A battlefield on the walls
graffiti, ‘No graffiti’ signs, and adherence in the city
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14393/DLv19a2025-26Keywords:
Discourse Analysis, Adhering utterances, Pichação and graffiti, No graffiti signsAbstract
The main goal of this article is to analyze three items of sign, herein named as “No graffiti signs,” which are affixed to the walls and fences around the city in order to inhibit any graffiti interventions in the area. Given that this type of signalization only exists due to the consistent practice of graffitiing, two items of graffiti and their adherence potential are investigated as well, being one written on the wall of a public park and the other written on the wall of a private cemetery, both in Downtown São Paulo City (SP), pondering the condition of graffiti as adhering utterances according to Dominique Maingueneau (2022, p. 17), for whom it is a “problem of support base adequacy”. In summary, adhering utterances are sentences written on objects, even though they are not always consistent with the usual meaning of the term (such as statements or full texts), for they may be a single word or a group of words, alphanumeric combinations etc., which appropriate an object (packages, T-shirts, beverage bottles, full landscapes etc.) and begin circulating together from a certain point on, transforming one another and creating another reality full of meaning. Studying the adhering utterances implies the possibility of resorting to a different theorical instrument from those frequently resorted to in research on highly institutionalized texts (i.e., political discourse, media discourse, educational discourse, advertisements etc.), privileged corpora by Discourse Analysis. Adhering utterances have been playing an essential role in modern society, which cannot be ignored, especially if one accepts the principle that Discourse Analysis should address discursive manifestations in all their diversity, as done in this paper. The hypothesis considered is that graffiti, as it has been occurring in large Brazilian cities, does correspond to the criteria listed for utterances to be considered adherent, having the appropriation as its most striking characteristic.
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