Drawing, toponymy, and linguistic pilgrimage. Issue 1 (2nd January 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Nash, Joshua
• Is Part Of: Journal of cultural geography. Volume 35:Issue 1(2018)
• Page Start: 133
• Page End: 148
• Publication Date: 2018-01-02
• Subjects: Aesthetics -- cartography -- language and drawing -- linguistic landscapes -- Norfolk Island -- spatial writing; Human geography -- Periodicals; Human geography -- United States -- Periodicals; Material culture -- Periodicals; Material culture -- United States -- Periodicals; 304.205
• DOI: 10.1080/08873631.2017.1377496
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0887-3631

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This article scrutinises an ongoing concern with how the naming of landscape is informed by micro personal and macro cultural narratives. The author takes the position of a toponymist and linguistic pilgrim. The perspectives identify ways of understanding the meanings of place ascribed through language and placenames, the role of intention in language documentation, and relationships between the affect of place and belonging. Drawing is melded with processes of placenaming, specifically a single fishing ground placename recorded during linguistic fieldwork in February 2008 with an elderly man on Norfolk Island, South Pacific. The argument uses drawing as a method to reveal how elicited stories can reveal the meanings of placenames and the histories of observations that inform them. The view taken questions whether the discipline of toponymy could incorporate a more involved and evolved aesthetic dimension. New ways to contextualise observations about placenaming and documentation within relevant interdisciplinary contexts such as drawing research and cartography are offered.