Meaning Of Social Cleansing By E8plus Hackney

The above slogan is an example of English-language graffiti located on a residential property in Hackney, London (for ease of reference, the image is attached below). Unlike gang graffiti used to mark territory or gain notoriety, the slogan employs multimodal features to express a political point about Hackney's 'fast gentrified development' (E8Plus Hackney, 2017). Written in capital letters with black and red font, the text is a stencilled copy of a traditional London borough street sign. Visually, the contrast of colours and font attract attention, and serve as semiotic signs embedded with underlying meaning.

Following the Grenfell Tower tragedy, gentrification in London remains a controversial practise that Jeremy Corbyn calls; “social cleansing” (Corbyn (2017), cited in Bean, 2017). From a pragmatic perspective, the meaning of ‘social cleansing’ is defined by reference to the context of gentrification, and the process of privatising former local authority homes. This is conveyed by an elaborate golden plume design, which surrounds the text and engulfs the property. Creatively, the ‘multimodal framework’ (Morell, 2015, p.137) of linguistic and artistic features, signify the surge of rising house prices and middleclass interlopers displacing poorer residents.

Gravity of meaning is accentuated by the ironic pun ‘INEQUALITY STREET’, which contains intertextual and morphological links to both the stage play by J.M. Barrie (1901), and Nestle Quality Street chocolates. The lexical linking of Quality Street conveys ‘meaning by collocation’ (Mackin (1978) in Barnbrook et al, 2013, p.), and is synonymous with value and urban