Spatial mapping of interactional narratives and socio-semiotic environment

International audience The basic idea behind the work presented here is that social space maps on to geographic space and that events such as conversations, artefacts of the semiotic environment and discourses can be plottedWe can see socio-geographic space in some maps I drew up at the time based on 2011 census data-Distribution of gross value added-Distribution of tertiary education-Distribution of waterIn the Gauteng all of these favour the Northern suburbs of Johannesburg, and, to a lesser extent, the Eastern parts of Pretoria (and have done so since the late 19th century – see Mabin, Storie).As a result, one can clearly see what a trajectory from Katlehong, a feeder for Sandton, represents. One literally passes from very low rise, informal to semi-formal housing conditions, to the hyperdensity of Sandton and with this trajectory comes access to health, consumption patterns etc… all of this changes.I don’t think that any of the things that I’m saying here are new. The question is though. How to approach spatial change and trajectory from the perspective of the humanities? What happens in terms of speaking, interaction, language and, of course, the biographic content and ‘doing being’ that these suppose?My work would like to offer 3 axes in a response to this question:-Firstly, the changes in verbal behaviour (related, here to interactional narrative behaviour) from one place to another and the resulting changes in ‘indexicality’ which is to say the marking that corresponds to one verbal form or another (obvious examples of this are use of slang vs formal registers / code mixing vs standard language varieties / specific terms etc that are ‘enregistered’ (Agha) which is to say that they become encoded in speech communities or communities of practice.-Secondly, the changes in the semiotic environment through linguistic landscapes research and participant orientation to this.-Thirdly, to observe dominant discourses.