Semiotics of the Marketplace: Lessons from a Field Study in Kirkgate Market

As part of the Leeds Humanities Research Institute’s Moveable Feast series, a roving series of lunchtime talks, Elisabetta Adami (Languages, Cultures & Societies) will speak about 'Semiotics of the Marketplace: Lessons from a Field Study in Kirkgate Market'.

Abstract: For the semiotician no less than for the consumer, Kirkgate Market in Leeds is a marvel of diversity, offering a unique freedom for agency in public sign-making "from below," in sharp contrast to the corporate-led, professionally designed aesthetic of so many of today's public urban landscapes. Drawing on field studies conducted as part of a 2015-6 Sadler Seminar by the interdisciplinary Leeds Voices project, this talk will introduce some of the methodological as well as practical and even political lessons being learned from the semiotic study of social interactions in Kirkgate Market. The talk will dwell especially on an innovative feature of this study: the analysis of human communication as taking place in many different modalities at the same time.