Journal of Language and Politics 13:4 (2014), –. doi 10.1075/jlp.13.4.03marissn 1569–2159 / e-issn 1569–9862 © John Benjamins Publishing Company

Taking over the Square

The role of linguistic practices in contesting urban spaces

Luisa Martín RojoUniversidad Autónoma de Madrid

In this paper I study the extent to which the 15-M or Spanish Indignados movement has transformed the discourses of social movements, not only in terms of their content, but also in the way their communicative practices are produced and circulate. Thus, this paper firstly explores how changes in the conditions of production and circulation of linguistic practices contribute to the “deterritorialisation” and “reterritorialisation” of space, by means of which protestors replace the traditional organisation and uses of space with their own beliefs, ideologies and communicative practices. Secondly, I examine the extent to which this “reterritorialisation” leads to an in-depth transformation of the forms of communication, which could be, in their turn, not only transforming public spaces, but also social movements themselves, and the way of doing politics. The paper addresses whether these practices, in projecting themselves onto a public space which they transform, prefigure in the present moment the kind of society being proposed and fought for.

Keywords: Linguistic landscapes; communication practices; sociolinguistic market; deterritorialisation; reterritorialisation; production/circulation of linguistic practices

1. Introduction: “Nobody expects the #Spanish revolution”

During the months leading up to May 15, 2011, organisations such as Juventud sin Futuro (Youth with no future) and Democracia Real Ya! (Real Democracy Now!) organised a demonstration which turned out to be massive. The call went out mainly via social networks, and none of the principal political parties were involved in the rally. That night a small group of 100 protesters spontaneously began an occupation of Puerta del Sol, the main square in Madrid. They were violently evicted by the police, with several arrests made and injuries sustained. A call to retake the square spread rapidly across the internet, and the following

Note to the Author:Please provide citation for Figures 1 and 5-13 in the text and also provide the missing Figure 1.

Luisa Martín Rojo

day, thousands of protesters returned and reoccupied the square. The majority of Spanish cities also responded to this call and set up camps, whilst others were set up by Spanish émigrés/expatriates living in cities worldwide.

At first, the movement was called the Indignados (Outraged) movement, referring not only to a general feeling in Spanish society, but also inspired by the call to action represented by Stéphane Hessel’s Time for Outrage! Today it is known as 15-M, following a Spanish tradition of conjoining the day and the first letter of the month in which key events occur that are felt to be significant enough to be marked in the collective historical memory. The fact is that these days it is gener-ally accepted that the events of 15-M have marked us and had a profound impact on Spanish society.

The 15-M1 started in Madrid, but soon extended to the rest of Spain (Indigna-dos Plaza Cataluña, Barcelona; Primavera Valenciana-Valencian Spring-, among many other squares and cities). The Spanish media have related the protests to those in Tunisia, Tahrir Square in Egypt and other countries in North Africa and the Middle East, as well as to similar movements in Greece and Portugal. The 15-M has also served as a model for similar Occupy movements in New York (Occupy Wall Street), Paris (Indignées de France), Rome, Sydney, and Montreal, among other places.

After the elections of June 2011, those camped in the Puerta del Sol in Madrid and in Plaça Catalunya, in Barcelona were evicted by the police and cleaning ser-vices. However, the activity still continues today, taking different forms – primarily through local neighbourhood assemblies, which are usually held in squares or parks, and by way of Commissions (Legal, Communication, Action, Activi-ties, Neighbourhoods, State and International, Information, Infrastructure, Sign Languages) and Working Groups (Culture, Education, Politics, Economy, Envi-ronmental, Social Work, Feminism, Transmaricabollo (which might be translated as “Transfagdyke”), Science and Technology, Interreligious Dialogue, Migration and Mobility, Thought). Members of these assemblies have ended up creating plat-forms, associations, co-operatives and political projects amongst other collectives born in the wake of the demonstration, in which they currently participate. Thus tides of citizens, who defend education, the health system and other public ser-vices, or anti-eviction groups, are linked to this movement.

As a Madrid citizen, I lived through these events and since then I have been a member of the Analysis Commission, but I never imagined in those early

1. The movement is also referred to as Los Indignados from Hessel’s 2010 book Indignez-vous, (Time for Outrage! in English), and as Toma/Ocupa la Plaza (Occupy the Square), AcampadaSol (Sol Encampment).

Taking over the Square

moments that I would one day be writing this text. Just as the protest camp was setting up at Puerta de Sol, I was with students collecting material to study the linguistic landscape of Madrid. We went around the streets with cameras, docu-menting the languages used by the residents in messages, advertisements and posters, and their distribution in neighbourhoods and squares (see Martín Rojo, Molina and Díaz de Frutos 2012). Therefore, over the course of those days, the camp at Sol was quickly incorporated into the landscape from which we were gathering data and, with the same ease, some of us incorporated ourselves into the movement’s committees and assemblies. It was impossible to be present in the square and not be surprised at how, and through what channels, commu-nication was handled; for example, the strong presence of English and the role of languages such as Arabic or Greek. Nor was it possible to participate in the assemblies and not be struck by the novel use of nonverbal signs, the inclusive practices and the work and training of the moderators in managing interven-tions. The same applied to the complementary nature of the oral and visual mes-sages, and the mobility and material construction of the signs. The constant flow and interaction between the communication in the square and that of the inter-net, connection to other squares through streaming or the echoes of the voices of the protesters reproduced in posters and banners, all connected Sol to other squares and attracted new people from their homes to the camp.

At certain times and places, such as the one we examine in this paper, the necessary conditions (conditions of possibility) can arise for new ways of under-standing to emerge – in this case a new understanding of politics, citizenship and the economy. This paper explores to what extent the 15-M movement, through-out its development over time (from May 2011 until its second anniversary in May 2013), and space, in conjunction with the Arab Spring, the Greek “Aganaktis-menoi” (Indignados) and Occupy movements, has transformed the discourses of contemporary social movements, not only in terms of their content, but also in the way they are produced and how they circulate.

Thus, in this paper. I examine, how changes in the conditions of production and circulation of linguistic practices contribute to the “deterritorialisation” and “reterritorialisation” of urban space, by which protestors replace the traditional organisation and uses of space with their own beliefs, rituals, and communicative practices (see for both concepts, Deleuze and Guattari 1980).

The main aim of this paper is to explore the interplay between the discourses and the forms of communication that have been emerging along with the trans-formation of public space and the production of a counter-space. The latter can be seen as a common space that foreshadows new ways of inhabiting a space, involving both the individual and the group, in which the community broadens, and traditional political spaces are extended and widened (Section 2). Through

Luisa Martín Rojo

the occupation, squares, streets and even the bodies of the protestors themselves become spaces for political action and debate. Within this approach, linguistic practices – that is the production of posters, signs, messages and communications – and communication pathways and networks (by way of the development of new media) are understood as both linguistic and spatial practices.

