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This paper is concerned with the ideological framing of typographic choices in Galician and Basque public space. It builds on an interpretive discourse analytical approach to the enregisterment of vernacular typography as social emblems of Galician-ness and Basque-ness. The paper argues that this process of enregisterment interacts with a layering in the contemporary semiotic landscape of three major ideological complexes: cultural resistance, cultural standardization, and cultural commodification. Each one of these ideologies represents a particular set of beliefs and values related to local culture which is attributed to and expressed by these vernacular typographic forms, thereby contributing to their varied indexicality and use in different locales, domains and genres, and to their potential for having an impact on the general graphic face of Galicia and the Basque Country. The paper points out a shift of orientation in the use of vernacular typography from a marker of nationalist ideologies and politicized identities to metacultural displays of symbolic capital formerly associated with these positions in the context of tourist consumption, urban theming, and place-branding. The ideological tension emerging between these two positions illustrates the central role performed in contemporary minority nationbuilding by the discursive interaction of pride and profit.

This paper examines at how language and food intersect and interact in gentrificationprocesses. As a capital-driven social process aiming at enhancing the socioeconomicvalue of urban space, gentrification implies mobility both in the sense that it attractsnew people, businesses and capital to an area, and in the form of displacement ofless affluent and prestigious people, businesses and semiotic resources from centralto marginal urban spaces. The paper examines linguistic and visual traces of suchmobilities in two neighbourhoods in Gothenburg, Sweden. Based on the observationthat food and food practices are central for the production and reproduction of socialdistinction, the analysis centres on food related establishments and signs. In particular,it discusses the distinction-making function of prestigious languages, elite gastronomicregisters, and gourmet food trucks, and how these depend on the marginalizationof low status languages, popular gastronomic registers and cheap generic food carts.People’s interaction with these resources contributes to the reconfiguration of socialand urban space.

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