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The Discourse of Protest: Frames of Identity,

Intertextuality, and Interdiscursivity

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 5

The Discourse of Protest: Frames of Identity,

Intertextuality and Interdiscursivity
Selim Ben Said and Luanga A. Kasanga

1 Introduction

The fast-growing sociolinguistics subfield known as the LL has extended its focus beyond
‘public road signs, advertising billboards, street names, place names, commercial shop
signs, and public signs on government buildings’ as initially conceived by Landry and
Bourhis (1997: p. 25). LL scholars now study all signs – ephemeral or transient though
they may be – wherever, however and by whomever they are displayed. To signs on
fixed support such as those referred to above are now added those in cyberspace as well
as ‘mobile’ or ‘non-fixed’ ones, whether the latter are used or seen daily (Scollon, 1997;
Chiluwa, 2008; Johnstone, 2009; Coupland, 2010; Hawkins, 2010; Rozenholc, 2010;
Sebba, 2010; Kasanga, 2012) or occasionally as is the case of the semiotic resources
used in protest.
Mobile or non-fixed signs differ from ‘fixed’ ones on the criterion of territoriality.
Physical ‘place’ has often been foregrounded, especially by scholars inspired by the
geosemiotic approach (Scollon and Scollon, 2003), because the meaning of signs has
been found to depend upon a consideration of their socio-cultural, geographical–
physical context. However, although we aim to study the social meaning of ‘signs and
discourses’ and protesters’ ‘actions’, we do not need any fixed ‘material placement’
(Scollon and Scollon, 2003: p. 2) for the semiotic resources under analysis to be defined
as ‘protest signs’.
Protests are social movements increasingly drawing global attention at variance,
some having become truly historical landmarks, viz.: the non-violent marches of the
Civil Rights Movement in segregated United States in the 1950s and 1960s; the youth
revolt in France in 1968, known as May 1968; the Soweto uprising in 1976 against the
apartheid regime in South Africa; the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 in China;
and recently the so-called Arab Spring revolution which still reverberates around the
world. Each has spawned its own unique brand of discourse.
It is useful at this stage to clarify the use of the term ‘discourse’ which is notoriously
‘slippery’ (Jones, 2001: p. 471). Discourse in its basic sense designates any stretch of

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 72 Negotiating and Contesting Identities in Linguistic Landscapes

language beyond the level of the clause. Elsewhere, discourse is understood as mere
use of language. Scollon and Scollon (2003: p. 210) broaden this second use with
the more inclusive definition: ‘a body of language use and other factors that form a
“social language”’. This view has been a catalyst to a noticeable increase in interest in
the study of the discourse of protest by sociolinguists. Indeed, thus viewed, discourse
is ‘an important dimension of everyday protest’ (Riggins, 1990: p. 399). A third use
of the term, which is gaining traction in the literature, is represented by Gee’s (2015)
Discourse (with capital D), defined as a range of semiotic practices associated with the
‘social construction of knowledge’ as well as the ways of ‘being and acting’ (Jones, 2010:
pp. 472–3). The ‘“saying-doing” combination’ (Gee, 2015: p. 3) shapes our identity
and, actually, includes all postures, thinking, attires and artefacts that define us. For
example, as Bassiouney (2012) shows, opposing camps in the 2011 Egyptian Revolution
sparred on the radio to engage in ‘acts of positioning’ (Davies and Harré, 1990). At one
end are those who wish to maintain or even increase their hold on political power; at
the other end are those who seek to resist or even wrest it. The consideration of two
interconnected facets of protest (social and political) and the attendant discourses is
apparent in the methodology we have adopted.
The analysis of the discourse of protest or dissent, a form of political discourse
(e.g. Chilton, 1985; 2004; Wodak, 1989; van Dijk, 1998), is scarcely new. There exists
a fairly broad literature on the discourse of social movements, more particularly
the language of protest (Kumar, 2001; Sonntag, 2003; Frekko, 2009) in labour
(Wood, 2000; Woolfson, 2006), environment (Linke, 2008), women’s (Ukeje, 2004;
Mathonsi and Gumede, 2006) movements. Pride of place, however, goes to LL
analyses of semiotic resources used by protesters and which give powerful cultural
and political meaning to these social movements. Hanauer (2011) and Papen
(2012) used fixed signs (graffiti and/or slogans) to examine respectively political
discourse in the context of the ongoing conflict in Palestine and citizens’ protest
against commercial gentrification in respective areas, viz. Abu Dis, a contested area
of the separation wall between Israel and Palestine, and Prenzlauer Berg, an area of
Berlin located in the former East Germany. Like these analysts, we recognize the
potency of semiotic artefacts in the unfolding social and political act of protesting,
that is, their power to express feelings and relay messages, despite being transient,
as they move with the protesters, and mostly ephemeral, as they (usually) do not
last longer than the protest for which they were designed. They are, thus, of interest
to semiotics and to sociolinguistics, especially in the LL.