The second aim of this paper is to explore to what extent this reterritorialisa-tion leads to truly “insurgent practices” (from signage to interaction) which shape and are in turn shaped by (new) political practices and ideologies, such as horizon-tality and the promotion of participation and collective intelligence (Section 3). Practices become insurgent from the moment they ensure participants’ access to the production of discourses, and put into circulation new forms of participation, authorship, agency and inclusiveness, etc. More specifically, the question I try to answer is whether these practices, in projecting themselves onto a public space, which they transform, are prefiguring the kind of society being proposed and fought for (Section 4). (On this concept of foreshadowing in political movements, see Graeber (2009), Maeckelberg (2012) and Estalella and Corsin (2013).

In order to study these questions I develop a broad, encompassing approach, seeking to integrate critical sociolinguistics, particularly in the analysis of the sociolinguistic market, and discourse studies, specifically in the analysis of the conditions of production and circulation of linguistic practices, with linguistics landscapes. An ethnography perspective has been also applied in the observation on communicative practices, and in the data gathering, and interpretation. Within the discussion, I raise some questions regarding the extent to which focusing on communication gives us any clues as to ways of exercising power and resistance, and how these might contribute to political action.

. Voices from the squares. Transforming and being transformed in space

One of the crucial points in the conformation of this movement is the occupa-tion of urban spaces—not just any urban space, but significant sites. In fact, if we study the interplay between linguistic practices and spatial practices, we realise that, in one sense, the location contributes to the meaning of the protest mes-sages, and in another, urban spaces and the experience of their inhabitants are transformed by them.

In Madrid, the occupation took place in a square, the Puerta del Sol, which is not only thought of emblematically as the city centre, but is in fact the geographi-cal centre. Indeed, in the centralist system of Franco it was also the imaginary centre from which all communications flowed. The place occupied during the dictatorship by the much feared General Security Directorate (Dirección General

Taking over the Square

de Seguridad), a detention centre known for its police brutality, is today the seat of regional government. In the city plan, the Puerta del Sol is the heart of Madrid and was designed as a meeting place, but historically it has also been a place where major events have been celebrated and commemorated (such as the proclamation of the Second Republic). Its role in the city and in the lives of its citizens is similar to that of Tahrir Square (see, Aboelezz in this volume).

FPO

Figure 1. Sol-Medina

.1 Deterritorialisation/reterritorialisation

Squares are the nerve centres of many cities, their physical and symbolic core, as well as the centre of power, where we find churches, town halls, the head offices of banks, clocks that identify the city, etc. In capitalist cities, the squares are also the centre of commerce and of the political institutions (Lefebvre 1968). In fact, siting the protest camps in the nerve centres of the city contributes to the significance of the messages of protest, while these in turn transform the urban space and the experience of its inhabitants. Otherwise we could not grasp the meaning, in this context, of some of the repeated slogans whose whole point is to draw attention to their positioning, in front of or surrounding these vital centres of government and commerce. This is epitomised in the slogan displayed in Syntagma Square, Athens: “We are here” (είμαστε εδώ), where here is in the square in front of the parlia-ment building. The slogan alternates with “We are in the streets/squares” and “We are everywhere “(είμαστε παντού), which connects, in turn, with “You’ll see each other in the squares” (Goutsos and Polymeneas, in this volume). They all express a desire to confront the relevant institutions and demand greater participation in decision-making, given that “They don’t represent us”.

Luisa Martín Rojo

Signage and interactions in the square are not only indicators of broader ideo-logical and political processes, but a form of appropriating or re-territorialisating core spaces in the city in order to build an agora, a meeting point, a place for dis-cussion and decision making aimed at increased participation and intervention in the governance of the community. Thus, trough linguistic practices, these urban spaces are built.

Figure 2. Under the tents

We can understand these spatial and communication practices as a form of “deterritorialisation”, by means of which protestors take the control and order away from a land or place (territory) that is already established. And, simultane-ously, as a reterritorialisation, by which protestors replace the traditional organisa-tion and uses of the space with their own beliefs and rituals (see for both concepts, Deleuze and Guattari 1980).

In this line, the camp is organised like a parallel city. The square—improvisa-tion built upon improvisation—soon became an alternative city, a kind of liber-ated zone and its own world. Every day more people joined the occupation and the camp continued to grow, with between five and fifty thousand people occupying the square at all times. The camp was permanently under construction with tarps, megaphones, sound systems, chairs, beds, computers and solar panels. Many ser-vices that exist off campus were also replicated inside: an agora (the general assem-bly), a medical service, media centre, a library and several archives, a day-care centre, a kitchen, an information and communication service, a legal commission and even a ‘respect commission’ with ‘respect officers’ trained to aid in conflict resolution. Each and every one of these services were governed by the principles

Taking over the Square

and the ideology of the movement, for instance, money was not allowed at the encampment, and Madrid locals contributed by donating food and anything that might be needed (see Figure 3).

In creating this new linguistic landscape, the occupants challenge and democ-ratise public and institutional spaces. With its posters and assemblies, the square emerges as a space that promotes the people’s democracy, which in turn leads to other actions – hence the prefigurative character of the linguistic practices and the movement in general, to which I referred earlier. The character of this Sol-city utopia is embodied in the new design of space, which is constructed in a way that responds to the kind of society that is being proposed. The way another possible society is foreshadowed in space was portrayed in the new design of the square captured in the map in Figure 2. And this transformation took place as much in the camp at Sol or the Plaza de Catalunya as in Syntagma, Midan Tahrir, Bab el Had or Zucotti Park, although the architecture of the occupation might be different.

Figure 3. Sol-utopia

This reterritorialisation responds to a form of living utopianism, that is to the idea that radical alternatives are possible andcan been created in the present (Graeber 2009, 9).

If the camp is organised like a parallel city (with an allotment, medical and cleaning services, a library, etc.) the assemblies transform the square from somewhere to pass through, into a meeting point, a space for discussion and

Luisa Martín Rojo

decision-making: it becomes an agora. This outdoor assembly space is part of the appropriation of the city: it interrupts the urban rhythm and brings to the fore-ground the bodies of those who take part in this exercise. As Estalella and Corsín (2013) point out, it thus subverts the condition of loneliness in company by creat-ing a place in the streets where people passing by interrupt their journey, a place of controversy that makes visible the various opinions of people who recognise a common space (Sennett 2011). Therefore, in most cases, the holding of public meetings, just as happens within the camp itself, raises tensions with those who frequent or have businesses in the space, and thus processes of negotiation are triggered (Moreno Pestaña 2012).

