ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the narrative approach to the study of the urban landscape. It provides the methodological justification for using narratives as a critical window to the workings of the city. The chapter discusses the student narratives about their visual data collected from the landscape of various Sydney suburbs. In terms of spaces and locations, students explored diverse suburbs across Sydney, including the eastern, south-eastern, western, inner-city, and inner-west regions. Students commented on the language choices by speculating about the intention of the sign writer and the intended audience. Students collected several examples to this effect where the visual texts served a communicative function of shaping the space without including any denotational text. The vignette claims that the street sign is most likely to appeal to the tourists, as the local Chinese community living in the area is well-established, and they do not need a Chinese translation of the street name.
