Abstract Summary
This presentation shares textual, spatial and temporal findings from an unobtrusive site-based study of a creative and cultural industries faculty building. The study collated and analysed texts through archival research and photography of accessible texts produced and displayed within the building.
Abstract :
In ‘Other floors other voices: a textography of a small university building’ (1998) Swales describes his textography as: ‘something more than a disembodied textual analysis, but something less than a full ethnographic account’ or more simply: a ‘site-based textographic study’. This small-scale research project uses unobtrusive site-based textography within the creative and cultural industries faculty building at a post-92 university in the UK. The range of resources, literature and research featuring the arts at university: creative arts, design and / or creative and cultural industries is very limited. This research was undertaken after difficulties in preparing English for Academic Purposes (EAP) materials for students studying within the creative and cultural industries faculty. Many of these students were studying creative arts subjects such as architecture and photography.
The study’s main purpose was to investigate how the building’s community e.g. faculty, course teams/departments are represented through texts produced and displayed within the creative and cultural industries building. Archival research and photography were used to collect and analyse texts unobtrusively i.e. without participants or need for ethical approval. Firstly, historical documents and images from the university archive were collated to provide a historical and contextual picture of the creative and cultural industries building and community. Secondly, the art of photography was used to record and analyse texts and spaces within the building. The images depict some aspects of the building’s complex linguistic landscape. The photographed texts demonstrate the community’s routine business: the rules, the rituals (the ‘grad show’ [final year exhibition]), the rhythms and the routines (academic year). The textual, temporal and spatial findings suggest a community with a shared past, shared building and shared future, but also seem to suggest smaller communities e.g. courses and departments within the wider creative and cultural industries community.