. Common vs. privatised spaces

But the occupation does not just intend to draw attention and give voice to the desire to take the reins in demanding a participatory democracy – given the lack of confidence that representative democracies inspire these days – but it also rep-resents a challenge to the economic order and the taking back of urban spaces. Image 1 clearly shows this movement towards (re)appropriation. During the 15-M camp in Madrid, a giant advertisement for shampoo located on the facade of a building in front of the headquarters of the regional government, and beside one of the most iconic shopping centres (El Corte Inglés), was completely covered by the messages of the protesters, which demanded a “real democracy” and called on all Europeans to revolt (“People of Europe rise up”).

In covering this huge advert from top to bottom, the occupants of the square reclaimed this space for the people of Madrid and for the expression of their will. that had come to be governed by private economic interests and had become com-mercialised. Just as posters, banners and graffiti are mobile and ephemeral, urban spaces are also become changing, moving and ephemeral, rather as Lefebvre had imagined the city of the future.

The encampments led to a mutation of urban space (see Gutiérrez 2013), the shift from public space to common space. Public squares, beset by excessive prohibitions and the privatization of their usage, were reborn as the urban com-mons. A leaderless, non-hierarchical citizen network organized this urban space “peer-to-peer”, consisting of interconnected public squares. As a result, we see a reterritorialisation that transforms the former public spaces into self-organising, self-governed places bristling with activity.

. Hybrid spaces

Alongside the occupation of the square, another square arose like a mirror image, a virtual square-agora. Figure 4 shows an announcement in the corner

Taking over the Square 1

for a webpage (www.madrid.tomalaplaza.net). Throughout the square, the sites and e-networks, information flowed permanently and instantaneously, spread-ing virally. The calls in the virtual agora materialized in the occupation of the square. Simultaneously, all the information that emerged there in the form of images, tweets, videos and recordings, immediately spread across the net. What happened in the square was transmitted by media in some of the capitals of the movements (Athens, Cairo, New York), and was streamed in Madrid as well. It also appeared on international web sites such as “Take the square”, and through Facebook and Twitter.

Furthermore, virtual squares, unlike the ephemeral occupation of urban spaces, constitute a fluid, on-going and non pervasive community. As the Spanish experience shows, in social networks this community is not only alive but ready to be convened. Although the participants in both squares were not exactly the same, given the different forms of literacy involved, differences in generations and social classes, they were part of the same movements.

A hybrid space emerges from this interplay between communication in and off campus. As Gutiérrez (2013) points out, “analogue and digital life were intimately intertwined, inseparable. During the encampment at Sol, the Twittó-metro connected networks and public squares, virtual and physical spaces, and some campaigns such as the #AbreTuWIFI, (#OpenYourWifi) campaign, which encourages people to open their home WI-FI access during protests to allow easy communication, nurtured this new hybrid urban space.

Figure 4. Because we’re worth it

Luisa Martín Rojo

. Voices from the squares. When communication practices became spatial practices

From the analysis of the data gathered during the Sol encampment, and from my participation in commissions and local assemblies, some semiotic and linguistic resources and some communicative strategies can be identified, such as: the per-sonalization and individualization of messages, their physical realisations and mobility, polyphony, resemiotisation and transmedia practices. In the following sections, I systematize these resources and strategies, from the perspective of the changes in the production and in the circulation of linguistic practices, linked to the new conditions of possibility which have made possible the deterritorialisation and reterritorialisation of public spaces, and the reconfiguration of the political process in the 2010s through occupation and protest, which takes a very different shape from previous forms of contestation.

.1 Changes in the conditions of production of linguistic practices

Puerta del Sol (Sun Gate) Square has been transformed from the discourse in and about the space. Reterritosialisation entails the restructuring of the space that has experienced ‘deterritorialisation’, and this process takes place precisely through production of signs, banners, murals, interactions, documents, and so on. The square was reshaped as an agora, as a meeting point, as a camp, and as a parallel city by the linguistic practices that delimit it, organise it, and produce meaning. In consequence not only a different representation of the square emerged, as the heart of the revolt, and as a living utopia, but also a full identification between the space (the square) and the protest took place.

Through the personification of “Sol”, the site often stands for the move-ment. Some committees even took the name from the locus of the revolt, as o Feminismos Sol (Sol Feminisms), or Asamblea Sol (Sol Assembly). In fact, Sol became the symbol of the movement. The social space and the social movement were inextricably bond, as is shown by several metaphorical and metonymical expressions triggered by the specific physical situation or location of the place the protests started. As Romano explains, SUN (sol) is a well-known source domain for many common conventional metaphors for HOPE, HAPPINESS, FUTURE, etc. in many languages of the world. In fact, this metaphor was also evoked in other sites of revolt, such as OWS and Athens, where the mottos ‘En Sol revolución’ (Revolution in Sol/sun), or, ‘Despertamos’ (‘We are awakening’), were evoked, and by means of which all the protesters at the Puerta del Sol and in other squares BECAME AWARE OF/CONCERNED BY THE SITUATION (see Romano 2013).

Taking over the Square

This identification between the space and the protests, which can be also found in other forms of production of discourse, is an outstanding example of “deterri-torialisation”, by means of which protestors take the control and order away from the traditional square, and, simultaneously, an example of reterritorialisation, by which protestors replace the traditional organisation and uses of space with a new configuration as a protest field.

Among the linguistic practices which contribute to this transformation of the square, individualisation and customization of signs became an efficient tool. During the occupation of the square, the trend of individualizing posters instead of traditional banners of political parties took off This change in the production of signs led to a proliferation of messages and signs, which marks out the field boundaries. Some signs are created in series, but others display custom messages in all kinds of media, and, rather than always reproducing the slogans of organ-isations, give voice to the views and creativity of those who display them.2 When their creativity captures the attention of participants and visitors they are repro-duced by being photographed and forwarded from the squares themselves – in the same way that a tweet is re-tweeted, they are copy-and-pasted or shared in posts. In the words of Guillermo Zapata, “content that works is not content that sparks debate, but that which is proliferated, that which generates the desire to show it to others” (Zapata 2012, 87).

Notable within this individuation of messages is the use of T-shirts worn by the protesters, in which the human body itself incorporates the demands and exhibits creativity. By way of corporealisation, the body politic is opened up and takes in any space, whether public or personal.

The human body is configured as part of the protest and as a space of repre-sentation that bears the given demand or criticism as it moves through the city. Thus the mobility and transformation of the landscape is increased by the pro-testers as they move about. The slogans and posters they carry function as a text designed to stimulate action or, at least, to provoke reflection on the current state of society. Thus, such movements, in occupying the streets and squares, produce their own performance spaces. Public space functions as a place to be inhabited and as a site of political discourse.

