X Adam Jaworski University of Hong Kong The grapheme and symbol x has been documented as relatively indeterminate and polysemic (e.g. Gale, 2015). Yet, various typographic, orthographic and other design choices make it particularly salient in the contemporary semiotic landscape. The paper starts by outlining briefly the history of the changing uses and associations of x in different areas of social life. This is followed by discussion of the typographic and orthographic salience of x, emphasizing its unique, unsettling, and ‘foreignizing’ effect on displayed language. The paper concludes by linking the salience of x with a global verbalvisual register that I have called ‘globalese’ (Jaworski, 2015a), and by briefly pointing to its origins in the typographic experiments of avant-garde art. Keywords: letter ‘x’, typography, orthography, globalese, multimodality, textbased art, semiotic landscape 1. Introduction: Why x? The history of the alphabet, alphabetic writing, and alphabetic letter forms has been intimately linked to philosophical, religious, political, economic, moral, and aesthetic debates and speculation from ancient times to the present (Drucker, 1995). Following Drucker, Gale (2015: 70) observes that the assignment of symbolic value and meaning to specific letter forms has been ‘fluid and arbitrary and based on convenience rather than logic’. X is no different, having derived its fluctuating meaning potential from connotations sedimented over the centuries, some of which will be discussed in the next section. Drawing on these associative meanings, contemporary designers of signage and displayed text use x as Barthes’ (1977) ‘object-sign’, which, at the denotative level, may represent the letter x, while at the connotative level allows for a range of interpretations (values, concepts and ideas) dependent on the style and materiality of the design (Van Leeuwen, 2001). The range of orthographic and typographic choices that tend to give x its astonishing prominence, or, as will be discussed later, salience, turn it into a symbolic sign. As Theo van Leeuwen explains, following Hermeren (1969), an iconographic https://doi.org/10.1075/ll.18029.jaw | Published online: 22 July 2019 Linguistic Landscape 5:2 (2019), pp. 115–141. issn 2214-9953 | e‑issn 2214-9961 © John Benjamins Publishing Company 116 Adam Jaworski motif in a work of art is to be interpreted symbolically when it ‘is represented with more than normal care and detail compared to similar works, or it is given an especially conspicuous place in the composition, or made extra conspicuous by lighting contrasts in tone and colour, etc’ (Van Leeuwen, 2001: 107–108). As I demonstrate below with regard to the contemporary semiotic landscape, x is particularly prone to such manipulations.1 Despite a rich literature on x, there’s a relative paucity of work on the typographic and orthographic characteristics of displayed x and their concomitant affordances. It is this perceived gap that this visual-verbal essay attempts to remedy. The paper takes a multimodal, social semiotic approach to the examination of the letter x and some of its non-alphabetical equivalents in the material and virtual international semiotic landscape. The data examples come from my own repository of photographs taken since 2003 in different parts of the world and, to a lesser degree, from online sources.2 The plan of the paper is as follows. Heavily indebted to other historiographers, semioticians, and designers of x, I proceed from this brief Introduction to a non-exhaustive, socio-historical outline of the changing uses and associations of x in different spheres of social life (Section 2). The reflexes of these values are then traced through different domains of the contemporary semiotic landscape, illustrating some persistent links between the use of x and specific types of products, services, and activities (Section 3). Next, I highlight the typographic and orthographic salience of x (Section 4). In the Conclusion (Section 5), I offer a possible interpretation of how these uses of x can be viewed as part of a global semioscape (Thurlow and Aiello, 2007), or iconosphere (Chmielewska, 1. In principle, any letter of the alphabet can be considered an ‘object-sign’ in the visual arrangement of the text it is part of, and each one can be given special prominence. X can also do other (localising) ideological work. For example, David Karlander (pc) observes that in some languages x may have replaced other forms of spelling to become emblematically associated with a national language ideology and used for deliberate orthographic distancing between languages, such Basque vs. Spanish (see Järlehed and Moriarty, 2018). 2. The photographs were taken at the following locations: Aalborg 73; Auckland 58; Bangkok 64, 65; Bern 15, 16, 18, 26, 28, 35, 36, 83, 93, 90, 92, 97, 106, 118; Dresden 4, 5; Durban: 1, 71, 85, 96, 105; Gothenburg 59, 81, 84, 96, 105, 109; Guangzhou 119; Hong Kong, 7–11, 24, 25, 33, 34, 37–47, 49–51, 54, 61, 62, 66, 70, 72, 88, 92–95, 99, 101, 103, 104, 110, 111, 114, 116, 117, 120, 122, 123; London 2, 6, 27, 30, 32, 48, 55, 56, 68, 69, 78, 80, 89, 91, 98, 100, 102, 108, 115; Jyväskylä 87; Macau 57; Oslo 79; Penang 60; Phuket 52, 76; Poznań 31, 67, 74, 77, 107, 113; Singapore 112; Stockholm 75; Warsaw 3; all images are my own except: 45 by Christopher Hutton; 121 by Johan Järlehed; 38, 39 by David Karlander; 15, 16, 19, 118 by Crispin Thurlow; examples in Figures 12–14, 17, 20–23, 29, and 59 were sourced online. Thank you Mr Loïc Bénétière of the Ceysson & Bénétière Gallery for permission to photograph Louis Cane’s Croix, 1966 (Figure 32). X 2010; Porębski, 1972), alongside other typographic and orthographic features that emerge as a unique, unsettling, and ‘foreignizing’ verbal-visual register that I have called elsewhere ‘globalese’ (Jaworski, 2015a). 