ABSTRACT
This conceptual frame examines the ways in which language and discourse shape space and place and locates spatial analysis more firmly in social interactions, communication strategies and linguistic practices. The emphasis on language and discourse also provides a methodologically explicit way to understand how everyday communications produce, manipulate and control spatial meaning. Language and discourse analyses draw upon many of the theories and methodologies presented in Chapter 4 on the social construction of space as well as some of the embodied spatial practices and meaning-based frameworks reviewed in Chapter 5 . The unstable semiological 1 relationship of language to ideas, thoughts and objects that underlies a social constructivist approach to spatial analysis informs this discussion. Further, an in-depth consideration of the material effects of language, its performative and discursive aspects and its ability to mark identity also plays a significant role in producing space and making sense of people and place interactions.