Following the 15-M movement, this trend is now consolidated and demon-strations have been articulated through this corporealisation that now transcends

. In fact, humour and creativity generate problems when it comes to translating messages that circulate beyond local borders, since they usually rely on a shared framework of knowl-edge of the social and cultural context in which they were produced. (Regarding the case of Egypt, see Meherez 2012.)

Luisa Martín Rojo

the individual level to team up and bring together the various sectors in the strug-gle. It all started with the “green tide”, which was followed by the “white tide”, the “orange tide”, etc. Each sector flies a colour and the city becomes reconceptualised by way of these “tides”.

As is the case of immigration and other phenomena that involve large num-bers of people, the metaphor of water engenders an understanding of the protests as counter-currents that run through the streets of the city to the point of flooding their major hubs, such as the Plaza de Colón, the Puerta del Sol or the Plaza Cibeles

Figure 5. New political spaces

Taking over the Square

in Madrid.3 These demonstrations are ‘spatial stories’, in De Certeau’s terms (1984, 122), demonstrations are designed as spatial practices, given that they are planned as a choreography, and, particularly, because they also activate metaphors (“tides”, “tsunami”) which organise places through the displacement they describe.

. Immigration is often depicted by the evocation of uncontrollable bodies of water, “waves”, “floods”, “tide”, “human flood” and, faced with these, conservative policies always talk about wanting to “streamline flows” (Martin Rojo 2004). This creates a figurative nucleus revealing and structuring the understanding and global representation of the phenomenon in terms of how water flows, and it conjures up, at the same time, an image of risk. In this case, this nega-tive image has been made into a flag to evoke the power of change, against which it is useless to fight.

Figure 6. “Simultaneous tides, one tsunami”

Luisa Martín Rojo

Figure 7. “Human Tides”

Besides individualisation and customization and embodiment, polyphony contributes to the de/reterritorialisation of Sol Square as a common space. By the inclusion of multiple voices in a single message, that is by echoing the mottos produced in other occupied squares and movements, the voices and ideas of one protest are evoked within another. The fact that the Tunisian slogan “Dégagez!” (Go away!) is echoed in French in the streets of Cairo, or that on banners in Athens or New York we see suns painted and references to waking up taken from the camp in Madrid, or the word Revolution, written in Arabic, which appears as a ban-ner in various squares in Spain creates a link between protest movements. Some-times merely evoking a language is enough to give resonance to the voices of other movements, as with the posters in Arabic and Greek that were displayed in the Puerta del Sol in Madrid, and might well prove incomprehensible to most pass-ersby (see, indexicality, in Section 4). Thus intertextual chains (Fairclough 1992) are generated, in which the messages and demands of one square are heard and amplified in others; they transmit strength, create community and lift the protest onto an international scale.

Taking over the Square

Figure 8. Tides on the move

Figure 9. Chains of revolutions

Luisa Martín Rojo

Polyphony always involves a dialogue, reproducing the voice of whomever one agrees or disagrees with. One of the most prominent examples of this dialogue took place in Syntagma Square, where a large banner was displayed upon which was written, in Spanish, a response to alleged criticism coming from the 15-M movement in Madrid about the lack of protests in Greece: “We are awake. What time is it? It’s time they went”, it proclaimed. This banner takes up the metaphor of sunrise and waking up from the camp at Sol, whilst echoing the famous demand of “Go away”. Finally, we find entextualisation. It is seen as a process to be studied “in formal and functional terms by exploring the means available to participants in performance situations to render stretches of discourse discontinuous with their discursive surround, thus making them into coherent, effective and memorable texts” (Bauman & Briggs 1990, 73–74; see also Silverstein and Urban (eds) 1996; Spitulnik 1997).

Figure 10. New events within an old frame

Through the process of ‘entextualisation’, information moves across historical and geographical contexts from the past to the present, from previously known and experienced events to those which are unknown and uncertain in the present. Thus, a domain of experience is understood in terms of other. In this case, contem-porary social movements are reframed in the context of previous struggles, such as the defence of the Spanish Second republic and against the Franco regime, French revolution or the siege of Sparta. Current events are also reframed within the context of Arab springs and other indignados or occupy movements, for example through the evocation of the word revolution in Arabic on posters and banners.

. Changes in the conditions of circulation of linguistic practices

In this section, I study how Sol Square was also transformed and reterritorialised by the way all the signs and text-messages, documents, and debates in assemblies

Taking over the Square

circulated within and outside the campus. In relation to this, the analysis of the circulation of linguistic practices within the 15M movement also reveals changes in the conditions of circulation: replication, resemiotisation, transmediation. As a result of these changes, the movement puts into circulation and spread alterna-tive discourses which challenge hegemonic ideologies and economic and power relationships.

Sennett (1994) traces the path from Harvey’s discoveries about circulation in the body to the urban planning of the eighteenth century, and what circulation meant for individuals and groups in the Enlightenment city. Following the course of time, the author focuses on the challenge circulation posed to the sense of place in revolutionary Paris. Out of this conflict there arose in the nineteenth century urban spaces made for individuals.

Thus, mediated political discourse becomes more dynamic with the prolifera-tion of mobile devices. The 15-M movement exceeded the threshold that allows an online movement to take to the streets (Toret 2012; SuNotissima, Quodlibtat, Axebra and Arnau Monty 2012) and coordinate actions. The microblog Twitter is also a means of geographical coordination during the protests since, through references to places and routes in tweets, those who write and receive messages, without having to be in the same space, can continue on their own routes and converge later at a given location (Dang-Anh & Eble 2013).

The viral replication of messages increases their power to transform a space and also makes them multimodal, since it involves changes in the materiality of the messages or their medium. Thus, demands shouted aloud result in signs and placards, which in turn get chanted again in demonstrations, resolutions agreed in assemblies are translated into written documents, which are then copied and pasted in different forums, and everything that goes on is captured in photographs circulated on the internet.

When some semiotic resources are translated into others and enter a chain of reiteration, their power to transform a space is increased. We can call this transla-tion or transposition (re)semiotisation (Iedema 2003, Chun in this volume). In fact, the impact of the ‘occupied’ cities increased exponentially with each retrans-mission through the different communications media and through social net-works worldwide, which explains the connections between ‘occupations’.

Other polyphonic communicative practices, such as transmediatic practices, contribute to the (re)semiotisation of public spaces. Calls to action in the virtual agora materialised in the occupation of the square. Simultaneously, all the infor-mation that was produced there in the form of images, tweets, videos and record-ings, was spread across the net. These communication networks are the new veins and arteries of the city that ensure the circulation and respiration of people and protests that are now more mobile than ever.

Luisa Martín Rojo

Among the transmediatic practices there is one event that clearly brings together (re)semiotisation and polyphony: flashmobs, massive choreographies, based on television series or video clips, which, in the middle of the protest, turn an urban space into a stage of an unexpected performance (see García Agustín and Aguirre analysis of the GenkiDama, in this volume).