2. Valorization of x The x letter form, symbol, and idea can be found across limitless occupational and cultural contexts despite, or probably because of, its exemplary ambiguity and polysemy (Dreyfus, 1984 [1978], cited in Gale, 2015). Marcel Danesi (2009: 7) argues that the liberating and transgressive reverberations of x (as in X-rated movies, see below) make it a symbol of the contemporary era, in particular with reference to popular culture and its associations with ‘youth, danger, sexual excitement, mystery, and technological savvy all wrapped into one’. Adrian Frutiger ‘defines the cross (or X) as “the sign of signs” and the “absolute embodiment of symmetry”’ (Gale, 2015: 71–72) (1998 [1978/1979]). According to Sacks (2003) and others, x is a common symbol used as a replacement or ‘stand in’ for a range of words or concepts embodying different value judgements, from negative to positive, hence signifying the unknown, mysterious, aberrant, and potentially menacing, as evidenced by such titles and names as The X-Files, X Games, and the Xbox. The eponymous characters in the 1960s Marvel comics The X-Men were mutant superheroes. Likewise, x conveys a sense of mystery or the unknown in other areas, such as science. Introduced by René Descartes in his La Géométrie in 1637, x, alongside y and z, is used to indicate the unknowns in geometric equations. In 1895, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen called the newly discovered radiation x-ray because he did not know its composition. Besides being dangerous, x-rays can reveal what is ‘hidden’ (Firmage, 1994: 256). X can be used in place of someone’s name to preserve their anonymity, to refer to a generic, average person, a John Doe or Jane Doe, or to ‘stand in’ as an illiterate person’s signature, their unique identity. X can then be both generalizing and particularizing – ‘a wholly non-specific personal “identifier” being institutionally allowed to function (under limited conditions) as a genuine identifier’ (Nikolas Coupland, pc). To have the X factor is to possess some elusive yet charismatic essence (Gale, 2015: 120). And before the Google map pin started to ‘mark the place’, x used to do the job just as well, especially if the place was remote and exotic, or a site of treasure hidden by pirates – ‘X marks the spot’. The connotations of x have always oscillated between positive and negative values (Sacks, 2003; Gale, 2015). X, meaning ‘experimental’, was used in the 1960s to name products that were potentially dangerous or racy, also in the literal sense; for example, the U.S. X-1 aircraft was the first to break the sound barrier in October 117 118 Adam Jaworski 1947. In 1948, the first Jaguar sports car, the XK 120, was released, where x stood for ‘experimental engine’. In 1968, the Motion Picture Association of America started to use the ‘X’ rating to signal the apparently high levels of sex, profanity, and violence in newly released movies, including pornography. When this censorial use of x was replaced with other designations, the established link between x-ness and taboo soon came to be exploited in marketing sexually explicit films and other porn products with x or triple x (‘XXX’), each multiplication of x signifying the intensification of racy or hardcore content (Sacks, 2010: 212; Hall, 2007). By the 1960s, x came to be associated with ‘mystery’, ‘danger’, and ‘sex’, which, according to Sacks, carried mostly negative associations until the 1990s when x became ‘exonerated’ and transitioned into the mainstream as a common letter (alongside ‘q’, ‘e’ and ‘i’) for marketing and advertising. It was then that it came to signify [s]omething like ‘computer imaging and control’ or ‘cutting edge.’ Witness such software company names as X-Collaboration, Xpoint Technologies, and Xvision Eclipse, not to mention X-Ceptor bioresearch and Germany’s X-Filme production company…Microsoft’s Xbox video game console actually carries an X across its top: a plastic repoussé shape that seems to hold it all in there. (Sacks, 2003: 344) Sacks links this ‘legitimation’ of x to the publication of Douglas Coupland’s 1991 bestselling novel Generation X, which played with the 1960s US advertising idea of ‘Brand X’, signifying the effacing of an allegedly inferior brand name in product comparison.3 Sacks also argues that the ‘rehabilitation’ of x came from its uptake in the naming of numerous software programme packages (such as X Window System) and its use in the TV series X-Files, which added to x some ‘Hollywood glamour’ and respectability. Two common and ubiquitous uses of x include what I consider to be the proto-emoji for ‘kiss’, and as a means for abbreviating the word ‘Christmas’. Sacks comments on the former as follows: the custom of writing X’s for kisses in signing off a letter dates to the Middle Ages, when much of Europe’s population remained illiterate. On legal documents, in lieu of a signature, a person might write an X or the sign of the cross. The signatory would then kiss the X, to promise to stick to the agreement. Over later centuries, the written X came to mean not the signature but the kiss. (Sacks, 2003: 346) 3. The trope of ‘Brand X’ was also used in TV commercials in the UK in the 1960s and 1970s (Deborah Cameron, pc). However, Gale (2015: 119–120) argues that the general public’s sympathy for the underdog prompted some US advertisers to exploit the perceived inferiority of ‘brand X’ by promoting ‘brand X’ products as desirable. For example, a 1960 ad in Time magazine promoted Brand ‘X’ cigarettes with the following tagline: ‘for the man who is satisfied with nothing less than second best’. X The use of x in ‘Xmas’ may be accounted for by the fact that Romans introduced x to their alphabet by associating it with the Greek letter <X> (chi), pronounced /kaɪ/ or /kiː/ in English, as exemplified in the Chi-Ro symbol <☧> introduced by the Roman emperor Constantine I (r. 306–337). ‘It is from the association with chi that many modern X forms, abbreviations, and symbols have been derived, particularly those associated with Christ – for example, Xmas for Christmas’ (Firmage, 1994: 249–250). For Jamin Pelkey (2017), the X-mark, one type of a chiasmus figure, holds special cultural significance because of its relation to the extreme body position known as the ‘spread-eagle’, capable of signifying a multitude of frequently oppositional communicative acts: severe warning, triumphant elation, humiliating defeat, exertion in a fitness routine, pain and exhaustion under torture, among others. The polysemy and polyfunctionality of the spread-eagle has been exploited in its widespread, stylised uses in brand names and logos, typically blending the X-mark and X-pose (Figures 1–6: 90). The link between the X-mark and chiasmus is crucial as the former seems to be the key visual manifestation of the latter. The etymology of ‘chiasmus’ as a rhetorical term comes from Greek, meaning ‘crosswise’, and it is defined as ‘a construction involving the repetition of words or elements in reverse order (ab: ba)’ (Wales, 1989, cited in Paul and Wiseman, 2014: 2). Some witty or aphoristic examples include Michelangelo’s apparent remark ‘Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle’, or JFK’s ‘Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country’. Figures 1–6. Clockwise from top-left 119 120 Adam Jaworski Anthony Paul and Boris Wiseman (2014) assert that the chiasmus figure is ubiquitous in all areas of culture. Paul’s (2014) typology identifies four basic modes of operation corresponding to the ways in which chiasmus takes shape and functions: (a) as an X or a crosswise arrangement, (b) as a mirroring, (c) as a circle, and (d) as a spiral. I am principally concerned here with the first of these categories, which Paul imagines as a sturdy piece of furniture, standing firmly on its two feet, asserting balance and symmetry (see Paul and Wiseman, 2014: 9), and which he associates with other qualities, such as order and reciprocity. The metaphysical efficacy of x as a token of the chiasmus figure is related to ‘the point where the bars of the X cross, which is also the turning point upon which chiastic reversal occurs … [being] … one of simultaneous joining and splitting’ (Paul and Wiseman, 2014: 11). 