’’ and ‘’Avinguda de Madrid (Centre Històric). It is usually very busy by all kind of people since it is a beautiful place, cars cannot transit there and its location is key to avoid long distances.
First of all, Cappont is one of the most outstanding neighborhoods of the city since it does not stop growing. It is known to have different buildings of the University of Lleida and a large park called ‘’Camps Elisis’’. It is there where the Segre river is situated and it is also a pleasant place for many people, in which they practice diverse leisure and entertainment activities. On the other hand, ‘’Centre Històric’’ is located on the centre of the city and it is known to be a commercial section. Its most important streets are ‘’el carrer Major’’ and ‘’el carrer ‘’Sant Antoni’’. It is also called ‘’the commercial hub’’. Even though its main attractive are its shops, it is also a touristic site since it contains ‘’la Seu Vella’’, the most important touristic building of the city.
From the economic point of view, Cappont is mainly inhabited by middle-class people, even though it is common to see a few beggars and homeless people asking for money or sleeping on the different benches of ‘’Camps Elisis’’ and especially on the bridge in which the analysed graffiti is located. Although ‘’Centre Històric’’ has some parts that are known to be fine economically, it also has some parts which are inhabited by people with less resources, so impoverishment is also a problem there. Also, ‘’Centre Històric’’ has some migrant-populated sections.
3.
Methodology
As mentioned in the paragraph before, the graffiti was removed two days later, which shows us the ephemerality of some LL’s, as Martin Rojo states "los paisajes lingüísticos son unos de los indicadores más claros de los cambios que se están produciendo" (2012). According to the top-down language policies in Catalonia and Lleida, this particular token is not legal since, according to the Chapter III “Contaminacions Urbanes”, Title I “Visual”, the law 40 states “És prohibit de fer qualsevol tipus de grafits, pintades o qualsevol altra expressió gràfica, ja es tracti de dibuixos, escrits i/o gargots, fets amb qualsevol matèria (tinta, pintura, etc.) …” (La Paeria, 2003) in other words, no graffiti is allowed to be painted. It does not matter where or the substance used. The quote used in this case is not finished, this clause also includes that no place is allowed to be painted and that the one who disobeys this rule will be punished. However, according to this Chapter I, the graffiti will be allowed if the date and the location is announced and approved at the town hall. The fact that this graffiti was removed two days later leads us to realize that it was not painted with the approval of the town hall, so it was illegal. This is why we deduce that this token is transgressive.
Figure 3: Street view. Passarel·la del Liceu Escolar
It is written in English because this way it would give it more empowerment, by using a language linked to prestige and modernity, combining it with the regional language, Catalan, to highlight its origin, Catalonia; the usage of the English language here might be a way of internationalising the fight against patriarchy. English has become an important part of the public spaces all over the world due to the globalization. There are no other LL in the bridge, as they are erased quickly since it is a clean area meant to have enjoyable views while people walk down there.
4.
Results and Discussion
Figure 4: Picture of the token "Fuck the Patriarcat!" Picture taken by: Badre Yassin
The analysed token ‘’Fuck the patriarcat!’’ (See figure 4) is a vindictive feminist message that alludes to the patriarchy in a pejorative way in order to show discontent towards gender inequality present in our society: in some cases the male gender has more advantages than the female one, for instance, in the salary. The values corresponding to this token are historical, identity and social. It is historical because throughout the history patriarchy, which is a form of organising society where the male-gendered practices are naturalised which exlcude and downgrade women's roles in society. has had an important impact in our society, which prevails nowadays and that is the reason why this linguistic element is also social, the claim presented here concerns a social element, the patriarchy. The last value of this linguistic landscape corresponds to identity because many people do not feel like patriarchy is being effective or tolerant and it denigrates the female-gendered and youth identities; we know it denigrates youth identities because the ones who painted this graffiti must be young people, maybe young girls.
This graffiti is a clear criticism to the patriarchy. English is a world-wide used language, so this could be the reason why most of the message is written in English. This graffiti is a clear illustration of the political/mobilisation of fights (in this case globalised) for gender identity claiming equality and it is written in English, which shows us part of the Englishisation of Lleida. "They are parts of processes of 'glocalization' as they are aimed at local as well as international audiences" (Gorter, 2012 p.11).
5.
Concluding
thoughts
We have been working in order to learn about LL and how to analyse them. By analysing this one and others, in this activity, we have understood them better and we also have increased our knowledge about the language in our society. We did not pay much attention to the linguistic elements that surround us before this. We were not concerned about the importance of these tokens until we started to focus on one of them.
TEP (technology of empowerment and participation) technology is reflected in this token since, as its name indicates, there is participation from the young people showing an active attitude in which they promote positive changes concerning matters of community interest. Also, TKA (technology of language acquisition) is reflected because the fact that the English language is present in our token tell us that the person or the people who wrote it acquired the foreign language.
Many of these linguistic elements have, at least, one word written in English, thus reflecting the behaviour of this particular language, which is present almost all over the world and it has the ability to promote global protests by laying citizens and social movements. This is a clear reflection of globalization. The message in our token, which is the graffiti that says “Fuck the patriarcat!”, is very clear, it is a personal opinion about a social regime, which is the male one in this case. This form of regime is present almost all over the world and it is known to be unfair for the female gender, prioritizing the male gender.
6. REFERENCES
- Barni, M., & Janssens, R. (2012). Linguistic landscapes, multilingualism and social change. In C. Hélot, & C. Bagna (Eds.).
- Google street view (2020). “Map of Cappont” [Visited on April 11, 2020]
- La Paeria (2012). Ordenança municipal de civisme i conveniència de la ciutat de Lleida. [Visited on 24 March 2020]
- Mooney, A., & Evans, B. (2018). Language, society and power: An introduction. London. Rouledge
- Passarel·la del Liceu Escolar (Google Maps, 2020) [Visited on April 11, 2020]
- Passarel·la del Liceu Escolar. Esquerra Republicana Lleida (2016) [Visited on April 11, 2020]
- Prego-Vázquez, G. i Zas Varela, L. (2018). Paisaje lingüístico: Un recurso TIC-TAC-TEP para el aula. Lingue Linguaggi
- Rojo, L. M., & Frutos, C. D. D. (2014). En #Sol, revolución: paisajes lingüísticos para tomar las plazas.Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies,15(1-2), 163–186. doi: 10.1080/14636204.2014.982889
Comments
Post a Comment