The Solfonica, an orchestra linked to the 15-M, plays a similar role in this transformation of streets and squares into stages. During their performance, the ensemble circulates songs linked to previous revolutions and protest, such as “Grândola, Vila Morena”4 from the Portuguese Carnation Revolution, songs from “Les Miserables”, and from the Spanish civil war. Through these emblematic songs, a narrative is produced, and public squares and streets are transformed into a pro-test scene.

Meanwhile, it is the urban space that shapes these messages, which can only be understood in relation to the place where they originate. In fact, when the camp was evicted in Madrid (as elsewhere), the assemblies had to move to other squares and the cleaning services destroyed murals and posters, undoing this image of the city and thereby showing its ephemeral nature.

. Insurgent practices in reterritorialised spaces

In this section I examine the second question that this paper covers. I examine the extent to which this “reterritorialisation” leads to an in-depth modification of the forms of communication, which could be transforming not just public spaces, but also social movements themselves, and the ways of doing politics. In the fol-lowing sections, I examine some transgressive practices, such as mixing languages (hybridisation), the use of languages excluded from the field of politics or that were not part of the life of the community (transformation of the linguistic market) and the questioning of language ideologies. I also analyse protesters choice of inclusive forms, such as the generic use of the feminine, and the management of participa-tion as a key aspect in ensuring the agency of the participants. All these phenom-ena are analysed in the light of their capacity to change the current conditions of

. In March 2013, protests againstausterity for the poor imposed by the Capitalist Regime have soared in Portugal. Among them a group of citizens sang from the tribune of Parliament the revolutionary song “Grândola, Vila Morena”, which was broadcast on the radio in 1974 as a signal to initiate the Carnation Revolution that ousted the fascist regime. The current crisis then became reframed within the revolutionary past, and from then on, the song has been sung by The Solfonica as a hymn for Spanish protests.

Taking over the Square 1

access to political discourse. However, as we will see, not all the observed practices have this effect, and therefore not all of them would be considered insurgent.

In the posters and banners of the 15-M movement, on websites, in streaming and in their assemblies there circulate languages which, in other social domains, do not circulate to the same extent. Moreover, the symbolic value attributed to them is not that which they would typically be assigned, and neither does it coin-cide with predominant evaluations. In terms of Bourdieu (2002), just as in the eco-nomic market there are monopolies and power relations that dictate the fact that not all producers and not all products are equal, similarly, in the linguistic market, there is imbalance of power. Thus, socioeconomic inequality has its counterpart in the linguistic universe. It is evident that not all members of a society enjoy the same linguistic capital: some will be monolingual, others multilingual, some speak English, some Arabic, some might speak a more prestigious variety of Spanish whilst others use a less esteemed variety, etc. Not everyone will have had the same opportunity to acquire the linguistic varieties and forms with the highest market value; these include international languages, written language or academic reg-isters. The question of linguistic capital is closely related to the question of value because, just as in the currency markets, in the “linguistic market” dialects, styles and languages themselves do not share the same exchange value.

The linguistic market is not free, since there are rules that establish what reg-isters and what languages are allowed to circulate and within which social spheres. As a result, those permitted to circulate are those that are valued, those considered legitimate and appropriate (Bourdieu 1982). For Bourdieu, there is a relatively unified linguistic market, which coincides with the Nation-state and configures a hierarchical discursive space: languages valued more or less highly, dialects and uses that can be employed in some spheres but are rejected in others. Nevertheless, in every field of activity – education or politics, for example – depending on power relationships within the field, this order can be readjusted.

The “objective” linguistic differences between one language, variety or accent and another – for example, between Modern Standard Arabic and Moroccan Arabic, or between English and Spanish, can become differences of symbolic capi-tal, their use being legitimate or limited within a given social field, such as the arena of parliamentary politics as opposed to the context of ‘occupation’. So the question that should concern us is not which languages are circulated by social movements, but rather what value is attributed to them; which languages or linguistic resources, for example, are seen as legitimate and what social actors are considered entitled to produce and circulate these socially valued resources (Bourdieu 1993, 331).

Certainly, no-one would be surprised to learn that English was a language widely used in the protest camps and in the early stages of 15-M, but if we examine what values were attributed to it, based on the use it was given, on who produced

Luisa Martín Rojo

messages in English and for whom they were intended, the answers we get are a little more surprising. In the Puerta del Sol, as in other squares, English appears as an international language used to put messages into circulation beyond the national borders. Messages that were repeated in Madrid, such as People of Europe rise up, were directed at those who, through the media and social networks, might be able to receive such a message. However, we found other uses of English that are not bound up with this dimension of it being an international language. In fact, in Madrid, English was the language used in the paging messages that were issued to prevent heatstroke in Puerta del Sol, which means that those they were aimed at were present in the square. The same applied to the instructions and rules regard-ing the operation of the camp (Please, don’t drink. It’s our responsibility to remain here protesting), addressed to co-participants in the square.

A more complex issue is is the case of signs with puns that require knowl-edge of both languages and/or the cultural and political situation of the country or countries concerned, such as in We D’Hondt like this voting system,5 In sol we trust or Here comes the sun. This happened both in Sol and in Tahrir, where English is also a language of the colonial past (Panović 2012).

To a lesser extent, other languages were also used locally, especially Euro-pean Union languages such as Italian and, occasionally, French. (Greek is a special case). These appear in the messages that regulated the use of alcohol or instru-ments in the camp at Sol, messages intended for certain participants, although perhaps not all (Bois pas, pense; Italiani svegliatevi anche voi, dai!, etc.). In this case, the languages in circulation show the recognition of linguistic diversity resulting from the circulation of different people, and how visitors and Erasmus students are considered legitimate participants in the movement. This challenges the ideology of monolingualism (often expressed in phrases such as “If you live in Spain you should speak Spanish”) and it disproves the equation “one state = one language” so ingrained in Europe.

In these cases, languages that were not formerly in our repertoire not only appear, they mix, clearly evidencing the fact that we live in a multilingual environ-ment in which repertoires also diversify. According to theories of social indexicality, the semiotic and linguistic resources in use play a role in the construction of iden-tities.6 When displayed in public spaces and intermixed, languages become salient, they distinguish those who use them, mark a person as belonging to a community

. The D’Hondt method is a highest averages method for allocating seats in party-list proportional representation. This method favours large parties and coalitions over scattered small parties.

. See Curtin (2014) for a similar approach on the cosmopolitanism of people who move in social networks.

Taking over the Square

in struggle and simultaneously, and not without tensions, broadcast a wide range of orientations in terms of national and ethnic identity. The mixture of resources from different languages thus allows the process of indexicality to become multiple.

