Semiotic Actions Research Articles

A car of one’s own? A critical discourse analysis of the representation of women drivers in the Chinese-language news media

Nowadays it is commonplace for Chinese women to drive cars either as a means of transportation or for a job. Meanwhile, the varied voices as to women’s capacity to drive are heard in media reports. This article examines media representations of Chinese women drivers on the official news website Chinanews.com. News reports from 2012 to 2021 were collected, sorted in Nvivo 11, and analyzed under the guidance of van Leeuwen’s socio-semantic approach. The results of the analysis revealed three dominant discourses about women drivers: problematic discourse, commendable discourse, and victim discourse, in which categorisation strategy, nomination strategy and passivation strategy, along with the description of material actions and semiotic actions were employed. This study sheds light on the contradictory expectations placed on Chinese women and the perplexity felt by media regarding the social context of the increased mobility and freedom women have attained due to recent economic and social changes.

Abrogating Article 370 and Kashmir’s exceptionalism: a critical analysis of India’s bodies politic

ABSTRACT In 2019, India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, took the historic decision of abrogating Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, revoking Kashmir’s special status. The contentious move resulted in the emergence of multiple narratives from competing discourse clans, with supporters hailing it as liberation from terrorism to opponents labeling it an assault on democracy. This paper analyzes the discursive construction of the abrogation as a key moment, that recontextualizes a region strife with violence and political instability into ‘bodies politic’ (Graham & Luke [2003]. Militarizing the body politic: New mediations as weapons of mass instruction. Body & Society, 9(4), 149–168. https://doi.org/10.1177/13570340377368470), legitimizing the decision as a historical event that imbues Kashmir, and thus India, with ‘a self-conscious political force … and a new militaristic bodily habitus’ (Graham & Luke [2003]. Militarizing the body politic: New mediations as weapons of mass instruction. Body & Society, 9(4), 149–168. https://doi.org/10.1177/13570340377368470, p. 163). To conduct the analysis, I draw on Bhatia’s ([2015]. Discursive illusions in public discourse: Theory and practice. Routledge) Discourse of Illusion (DoI) theoretical framework, which reinforces Phil Graham’s mission to illuminate the remnants of militarism in modern societies. Treating nation-states as living organisms with a collective memory, analysis occurs from three aspects: historicity (drawing on the past to make sense of the present or predict the future); linguistic and semiotic action (subjective conceptualizations made apparent through significant metaphorical rhetoric); and degree of social impact (the rise of delineating social categorizations).

Фактор клишированности в описании словосодержащего семиозиса: норма и границы языка

The article presents a number of observations on the methods of not quite convincing definition of the " language norm" and "language boundaries" within the framework of the traditional language model, the main methodological constant of which is a priori confidence that the content ("meaning", "meaning", "semantics", " content plan, etc.) exists in direct connection with the verbal substrate. As a result, contradictory statements arise: “The norm exists objectively”, at the same time “The norm exists subjectively”; "Norm is single", at the same time "Norm is multiple"; “The norm is manifested in synchrony”, at the same time “The norm is manifested in diachrony”; “Language coincides with the norm”, at the same time “Language does not coincide with the norm”; “Language belongs to the researcher”, at the same time “Language belongs to the user”; “Language has unity”, at the same time “Language consists of varieties of a language”. To solve the same problems, the concept of cliché and semiotic action is proposed as tools, which more correctly reflect the essence of natural speaking-writing and at the output give a more harmonious picture (model) of what is happening. According to the communicative model, in natural communication, the source of content produced and received is personal semiotic influence (polymodal, multifactorial, multichannel, not necessarily word-containing). In order to achieve changes in external cognitive states (which have not yet occurred at the time of the action, but are only planned), the semiotic actor makes attempts to influence, manifesting actional modes of his consciousness under given conditions in complex ways. In view of this, in a natural act, the novelty sought by the actor is generated and understood, which constitutes the meaning formation of a given semiotic act. The concept of cliché in relation to words and other "signs", assuming the procedural (actional) principle of formation of any semiotic content, allows us to separate the clichwd (mechanical, meaningless, behavioral) "language", including verbal, from the meaning-forming semiotic influence, to emphasize the deep conventionality of construction "systemic" and "universal" "language".

