Toilet graffiti: What can we learn from the visual languaging in the stalls?

Victoria, Mabel

Abstract

Academic research has conceptualised toilet graffiti or latrinalia (Dundes, 1966) as a ‘symbol of a sociological subculture, juvenile delinquency, and regulatory problem’ (Halsey & Young, 2006);as a ‘communal public diary’ (Kurniawan & Anderson, 2008); and a 'repository' of 'social anxieties about bodies, gender, cultural and religious differences and health/death” (Schapper, 2012). Of special relevance to this presentation is the notion of toilet graffiti as a ‘cultural text’ and a unique communicative medium that can empower individuals to transmit and acquire cultural knowledge (Mangeya, 2019) through visual and written verbal texts. As Blommaert (2013) argues, semiotized spaces like the writing on the wall is agentive where social, political and cultural identities are articulated and enacted. Using semiotic landscaping and ethnography as methodological inspirations, I collected chronological visual data of written inscriptions, illustrations, and drawings scribbled in the ladies’ room stalls of a UK university from May 2019 to March 2020. A thematic analysis of 200 pieces of graffito provides evidence that show how a group of anonymous graffiti writers transformed the ladies’ restroom as a safe, communicative space to discuss sensitive issues like sexuality, mental health, religion and politics. As a communal diary and a ‘confessional room’, the writing on the wall served as a repository for the writers’ anxieties about coming out as bisexual, dealing with depression, and surviving university life. As a visiolinguistic landscape, one graffito on the wall stands out ‘This wall has done more for my mental health than the university does.’ This study, therefore, invites us to examine the interplay between languaging and visuality and its potential to create a heterotopic (Foucault, 1997) space for self-expression, belonging and group solidarity.

Citation

Victoria, M. (2023, September). Toilet graffiti: What can we learn from the visual languaging in the stalls?. Paper presented at DN29 Visiolinguistics: Panoramas of Languaging and Visuality, Online

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: DN29 Visiolinguistics: Panoramas of Languaging and Visuality
• Conference Location: Online
• Start Date: Sep 13, 2023
• End Date: Sep 15, 2023
• Deposit Date: Sep 10, 2023