Within this transformation of the values traditionally attached to languages, the visibilisation and appreciation of Arabic in the camp at Sol stands out par-ticularly. Arabic, a local language associated with migration, takes on a different value in the wake of the Arab Spring, which legitimises it as a language of pro-test. Its value as symbolic capital increases and differs from that which it usually holds in the streets and neighbourhoods of Madrid, where it appears in areas where the number of migrants is high, in shops and businesses primarily aiming to serve the Arab speaking community itself, and to a lesser extent the general population. The same occurs with other languages in occupied squares, especially Greek, which was barely visible in the streets of Madrid but increased its pres-ence in posters and banners. Thus the intertextual chains, discussed earlier, are created,where the messages and demands of one square resonate and are ampli-fied in other squares, transmitting strength and creating a sense of community.

Figure 11. Sol-revolution

Luisa Martín Rojo

The localisation of international languages or the re-evaluation of local languages are phenomena that lead to changes in the linguistic market, at least in the field of protest. This reorganisation or readjustment of the hierarchy of languages and their values became particularly evident in the Arab Spring, where a linguistic conflict arose. Traditionally diglossia has been seen as the result of a var-ied distribution of functions and areas of use of the different languages of a com-munity (for example, modern standard Arabic and Darija – Moroccan Arabic – for example). Sociolinguistics today criticises this notion of diglossia (see, for an over-view, Sebba 2010). Instead of regarding it merely as a distribution of languages in terms of social spaces and actions, it believes that this linguistic situation is the result of, and itself reinforces, the historical relations of subordination of certain social and ethnic sectors whose languages, by not being legitimised, could not be written down or were banished from the fields of education, justice and politics. This traditional order is broken with the messages that are exchanged and written in the squares, in that languages that were previously excluded are incorporated into political practice. This integration challenges diglossic hegemonic ideologies that attribute values of high culture and progress to one language, whilst others are considered primarily oral, family orientated, socially backward, etc. And it is precisely here that we see the reproductive power of social inequalities at a linguis-tic level, inasmuch as, in opening up political activity to other languages, we also grant access to those who were not able to acquire ‘prestigious’ languages such as modern standard Arabic or French through their education. Thus, Moustaoui (in preparation) discovered, in the incorporation of new languages into the M-20F protests in Morocco, a communication strategy directly related to effective and efficient militancy. As in other Arab Spring demonstrations, a re-evaluation takes place of linguistic varieties that, despite being local, are not official – such as Moroccan Arabic and Tamazight, in the case of Morocco.

The repositioning of languages and their level of prestige does not only con-stitute a form of resistance to the power relations established within the political and economic systems and by the authorities, but also embodies a demand for a new social order. We are talking about unofficial languages of a people’s heritage, which, when written down and in breaking into areas from which they have been excluded, take on a new status in the local sociolinguistic order.

Ivan Panović (2012) reached similar conclusions when examining the call that circulated on the internet, especially on Facebook, for the protest of January 25th, 2011 in Cairo. In the texts he examined (from Wikipedia articles to posters, banners, graffiti and tweets) he discovered the criteria used to choose between three language varieties (colloquial Egyptian Arabic, modern standard Arabic and English) and two scripts (Arabic and Latin) and how they are combined and recombined. These transgressive practices, inasmuch as they break the allocation

Taking over the Square

of languages to social spaces, and indeed create a hybridisation when languages and alphabets are mixed, challenge the hegemonic ideology that only allows stan-dard Arabic to be written, just as they defy monolingual ideologies and the com-mon rejection of hybridisation. However, the increase in multilingualism seems not to have been equivalent in English-speaking countries. Neither Canada nor the United Kingdom noted multilingualism as a feature of the Occupy movement. Only in America, and especially in New York, could we find a modest visibilisation of less valued languages on posters and in the assemblies, as can be seen in this poster from Occupy Wall Street where an assembly was held in Spanish. As a result, Spanish speakers appear here as legitimate participants in the movement.

Figure 12. Plaza de la Libertad

The transforming power left some grey areas, such as the failure to question hegemonic sociolinguistic orders. In the case of 15-M in Madrid, for example, other official languages such as Catalan, Galician and Basque were barely visible, except during the days of the march of 19th June. In this case the framework that territo-rialises bilingualism in the Spanish State was reproduced, a framework in which the monolingual areas do not perceive the linguistic diversity of the peripheral

Luisa Martín Rojo

regions as part of their own heritage. The current language policy hides the reality in Spain, where 40% of the population lives in bilingual territories, but a section of the remaining 60% which is monolingual ignores the use of the other languages or considers it an act of defiance rather than something natural (see Ramallo, cited in Pérez Oliva 2012). So, despite reflexivity and meta-linguistic awareness, the voices of those of us who consider multilingualism to be a mechanism for inclusivity and an instrument of territorial cohesion, useful for integrating and strengthen-ing the movement throughout the Spanish State as well as for the integration of migrant groups and associations, have not made themselves heard sufficiently.7 Thus, in relation to Spanish multilingualism, beside insurgent practices, we find some practices, which reproduce the current sociolinguistic order.

What is needed is to look into the reasons why multilingualism went almost unnoticed and now seems virtually obsolete when, in contrast, there has been a great deal of discussion about inclusivity through the relationship between language and gender (although not without some controversy). There, habits have indeed been changed and the feminine gender has been held up as inclu-sive, as opposed to masculine hegemony. Spanish, being a gender-based lan-guage, was hacked to be gender-flexible (from “nosotros” to “nosotras”) early on in the encampments. As Gutiérrez (2013) points out: “We started seeing men speaking very naturally in feminine/gender inclusive forms of speech, a hugely significant detail. It’s a symbolic mutation, a step onwards from competition to collaboration”.

Ensuring access to the production and circulation of discourses is a necessary condition for reinforcing participation.From its management there stem alterna-tive ways of doing politics, and new societies can be imagined. And, it is, precisely, in the protesters’ assemblies, the main forum for formulating their demands, organising actions and taking decisions, that it is essential to increase and ensure participation.

Thus, in the case of Occupy Wall Street, to achieve a participatory dynamic in the assemblies a “step-up/step-back” rule was applied, encouraging “those requesting time to speak to consider whether they might ‘step up’ by recognizing their relatively privileged role in society at large and cede the floor or ‘step back’, to allow someone from a group with traditionally fewer opportunities to have their voice heard” (Writers for the 99% 2011, 30). The so-called ‘stock-takers’ (equiva-lent to ‘secretarios’ in the 15-M documents) called for input and feedback in a way that was inclusive – so that they would give access to voices often minoritised (for reasons of gender, ethnicity, social class or immigrant status) – and progressive,

. For an analysis of the absence of immigration in the 15-M movement, see Ramírez 2012.

