Roads to regimentation: Place, authenticity and the metapragmatics of naming

•Metapragmatic exchange shapes indexical relationships between language and place.•Spatialised semiosis precipitate from metapragmatic exchange.•Metapragmatic exchange is a good inroad to grasping the semiotisation of space and spatialisation of semiosis.•These points are illustrated through an analysis of a struggle over road naming in Älvdalen, Sweden.

Social agents often stake claims to the naming operations that are embedded in official discourse. The present article explores the metapragmatics of such investments. Drawing on post-Austinian theories of naming (Kripke, Harris, Bourdieu, Silverstein), the article analyses the contentious process of naming roads in a rural community in Sweden. In this process, one major stake was the entextualisation of names in Övdalsk, a locally used form of Scandinavian. Focusing on an extended exchange over spatial and linguistic authenticity, the article elucidates several ways in which the semiotics of place are bound up with a range of symbolic struggles and antagonisms. More generally, the article argues that such focus is necessary for grasping the semiotisation of space and spatialisation of semiosis.