3. X in the offline and online semiotic landscape Many of the above uses and values of x can be found in the contemporary, international semiotic landscape. Some of the examples to be discussed in this section were flagged above. I discuss them again alongside a few others to demonstrate how they have been adapted in different contemporary contexts of use and with what possible consequences. 3.1 Prohibition, contradiction, error, shutdown As in the brief sketch of the uses and values of x above, x frequently carries a sense of negativity, disapproval, or cessation, such as a prohibition or warning, for example, against dangerous behaviour at underground train stations and on trains (Figures 7–9); points of no entry (Figure 10); anti-social behaviour, such as allowing dogs to foul public spaces (Figure 11); toxic and hazardous substances (Figure 12); and error, augmented by the colour red, a common resource for highlighting inappropriate behaviour or mistakes, as in the ‘copy-editor’s red pen’ (Figure 13). Indeed, the stylized online clip art ‘off ’ button displays x on a red background (Figure 14). As can be seen in Figures 7–9 and 11, marking deletion, error or prohibition does not always result in ‘just’ another x but specifically a ‘crossing out’, i.e. an over-writing of an earlier semiotic implication (Coupland, 2012). This is Scollon and Wong Scollon’s (2003) idea of ‘denied semiotics’, or signs not to be read. Overlaying singular or multiple x’s over a sign or text, as used to be the case with typewriters before the use of Tippex became widespread (Gale, 2015: 80), the metapragmatic force of crossing out is to refute or disallow a possibility or propo- X Figures 7–9. Left to right Figures 10–14. Left to right, top to bottom sition which is also depicted in the image/text, before ‘subsequently’ being disallowed (Nikolas Coupland, pc; Karlander, 2019a). In Figure 15, the anti-racism sculpture located in Bern, Switzerland, carries a slogan ‘jetzt gegen rassismus’ (‘Against Racism Now’) in the shape of the letter/ chiastic figure x. The point of the two bars crossing can be seen as the symbolic 121 122 Adam Jaworski act of simultaneously joining forces against racism and splitting it, or clamping down on it, firmly standing on the sturdy concrete blocks symbolizing strength and resolve. In Figure 16, which shows the advertising poster for an exhibition held in Bern titled ‘Apocalypse, End without End’, x is the visual metaphor for the idea of the end of the world. Figures 15–16. Left to right 3.2 Sex, excitement, excellence, power X may connote positive values too, such as sex (see above), excitement, excellence and power, all associated with ideas of dynamism, development, or transformation. Just as it is used to signify ‘error’ or ‘wrong’ choice, x may be used for making a ‘positive’ choice, such as casting a vote, as shown in the stock image in Figure 17. In commerce, x appears to connote desirability, particularly in relation to products and services with an aura of mystery and prohibition, or which have formerly acquired a sense of restriction or taboo (see above). A typical example is the continued use of x for erotic and pornographic material, as seen in the Swiss sign for a chain of sex shops in Figure 18. X seems to be commonly used to index power and strength, often combined with authority or ‘edginess’. Dynamisan® forte is a type of ‘food supplement’ recommended by its manufacturer for enhanced sports X performance. The advertisement for this product (Figure 19) draws its imagery from an x associated with the world of comic superheroes, referencing the physical strength and excitement underpinning the masculinist business world, as suggested by the suit and tie being ripped open to reveal the superhero supposedly within every businessman. Apart from pharmaceuticals, power tends to be symbolized by x in the motor (Figures 20, 21) and petrochemical industries (Figures 21, 22), often combined with sex (Figure 23). Other areas include financial services (Figures 24, 25), workout and fitness4 facilities (Figure 26), software and hardware products (Figure 27), cosmetics and beauty products (Figure 28), and media, with the names of (TV) companies (Figure 29), as well as some of the more ‘edgy’, ‘raw’ or seemingly ‘subversive’ productions and artists, such as the xXx action film series (Figure 30), the late American rapper XXXTentacion, and the Polish hiphop group FleXxip (Figure 31). In several of these examples, the association of x with power, strength, expansion and expertise draws on the kind of lexical, orthographic and typographical choices I will consider below. 3.3 Representation and substitution X is a frequent symbol used to represent someone or something unknown, unrecognizable, anonymous, mysterious, or generic. A key example is Malcolm X, who replaced his family name, ‘Little’, with the grapheme ‘X’ in order to dissociate himself from the name imposed on his forbearers by White slave masters. Two artists who wish to remain anonymous are publicly known as Peintre X5 and Chemical X.6 Abstract or generic representations of text can take the form of singular or multiple x’s. For example, artist Louis Cane’s painting Croix (1966) (Figure 32) consists of repeated x forms that create a sense of a written text which, depending on the viewer’s point of view, is semantically either completely impenetrable, illegible, hence ‘meaningless’, or open to any interpretation imaginable, hence ‘meaningful’. In her mural Streets and Alleys of the Western District (2014), artist Stella Ho uses a string of four x’s to represent generic ‘text’ on a T-shirt (Figure 33) as well as x’s to stand for graphemes or characters in neon signs (Figure 34). The 4. Rob Troyer (pc) comments that the term ‘extreme sports’ emerged in the mid-1990s as a cover term for sports such as skateboarding, acrobatic snowboarding, motocross, rock climbing, etc. This led to the creation of the X-games, a kind of alternative Olympics. Many of these disciplines have now become mainstream and some have been or are in the process of being included in the Olympics. 