Taking over the Square

in this case remembering their points of view, despite fluctuations and changes of the audience over the course of a long assembly. The same spirit is evident in the materials generated by the 15-M movement, in which the tasks allotted to mod-erators and facilitators include ensuring respect and including dissenting voices. However, it is not explicitly laid down as an objective that they must reflect social, ethnic, and gender diversity.

This insufficient development of communication rules which ensure the access to discourse compromises to some extent some of the ideological principles of the movement, horizontality and collective intelligence. This kind of intelli-gence is understood as “a form of universally distributed intelligence, constantly enhanced, coordinated in real time, and resulting in the effective mobilization of skills”, whose basis and goal is “mutual recognition and enrichment of individuals rather than the cult of fetishized or hypostatized communities” (Lévy 1994, 13), and demands horizontal and inclusive patterns of participacitation.

But changes in the patterns of horizontal and inclusive communication are more clearly applied beyond assemblies, in virtual communication. Before, during and after the camp, a digital infrastructure (blogs and mailing lists) was deployed, through which information was circulated and in which grew a swarm of voices and proposals. Zapata (2012), as well as others (Alcazan et al. 2012) considers that the role of social networks, in addition to producing a magnetic field and a sense of community, has been to promote horizontality in the pro-duction and circulation of the discourses. In this communicative context, col-lective authorship and free access, and the internet makes both of these possible, given that documents are drafted collectively and all the information generated is available on the net.

Figure 13. Active participation

Luisa Martín Rojo

. Discussion

Having examined the role of communication practices in the 15M movement and in the course of its evolution, we have seen how communication appears as a key element in the re-appropriation and (re)definition of public spaces and the emer-gence of new political practices. The transformation of a space, the ideological features, as well as the political projects and those aimed at constructing new soci-eties, are interwoven and embodied in everyday exchanges, in messages circulat-ing on the internet, in posters on display in the squares, in the participation of the assemblies, and in the choices of languages and writing systems.

What has been covered here has highlighted some of the major changes that have occurred in the production and circulation of discourses of protest and the management of communication. Firstly, we looked at those which are involved in the production and transformation of urban spaces, such as the expansion and embodiment of political space, the development of new means of communication by way of virtual networks, and the retaking of the city and its reconfiguration as a dynamic space. Similarly, in relation to insurgent practices, we have seen how, at the heart of the appropriation movement, languages have been transformed. These transformations include the mixing of languages, which designate different identi-ties, and changes in access to political practice by reassessing which languages can be used in this context and by establishing rules for communication that guarantee the inclusion of different sectors of society. By giving written form to languages not normally written down, and by bringing into circulation languages that are usually absent from political life, or by opting for inclusive forms, such as the generic use of the feminine, the visibility and participation of those whose voice usually goes unheard are increased. The management of participation also becomes a key aspect in ensuring the agency of the participants, and thus permitting the typical pyra-midal form of organisation to be replaced with an alternative interlaced structure.

In terms of communities and identities, the use made of languages shows how, from local communities clinging to a monolingual norm that favours national languages, there has been a move towards a public recognition of diversity and an appeal to the interconnections between movements and an internationalist mission. In this way, each of these discourses and each of these ways of working foreshadows an alternative political practice and another possible world, ruled by the values of the movement, such as horizontality, a distributed power network, greater participation, a view of spaces and identities as dynamic and collective intelligence.

These practices, in foreshadowing other movements and other possible worlds, problematise the current ones and open up new ways of understanding and action. Once the conditions of production and circulation of discourses

Taking over the Square

change, the production of discursive representations and their flow is not com-pletely controlled. In this case, alternative representations, values and ideologies, were not only virally spread through social networks but also reproduced by the local and international media. The denunciation of the effects of neoliberalism, the rise of social inequality, the end of the welfare state, are the targets of these new representations.

Thus, in the face of the frequent criticism levelled at these movements, that they lack any real political agenda, what we find is a different logic whose main objective is to regenerate politics.

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank her partners from the Analysis Group who shared the activity and reflection that have gone into shaping these pages, as well as the par-ticipants in the roundtable that took place in La Corrala in November 2011 (Luz Gomez, Cristina Santamarina, Carlos Lopez Carrasco, Carmelo Diaz, Simone Belli) and the organisers of the Teach-in at NYU, in which I participated (Joshua Frens-String and Stuart Scharder, amongst others). Many of the references and contributions come from the debate generated at the Sociolinguistics Symposium held in Berlin in August 2012, with Mariam Aboelezz, Christian W. Chun, Mark Dang-Anh and Michael Eble, Carmelo Díaz de Frutos, Oscar Garcia Agustin, Felix J. Aguirre Diaz, Dionysis Goutsos, George Polymeneas, Adil Moustaoui, Lila Steinberg, John Unger, David Veloso and reviewers Alexander Duchene and Helen Kelly-Holmes. With all of them I have debated, discussed readings and learned a lot. The photos in this article were taken by Carmelo Díaz de Frutos and Luisa Martin Rojo. I would like to thank Carmelo Diaz for permission to use his photos in this publication.

References

Alcazan, Arnaumonty, Axebra, Quodlibetat, Simona Levi, Sunotissima, Takethesquare, and Toret. 2012. Tecnopolítica, internet y R-evoluciones. Sobre la centralidad de redes digitales en el #15M. Madrid: Icaria Asaco.

Bauman, Richard, and Charles L. Briggs. 1990. “Poetics and Performance as Critical Perspec-tives on Language and Social Life.” Annual Review of Anthropology 19: 59–88.

DOI: 10.1146/annurev.an.19.100190.000423.Bourdieu, Pierre. 1982. Ce que parler veut dire. L’économie des échanges linguistiques. París:

Fayard. DOI: 10.1525/aa.1985.87.4.02a00420.Bourdieu, Pierre. 1993. Language and Symbolic Power. Harvard University Press. DOI: 10.1093/sf/71.1.242.

Luisa Martín Rojo

Bourdieu, Pierre. 2002. “El mercado linguístico”. In Sociología y cultura, ed. by Pierre Bourdieu, 143–158. México: Grijalbo, Conaculta.

Curtin, Melissa. 2014. “Mapping Cosmopolitanisms in Taipei: Toward a Theorization of Cosmopolitanism in Linguistic Landscape Research”. International Journal of Sociology of Language 2014 (228): 153–177. DOI: 10.1515/ijsl-2014-0009.

Dang-Anh, Mark., and Michael Eble. 2013. “Microblogging the Protest: Linguistic Practices of Contextualizing and Constructing Space on Twitter.” Selected Papers of Internet Research 14.0: 1–5.

De Certeau, Michel. 1984. The Practice of Everyday Life. California, CA: University of California Press.

Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. 1980. Mille plateaux. Capitalisme et schizophrénie. Paris: Minuit. DOI: 10.7202/027380ar.

Díaz de Frutos, Carmelo. 2012. “#Acampada Sol”, A Social Movement Aiming to Change the Linguistic Map. Berlin: Sociolinguistics Symposium 19.

Estalella, Adolfo, and Alberto Corsín. 2013. “Asambleas al aire: la arquitectura ambulatoria de una política en suspensión” Revista de Antropología Experimental 13 (Special issue: Etno-grafías de la indignación): 73–88.

Fairclough, Norman. 1992. Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. DOI: 10.1017/s0047404500017309.

Graeber, David. 2009. Direct Action: An Ethnography. Oakland, CA: AK Pr Distribution.Gutiérrez, Bernardo. 2013. Prototype 2: The Urban micro-utopia. Spain’s Micro-Utopias: The 15M

Movement and its Prototypes (Part 2). Available at [http://takethesquare.net/2013/05/20/spains-micro-utopias-the-15m-movement-and-its-prototypes-part-1/].

Iedema, Rick. 2003. “Multimodality, Resemiotisation: Extending the Analysis of Discourse as Multi-Semiotic Practice.” Visual Communication 2 (1): 29–57.

DOI: 10.1177/1470357203002001751.Latour, Bruno, and Peter Weibel. 2005. Making Things Public: Atmospheres of Democracy.

Cambridge, MA and London, UK: The MIT Press. DOI: 10.1177/0090591709332342.Lefebvre, Henry. 1968. Le droit à la ville. Paris: Ed. du Seuil, collection Points.Lévy, Pierre. 1994. L’Intelligence Collective. Pour une Anthropologie du Ccyberspace. Paris: La

Découverte.Maeckelberg, Marianne. 2012. “Horizontal Democracy Now: From Alterglobalization to Occu-

pation.” Interface: A Journal for and About Social Movements 4 (1): 207–234. Available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xqzubnfFr9w.

Martín Rojo, L., C. Molina y C. Díaz de Frutos. 2012. “Multilingual Madrid: Lenguas pa’ la citi. Documental”. Available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBFxhXFVi50.

Meherez, Samia. 2012. Translating Egypt’s Revolution: The Language of Tahrir. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press. DOI: 10.5743/cairo/9789774165337.001.0001.

Moreno Pestaña, Jose Luis. 2012. Manuscript. Cómo se hacen, cómo se mantienen y cómo desa-parecen las asambleas.

Moustaoui Srhir, Adil. In preparation. Delegitimizing Power and Resisting Sociolinguistic Institu-tional Order: The February 20 Movement in Morocco.

Panović, Ivan. 2012. Verbalising Revolt, in Writing: From an Online Call to Demonstrations to Transient Linguistic Cityscape(s) of Cairo. Berlin: Sociolinguistics Symposium 19. Available at http://www.sociolinguistics-symposium-2012.de.

Pérez Oliva, Milagros. 2012. “La guerra de las lenguas”. El País Sociedad, 26/12/2012. Available at http://sociedad.elpais.com/sociedad/2012/12/26/actualidad/1356543207_646129.html.

Taking over the Square 1

Ramírez, Angeles. 2012. “Ausencias silenciosas: la inmigración en el 15M”. In ¡Espabilemos! Argumentos desde el 15-M, ed. by Carlos Taibo, 26–30. Madrid: Catarata.

Romano, Manuela. 2013. “Situated-Instant Metaphors: Creativity in Spanish 15-M Slogans”. In Metaphorical Creativity across Modes. Metaphor in the Social World Special Issue 3 (2), ed. by Hidalgo-Downing, Laura, and Blanca Kraljevic, 240–259. Madrid: John Benjamins Publishing Company. DOI: 10.1075/msw.3.2.01int.

Sebba, Mark. 2010. “Societal Bilingualism”. In The SAGE Handbook of Sociolinguistics, ed. by Ruth Wodak, Barbara Johnstone, and Paul Kerswill. Los Angeles/London: Sage Publica-tions. DOI: 10.1558/genl.v7i3.397.

Sennett, Richard. 1994. Flesh and Stone: The Body And The City In Western Civilization. London, UK: Norton. DOI: 10.1353/jsh/30.1.292.

Sennett, Richard. 2011. El declive del hombre público. Barcelona: Anagrama.Silverstein, Michael, and Greg Urban (eds).1996. Natural Histories of Discourse. Chicago, IL: The

University of Chicago Press. DOI: 10.1017/s0047404598224043.Spitulnik, Debra. 1997. “The Social Circulation of Media Discourse and the Mediation of

Communities”. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 6 (2): 161–187. DOI: 10.1525/jlin.1996.6.2.161.SuNotissima, Quodlibetat Axebra, and Arnau Monty. 2012. “Conversaciones sobre tecnopolítica

y el #15M.” In Tecnopolítica, internet y r-evoluciones sobre la centralidad de redes digitales en el #15M., ed. by Alcazan, ArnauMonty, Axebra, Quodlietar, Simona Levi, SuNotissima TakeTheSquare, and Toret, 9–33. Madrid: Icaria Asaco.

Toret, Javier. 2012. “Planos: Una mirada tecnopolítica sobre los primeros días del #15M.” In Tecnopolítica, internet y r-evoluciones sobre la centralidad de redes digitales en el #15M., ed. by Alcazan, ArnauMonty, Axebra, Quodlietar, Simona Levi, SuNotissima. TakeTheSquare, and Toret, 9–33. Madrid: Icaria Asaco.

Writers for the 99%. 2011. Occupying Wall Street. The Inside Story of an Action that Changed America. New York, NY: PR Books.

Zapata, Guillermo. 2012. “Los nuevos panfletos, las nuevas plazas. Redes sociales y movimiento 15-M.” In ¡Ocupemos el mundo! Occupy the world!, ed. by Carlos Sevilla, Joseba Fernández, and Miguel Urbán, 85–92. Madrid: Icaria.

Author’s address

Luisa Martín RojoUniversidad Autónoma de MadridDepartment of LinguisticsCampus de Cantoblanco28014 MadridSpain

luisa.rojo@uam.es

About the author

Luisa Martín Rojo is Professor in Linguistics at the Universidad Autónoma (Madrid, Spain), Member of the International Pragmatic Association Consultation Board, and the President of the Iberian Association for Studies on Discourse and Society (EDiSo). Since 2000, she leads

Luisa Martín Rojo

a research group (MIRCO), focused on studying the management of cultural and linguistic diversity in Madrid schools, applying a sociolinguistic and ethnographic perspective. She is also a member of the editorial boards of the journals Discourse & Society, Spanish in Context, Critical Discourse Studies, and Journal of Multicultural Discourses, and the book series Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture (J. Benjamins).