2 Methodology: The data

In this chapter we examine protest signs from the Arab Spring Revolution, more
particularly in Tunisia – known as the Jasmine Revolution – and in Egypt. The
revolts in Tunisia and Egypt, which led to regime change, remain two pivotal events
at the beginning of the second decade of the new millennium. These popular revolts
triggered attempts, some successful, others less so, at regime change or demands for
democratization across the Middle East and North African (MENA) region. Given

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 The Discourse of Protest 73

their swiftness and relatively peaceful occurrence, these two revolts became a model
for other Arab populations, with various degrees of success. It stands to reason that, in
spite of the differences in the political outlook in both countries, striking similarities
warranted a single study.
Besides the usual photographing, Seals (2011) and Philipps (2012), among
others, used several other methods, including participant-observation. Philipps even
embedded himself in peaceful social movements to collect several types of data for
triangulation. Data triangulation is, thus, ensured thanks to a combination of a wide
range of data including texts, speech, signs, videos and clothing to show how they mark
group solidarity among the protesters who position themselves against institutions of
power by re-appropriating space and, thus, recreate power. Unlike them, we could not
use participant-observation or interview with protesters to collect ethnographic data.
Consequently, our analysis and observations rely heavily on an etic interpretation.
Rather than present a detailed, ethnographic picture of the protests and attendant
semiotic practices, we opted for a discussion of unambiguous analytic categories of the
semiotic data at our disposal.
The texts under analysis, in English, French and Modern Standard Arabic, were
culled from electronic sources and those in the sample all appeared mainly in the
Guardian Online published in London. We used only the text from these pictures as
the basis of our analysis rather than the images because we could not make changes
of any kind (colour, format, quality). Nonetheless, permission had been sought from
and granted by their copyright owners. At the time of analysis, our corpus comprised
a total of fifty-seven pictures, thirty-two of which were from the Tunisian protests,
the other twenty-five from the Egyptian protests. However, several pictures contained
more than one banner, and in the case of graffiti on the pavement in Tahrir Square
in Egypt, there were unmistakable cases of ‘layering’, the coexistence of more than
one text (Scollon and Scollon, 2003; Backhaus, 2005; 2007) authored by different
protesters. In both cases, we counted separately flat carriers – ‘objects to which a sign is
attached’ (Backhaus, 2007: p. 66) – and layered inscriptions in the graffiti. Our analysis
is, therefore, based on a total of seventy-three sets of texts.
Our study is not a quantitative account, though, but aims to understand, qualitatively,
the social and political action of political protest as mediated by text and signs. The
study offers an account of how protesters use semiotic resources (text and signs) to
produce communicative artefacts (placards and banners) and to give meaning to these
texts, signs and artefacts (messages to the authorities and/or the larger audience). Our
reading considers all artefacts as texts of which it is possible to make analytic sense.
As pointed out earlier, making meaning of these signs and the attendant discourses is,
thus, possible by considering protesters’ actions (Scollon and Scollon, 2003). Given
that ‘use or practice’ (Vannini, 2007: p. 116) – not structures – underlies the meaning-
making process, social semiotics (Hodge and Kress, 1998; van Leeuwen, 2005) – not
structural semiotics – is the appropriate analytical perspective because it focuses on
context-bound meaning, that is, situated practices of communication, not merely
abstract, structural and formal associations of text. The semiotic resources represented
by the signs used by protesters will, thus, be interpreted in the context of specific social
situation and practice of protest.