5. http://peintre-x.de/peintre-x/ 6. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/jun/02/chemical-x-the-loop-ecstasycharity-art-prize 123 124 Adam Jaworski Figures 17–31. Left to right, top to bottom indeterminacy of x is further exploited in the generic/inclusive Latinx construction, increasingly replacing Latina/Latino usage in the USA (Don Kulick, pc). The theme of the 10th Linguistic Landscape Workshop in Bern (2–4 May 2018), where this paper was first presented, was ‘X-SCAPES’ (Figures 35 and 36), suggesting the erasure of any specific conference theme. However, to have a ‘non-theme’ for an academic conference is a near impossibility, hence x in ‘X-SCAPES’ was explained by its convenor on the conference website as an invitation ‘to reconsider X Figures 32–34. Left to right and re-imagine the field’s methodologies and intellectual priorities for the next ten years’. Punning on the Latin and Roman numerals ‘10’ and ‘X’, similarly exploited for commercial reasons by Apple in releasing its 10th iPhone model in 2017 with the designation ‘X’ (Figure 27), the conference organizers, and guest editors of this special issue, play with the idea of x both as a substitute for a real conference/journal special issue theme and constitutive of it, while at the same time marking the 10th edition and anniversary of the conference. To paraphrase David Karlander (2019a), the use of x to signify the ‘non-theme’ theme of the conference and this special issue is a symptom of an academic regime adverse to scholarly conferences and publications bearing no theme. Figures 35–36. Left to right One possible consequence of x’s association with sex is its non-use as a substitute for or in expletives. When sanitizing or concealing the use of swearwords such as ‘fuck’ or ‘shit’, writers and copy editors seem to prefer asterisks to substitute one or more of the letters in the offending word, for example, ‘f*ck’ and ‘sh*t’, as shown in the sticker in a novelty store in Hong Kong (Figure 37). Other popular 125 126 Adam Jaworski symbols used by verbal hygienists for the same purpose are ‘#’, ‘@’, ‘$’, and ‘!’ (see examples in Thurlow and Moshin, 2018). Intriguingly, x does seem to perform the substituting function for expletives in languages with non-Latin-based scripts. Figures 38 and 39 show an advertisement for a delivery company in Hong Kong with a slogan ‘乜香都送’ (‘we deliver whatever thing/shit’), where the character for ‘thing/shit’ (‘香’) is replaced by X (the slogan without X replacing ‘香’ is repeated in smaller characters below). In the long shot of the ad, the image to the right provides a visual version of the same message, adding to its multimodal dimension. The image of a woman holding a bunch of incense sticks can be glossed as ‘乜 香都送’ (‘we deliver whatever incense/shit’), with the character ‘香’ punning on ‘incense/shit’. This admittedly sole example suggests global uptake of x as a symbol of substitution. Figures 37–39. Left to right One relatively new but highly productive use of x signifies collaboration between two companies, institutions, or a brand and an artist (Figures 40–42). The formula can be used for advertising events by a specific institution, for example, ‘talks x [by] Asia Society’ in Figure 43. In such contexts, x suggests creative exchange and productive multiplication, possibly drawing on the mathematical ‘times’ symbol. The novelty of this orthographic, lexical and syntactic innovation is apparent in some online discussion sites like Word Reference.com or Reddit, in which advice is sought on how to pronounce ‘the “X” in collaboration’. Figures 40–42. Left to right X Figures 43–44. Left to right Another longstanding use of x involves its representation for ‘kiss’ at the end of letters and postcards (see above). My own practice, and that of my family members and friends, tells me that x continues to function that way in digital writing (emails, text messages, etc.), where it typically follows the sender’s name or initial. X seems to be rarely sent as a ‘stand alone kiss’, for which the ‘kiss’ emoji is more likely to be used (see Danesi, 2017; Dürscheid and Siever, 2017). ‘Kiss’ and other ‘smiley face’ emojis are used extensively in the semiotic landscape for decorating commercial spaces, such as shopping malls or restaurants, or as embellishments on clothes and accessories (Figure 44). However, x as it appears in the sequence ‘xoxo’ (‘hugs and kisses’), seems not to have gone away, as seen displayed on Tshirts and accessories (Figures 45 and 46), inside shops (Figure 47) and in shop windows (Figure 48). This could be a somewhat nostalgic or retro ‘take’ on the present day emoji-saturated semiotic landscape, with its widespread use of ‘hugsand-kisses’, ‘hearts-and-love’, or ‘smiles-and-smiley-faces’, etc. imagery in contemporary commercial contexts (Jaworski, 2015b, 2016), which seems indicative of the ever growing performance and display of ‘affective labour’ (Hochschild, 1983; Jaworski, forthc.). X is commonly used in the abbreviated word ‘Christmas’, most typically written as ‘Xmas’ (Figure 49), although a degree of variation in spelling (e.g. with or without an apostrophe between ‘x’ and ‘mas’) suggests this to be a marked variant, one that has not been fully standardized, especially in regions where English is not the dominant language, for example Hong Kong (Figures 50 and 51) or Thailand (Figure 52). Impressionistically, although the variant ‘Xmas’ has been in use for centuries and is derived from the Greek letter <X> (chi) standing for ‘Christ’ (see above), it has acquired strong secular connotations. It is typically and often 127 128 Adam Jaworski Figures 45–48. Left to right, top to bottom negatively associated with the consumerist aspect of the holiday, as is reflected by the relative absence of this variant on religious-themed greeting cards, in contrast to the ‘secular’ ones. Again, this emphasizes the present day association of x with the commercial register. Neither of these are new uses of x, but they are ones which continue to mark contemporary semiotic landscapes – and seemingly everywhere. Finally, ‘X marks the spot’. Quite literally, the idiom