Semiotic Elements Research Articles

Functions of Artifactual Code as Non-Verbal Communication in Yoruba Novels

Non-verbal communication is a wordless form of communication whereby a message is initiated from a source and channeled through a medium to a receiver who receives processes and decodes the information. Artifactual code is a form of non-verbal communication used in body adornment which has received less attention by scholars especially in Yorùbá novels. This paper filled the gap as it examined the functions of artifactual code as a form of non-verbal communication in Yorùbá novels, the contexts in which it operates with a view to establishing its communicative value. This study is grounded on the theory of semiotics. The major elements of semiotics applied are symbol and index. However, eight Yorùbá novels were purposively selected as sample and classified into three categories by this researcher for the purpose of this study. Also, the form of non-verbal code identified in the novels which is artifactual code is situated in four contexts, namely, social, religious, political and cultural contexts. This enhanced the semiotic functions performed by the novels.Key words: Artifactual code; Yorùbá novels; Symbol; Index; Semiotics

Shaping an Image of Europe: Half Way Over Iceland (George Bowering: “Discoloured Metal”)

One of the main objectives of shape prose is to show weaknesses and limitations of written language or to emphasize the descriptive power of visual language. Text is physically transformed into illustration(s) to re-introduce the authority of the visual. This provides authors with endless possibilities of expressing the third entity of meaning, and this expands the freedom of interpretation on the part of readers of multimodal texts. The third entity of meaning is a term which I coined in the course of my doctoral research to refer to the new and semantically largely independent meaning derived from the interpretation of the verbal and the visual meanings in a shaped (or in some other way multimodal) texts, in other words, the meaning which is created through the semantical interrelations of the verbal and visual. How is the reading of the text influenced by its multimodal shape? Hallet writes: [visual forms of gesture; a.r.] direct the reader from written discourse to visual elements in the margins of the page and urge them to interrelate the different semiotic elements, thus breaking up the linear continuity of the verbal text and transforming the act of reading into a hypertextual activity (Hallet 2014, 157). Indeed, reading a multimodal shaped text always is an interdisciplinary task which requires from readers a certain sensitivity for both the verbal and the visual, and the meaning that arises from their interaction. Shaped prose is sometimes referred to as shaped-prose, pattern prose or visual prose, analogous to classification of poetry that features similar visual elements of layout. All these terms describe short prose which can be defined as short stories, and which feature the following types of graphic devices of artistically altered graphic layout (the typology is taken over from my Dissertation defended at the Karl-Franzens University of Graz, Austria, May 2018. Tutek, Nikola (2018) Visual and Verbal Interrelations in Canadian Short Fiction, Dissertation, pg. 299.): Rendering literary message through the usage of fonts, punctuation (for example, Bowering’s consistent disregard of apostrophe in contractions in The Rain Barrel), interpolation of paragraphs and other sections of text by numbering and lettering. This type of graphic devices is focused on typography and structure of integral texts. Rendering a literary message through physical re-arrangement and negation of integral texts. This type of graphic devices partially focuses on spacing, that is, on the usage of negative spaces. Negation of texts is achieved with parts of texts which are crossed out but still fully legible (for example, in Bowering’s “Staircase Descended”). Sentences and words which are arranged in this manner are never physically disintegrated, and no textual message is lost or hidden. Rendering a literary message through physical layout which fractures the text. This device features ‘gorging’ negative or colored spaces which do not respect the border of a sentence, a word or even a character. Parts of texts covered by ‘gorging’ negative or colored spaces cannot be retrieved (for example, the white circles covering the text in Bowering’s “Discoloured Metal”), hence, some of the textual meanings are deliberately lost or hidden. Graphic layout of the text, which is printed in a shape that alludes to a semantic feature of the text. This type of graphic devices can but do not have to cause a part of the textual message to be lost or hidden (such is, again, Bowering ‘s “Discoloured Metal” where the gorging white circles hide parts of the text and also allude to an airplane window). The difference between the third and the fourth types is in the fact that the third type hides parts of the meaning of the text by erasing them, and the erased, blank spaces inevitably take certain forms, while in the fourth type these blank forms are not random, they carry a reference to the meaning of the text (or its parts), and they actually reveal parts of the meaning of the text. The third and the fourth types of devices of artistically altered graphic layout will be the most important for the further analysis of Bowering’s short text, namely, the analysis of the meaning of the circular blank and textual fields in the body of the text.

