Beyond Words: From Visible Representations to Performativity of Absence in Semiotic Landscapes

This chapter highlights the importance of performativity in and of semiotic landscapes and addresses the role of words and voids in relation to language and state ideologies that shape social realities. After discussing linguistic inscriptions (representations) as the “data” in semiotic landscapes studies, this conceptual chapter exemplifies how absences may be treated as agentive matter or as posthuman(ly) performative. I argue that performative language extends beyond words and encompasses absence, thus also contributing to an assemblage of “language, bodies, objects and the environment” (Frimberger, 2018, p. 13). The chapter concludes by asserting that the performativity of language in its visible and invisibilized forms is fundamental for comprehending social actions as they unfold, are shaped by, and occur in relation to (im)material environments and people. Altogether, it demonstrates that from concerns with representation to the agential realist theory deploying post-human performativity, absences matter. Absences manifest when treated within a relational ontology of semiotic landscapes, emphasizing that they should be approached not in isolation but in conjunction with people, including the researcher.