is metadiscursively and multimodally exploited as the advertising slogan in the Mexican government campaign promoting its trade relations globally (Figure 53). X is distinguished from the rest of the text by colour, font size (in the first line), and typographically by being turned into a 3-D logo, metonymically standing (quite literally) for and X Figures 49–52. Left to right, top to bottom visually rhyming with the x in the name of the country to the left. It is here that the chiastic property of x (i.e. standing firmly on its two feet) adds to the metaphorical meaning of a stable and strong economy worthy of investment (see also Figures 15 and 98). The colour red complements these interpretations by signifying confidence, excitement, passion, spontaneity, and determination. Finally, the 3-D appearance of the free-standing x, even though computergenerated, gives the impression of a precision, machine-made, industrial object which, in turn, suggests high-tech goods being made in Mexico. Meanwhile, in other examples, x can be used more literally to mark the location of a specific object or substance, such as fire-fighting foam on the platform of a Hong Kong MTR (underground) station (Figure 54). Or, as in the case of the London-based doughnut shop, Crosstown, the eponymous trademark x (Figure 55) is used for decoration on actual doughnuts (Figure 56). Staff in the Piccadilly shop tell me7 that when queried by their customers on the ‘meaning’ of the x on the doughnuts, they explain that it marks the spot where the first bite should be taken (contrary to the specimen displayed in the shop window). 7. 14 June 2018. 129 130 Adam Jaworski Figures 53–56. Left to right, top to bottom 4. Typographic and orthographic salience of x In this section, I overview some typographic and orthographic characteristics of x found in my data examples. Of necessity, many of these features and their meaning potentials can be found in the examples discussed so far and, when necessary and convenient, I will refer to them again. The following analysis is based largely on Theo van Leeuwen’s (2006) social semiotic approach to typography. I orient to his insistence that typography is a semiotic mode that requires multimodal analysis as letter forms are ‘integrated with other semiotic means of expression such as colour, texture, three-dimensionality, and movement’ (Van Leeuwen, 2006: 144), which has, for example, been alluded to in my brief discussion of Figure 53. I will also refer to Van Leeuwen’s ‘distinctive features’ analysis of typography and to their connotative and metaphorical meaning potentials. In particular, I focus here on x’s salience. In social semiotics, salience is one of the aspects of visual composition, alongside information value and framing, that attracts viewers’ attention and creates difference across its elements. It is a form of ‘textual’ meaning made manifest when ‘a given text element stand[s] out from its immediate textual environment’ (Van Leeuwen, 2006: 144). The semiotic salience of features prompts the symbolic interpretation of the textual and visual forms bearing them, and this effect can be achieved by ‘one or more of the following, absence or presence of movement, X size, amount of detail and texture shown, tonal contrast, placement in the visual field, and specific cultural factors such as the appearance of a human figure’ (Van Leeuwen, 2005: 284; see also Van Leeuwen, 2001, cited above). 4.1 Typography The typographic salience of x can be realized through a number of overlapping features. The most striking is size, with x in the data often appearing larger than the surrounding letters (Figures 18, 20–22, 28, 31, 53, 57–61, 64–80, 82, 83, 86, 89, 91, 92, 115). In a number of these examples, x appears in a word initial position, although its relative size can also be larger within words and phrases. Conversely, if less frequently, x may be made smaller than its surrounding environment (Figures 84, 96). Larger size gives x more visibility, hence prominence and significance. It is thereby made more salient, especially if combined with other distinguishing features, such as weight (boldness) (Figure 98), texture (Figures 57, 115), or font (Figures 79 and 92). The ‘oversizing’ of x can be achieved by adding and extending flourishes beyond the x-height (Figures 61 and 67); asymmetry, with one arm being longer / more expansive / thicker / differently coloured than the other; font and texture design (for example a ‘handdrawn’ x in an otherwise ‘printed’ environment) (Figure 64, 65, 69, 74, 75, 76, 92, 115); sloping and curving against other letters that appear more angular and upright (Figure 79, 89); and additions of capricious flourishes that make x more expansive (Figure 61, 62, 68, 94), such as topping the arms with arrowheads to symbolize expansion (Figure 120). In Figure 105, the disconnection between the left and right arms of the logoized x displayed on the back of a lorry makes the left arm look like an arrowhead, symbolizing speed, especially as the x is tilted to the right. Other typographic features attached to x’s include underlining (Figure 95, 96), internal disconnection (Figures 5, 87, 97, 105, 106), and shadowing (Figure 76). In Figure 107, which shows part of a display in a Nike store, the logoized, oversized x displayed horizontally on the floor is glowing with bright, fluorescent light reminiscent of Dan Flavin’s artworks. Colour, too, is commonly used to add salience to x, red appearing to be the favourite choice for the whole or part of the letter (Figures 18, 28, 53, 71, 80, 88, 89, 93). Other colours include blue (Figures 24, 58, 68, 76), yellow/gold (Figures 25, 38, 67, 72, 74), green (Figure 91), orange (Figure 86), and purple (Figure 98). Finally, despite being described as the absolute embodiment of symmetry (see above), a number of x’s in my data examples appear perfectly asymmetrical (Figures 4, 6, 18, 22, 24–26, 28, 58, 60, 64, 65, 69, 70, 72, 74–80, 82, 83). All of these design choices draw attention to the salience of x in their respective verbal and visual environments as instances of ‘new writing’ (Van Leeuwen, 131 132 Adam Jaworski Figures 57–60. Left to right, top to bottom 2008; see below) or ‘integrated writing’ (Ledin and Machin, 2018), and this distinctiveness draws our attention to the symbolic meanings of x. I suggest that there is a tension between two somewhat conflicting tendencies. On the one hand, x is stable, sturdy, and symmetrical, which makes it assertive and authoritative. The irregular, bursting, overflowing, and asymmetrical x appears somewhat rebellious, uncontrollable and potentially destabilizing, yet dominant and dominating. 