Contextual References: Universal Language

Contextual references are important in order to gain insight into questions I will later explore. Based upon my initial questions of semiotics I posed in the introduction to my project, I believe Margaret Calvert will be a valuable source to gain insight into the design of road signs that incorporate colour, shapes, arrows, symbols and text to communicate. Having heard her speak about her design of the British road signs (1957), it is interesting to learn about how colour and shapes are all carefully considered to allow for optimum legibility at high speeds. Navigation and the language of symbolic shapes such as arrows is enhanced by her design to communicate there meaning in the clearest possible way.

Similar to Margaret Calvert’s road signs is Lance Wyman’s design of the Mexico 1968 Olympic symbols. Having seen him speak about it at a unit editions talk in 2016, it is inspiring to hear the amount of testing that went into both the ‘Mexico 68’ logo, as well as the individual symbols for each section of the Olympics. His choice of design was heavily influenced by the need for a universal understanding, as he picked out key sections of each sporting area to communicate it visually. The key shapes on a solid colour were simple enough to understand quickly, as well as being specific enough to each sport, and I believe it to communicate very clearly.  

Returning to the question about the language of objects where I was asking about how paper and books communicate their meaning and purpose universally, a key reference to consider is Tom Philips and his book: ‘A Humument – a treated Victorian novel’ (initially published in 1970). His work questions the boundary between preconceptions of objects, and how they behave in contrast to said preconceptions. The book, as you might expect, would read left to right, and conform to typical expectations of a book. However he builds a narrative by removing, drawing over and crossing out most of each page of the book, except for several words per page, which when read left to right, top to bottom, begin to form sentences.

With manipulation of text in mind, another key source to look at is Spin’s ‘Adventures in typography’ (2017), which question the extent to which language, as we know it, can be changed and distorted before it becomes meaningless and abstract. The magazine uses image, symbols and shapes to recreate type; some clearer than others. The manipulation plays into my questioning of typography to question written language. To what extent can this theory be applied to other languages as well?

Robert Brownjohn produces work in a similar light, as he uses typography to distort words and express their meaning. A key example of his work is the use of ‘+’ ‘-‘ sign to show the symbolic meaning behind the words ‘add’ and ‘minus’. The communication is clever as it is still completely legible as the word it is implying, whilst distorting it enough to also bring in another meaning. His work plays on this boundary between legibility and distortion to find the optimum point at which two meaning can be understood with clarity.

Continuing with the written language, I also want to consider William Burroughs and his work commonly referred to as ‘cut outs’. He constructs poetry, text and sentences by stringing together cut out sentences and words from either previously written text by other authors, or his own writing. His work dates back as early as 1922, using text from that era or older to create a new piece of text to inform a new idea, or to serve as a more interesting read. This questioning of language and reapplication to create new meaning could serve as an interesting approach to question universal language in my own work.

Other aspects to consider, although they do not have exact reference titles, include that of language across culture. An example of this is classical Chinese language, which was and still is read universally across China, Vietnam, Korea and Japan. It is the pronunciation of the language that differs vastly. The same is said for the Qur’an, as its language is Arabic, meaning Arabic is universal across Muslims. Accents are key cultural differences that affect the spoken language vastly, and are something to take into consideration.  

Other cultural aspects to consider when questioning language are the sense of social expectations and point of views. Fashion is a language in its own right, having power to state your class and status, often carrying and communicating ideas of what someone is interested in, what they do for a living and many other factors. Fashion, as a language, is just one of many other social factors that people use to express and communicate what they are about.

The language titled ‘Esperanto’ was created to serve as a universal language, created and launched to be spoken world wide, but failed. It is a language which has no regional background or ethnic group, presented as a neutral, international language. It failed in it’s attempts, made by Ludwig Zamenhof, it only has between 10,000 and 2,000,000 speakers today. It was made to be easy to learn and speak worldwide, with a common, regular structure to allow it to do so. Looking into the history of the very first language could be insightful when considering my approach to the question. Sumarian was created between 3300 to 3000 BC, and consist of simply logographic records, but no linguistic or phonological records. Looking back into historical languages could aid me in my research.