GPHY 101 Chapter Notes - Chapter 6: Semiotics, Northrop Frye

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Geography
• Course: GPHY 101
• Professor: Joyce Davidson

Document Summary

Landscape is a reflection of our culture and our experiences. Landscape is a text that is written by individuals and groups and read by them as well. Landscape is written as a code that directs our attention toward certain features and away from others. The written code of landscapes is called semiotics and geographers seek to identify how it is perceived and understood by people. Different cultural identities and status categories influence the ways in which people experience and understand their environments as well as how they are shaped and able to shape them. Landscapes both produce and communicate meaning to individuals. Society improves and creates landscape based on the current trend or what appeals to the eye (aesthetics) Changes in our attitudes to the landscape also suggest how our attitudes to nature in general are culturally constructed. Canadian landscapes have inspired literary critics all over the world (margret atwood, northrop frye)