Walk-Through Corporate Aesthetics: Design Affordances in Tech Workspaces

Abstract The article at hand analyses the aesthetic dimension of contemporary “tech companies,” particularly how their characteristic rhetoric of creativity, collaboration and disruption is built into the aesthetics of the physical work environments. For that purpose, proceduralist reading and environmental storytelling, usually applied to analyse meaning-making in digital game spaces, are adapted to conduct a comparative spatial affordance analysis on material from Officesnapshots, one of the largest online repositories for workspace documentation. Expanding upon earlier definitions of spatial affordances as quasi-textual features, the article defines the design elements of tech offices as a continuation of verbal and (audio-)visual corporate rhetoric employed by companies like Google, Facebook or Etsy. It thereby contributes a material-semiotic dimension to current debates about the epistemic implications of these software platforms, which José van Dijck summarises using the term “platform society.” Besides game and play studies, elements of architectural semiotics and cultural analyses of support spaces (e.g. Kracauer 1999 and Moran 2005) as well as broader concepts such as the politics of theming (Freitag 2017) or the embedding of digital technologies into physical spaces (Kitchin and Dodge 2011) complement the theoretical framework.

Intersemiotische Kommunikation im frühen Fremdsprachenunterricht

The article refers to the constitutive elements of intersemiotic communication in the didactics of foreign languages. It indicates, that you can communicate not only using verbal language, but nonverbal elements such as for example pictures or music influencing the sense of an utterance, as well. Language and semiotic elements of communication refer to human feelings and are often interconnected. Constellation of them simplifies learning of foreign languages especially by small children. It's important therefore to get to know glottodidactical techniques using music and picture to increase effectiveness of language acquisition.

LATOUR’S METHOD: SEMIOTICS BETWEEN LITERATURE AND SCIENCE

This article attempts to reconstruct the method of Bruno Latour’s actor-network theory by articulating its links with the semiotics of Algirdas Julien Greimas. Semiotic methodology is considered as a point of entry to the labyrinth of Latour’s projects and a thread of Ariadne through it. The article is divided into two parts. The first one examines Greimas’ conceptions of narrative grammar and narrative programmes. This analysis leads to a number of conclusions: a) Greimas’ semiotics is as ambitious a scientific project as Latourian sociology. Greimas elaborates the general premises of structural linguistics and proposes to extend the latter not only to scientific discourses outside cultural (myth, folktale) and literary texts, but also beyond the textual world itself; b) Elements of semiotic methodology crucial for Latour are emphasized, including the operation of bracketing out (of referent and enunciator) and a separation of orders of (semiotic) acts that points to the distinction between linguistic operations inside the text and the meta-linguistic operations of semiotician; c) The vocabulary of movement (trajectory, a point of departure, circulation, vehicles etc.) that are omnipresent in Latour’s writing is narratological in origin and has methodological importance for his work. The second part of the article shows how Latour appropriates and transforms elements of semiotics in his early work on the sociology of science. Methodologically, Latour’s anthropological approach to science is marked by two successive moves: 1. suspension of the key binaries in sociology and the philosophy of science (e.g. subject/object, truth/falsity, social/intellectual); 2. reassembling such distinctions. In his works, Latour carries out these methodological practices by means of sequences of operations designated here as “bracketing in,” “bracketing out,” and “unbracketing.”

