ABSTRACT
Place is a potent and widely used concept in the Anglophone discourses of cultural geography, urban planning, heritage and environmental psychology; it refers specifically to our connections to particular spaces; to our attachments and the way identity and culture are entangled in the physical environments we inhabit. Yet when we move out of the Anglophone sphere, into the realms created by other languages and cultures, such as the Spanish language, we find that the potency of the term ‘place’ is lost in its translation and application because of its ambiguity. Instead, more specific and less slippery terms are used: lugar, sitio, ambiente, entorno, each with their own semantic characteristics and, often, culturally specific meanings. We explore the translations, both linguistic and spatial, between the Anglophone and Hispanophone lexicons of place by examining literary and analytical discussions and memories of Mexico City to explore how language structures distinct understandings of the same physical spaces.
