Semiotic resources and mediational tools in Merrylands, Sydney, Australia : the case of Persian and Afghan shops

This study draws on ethnographic data from a street, replete with multiple cultural-semiotic (non-language elements), and linguistic resources, in Merrylands in Sydney. The paper investigates two shops (Persian and Afghan) in that street in Merrylands and aims to explore local language practices in relation to the activities carried out within these shops by applying a nexus analysis and mediated discourse analysis. Theoretically, the article argues that relying solely on spoken language, without paying much attention to the importance of the social processes, the historical and cultural context that underpins such verbal exchanges, would lead to an incomplete picture of the instances and the structure of such interactions. In fact, the paper demonstrates that to those contexts of communication, one must include mediational means – any and all material objects in the world appropriated for the purposes of taking a social action, including the materiality of the social actors – their bodies, their movements, ways of saying, and ways of doing. The study concludes that integrating a nexus analysis and multimodal approach of the practices embedded in service encounters provides a finer understanding of specific social practices and actions and local material contexts, which serve to ascribe social identities for shop-owners and customers.