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 74 Negotiating and Contesting Identities in Linguistic Landscapes

3 Analysis

We used a qualitative content analysis method (Mayring, 2004) to analyse our data. It
consisted of a three-stage analysis: a semantic analysis of the visual protest materials, a
summarizing content analysis and a thematic grouping of these summarized messages
at a higher level of abstraction. In some way, thus, our study can be compared grosso
modo to LL research inspired by Grounded Theory (e.g. Seals, 2011), which usually
starts with the purposeful collection of photographs or signs to identify themes, topics
or issues for systematic examination. Like grounded theory methods, we developed
‘emergent categories (. . .) from successive levels of analysis’ (Charmaz, 2008: p. 155)
from the data, not from existing theories or preconceived hypotheses (Charmaz, 2014).
One important difference with grounded theory methods, often based on researcher-
produced resources (e.g. Seals, 2011; Philipps, 2012), is that the present study uses
pre-existing signs. Another contrast is the use of both an etic and an emic perspective
in previous research, given the analysts’ prolonged engagement with protesters which
allows them to survey and interview the latter (e.g. Philipps, 2012). We rely solely on
pre-existing materials collected after the protests. Notwithstanding the absence of an
emic view, our interpretation offers a sense of the meaning of protest messages as would
be negotiated or re-created by the target audience. The sample used as illustrations is
representative of the categories emerging from the analysis.
We discuss three main discourse phenomena: frames or perspectives of
interpretation of the social act of protesting (due to the polyvalent character of the
discourse of protest), and intertextuality and intersubjectivity across the protests in
Tunisia and Egypt. Our analysis has benefited from insights from two of the most
recent approaches to discourse analysis, namely, Frame Analysis and, to a lesser degree,
Mediated Discourse Analysis, both of which are outlined below. We explain briefly
how we have drawn inspiration from each of these analytical approaches.

4 Frame analysis

We consider protest as a mediated action and, in so doing, we have uncovered several

different Discourses. These Discourses are frames, that is ‘structured understandings
of the way aspects of the world function’ as Fauconnier and Sweetser (1996: p. 5) argue.
They are various analytical perspectives to look at action or ‘what is going on’ (Goffman,
1974). Discursive frames are useful inasmuch as they can be thought of, in the words
of Coupland and Garrett (2010: p. 15), ‘as culturally or sub-culturally structured and
structuring sense-making resources’. Framing analysis has been considered as an
appropriate way, within the social constructivist framework, that is a situated approach
which considers individuals and issues being studied as sources of information.
Authenticity supersedes objectivity, while the analyst’s involvement is preferred to
detachment. It is, thus, possible to conceptualize texts (here semiotic resources) into
‘empirically operationalizable dimensions (. . .)’ in a way that the ‘framing of issues’
in the data may be uncovered (Pan and Kosicki, 1993: p. 55). In other words, the data
available is a point of departure to categorize meanings, or simply, frames of meaning.

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 The Discourse of Protest 75

As is the case for news texts in political communication, semiotic resources in the
action of protesting can be considered as ‘a system of organized signifying elements’
(Pan and Kosicki, 1993: p. 55) that suggest certain ideas or messages (frames of
meaning) interpretable by the target audience (both the authority being challenged
and bystanders).

5 Mediated Discourse Analysis

Mediated Discourse Analysis (MDA) as an approach to studying social actions was

proposed by Scollon (2001a) and expounded by others, namely, Norris and Jones
(2005). We lean towards Scollon’s own work, however. He acknowledges that this
approach is not actually new in itself; it is rather a ‘program of linkages among (. . .)
well-established theoretical and methodological approaches’ (Scollon, 2001a: p. 1). In
the way Scollon envisaged MDA, discourse, agency and practice are meshed into what
he called a ‘nexus of practice’. In essence, MDA focuses on discourse in action, not
on discourse as action. In this way, discourse is applicable in various practical and
useful contexts. In brief, then, there is no action without participating in Discourses;
no Discourses without concrete, material actions.
Scollon (2001b: p. 146) argues that the following six concepts are of central
importance in MDA: (1) mediated action, (2) site of engagement, (3) mediational
means, (4) practice, (5) nexus of practice and (6) community of practice (reduced
to the first five in Scollon, 2001a). The use of nexus analysis as suggested by Scollon
and Scollon (2004) was not envisaged, given our lack of involvement or participation
in the nexus of practice(s) which we were studying. It is important to note that the
observation of a ‘mundane social action – having a cup of coffee in a coffee shop’ –
used by Scollon (2001b: p. 146) to explain MDA is a prototype example of mediated
action, the ‘social action taken with a mediational means (or cultural tool)’ (Scollon,
2001a: p. 7). Other cases of mediated action may not have the same components. For
example, mediated actions similar to the one used by Scollon may not have the same
sequence of mediated actions making up the higher level mediated action of having
coffee. In our case, unlike Scollon, there was no attempt for reflecting on retrospective
discourses to describe the site of engagement – too ephemeral and polyvalent – or the
social space within which the mediated action of protesting occurred.
We are much in sympathy, though, with Scollon’s (2001b: p. 146) idea that mediated
action (the unit of analysis) and mediational means (without which there is no
action or agency) are crucial to the analysis of action through MDA. Therefore, we
borrow two components from Scollon’s taxonomy: mediated action (the protest) and
mediational means (the signs). Mediational means are crucial because mediated action
is carried out through them. They are always multiple in any single action, inherently
polyvocal, intertextual and interdiscursive. Therefore, we apply textual analysis in
both its linguistic and intertextual dimensions whose explanatory power has been
demonstrated (Fairclough, 1992a).
One important tenet of MDA, which is tested in the data, affirms the role of both
language and material objects to mediate social action by examining both ongoing

