The wall is a symbolic space for the silent: Semiotic and Psychological studies in models of graffiti in Jordan

Abstract

This study deals with the phenomenon of graffiti in three Jordanian cities (Amman, Irbid, and Zarqa) in order to analyze it in a semiotic psychological way. As a widespread phenomenon in the Jordanian cities space, in an increasing manner in recent years. The graffiti were spotted on the walls of public markets, schools (male and female schools), and places of worship (mosques, churches, cemeteries).This study tries to introspection of what these writings hide in terms of thoughts, feelings and trends in their writers from different social classes. This study adopted the approach of content analysis of the expressions written on the walls that were collected by the random sampling method and analyzed according to the fields that regulate these expressions. The results of the study showed That several conclusions, perhaps the most prominent of which is that the phrases written on the walls express psychological, social, emotional, class, sexual, emotional, regional and racial components... etc. It has symbolic semantic connotations, by describing these writings as real, realistic, and credible reflections of social reality, and a blatant expression of the components of the soul, and it has contributed to forming a clear picture of the nature of these groups in Jordanian society.