4.2 Orthography The orthographic, and to some extent lexical, choices evident across my data examples suggest the apparent exoticizing effect of x on writing (Roy, 2001: 94). However, the non-standardness of these linguistic forms varies significantly from the entextualizations of non-standard orthography in the media aimed at representing the speech of ‘dialect’ speakers, which have a dual effect of authenticating their speech while depriving it of authority (Jaffe, 2009). Here, non-standard orthography does not offer an approximation of non-standard speech. On the contrary, the alignment of the typographic and orthographic experiments around x with Van Leeuwen’s (2008) ‘new writing’, or writing as visual design, dissociates writing from speaking. New writing is characterized by the conflation of written script, images, and graphic design. Van Leeuwen contrasts new writing with more traditional forms, namely, the running text which expresses causal relationships and textual cohesion X Figures 61–80. Left to right, top to bottom through the use of verb phrases and sentence structure. New writing, for example, of webpages, diagrams, and powerpoint presentations, typically achieves textual cohesion visually by tying up words, usually nouns and noun clusters rather than sentences, through the use of layout (e.g. bullet points), colour, typography, and so on. In the same vein, the full impact of my data examples does not solely depend on reading them, or reading them out loud. Rather than representations of speech, they are visual assemblages whose meaning potential depends on the affordances and indexicalities of their semiotic resources (Jaworski, in press). The specific and overlapping features of non-standard orthography in my data are as follows: – ‘dropping’ another letter, typically ‘e’: ‘xplosion’ (Figure 59), ‘xtreme’ (Figures 22, 58), ‘xchange’ (Figures 79, 80), ‘x-change (Figure 81), ‘xpress’ (Figures 60–64), ‘xtra’ (Figure 71); 133 134 Adam Jaworski Figures 81–100. Left to right, top to bottom – – – – – – reduplication of x: ‘sportxx’ (Figure 26), ‘xx10’ (Figure 72), ‘lexxi’ (Figure 108), ‘jaxx’ (Figure 109), ‘nexxus’ (Figure 110), ‘flexx’ (Figure 111), ‘luxx’ (Figure 112); coining of ‘foreign’-looking neologisms: ‘sportxx’ (Figure 26), ‘flexxip’ (Figure 31), ‘xplus’ (Figure 66), ‘nimax’ (Figure 78), ‘xreen’ (Figure 82), ‘diXt.R’ (Figure 83), ‘cooperaxion’ (Figure 90); ‘flexim’ (Figure 86), ‘lexcel’ (Figure 91), ‘brax’ (Figure 97), ‘lexxi’ (Figure 108), ‘jaxx’ (Figure 109), ‘instax’ (Figure 113), ‘fingexer’ (Figure 119); replacing conventional letters with ‘x’: for example, ‘o’ (Figure 115), ‘h’ (Figure 116), ‘c’ (Figure 117), ‘y’ (Figure 118); marking word boundaries with a ‘salient’ (large or differently coloured) x: Figures 5, 79, 80, 85; insertion of a hyphen between x and the rest of the word: ‘x-change’ (Figure 81); use of ‘foreign’ words: ‘xanadu’ (Figure 69), ‘exuviance’ (Figure 75), ‘helix’ (Figure 76); X Figures 101–120. Left to right, top to bottom – – – – – logoization of x: Figures 1–3, 6, 19, 36, 53, 55, 56, 86, 87, 92, 98–102; use of x as a prefix: Figures 4, 6, 35, 67, 68, 103; use of x as a suffix: Figures 26, 73, 104; use of x as both prefix and suffix: Figures 70, 84; use of x as a diacritic: Figure 55. Last but not least, x can appear on its own as a stand-alone grapheme or symbol, for example as an embellishment on T-shirts and other garments (Figures 121–123). Of these examples, Figure 121 depicts a Swedish fan of the alternative 135 136 Adam Jaworski British rock band xx, whereas Figure 123 shows two Hongkongers sporting a ‘partner’ look where, as they explained to me, x stands for ‘friendship’.8 Figures 121–123. Left to right 5. Conclusion: X as globalese This paper by no means exhausts all the uses, variants, and possible designs of x in the contemporary semiotic landscape. These are indeed inexhaustible. However, I hope to have shown some common tendencies and regularities in the susceptibility of x for symbolic, locational, typographic, and orthographic exploitation. In this regard, my paper is aligned with a recent body of work on orthographic and typographic innovation, especially in the context of linguistic commodification and branding driven by global economic processes in which ever new modes of symbolic differentiation of products, services, and businesses are sought (e.g. Järlehed and Moriarty, 2018; Lee, 2015; Wong, 2013). X is a relatively rare letter in Latin-based alphabets. Many editions of Scrabble give it the high value of 8 or 10, and x is completely absent in some of the tile sets. Yet, when we look around contemporary cityscapes, x is highly visible as a graphic resource used for styling numerous businesses, products or cultural events. This, I believe, is key to its uptake and wider significance. The rarity and exoticity of x is seized upon by designers in constructing what I have termed elsewhere ‘globalese’ (Jaworski, 2015a), a middle-brow, verbal-visual consumer register used in brand names, signage or advertising copy that aims to distance the appearance of the text from standard, written versions of ethnonational languages, despite their visible traces. It is a key constituent of the global semioscape (Thurlow and Aiello, 2007) – that more informal, often banal plane of cultural circulation – running in parallel to more obviously mediatized flows of images, ideas, and aes- 8. 17 June 2018. X thetic ideals (Appadurai’s, 1996 ideoscapes). I argue that in a world positioned between largely national and global scale levels and imaginaries, globalese embodies the semiotic ideology of transnationalism, cosmopolitanism, and globalism. It is the present day9 visual equivalent of the early twentieth-century movements fostering the invention and spread of International Auxiliary Languages, such as Esperanto, with their ideological appeals to modernity, universalism, internationalism, democracy, and neutrality (Heller and McElhinny, 2017; Karlander, 2019b). While focusing on the visual/design aspects of x, I have largely eschewed any attempts to track the phonetic ramifications of my data. This could be a shortcoming of the paper. As Nikolas Coupland points out in a personal note, the relative rarity of x in English could be accompanied by something we might call ‘functional thinness’, that is, the absence of a specific link between the grapheme x and any distinctive phoneme in varieties of English. X maps onto /ks/, which can potentially be rendered through other orthographic means, as