ВОСПРИЯТИЕ И ИНТЕРПРЕТАЦИЯ ТЕКСТОВ КУЛЬТУРЫ СОВРЕМЕННОЙ МОЛОДЕЖЬЮ

В статье анализируется категория воспринимаемости текстов культуры на примере их восприятия современной молодежью. Утверждается, что это восприятие осложняется изза явно неудовлетворительной способности молодых людей погрузиться в прошлые эпохи, изза отсутствия шифра к коду семиотической памяти культуры. Интерпретация текстов культуры молодежью демонстрирует тревожное явление: у нее нет жизненной практики употребления многих слов духовного наследия, эти слова не прочувствованы, не прожиты ею образовавшиеся таким образом семантические лакуны быстро заполняются жаргонной и обсценной лексикой. The paper looks at the perception patterns of cultural texts with a particular focus on their perception by young people. The research methods employed include comparative analysis of the authors intentions and the recipients interpretations as well as linguistic experiment. The empirical analysis focuses on the texts by prominent authors and journalists and their interpretation by students, high schoolers creative writing works to analyze cultural texts and experimental texts featuring gaps. The findings of the analysis into the perception of cultural texts by young people suggest that their perception is impaired as youngsters are unable to comprehend the nations history and culturerelated semiotic elements. In case of a literary text they need to know the signaling features of a certain historic period or be familiar with the literary text itself. When dealing with an experimental mediatext the students were challenged with an abstract narrative lacking in images or featuring images which are used figuratively. Mass communication urges authors to address urgent and topical social issues, which suggest an emotional delivery featuring an idiosyncratic mix of bookish (archaic or dialectic) and colloquial (obsolete) lexemes. Recipients of these texts come from different social backgrounds and are less sensitive to the emotional charge of the text focusing merely on the texts content. While attempting to comprehend the authors message, they often fail to grasp the authors intention and appear to be less emotional. The analysis of the most common flaws and failures in high schoolers essays revealed misused speech patterns and grammarand stylerelated mistakes. This shows that they are lacking experience in drafting opinion essays. Another problem relates to their limited literary baggage as they are unfamiliar with classical texts and have no experience of analytical reading. Students texts often feature clich d pseudoscientific and formal stereotypical collocations which they see as markers of sophisticated style. Syntaxwise they tend to use sequences of words in similar syntactic functions, which, regardless of the authors intention, make a vivid stylistic tool of gradation and therefore is always emotionally charged. Overall creative essays drafted by students are excessively pathetic. On top of it, youngsters appear to have no sense of style. More than that, they often turn out to be insufficiently literate, which adds to the problem. The research findings showed an unwelcome trend: lacking in experience of using culturebased words, they turn to jargonisms and obscene words to fill in these semantic lacunae.

Eye-tracking the semiotic effects of layout on viewing print advertisements

The print advertisement produces meaning for its readers through the interaction of a complex system of semiotic elements. Understanding this meaning is based on readers’ ability to follow the established reading conventions of their culture. The article describes a study that uses eye-tracking technology to examine readers’ interaction with the semiotic elements of two print advertisements. The relation between print advertisements and semiotics is informed by intersemiotic analysis and the reading path concept. The advertisements’ layout is rearranged to form two sets of texts: one original advertisement and a modified version. We have calculated the time sequence in which visual and verbal areas attract attention, the amount of time spent on them and the depth of attention paid to the areas read. The results show how layout re-arrangement affects reading behaviour, such as reading the smallest visual first and the target text sequentially without visual elements interrupting the reading, or having the same point of entry in both the original and the modified advertisements.

