‘Now there aren’t any birds’: Attention and disorientation in landscapes of planetary crisis
Journal: Language in Society
Year: 2025

Abstract The condition of planetary crisis widely referred to as the Anthropocene is ubiquitous, but it is often unmarked or unseen. This article examines why through a study of Oman’s ‘Grand Canyon of Arabia’, where the absence of birds provides a lens for two sociolinguistic approaches to planetary crisis: (i) a planetary perspective on semiotic landscapes indicates that allegedly ‘natural’ landscapes are produced by human and more-than-human semiotic interventions, and (ii) the perception of