it is in Polish, for example, despite not ‘officially’ including x in its alphabet (notwithstanding the Polish-origin examples in Figures 31 and 113). It is possible for x to function differently in languages such as Spanish (see Figure 53), where there is a link with a distinctive (velar fricative) phoneme, now mainly represented by orthographic <j>. Overall, it could be argued, then, that x being more ‘thin’ in English than in Spanish may result in its greater adaptability to indexing cosmopolitanism or globalism in English-related contexts. In this sense, my data could be seen as Anglocentric, both in terms of the geographical areas where most of the data has been collected and the prominence of English as a ‘global’ language. We need to always see globalese as interacting with and showing traces of localese, the locally intimate and familiar code and its spoken distinctiveness (Jaworski, 2015a; Thurlow, forthc.). If branding people, places, and practices with x does indeed index them as ‘global’, it is possible to see x as one of many semiotic resources providing coherence across the different genres of texts, and offline and online locations, that form the global semioscape, or global iconosphere. X becomes part of contemporary iconography and visual design together with other visual tropes, whether it be airline tailfin designs (Thurlow and Aiello, 2007), the Eiffel Tower (Barthes, 1997 [1979]), Hokusai’s Grate Wave woodcut (Guth, 2012), or the word ‘love’ and the ‘heart’ icon (Jaworski, 2015b). All these elements work across different genres and spaces, creating a kind of integration and helping to code them as belonging to the same order, as far as is possible. As suggested by anonymous reviewer X, this shared symbolism and logic of representation is what enables, to some degree, a 9. Unconventional spellings of brand names have a longer history than it may seem at first look. Such US brand names as ‘LaZBoy’ and ‘PlaySkool’ go back to the 1920s (Wong, 2013). 137 138 Adam Jaworski fusing of art, public buildings, commercial outlets, and cultural events to be coclassified with an underlying ‘canon of use’ (Ledin and Machin, 2018), or ‘semiotic regime’ (Karlander, 2019a), all underpinned by global capitalism. Previously (Jaworski, 2015a), I demonstrated how the design of globalese utilized nonstandard and novel deployment of diacritics and punctuation marks. My focus here has been on the typographic, orthographic, and material choices in the letter x, all of which are capable of indexing multiple, sometimes contradictory and competing values, voices and outcomes, such as foreignness and mystery, power and rebellion, stability and change. Gale (2015) argues that the ambiguity of x invites a more co-participatory relationship between the artist/designer and reader/viewer. This offers another possible tension in the interpretation of x; while its ethos may be egalitarian, it continues to embody vested socio-political values, ideas, and interests. Put differently, an emerging stance embodied by x in globalese is one of individualism and independence; x is big and brash, sturdy and showy. Yet, it is essential that any aspect of globalese not be treated as an entirely new phenomenon, nor as something wholly discrete or unique. The avant-garde typographic experiments of the early twentieth century, following the typographically pioneering poem Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard (‘A throw of the dice will never abolish chance’) (1897) by Stéphane Mallarmé, offered a blueprint for ‘a collapse of poetic/aesthetic and commercial language’ (Drucker, 1994: 211). Likewise, the unsettled, multifaceted typography (and orthography) of the data examples discussed above correspond to Johanna Drucker’s (1994) observations about the Dada style of typography, which resulted in a heterogeneous, ‘explosive’ page layout and scrapbook aesthetic. The echoes of these typographic assemblages, often inspired by contemporary commercial language, can be seen in many of the above examples of new writing, where numerous x’s in the logos and brand names seem to be cut-and-pasted from other diverse sources and contexts, ‘importing’ their affordances and meaning potentials with them. Acknowledgements Deborah Cameron, Georgina Challen, Crystal Tsz Wing Cheung, Farrah Ching, Corey Huang Fanglei, Kellie Gonçalves, Christopher Hutton, Jack Hutton, Ania Hryniewiecka, Penelope Gardner-Chloros, Johan Järlehed, Edina Krompàk, Michał Kunze, Teodor Kunze, Lisa Lim, Jackie Lou, Adam MacCarron, Maja MacCarron, Andre Theng, Rob Troyer, Theo van Leeuwen. Special thanks for helpful and insightful comments on earlier drafts to Nikolas Coupland, David Karlander, Don Kulick, Crispin Thurlow, anonymous reviewer X, and anonymous reviewer Y. Very special thanks to Jenn Gresham. The research for this paper was supported by an HKSAR Government Funded Research Project (GRF) 2016–2019 titled ‘Word as Image: The Sociolinguistics of Art’ (RGC Ref. № 17600415). All caveats apply. X References Appadurai, A. 1996. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Barthes, R. 1977. Image, Music, Text. London: Fontana. Barthes, R. 1997 [1979]. The Eiffel Tower. In The Eiffel Tower and Other Mythologies (pp. 3–16). Translated by R. Howard. Berkeley: University of California Press. Chmielewska, E. 2010. Semiosis takes place or radical uses of quaint theories. In A. Jaworski & C. Thurlow (Eds.), Semiotic Landscapes: Text, Image, Space (pp. 274–291). London: Continuum. Coupland, N. 2012. Bilingualism on display: The framing of Welsh and English in Welsh public spaces. Language in Society, 41: 1–27. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404511000893 Danesi, M. 2009. X-Rated! The Power of Mythical Symbolism in Popular Culture. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Danesi, M. 2017. The Semiotics of Emoji. London: Bloomsbury. Dreyfuss, H. 1984. Symbol Sourcebook. An Authoritative Guide To International Graphic Symbols. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Dürscheid, C. & Siever, C. M. 2017. Jenseits des Alphabets – Kommunikation mit Emojis. Zeitschrift für germanistische Linguistik, 45(2): 256–285. https://doi.org/10.1515/zgl‑2017‑0013 Drucker, J. 1994. The Visible Word: Experimental Typography and Modern Art, 1909–1923. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Drucker, J. 1995. The Alphabetic Labyrinth. The Letters in History and Imagination. London: Thames & Hudson. Firmage, R. A. 1994. The Alphabet Abecedarium: Some Notes on Letters. Boston, MA: David R. Godine. Frutiger, A. 1998 [1978/1979]. Signs and Symbols: Their Design and Meaning. Translated by Andrew Bluhm. London: Ebury Press. Gale, C. 2015. A practice-based evaluation of ambiguity in graphic design, embodied in the multiplicities of X. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Brighton. Guth, C. M. E. 2012. The local and the global: Hokusai’s Great Wave in contemporary product design. Design Issues, 28(2): 16–29. https://doi.org/10.1162/DESI_a_00140 Hall, K. 2007. X (rated). In F. Malti-Douglas (ed.). Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender. Farmington Hills, MI: Macmillan Reference. 1561–1562. Heller, M. & McElhinny, B. 2017. Language, Capitalism, Colonialism: Toward a Critical History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Hermeren, G. 1969. Representation and Meaning in the Visual Arts. Lund: Scandinavian University Books. Hochschild, A. R. 1983. The Managed Heart. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. Jaffe, A. 2009. Entextualization, mediatization and authentication: Orthographic choice in media transcripts. Text & Talk, 9(5): 571–594. https://doi.org/10.1515/TEXT.2009.030 Järlehed, J. & Moriarty, M. 2018. Culture and class in a glass: Scaling the semiofoodscape. Language & Communication, 62: 26–38. Jaworski, A. 2015a. Globalese: A new visual-linguistic register. Social Semiotics, 25(2): 217–235. https://doi.org/10.1080/10350330.2015.1010317 139 140 Adam Jaworski Jaworski, A. 2015b. Word cities and language objects: ‘Love’ sculptures and signs as shifters. Linguistic Landscape 1(1–2): 75–94. https://doi.org/10.1075/ll.1.1‑2.05jaw Jaworski, A. 2016. Faces, gestures, poses: Commodification of non-verbal behaviour in contemporary consumer culture. Keynote paper presented at the 37th International LAUD Symposium, ‘Linguistic Landscapes and Superdiversity in the City’, University of Koblenz-Landau, 4–6 April 2016. Jaworski, A. in press. Writing as assemblage: Multilingualism, multimodality and materiality. International Journal of Multilingualism. Jaworski, A. forthc. ‘Smile!’: Happiness and affective labour in contemporary semiotic landscape. Karlander, D. 2019a. A semiotics of nonexistence: Erasure and erased writing under antigraffiti regimes. Linguistic Landscape, 5 (2): 198–216. Karlander, D. 2019b. Artificial language and visions of hope. Paper presented at the HKU Colloquium on ‘Sociolinguistics and the Humanities’, University of Hong Kong, 26 March 2019. Ledin, P. & Machin, D. 2018. Doing Visual Analysis: From Theory to Practice. London: Sage. Lee, C. 2015. Digital discourse@public space: Flows of language online and offline. In Rodney Jones, Alice Chik and Christof Hafner (Eds.), Discourse and Digital Practices: Doing Discourse Analysis in the Digital Age. London: Routledge. Paul, A. 2014. From stasis to ékstasis: Four types of chiasmus. In Boris Wiseman & Anthony (Eds.), Chiasmus and Culture (pp. 19–44). New York: Berghahn. Paul, A. & Wiseman, B. 2014. Introduction. In Boris Wiseman & Anthony (Eds.), Chiasmus and Culture (pp. 1–16). New York: Berghahn. Pelkey, J. 2017. The Semiotics of X: Chiasmus, Cognition, and Extreme Body Memory. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Porębski, M. 1972. Ikonosfera. Warszawa: PWN. Roy, M. 2001. Sign After the X. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press. Sacks, D. 2003. The Alphabet. London: Hutchinson. Sacks, D. 2010. Alphabets: A Miscellany of Letters. London: Black Dog Publishing. Scollon, R. & Wong Scollon, S. 2003. Discourses in Place: Language in the Material World. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203422724 Thurlow, C. forthc. When globalese meets localese: Transformational tactics in/of the global semioscape – A Bernese case study. Social Semiotics. Thurlow, C. & Aiello, G. 2007. National pride, global capital: A social semiotic analysis of trnasnational visual branding in the airline industry. Visual Communication, 6(3): 305–344. https://doi.org/10.1177/1470357207081002 Thurlow, C. & Moshin, J. 2018. What the f#@$!: Policing and performing the unmentionable in the news. In M. Schröter and C. Taylor (Eds.), Exploring Silence and Absence in Discourse (pp. 305–328). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978‑3‑319‑64580‑3_11 Van Leeuwen, T. 2001. Semiotics and iconography. In T. van Leeuwen & C. Jewitt (Eds.), Handbook of Visual Analysis (pp. 92–118). London: Sage. Van Leeuwen, T. 2005. Introducing Social Semiotics. London: Routledge. Van Leeuwen, T. 2006. Towards a semiotics of typography. Information Design Journal + Document Design 14(2): 139–155. https://doi.org/10.1075/idj.14.2.06lee X Van Leeuwen, T. 2008. New forms of writing, new visual competencies. Visual Studies 23(2): 130–135. https://doi.org/10.1080/14725860802276263 Van Leeuwen, T. In press. The new visuality of writing. Wales, K. 1989. A Dictionary of Stylistics. London: Longman. Wong, A. 2013. Brand names and unconventional spelling: A two-pronged analysis of the orthographic construction of brand identity. Written Language & Literacy, 16(2): 115–145. https://doi.org/10.1075/wll.16.2.01won Xxxxxxxx Xxx xxxxxxxx xxx xxxxxx x xxx xxxx xxxxxxxxxx xx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxxx (x.x. Xxxx, 2015). Xxx, xxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx, xxxxxxxxxxxx xxx xxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxx xx xxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xx xxx xxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx. Xxx xxxxx xxxxxx xx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxx xxxxxxx xx xxx xxxxxxxx xxxx xxx xxxxxxxxxxxx xx x xx xxxxxxxxx xxxxx xx xxxxxx xxxx. Xxxx xx xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxxxxxx xx xxx xxxxxxxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx xx x, xxxxxxxxxxx xxx xxxxxx, xxxxxxxxx xxx ‘xxxxxxxxxxxx’ xxxxxx xx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx. Xxx xxxxx xxxxxxxxx xx xxxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx xx x xxxx x xxxxxx xxxxxx-xxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxx X xxxx xxxxxx ‘xxxxxxxxx’ (Xxxxxxxx, 2015a), xxx xx xxxxxxx xxxxxxxx xx xxx xxxxxxx xx xxx xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx xx xxxxx-xxxxx xxx. Address for correspondence Adam Jaworski School of English University of Hong Kong Pokfulam Road Hong Kong jaworski@hku.hk Publication history Date revised: 18 September 2019 Published online: 22 July 2019 In the version of this article published in Linguistic Landscape 5(2), the image and caption for Figures 121–123 were omitted. This error has been corrected in the current version of the article. 141