Grief encounter: the language of mourning in fin-de-siècle sculpture

Johann Gottfried Herder’s Sculpture: Some Observations on Shape and Form from Pygmalion’s Creative Dream, first published in 1778 under the title Plastik, makes a crucial intervention in the history of aesthetics. Where Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, in Laocoön (1766), had distinguished between the arts on the basis of the spatial or temporal arrangement of their constitutive semiotic elements, Herder’s analysis of the differences between the arts turns, as his modern editor Jason Gaiger notes, on ‘their specific modes of “address”’. As an art of relief and depth, Herder argues, sculpture demands haptic engagement; ‘for what are properties of bodies’, he asks, ‘if not relations to our own body, to our sense of touch?’ As the invocation of Pygmalion’s creative dream in Herder’s subtitle implies, the ability to grasp a sculptural form can bring it to life: ‘the sculpture lives and his soul feels that it lives’. Herder’s essay provides a conceptual framework and historical grounding for my own experiment in synaesthesia as embodied practice, one that reaches back to late nineteenth-century art writing and sculpture to frame and comprehend a modern encounter. But, I argue, contrary to the promise of animation offered by the Pygmalion myth, memorial sculpture is poignantly resistant to the possibility of coming to life, however vital the feelings of the contemplative lover. Engaging with Herder, and inscribing my encounters with sculptures by Auguste Rodin and Edward Onslow Ford within a fin-de-siècle tradition of feeling, this article proposes an anti-Pygmalion counter-myth for the origins of sculpture as a medium of mourning.

Understanding International Sign: A sociolinguistic study by Lori A. Whynot

Reviewed by: Understanding International Sign: A sociolinguistic study by Lori A. Whynot Rachel McKee Understanding International Sign: A sociolinguistic study. By Lori A. Whynot. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, 2016. Pp. 350. ISBN 9781563686726. $85 (Hb/ebook). Deaf people's capacity to negotiate communication across different native sign languages has long been appreciated in the deaf world as a visual-language advantage. In recent decades a particular variety of 'transnational' signing has been promulgated by deaf leaders in international deaf domains of advocacy, sport, and academia; although the capitalized name suggests that International Sign (IS) is a fully conventional code, it is better described as a dynamic type of contact language that takes shape when deaf people from various countries interact in a sustained manner for specific purposes. Motivated by her experience with IS as a sign language interpreter working at international events, Lori Whynot set out to investigate an overarching question: How 'universally' comprehensible is expository IS as used in such contexts? Her doctoral research tackled this question by making a corpus of authentic IS texts by deaf conference presenters, analyzing linguistic features of the corpus, and then experimentally testing comprehension of texts by demographically diverse deaf audiences. This book reports on the findings of this research, and as such comprises the most theoretically and empirically ambitious description, to date, of the semiotic features, use, and comprehension of IS texts. Ch. 1 introduces the emergence and definitions of IS ('a range of semiotic strategies of interlocutors in multilingual sign language situations'; p. 1). Historical context and applied issues around the use of IS at international deaf events are described; for instance, W comments that the (increasing) provision of 'interpretation via an unstable contact language [rather than via native sign languages] has not been without controversy' (21). Concerns include the precision of information that IS can (or cannot) convey, and that the lexicon typically used in IS is more accessible to some language groups than others. Justifying this research, W also notes that training and standards for IS interpreting (or even direct use) are not yet firmly grounded in empirical documentation of a 'moving target'. Ch. 2 reviews the small literature showing that IS employs grammatical structures commonly found across native sign languages, and that a limited 'conventional' lexicon is supplemented by gestural, depicting, spatial, and other semiotic strategies (such as shared context). Previous studies indicate that American Sign Language (ASL; used in the US) and British Sign Language (BSL; UK) are key sources of IS vocabulary, and that lexical sources vary by user and context (Woll 1990, Rosenstock 2004), prompting W's question about its comprehensibility outside the sphere of North America and Europe. Some previous studies have described features of IS (e.g. Allsop et al. 1995, Supalla & Webb 1995) or examined its use by interpreters (McKee & Napier 2002, Moody 2002); however, gaps remain in the description of IS and in the measurement of how well diverse deaf audiences make sense of IS texts. W's study brings corpus-based and experimental evidence to critical consideration of questions not yet fully addressed in the existing literature. A cognitivist framework has lately been applied to the analysis of lexico-grammar in signed languages (e.g. Taub 2001, Liddell 2003, Wilcox 2004), and W adopts this theoretical lens in Ch.3 [End Page 727] to frame a very informative overview of semiotic elements that characterize signed languages, including iconicity and metaphor, gesture, enactment, depiction, referential use of space, and lexicalized and productive signs. This account previews the types of elements that are identified in W's corpus of IS and that feature in her comprehension experiment. This chapter establishes meaning making as the author's central concern, reminding us that constructing and construing meaning from linguistic symbols entails complex interaction between speaker and observer cognition, other semiotic strategies, and the usage context. Ch. 4 explains the data and methods. The research design (which is impressively rigorous), sampling, procedures, and instruments are detailed, supporting validity and enabling replication of the study. Five appendices illustrate the nature of the corpus, transcription and annotation conventions, and instruments used to assess comprehension. W's discussion of methodological challenges (e.g. gloss-transcribing...

