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This book, which takes the form of a graphic novel, looks at political activism in the public landscape. It has a particular focus on the UK activist group Led By Donkeys which has, since late 2018, been running a campaign to expose hypocrisy in the political classes. Their approach to activism involves the use of large posters and other forms of public display, which highlight the gap between the rhetoric and actions of politicians, and how language and communication is used to manipulate opinion. The activism discussed in the book includes four major issues: Brexit, Trump, Covid and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The book is both an innovative visual approach to the presentation of academic research and thought, and an exploration of how the linguistic landscape can be a key resource for the communication of political activism.
In a truly multimodal treatment of a multimodal subject matter, Seargeant grapples with the complex questions of political activism in the public space and presents them here in both a sophisticated and accessible way. This book not only critiques recent torrid political events but also slakes the public’s thirst for understanding visual communication in protest and activist movements.
With its balance between word-based and pictorial storytelling, the book realises an innovative way of scientific publication possibilities transcending between the format of traditional texts and a graphic novel [...] The true strength of this book is the authors’ innovative approach to multimodal data in the shape of visual narratives which do not just embed illustrations but utilize the pictorial representation as an equivalent tool.
— Laura Imhoff, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, Linguistic Landscape, 2024
Political Activism in the Linguistic Landscape offers a profound exploration of the relationship between language, political activism, and public space [...] It features illustrations by Seargeant that accompany the text and offer a multimodal perspective on a research object that is multimodal by nature. This strategy allows the book to broaden its target audience towards a more informative character, with a style that is more accessible to people outside of academia.
Philip Seargeant is a Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics at the Open University, UK, where he teaches and researches language and communication. He is the author of The Art of Political Storytelling (2020, Bloomsbury) and has published widely on topics ranging from World Englishes, language and social media, to language and creativity. He is a frequent contributor to publications including Wired, The New European, Prospect, The Huffington Post, The Washington Post and The Independent.
Setting the Scene
A: Accountability
B: Brexit
C: Covid
D: Democracy
E: Emplacement
F: Freedom of Expression
G: Grassroots Campaign
H: Hypocrisy
I: Intertextuality
J: Just Joking
L: Law
M: Metalinguistic Landscape
N: Narrative
O: Online–Offline Nexus
P: Place (and Space)
Q: Quotation
R: Rule of Law
S: Social Media
T: Twitter
U: Urban Environments
V: Victory?
Z: Zed
Afterword
A Second, More Word-Based Afterword
Appendix
A Model of Context for Grassroots Political Protest
Bibliography
Cast and Crew