Recontextualising "Doing a doctoral degree" as a social practice complex: Evidence from Malaysia

The current study is part of a longitudinal research project into the relationship between students’ ways of recontextualising their doctoral degree experience and eventual programme completion. Building on earlier findings reported in De Rycker (2014, 2022), the objective is to examine the hidden ontology of “doing a doctoral degree”. The primary data consist in structured interviews conducted with 20 doctoral students at the Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Using Van Leeuwen’s (2008) socio-semantic model for the critical study of discourse, the analysis of the interviews produced two major empirical findings. First, doctoral students’ discourse is characterised by a strong sense of personal agency but also a lack of specificity and a simplification of the overall practice complex, in which doing research seems to be reduced to mere semiotic actions. Secondly, students construe “doing a doctoral degree” as a mystifying process replete with paradoxes. Further interpretative analysis suggests that semiotic action representations play a significant role as self-enhancing metonyms for “doing research”, helping students to demystify the academic practice and resolve some of its inherent contradictions. Implications for supervisory practice as well as the larger research project will be discussed.

Reading the Universe of Signs Well: Prospects for Partnering Theosemiotic with a Christian Semiotic Theology

Reading the Universe of Signs <i>Well</i>: Prospects for Partnering Theosemiotic with a Christian Semiotic Theology

Semiotic and asemiotic practices in boxing

AbstractTracing different kinds of semiotic practices in boxing, in our text we provide a detailed reconstruction of the way athletes and other participants interpret each other’s actions and integrate these interpretations in their own course of motor action. Drawing on an ethnomethodological approach we argue that these interpretations should not be seen as being isolated from their contextual background. This context (such as the rules of the sports) and the semiotic actions taking place within them mutually elaborate one another. Analyzing several video recordings and their transcripts, we show how the social interaction of boxing fights consists of a “multi-layeredness of semiotic practice.” These layers of semiotic practice are complemented by what we introduce as asemiotic practices. Asemiotic practices exploit semiotic routines that are a part of boxing and attempt at weakening and overcoming the opponent during the fight thus eventually destroying his or her semiotic capacities.

НАРОДНА МОЛИТВА ЯК СКЛАДОВА СТЕРЕОТИПНОЇ ПОВЕДІНКИ В ПЕРСЬКІЙ ЛІНГВОКУЛЬТУРІ

The speech genre of prayer as a component of stereotypical behavior of Persian linguistic culture bearers on the basis of Persian folk omens and superstitions is considered. The historiography of stereotypes, in particular communicative-behavioral stereotypes in modern linguistics, is briefly presented. The concept of speech genre is characterized. According to M. Bakhtin's definition, any human communication is based on certain speech genres, which are often stereotyped. Since the speech genre is the most important category of discourse, the classification of discourses by I. S. Shevchenko and O. I. Morozova is represented. Researchers distinguish the following subtypes of discourse within the socio-situational parameter: political, administrative, legal, military, religious, medical, business, advertising, pedagogical, sports, scientific, electronic (Internet discourse), and media varieties. Ritual type of discourse, which is relevant within the scope of the study, was also added to this typology. The speech genre of Persian folk prayer, verbalized by the words "do'ā" / "verd", is described, since it is folk, not traditional religious prayer in the context of Persian folk omens and superstitions to be a component of stereotypic behavior of Iranians and to perform primarily psychological, phatic and suggestive functions. It is determined that folk prayer in Persian linguistic culture functions not only as an act of saying a certain text to the God or the saints, but also as a talisman or amulet. Traditionally, such talismans are made in the form of texts or sayings from the Qur'an, written on a piece of paper, leather, cloth or metal. People attach these to clothing or simply carry with themselves. The central element of Persian folk prayer is a request. It has been found that there is a number of stereotypes in Persian linguo-mentality associated with images of prayer, which in turn affect the behavior of native speakers in different life circumstances. Analysis of Persian omens and superstitions on the basis of modern fiction has indicated that prayer is associated primarily with the need for protection, satisfaction of needs and hope in the minds of Iranians. It is noted that the appeal of native speakers of the Persian language and culture to folk prayer in certain situations is accompanied by a number of stereotypic ritual and semiotic actions, which demonstrates a combination of religious and magical aspects in their minds. It is stated that the specificity of the Persian speech genre of prayer is in the fact it simultaneously belongs to two types of discourse – religious and ritual.

“We shall not flag or fail, we shall go on to the end”

Abstract Focusing on the anti-extradition bill protests in Hong Kong, this article presents an analysis of Twitter posts adopting the hashtags #antiELAB, #NoChinaExtradition and #HongKongProtests. The analysis explores the public narrative among the collective identity of Hongkongers opposing the extradition bill as events unfolded during mid-2019 in Hong Kong. To do so, we adopt Bhatia’s (2015) multi-perspective framework for the Discourse of Illusion, which takes a three-prong approach to the study of argument construction and establishing legitimacy. Specifically, through the interrelated components of (1) historicity, (2) linguistic and semiotic action, and (3) social impact, the dimensions of the hashtag narrative that emerged on Twitter were explored.

