Understanding landscape through language

Ross S. Purves

Universität Zürich

Place and landscape are, as geographer Tim Cresswell memorably put it with respect to the former, slippery concepts. We can all think of special places and landscapes we love, but what do we mean when we talk about place and landscape? Do people from different cultures think of the same sorts of place, and describe them in the same ways and are there differences in the ways in which we describe and perceive landscapes that are influenced by language and culture? In my talk I will explore these ideas using examples of empirical and computational research. I will show how analysing place and landscape through the lens of language can help us to explore multiple ways of understanding the same locations, and reveal intriguing differences in the ways in which different groups understand, and thus perhaps value, landscapes.