Buchcover Handbuch Sprache im Urbanen Raum

The chapter discusses the use of photographs in research on Linguistic Landscape. Based on the observation of a widespread use of photographic documentation, the status of photographs is critically reflected. The focus lies on a reading of Susan Sontag’s ([1977] 2014) Melancholy Objects. Here, conceptions of description and documentation are questioned, as they are common for some linguistic works, especially in the field of Urban Studies. Of particular importance is the examination of the tension between realism and surrealism as well as the question of the extraction of reality. The text, which is a remix of Susan Sontag’s ([1977] 2014) thoughts, is complemented by twenty photographs that address the limits of photographic representation in the linguistic text.


In Beatrix Busse & Ingo H. Warnke (eds.), Handbuch Sprache im urbanen RaumHandbook of Language in Urban Space, 333–393. De Gruyter.

DOI: 10.1515/9783110296334-015

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articulate

“Contradictions need to be articulated in order to exist.”

Martin Nonhoff
interstice

“The contradiction of law in Derrida lies in the interstice that separates the impossibility of deconstructing justice from the possibility of deconstructing law.”

Andreas Fischer-Lescano
sustained engagement

“The history of Western philosophy can be understood as a sustained engagement with contradiction.”

Norman Sieroka
limits

“Resistance is a democratic right, sometimes a duty. With literature we can find models for this right and think about its limits.”

Gisela Febel
hierarchy of norms

“If social contradictions are reflected in law, law cannot form a hierarchy of norms free of contradictions.”

Andreas Fischer-Lescano