Mini Glocalities in Hamburg: Secondary Semiotic Landscapes of the Miniatur Wunderland

Busch, Florian; Bock, Cornelia F. (8 September 2022). Mini Glocalities in Hamburg: Secondary Semiotic Landscapes of the Miniatur Wunderland (Unpublished). In: The 13th Linguistic Landscape Workshop. Hamburg. 7-9 September 2022.

Full text not available from this repository. (Request a copy)

Based on an extensive photographic survey, the paper presents the ‘secondary
semiotic landscapes’ that the Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg
displays as miniaturized models. With its representation of 14 countries,
regions and cities by now, Miniatur Wunderland is the largest model
railway in the world and one of the most popular sights in Germany,
attracting about 1.4 million visitors annually (cf. Miniatur Wunderland
2022; Schings/Wendt 2021).
We refer to these model railway landscapes as ‘mediated-secondary’,
following the classification of medially stylized ways of speaking (e.g.
Auer 2003), because they represent real existing semiotic landscapes,
but (necessarily) reduce their semiotic complexity and select and stylize
certain salient features with regard to situated functions (including entertainment
and educational purposes).
In particular, the paper explores the question of which semiotic-linguistic
forms may be used in a stereotypic way by the creators in order to
make the depicted regions clearly recognizable and to characterize
them. We will show through which recurring patterns primary LL are
transformed into secondary LL in the miniature buildings. For this purpose,
the photographic documentation of the Miniatur Wunderland is
annotated and analyzed using established sign categories of LL research (e.g. Scollon/Scollon 2003; Ben-Rafael/Shohamy/Hasan Amara/
Trumper-Hecht 2006). In doing so, the paper not only discusses the specifics
of mediated-secondary semiotic landscapes, but also elaborates
on the stylized differences between the regions represented. In particular,
the divergence between the representation of Hamburg localness,
which plays an important role for the Miniatur Wunderland as a locally
anchored institution, and the global orientation towards different
world regions is the focus of our functional analysis. The paper thus represents
an innovative methodological approach to secondary LL and
contributes to the understanding of the reception and medial transformation
of visual-linguistic landscapes.

Item Type:

Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)

Division/Institute:

06 Faculty of Humanities > Department of Linguistics and Literary Studies > Institute of Germanic Languages
06 Faculty of Humanities > Department of Linguistics and Literary Studies > Institute of Germanic Languages > German Linguistics
06 Faculty of Humanities > Department of Linguistics and Literary Studies > Institute of Germanic Languages > Sociolinguistics

UniBE Contributor:

Busch, Florian

Subjects:

100 Philosophy
400 Language > 430 German & related languages
800 Literature, rhetoric & criticism > 830 German & related literatures

Language:

English

Submitter:

Florian Busch

Date Deposited:

19 Sep 2022 07:38

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 16:24

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/172810

Actions (login required)

Edit item Edit item
Provide Feedback