`I was here!': Addressivity Structures and Inscribing Practices as Indexical Resources
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
7-29-2009
Keywords
addressivity, commemoration, identity, ideology, indexicality, inscription
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445609105218
Abstract
The article examines how practices of inscription and structures of addressivity (Goffman) at a symbolic site provide implicit indexical means for establishing subjectivities and agencies. By examining a visitor book located in a national commemoration site in Jerusalem, Israel, the article first argues that inscribing practices themselves can function as implicit indexical mechanisms. In ritualized environments, inscribing assumes the function of a non-referential indexical because discourse is materially engraved unto a surround. These environments are also characterized by prescribed addressivity structures. The article goes on to discern between a number of addressivity structures, evinced in visitors' aesthetisized entries. These structures serve as contextualizing cues and evince the ways visitors establish subjectivities and participation in national commemoration. Addressivity structures are shown to construct different types of social actors, and the spaces and temporalities within which they operate. Building on previous research on performance, the article shows how addressivity and inscription together supply the prerequisites for situated performances of identities and selves on inscribed and symbolic stages.
Was this content written or created while at USF?
No
Citation / Publisher Attribution
Discourse Studies, v. 11, issue 4, p. 421-440
Scholar Commons Citation
Noy, Chaim, "`I was here!': Addressivity Structures and Inscribing Practices as Indexical Resources" (2009). Communication Faculty Publications. 312.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/spe_facpub/312