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 76 Negotiating and Contesting Identities in Linguistic Landscapes

actions and how ‘discourse figures into these actions’ (Scollon, 2001a: p. 1). In other
words, MDA looks at actions with two questions in mind: ‘What is/are the on-going
action/s?’ and ‘How does discourse figure in the action/s’ (Scollon, 2001a). Frame
analysis will be applied to the semiotic resources for delineating frames of meaning,
whereas insights from MDA will be used to explain cases of intertextuality and
intersubjectivity.

6 Frames of interpretation in the Tunisian and Egyptian protests

In our study of the mediated action (the social action of protesting), through the
analysis of the mediational means (the semiotic resources used to communicate
the messages of the protest), we found several different Discourses or frames, in
which this mediated action can be interpreted. We identified three frames: the
Nationalist-Patriotic, the Revolution-and-Freedom and the People’s-Agency-and-
Power frames. Our classification derives from a textual analysis of the signs and an
attempt to make sense of the underlying message, with no pretension to theoretical
sophistication.

6.1 The Nationalist-Patriotic frame

The Nationalist-Patriotic frame is the ‘We-are-Tunisians/Egyptians,-united,-and-
proud-of-our identity’ perspective in the protesters’ messages. Indeed, besides
venting their anger and claiming their rights to democracy and freedom, protesters
in both Tunisia and Egypt also broadcast their patriotism, national pride, unity and
Arab identity. Egyptian protesters proclaim these sentiments in English ‘NOW I AM
PROUD OF BEING EGYPTIAN’. As mentioned earlier, the message may be intended
for an audience beyond Egypt. In a message in Arabic [ ], protesters
express the sense of unity among Egyptians, civilians and the army, which can roughly
be translated as ‘The Egyptian army and people (stand) together’. In Tunisia, a similar
nationalist-patriotic message reads in part VIVE LA TUNISIE (‘Long Live Tunisia’)
with Tunisie underlined as if to underscore this sense of belonging to the country. Even
more significant, albeit subtle, on the same placard is the invocation of martyrdom
associated with the triggering event of the town of Sidi Bou Zid, considered as the
‘cradle’ (Li, 2011) of the Tunisia uprising. Indeed, the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia
was a response to the self-immolation of a young street vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi,
to protest against unemployment, injustice and police brutality. Martyrdom, which is
part of the subtext of some signs, is subsumed under ‘patriotism’.
The presence of several frames of reference in one single sign (VIVE LA TUNISIE.
VIVE KASSERINE. ET VIVE LA LIBERTE) underscores the multidimensionality
of political discourse (Bhatia, 2006; 2009), or what has also been referred to as
polysemy (Jewitt, 2009). Indeed, signs used in the act of protesting seldom send
single messages. Instead they simultaneously serve to broadcast demands, express
feelings or, as is the case in the events under analysis, contest the legitimacy of the
established authority.

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 The Discourse of Protest 77

6.2 The Revolution-and-Freedom frame

The revolution-and-freedom frame, ‘We are now (want to be) free’, is largely represented
in the discourse of protest, expressly stated in terse or more elaborate messages in
English, French and Arabic. In Tunisia: ‘REVOLUTION’ ‘FREEDOM’ (with an
equivalent message in Arabic); ‘UNE TUNISIE LIBRE’ (‘A Free Tunisia’); ‘ET VIVE
LA LIBERTE’ (‘And long live (our) freedom’). In Egypt the ‘revolution-and-freedom’
frame is illustrated by messages such as ‘A FREE(D) LAND’ [ ] in Tunisia, as
well as the cryptic message in Arabic scribbled on the pavement of the now famous
Tahrir Square [ ] headlining the proclamation that THE PEOPLE WANT TO
TOPPLE THE REGIME (. . .) WANT (TO SEE) THE FALL OF THE TYRANT). This
message is plurivalent in so far as it fits in more than one frame: it also exemplifies the
People-Power-and-Agency frame discussed below.
It is useful to point out, in passing, the use of more than one language in four out
of the five signs in this frame. It stands to reason to expect multilingualism in these
mediational means in both Tunisia and Egypt. Indeed, both are characterized by
multilingualism and a diglossic situation. Furthermore, in targeting various audiences,
messages required the use of a multilingual toolkit. Multilingualism has increasingly
become the default mode of expression in the discourse of protest (Kasanga, 2014).