Las víctimas en el teatro de Miguel Hernández: una lectura antropológica

La aproximación antropológica entiende la víctima como rol semiótico y como función antropológica, conectando el teatro hernandiano con las estructuras antropológicas que fundamentan todo discurso humano, incluido el teatral. Se logrará encontrar sentido al papel de las muertes (sacrificiales o rituales), el significado de algunos de los finales y sobre el valor que el poeta alicantino le da a la presencia de la violencia cuasi religiosa en su obra. Se trata de reforzar una visión unitaria de corpus teatral hernandiano, trazando la evolución de los motivos y resortes que el autor hace funcionar en él.

THE MIRROR FRAMEWORK: A CRITICAL TEXT ANALYSIS PEDAGOGICAL TOOL FOR THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE (FL) LEARNING CONTEXT

Los libros de texto empleados en las aulas de lengua extranjera (LE), junto con otros textos auténticos impresos y/o audiovisuales, sirven para familiarizar a los aprendices de LE con la cultura del país donde la lengua meta que se enseña se utiliza como L1 (Unesco, 2007). Esto motiva a los docentes a buscar herramientas de instrucción a través de las cuales puedan analizar la representación del país ‘extranjero’ en los textos que aspiran utilizar en clase. Relacionado con esto, el artículo presentará primero uno de los marcos de análisis de texto más populares a los que se refieren los profesores de LE al hacer tal análisis de texto. La popularidad de este marco de análisis de texto se debe al hecho de que fue diseñado por Mike Byram (1993), cuyo trabajo es seminal en los campos de la enseñanza de LE y las competencias interculturales. Debido a la aclamada reputación de Byram, muy a menudo los profesores de LE solo usan su marco sin una amplia reflexión crítica. En respuesta a esto, a pesar de señalar los puntos fuertes del marco de análisis de texto de Byram, este artículo pretende dar un paso más y evaluar críticamente el modelo de Byram (1993). El artículo reacciona al sugerir que un enfoque semiótico social y multimodal puede ayudar a fomentar la criticidad del profesor de LE cuando utiliza el modelo de Byram. Esta es una de las contribuciones al campo de enseñanza y aprendizaje de LE, ya que tales elementos semióticos sociales y multimodales raramente aparecen en los marcos de análisis de textos a los que se refieren frecuentemente los profesores de LE contemporáneos. A modo de conclusión, el artículo presenta una explicación paso a paso del marco original MIRROR que los profesores de LE pueden utilizar de manera crítica y como herramienta de instrucción a la hora de realizar el análisis de las representaciones culturales presentadas en los textos de LE estudiados.

