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Sequencing toponymic change: A quantitative longitudinal analysis of street renaming in Sibiu, Romania

Recent scholarship in critical toponymy studies has refashioned the understanding of street names from innocent labels to nominal loci of historical memory and vectors of collective identity that are embroiled with power relations. Urban nomenclatures consist of more than mere linguistic signposts d...

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Autor principal: Rusu, Mihai Stelian
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8118352/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33984064
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251558
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author Rusu, Mihai Stelian
author_facet Rusu, Mihai Stelian
author_sort Rusu, Mihai Stelian
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description Recent scholarship in critical toponymy studies has refashioned the understanding of street names from innocent labels to nominal loci of historical memory and vectors of collective identity that are embroiled with power relations. Urban nomenclatures consist of more than mere linguistic signposts deployed onto space to facilitate navigation. Street names are also powerful signposts that indicate the political regime and its socio-cultural values. Drawing on these theoretical insights, this paper is focused on Sibiu (Romania) and explore the city’s shifting namescape in a longitudinal perspective spanning one century and a half of modern history (1875–2020). The analysis is based on a complete dataset of street names and street name changes registered across five political regimes (Habsburg Empire, Kingdom of Romania, Romanian People’s Republic, Socialist Republic of Romania, and post-socialist Romania). A series of multiple logistic regression models were carried out to determine the factors that influence toponymic change. The statistical results point out several significant predictors of street renaming: (1) the streets’ toponymic characteristics (politicized or neutral name); (2) artery rank (public squares and large avenues or ordinary streets and alleys); and (3) topographic features (a street’s size and centrality). Such a quantitative approach coupled with a longitudinal perspective contributes to the scholarly literature on place-naming practices in three major ways: firstly, by advancing an innovative methodological framework and analytical model for the study of street name changes; secondly, by delineating with statistical precision the factors that model toponymic change; and thirdly, by embedding these renaming practices observed especially after significant power shifts in the broader historical context of the changes brought in the city’s street nomenclature.
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spelling pubmed-81183522021-05-24 Sequencing toponymic change: A quantitative longitudinal analysis of street renaming in Sibiu, Romania Rusu, Mihai Stelian PLoS One Research Article Recent scholarship in critical toponymy studies has refashioned the understanding of street names from innocent labels to nominal loci of historical memory and vectors of collective identity that are embroiled with power relations. Urban nomenclatures consist of more than mere linguistic signposts deployed onto space to facilitate navigation. Street names are also powerful signposts that indicate the political regime and its socio-cultural values. Drawing on these theoretical insights, this paper is focused on Sibiu (Romania) and explore the city’s shifting namescape in a longitudinal perspective spanning one century and a half of modern history (1875–2020). The analysis is based on a complete dataset of street names and street name changes registered across five political regimes (Habsburg Empire, Kingdom of Romania, Romanian People’s Republic, Socialist Republic of Romania, and post-socialist Romania). A series of multiple logistic regression models were carried out to determine the factors that influence toponymic change. The statistical results point out several significant predictors of street renaming: (1) the streets’ toponymic characteristics (politicized or neutral name); (2) artery rank (public squares and large avenues or ordinary streets and alleys); and (3) topographic features (a street’s size and centrality). Such a quantitative approach coupled with a longitudinal perspective contributes to the scholarly literature on place-naming practices in three major ways: firstly, by advancing an innovative methodological framework and analytical model for the study of street name changes; secondly, by delineating with statistical precision the factors that model toponymic change; and thirdly, by embedding these renaming practices observed especially after significant power shifts in the broader historical context of the changes brought in the city’s street nomenclature. Public Library of Science 2021-05-13 /pmc/articles/PMC8118352/ /pubmed/33984064 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251558 Text en © 2021 Mihai Stelian Rusu https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Rusu, Mihai Stelian
Sequencing toponymic change: A quantitative longitudinal analysis of street renaming in Sibiu, Romania
title Sequencing toponymic change: A quantitative longitudinal analysis of street renaming in Sibiu, Romania
title_full Sequencing toponymic change: A quantitative longitudinal analysis of street renaming in Sibiu, Romania
title_fullStr Sequencing toponymic change: A quantitative longitudinal analysis of street renaming in Sibiu, Romania
title_full_unstemmed Sequencing toponymic change: A quantitative longitudinal analysis of street renaming in Sibiu, Romania
title_short Sequencing toponymic change: A quantitative longitudinal analysis of street renaming in Sibiu, Romania
title_sort sequencing toponymic change: a quantitative longitudinal analysis of street renaming in sibiu, romania
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8118352/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33984064
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251558
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