6.3 The People’s-Agency-and-Power frame

Another important frame is that announcing, proclaiming or simply (re)claiming
people’s agency and power. Agency is understood as the ‘socioculturally mediated
capacity to act’ (Ahearn, 2001: p. 112). However, as Karp (1986: p. 137) reminds us, it
is not ‘rule-governed or rule-oriented’ action, like a mere ‘actor’, but rather engagement
in ‘the exercise of power in the sense of the ability to bring about effects’. Unlike sign
contents, agency (or authorship) has been under-examined in LL studies – with
Malinowski (2009), among a few others, as an exception. This frame includes the
denunciation of dictatorship, the affirmation of people’s action and power and the
claim of victory.
Dictatorship is denounced and condemned in messages from respectively the
Tunisian and Egyptian protesters, that can be roughly translated as ‘CRIMES =
LACK OF FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY’, ‘NO TO CORRUPTION, NO TO
DICTATORSHIP’. These messages represent a rude awakening to the ills of the
dictatorial regime, a necessary condition for acting against them, thus underlying the
affirmation of people’s action and power. One of the Arabic messages, with a caricature
of the deposed Egyptian president, was symbolically affixed on to the metal gate of
the Parliament building in Cairo [ ]. The surrounding text can
be roughly translated as ‘The people want/are determined to topple the regime’. This
message is echoed in at least two other signs, one of which was the message scribbled
in Arabic on the pavement (see supra The Revolution-and-Freedom frame).
Agency is also the force that energizes the protesters to demand the departure of
President Ben Ali with the simple imperative form dégage (see the next section) – in
Tunisia first, then in Egypt. Finally, the claim of victory is largely publicized by the

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 78 Negotiating and Contesting Identities in Linguistic Landscapes

now widely known GAME OVER slogan that has become the rallying cry of people’s
revolt far beyond Tunisia and Egypt. In the same vein, the A FREE(D) LAND message,
already discussed under the Revolution-and-Freedom Frame, can also be considered as
part of the Agency-and-Power Frame. Indeed, it may be interpreted as a premonition
of an assured victory. In the next section, we identify examples of intertextuality, a
concept underlying, and associated with, the notion of framing (Gordon, 2006).

7 Intertextuality in Tunisian and Egyptian protests

Intertextuality is, in Fairclough’s (1992b: p. 84) words, ‘the property texts have of being
full of snatches of other texts, which may be explicitly demarcated or merged in, and
which the text may assimilate, contradict, ironically echo, and so forth’. The text under
analysis, thus, shows ‘evidences of the histories of other texts’ (Candlin and Maley,
1997: p. 203) or the presence of specific words of prior texts or discourses mixed with
the current text or discourse. Therefore, as Rose (2007: p. 142) remarks, ‘the meanings
of any one discursive image or text depend not only on that one text or image, but also
on the meanings carried by other images and texts’. This interaction between texts
(Chandler, 2007) is akin to Bakhtin’s (1986) idea of ‘dialogicality’, that is, the interplay
of current language and that from previous experience. Intertextuality, it is worth
noting, has been extended beyond intertextual weavings to include intertextuality of
actions (Scollon and Scollon, 2007).
Intertextuality, thus, refers to a combination of different discourses in texts resulting
in new hybrid or nodal discourses, or even new hybrid genres. Rather than being
merely the presence of prior text in the current text, it facilitates the hybridization of
different genres, styles or representations whether appropriated or infused through
other means and recontextualized in new contexts. Some scholars (e.g. Candlin and
Maley, 1997; Foxle, 2010), in this wise, view hybridization as a distinct phenomenon,
that is, different from intertextuality. Many scholars still hold that meaning making out
of prior texts in Fairclough’s sense does not differ significantly from meaning making
on the basis of prior or concurrent discursive events, or ‘interdiscursivity’ (Silverstein,
2005). Sometimes, this difference is so tenuous that the two concepts have been used in
some relation of complementarity, just as ‘entextualization’ and ‘recontextualization’ are
considered as closely related mechanisms for the reconfiguration or reinterpretation
of texts or discourses in new situations (Bauman and Briggs, 1990). We follow
the view which advocates similarity and, thus, conflation of intertextuality and
interdiscursivity.
The most prominent case of intertextuality in the data is the GAME OVER
sign which was carried by many protesters in Tunisia, and, subsequently, at rallies
in Egypt, where the English ‘Game over’ appeared alongside the Arabic equivalent
[ ]. The sign became a slogan or battle cry of presumptive victory in the
political fight for freedom and democracy and against oppressive regimes in the
region. Another clear example of how prior text (re)shapes discourse, to borrow the
expression from Gordon (2006), is the dégage slogan, which has reverberated across
several events in Africa. In Tunisia, which is of interest here, it has become so much

