'Shaping public spaces from below: A social semiotic multimodal analysis of the visual landscape of Kirkgate Market, Leeds'

Elisabett Adami

University of Leeds

For further information and to book your place at this event please visit our Eventbrite page

Thursday 6th June 4pm-5.30pm 

Charles Street 12-2-05 Sheffield Institute of Education, 

Sheffield Hallam University.

SHU Multimodal Discourse Analysis SIG invite you to come to a talk by Elisabetta Adami of University of Leeds and learn more about multimodal analysis and meet other interested colleagues. This is a transdisciplinary, cross college event, open to all.

In this talk, I present the findings of my social semiotic ethnographic investigation of the visual landscape of Kirkgate Market, in Leeds city centre. As one of the largest still functioning indoor markets in the UK, Kirkgate Market is a contested place, affected by discourses of crisis, decay and neglect, and pressured by renovation attempts targeting a higher budget clientele. Yet a close multimodal analysis of traders’ sign-making in their stalls, combined with ethnographic investigation, reveals the distinctive value of their practices, which accommodate socio-cultural diversity and point to a different conception of public space, even in a business-oriented place like a market.