Mountain areas and their cultural anthropological semiotic landscapes

Abstract

This paper highlights the cultural anthropological significance of mountain areas in the context of the linguistic theory of semiotic landscapes. It introduces some key points of cultural anthropology and its European tradition, the main insights of which are owed to French anthropologists. Although these anthropologists include some rural related phenomena in their work, they predominantly focus on urban structures when speaking about landscape. Therefore, the present paper addresses the question of the role of uninhabited areas, such as mountains, and their significance for cultural anthropological research. This is linked to the semiotic ground of linguistic relevance in space. Structures are identified, which can explain the cultural anthropological meaning of certain mountain areas by the inclusion of semiotic landscapes. Thus, the interaction of language and environment is brought into focus. Selected examples are used to illustrate what function places perform through the interplay of language and space.

Keywords

• cultural anthropology
• semiotic landscapes
• mountain areas
• space and structure
• language in space