Aporias of Rock Art Interpretation

Aporias of Rock Art Interpretation

Graphic Identity in the Scriptorial Landscape of Lebanon

AbstractThe relationship between space, language, and the active construction of political identity in Lebanon is explored through a diachronic look at the outdoor display of political rhetoric of the Lebanese political leader, General Michel Aoun, and his evolving party, the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), in the public landscape of Beirut. Specifically, I will focus on graffiti of the FPM in 2005 and discuss its resonances with the earlier political rhetoric of Aoun during the civil war and his Paris exile, at a time when he was in a conflicted relationship with the state. I will then look at his later political advertising campaigns from 2008–2009 to see how some semiotic elements from Aoun's time in exile and his return in 2005 have been extended into the more recently professionally polished party image. Through the examination of linguistic strategies, such as the use of reported speech and graffiti font, I argue that these textual artifacts contain the residue of contested ideologies of populism, nationhood, and belonging, which gain particular meaning when placed in specific geo‐semiotic zones within the political landscape of the city. These ideologies formed the basis for constructing a graphic identity for Aoun in subsequent advertising campaigns. The publicly placed written word, then, provides a medium through which political identity is formed, negotiated, and revised. [political discourse, Lebanon, arabic, advertising, graffiti]

Semiotics in Visual Literacy Pedagogy of Junior High School Teachers in the Philippines

This study explored the English/Language arts teachers beliefs and practices in integrating semiotics in teaching visual literacy to Filipino junior high school students. Six secondary English/Language arts classes in government and non-government schools were observed and their respective teachers interviewed regarding their conception of visual literacy and knowledge and application of semiotics in processing visual materials. Data were obtained through interview, observations, questionnaire and field notes. The study revealed that majority of teacher-participants were not formally trained on the processing of visual materials despite the use of technology-driven instructional materials on almost a daily basis, primarily as motivation activity and secondly to lessen the burden of having to write on the board. Generally, teachers were observed to treat visuals, in particular films, as a written text where process questions dealt more on narrative elements. Reports from survey, however, revealed that teachers possess knowledge of semiotic elements and expressed as giving more importance to perspective and mood and less to lighting and social distance. Generally, all teacher-participants agree that creating meaning out of symbols or images open up opportunities for critical comments and intellectual discussions. However, analysis of images were not demonstrated in practice and concept of semiotics seem undervalued.

Circumstantial Indications Emitted by the Teacher during Discursive Activity

This study makes use of a reading of Prieto’s semiotics with the aim of shedding light on semiotic elements that occur during the discursive process in the classroom. Taking as reference an overview of this author’s theories in the context of science education, the paper focuses on the semiotic element of circumstantial indications. Circumstantial indications are a collateral and not always explicit type of sign in the teacher’s communication that assist the meaning of messages conveyed by signals. Compared with indications, signals are signs transmitted explicitly and openly that constitute the main axis of the discourse. In the course of classroom communication, teachers emit circumstantial indications in parallel with the transmitted signals. The signals refine the understanding of the messages of the scientific concepts being taught in order to make them more meaningful. This study investigates one Physics teacher’s class in a lab in which an empirical activity is guided at various moments through discursive activity based on problem-solving methodology. The paper identifies and qualifies some types of circumstantial indications emitted by the teacher, contextualizing their role in the discursive process during teaching.

The Visual Aspect of Translation Training in Multimodal Texts

This paper explores the wider issue of translation training in multimodal contexts. The multimodal text represents a complex semiotic canvas on which the various systems of signification (verbal, images, colour, layout, etc.) interact in complex ways to produce a coherent meaning. Such interactions affect translation students’ understanding of multimodal texts and as such their training must also be visually-oriented in order to improve their translation efficiency when dealing with these texts. The paper is primarily (though not exclusively) concerned with the print multimodal text, and examines how the various aspects of the visual semiotic elements affect the teaching of its translation into another language. One such aspect is the new challenges that have been imposed by the visual on the field of translation studies. A second aspect is the visual implications for translation trainers and students. A third aspect is the wider multimodal context in which they have been found and involves the necessary multimodal approach to translation training, the development of a relevant awareness of multimodal texts and a number of other issues such as students’ creativity and the role of the subject specialist in the translation classroom. Finally, suggestions are made for further development of relevant teaching areas that are driven by the visual aspect of the multimodal text.