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 The Discourse of Protest 79

of a battle cry that it has now been used any time to register one’s displeasure against
anyone or anything that it has engendered the (mostly pejorative) coinage dégagisme
(Belkaïd, 2011).
The extent of the popularity of the slogan is illustrated by its pervasive use
elsewhere. Being a French expression, it is no surprise it has been a favourite with
French-speaking protesters (e.g. in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burkina
Faso, to cite only these). The term, or its derivations, has, thus, been adopted in
French-speaking media. Furthermore, in non-Francophone Egypt, the slogan
was brandished by protesters during the revolution. To cap it all, it has become
so pervasive that in 2011, it was voted ‘best word of the year 2001’ («‘Dégage’ élu
mot de l’année 2011») by an annual gathering.1 In the discourse of protest, dégage
is appropriated across the 2011 Arab Spring Revolution and beyond and, thus,
produces a hybrid discourse.

8 Conclusions

This paper has focused on mediational means in the discourse of protest through the
lenses of the Arab Spring Revolution. A content analysis of frames interpretation of
the protest signs has uncovered three main frames. The Nationalist-Patriotic frame,
besides being a claim, or better a reaffirmation, of their national identity as citizens
of a country (Tunisia, Egypt) of which they feel to have denied full rights by the
toppled dictatorship, also publicizes their Arab pride and identity. The Revolution-
and-Freedom frame extends this sense of belonging to a community of people with
basic rights of freedom which required a revolution. The People’s-Agency-and-Power
frame is represented by messages claiming victory and power through collective
action.
Through this social semiotic analysis of the mediational means of the act of protesting
in both Tunisia and Egypt, we wanted to know ‘how people make, use, and renegotiate
semiotic rules’ (Vannini, 2007: p. 115). Drawing on the polyvalence, polysemy (Jewitt,
2009) and recurrence of messages carried by protesters (and sometimes of actions
embedded in the main act of protesting), we concur with those (e.g. Bhatia, 2006;
2009) who have found the notion of ‘political’ to be multidimentional.
Emerging from the discussion is evidence of the symbiotic relationship between
discourse and social action. Language mediates, embeds and intersects with the social
act of protesting. Equally important is the finding of the polyvocal, intertextual and
interdiscursive nature of the discourse of protest. To Goffman’s (1974: p. 25) key
question ‘What is (. . .) going on here?’ emerge several different underlying answers.
In other words, the discourse of protest does not take place in a single frame with
the (meta-)message ‘We are protesting’. As a social act or event, protest is viewed as a
mediated action with multiple underlying discourses, or frames.
LL research, where this discussion belongs, has not sufficiently examined non-fixed,
non-static or mobile public signs, especially the semiotic resources used in protests.
We suggest that more studies, like the present one, are needed to, among other aims,
heighten the awareness on the role, despite their often ephemeral and transient nature,

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 80 Negotiating and Contesting Identities in Linguistic Landscapes

of non-fixed signs to embed the interpretation of texts and images in display in their
socio-cultural, political–ideological and globalizing–economic explanations.

Note
1 Obviously, the use of dégage in protest predates the Jasmine Revolution. Indeed, it
originated from the discourse of protest propagated by the late Tunisian intellectual,
Tarek Mekki, who had advocated regime change long before the Jasmine Revolution,
in his Tunisie Deuxième République (Tunisia Second Republic) campaign in exile. The
Jasmine Revolution having almost certainly taken inspiration from the campaign, it is
no surprise it adopted dégage as its battle cry. Its first use in the movement is credited
to the Tunisian actor-humorist, Lotfi Abdelli (Houssonnais, 2011).

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