“Sick woman” or “half woman”? Breast and cervical cancer, emotional script and representations of female body in a mediterranean area of Italy

The proposal aims to highlight the semiotic elements of the discourse that refer to the symbolic ones of representations, and that transform the therapy in an exercise of professional dominion aimed to modify the perception of the self of the female patient through the subversion of specific emotional script. The mapping of the emotional scripts of shame and modesty, in their performative evolution, will be useful to demonstrate how and through what relational strategies the medicalization performs a gender violence which leads to exclude and self-stigmatise the sick woman, considered a “half woman”. The reflection that has its incipit in the ascertainment that the female body has been and keeps being a means of “male dominion” and object of “symbolic violence” as well as physical, and favors unexpected articulations related to a female body affected by breast or uterus cancer with often devastating effects on the woman’s self-perception. This proposal provides a reflection on the effects of experience of female cancer in the emotional sphere and in the gender relations of 36 Italian and stranger women. The research aims at discussing the role of medical therapy as a social practice of male domination that imposes a traditional representation in which female beauty is equivalent to the physical integrity and full functioning of specific attributes sexed (uterus that creates, breast that feeds). The focus of research is an analysis particularly focusing on the transformations of perception of body as Körper and the emotions which, cross-sectionally, constitutes the self-perception of Leib.

Semiotic food, semiotic cooking: The ritual of preparation and consumption of hallacas in Venezuela

AbstractThe purposes of this paper are, first of all, to present a model of semiotic ritual in food consumption, and, second, to carry out a general analysis of the rites of preparation and consumption of the traditional Venezuelan Christmas dish known as hallaca, a particular kind of tamal well known in most Caribbean and Latin American countries. Our ethnographic research is based on the observation and participation field method, during which we have taken photographs, held interviews, and had discussions with actors involved in this family ritual. We have also taken advantage of our own thirty years of experience as direct participant actors. In its first part, this paper presents some theoretical and conceptual definitions that guide us through the analysis. Hallaca is not only a strong symbol in historical and contemporary Venezuelan culinary culture but it is also a living expression of a particular syncretic mixing of semiotic and culinary elements and cultural traditions. We conclude that, as a whole, semiotics of food will benefit from a ritual and symbolic approach to what is done before, during, and after cooking and consuming food. Our analysis shows as well that hallaca preparation and consumption is not only a matter of gathering and having fun but a strong, deep rooted way of expressing, communicating, and renewing profound values and beliefs among family members.

Between the Invisible hand and the Invisible Heart. Italian Welfare Restructuring and the Quest for a New Neoliberal Hegemony

The article looks at the current restructuring of Italian Welfare putting it into perspective with both the structural contradictions of contemporary capitalism and the more contingent and specific condi-tions of contemporary Italy. Relying on the approach taken by the political economy of the Welfare State, the variegated neoliberalization studies and the concept of referentiel, the process is considered and ana-lysed both in its semiotic and material elements. Looking at the transformations of the key-actors in the pre-crisis Welfare Mix arrangement, an on-going entrepreneurial and financial change is identified, open-ing the door to two, complementary, scenarios: a smart-utopia private Welfare one for those able to pay and a repressive residual Welfare state for the poor.

Semiotics of Performing in Najwa Latif’s Music Videos

With more than 53 million hits on her YouTube videos, Najwa Latif is an icon of contemporary Malay popular culture. Just two of her music videos - Cinta Muka Buku (Facebook Love), and AdaMu (Your Existence), have received more than 12.9 million hits at the time of writing with the former earning a nomination for best Malay song at the coveted Champion Songs Award in 2011. Equally relevant is the semiotics of performing in the music videos that captures the hearts and minds of the cyberspace-inhabiting Generation Y. Contrary to the existing studies of Malay popular culture that usually focus on linguistic content we use atomization as the framework to analyze the rich and rapid visual content in Cinta Muka Buku and AdaMu. By atomizing the musical content into visual frames, we derive base units for examining the semiotic hybridity that underscores the positive identification with an online fan base. The segmented visual frames provide the locus for studying the interplay of semiotic elements in the visual symbolization. Consequently, we may identify the semiotics of performing and its relationship with the consumption of Najwa Latif’s Malay music videos in cyberspace.