An Integrated Account of Rosen\u2019s Relational Biology and Peirce\u2019s Semiosis. Part I: Components and Signs, Final Cause and Interpretation

Robert Rosen’s relational biology and biosemiotics share the claim that life cannot be explained by the laws that apply to the inanimate world alone. In this paper, an integrated account of Rosen’s relational biology and Peirce’s semiosis is proposed. The ultimate goal is to contribute to the construction of a unified framework for the definition and study of life. The relational concepts of component and mapping, and the semiotic concepts of sign and triadic relation are discussed and compared, and a representation of semiotic relations with mappings is proposed. The role of the final cause in two theories that account for what differentiates living beings, natural selection and relational biology, is analyzed. Then the presence of the final cause in Peirce’s semiosis is discussed and, with it, the similarities and differences between the theories of Rosen and Peirce are deepened. Then, a definition of a semiotic relation in an organism is proposed, and Short’s definition of interpretation is applied. Finally, a method to identify and analyze semiotic actions in an organism is proposed.

The discursive construction of legitimacy in the abrogation of Indian Constitution's Article 370

In August 2019, India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, took the historic decision of abrogating Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, which revoked Kashmir's special status. The contentious move resulted in the emergence of two key competing narratives, with political supporters hailing the abrogation as the liberation of the nation from decades of secessionism and terrorism; and opponents representing it as an assault on democracy and the Constitution. This paper will analyze political contrast in the narratives of political supporters and opponents and how each side discursively represented the abrogation to legitimatize their respective versions of reality. To conduct the analysis, I will draw on Author's (2015) theoretical framework of the Discourse of Illusion, with application to analysis of data occurring from three aspects: historicity (use of the past to justify the present or predict the future); linguistic and semiotic action (subjective conceptualizations of the world made apparent through significant metaphorical rhetoric); and the degree of social impact (the rise of delineating categories as a result of one's rhetoric).

Emotional textual analysis as a semiotic action–research method to work with emotions within organisations

This article aims to contribute to the special issue for the twentieth anniversary of the Organisational and Social Dynamics journal presenting a semiotic action–research method called emotional textual analysis (ETA). ETA, developed in Italy by the Studio of Psychosociology and the Chair of Clinical Psychology at Sapienza University of Rome, is an explorative abductive method that consents to analyse how the organisation symbolically interacts with its context. In ETA methodology the interdependence between the organisational system and the client system is considered as the product of socially shared emotional cultures. This article describes the theoretical and methodological foundation of the ETA method and presents the results of a recent action–research project carried out by the authors within a National Health System organisation. In the conclusion, the added value of using ETA to work with organisations facing contextual changes in the current historical period is discussed.

기호학적 행위와 양태성

파리학파의 기호-서사학은 이론의 수정과 보완을 거듭하면서 발전해왔고 그 역사에서 양태성의 개념은 중요한 역할을 차지한다. 그레마스가 주장하는 것처럼 서사문법의 발전은 양태성 개념의 고안과 궤를 같이한다는 것이다. 의미생성행로의 서사층위에서 핵심을 차지하는 서사도식과 양태성의 개념을 이해하는 것은 다양한 장르의 서사분석에 있어서 선결 조건이 된다. 본 연구는 서사도식의 조종과 능력의 단계에서 양태성이 작동하는 방식을 살펴보고 실제적인 분석에서 효율적으로 활용될 수 있는 방안을 고민하고자 한다. 다양한 행위소 역할의 관계가 양태성을 매개로 해서 서사적 행위로 전개된다. 초기 이론의 /의무/, /의지/, /능력/, /지식/의 양태성에 /믿음/의 양태성이 추가되면서 기호학적 행위가 전개되는 방식이 좀 더 체계적으로 설명되고 분석의 효율성도 보장된다는 것을 확인했다. 계약에서 /의무/, /의지/의 양태성이 주체의 구성과 정체성 변화에 영향을 주는 방식을 상세하게 살펴보면서 기존 이론이 간과한 부분을 짚어보았다. 능력의 확보 과정에서 /능력/, /지식/의 양태성이 기존 이론의 단점을 극복하는 방식을 제시하면서 분석의 정합성을 확보하고자 하였다. 여기에 /믿음/이 두 유형의 양태성과 맺는 관계를 다시 정리하면서 기호학적 행위의 구성 조건을 다시 살펴봤다. 결국, 서사도식과 양태성의 상호적 이해만이 이론의 완결성뿐만 아니라 분석의 효율성도 보장하는 것이다.

The highly semic processes of asemic writing

Utilizando a chamada “escrita assêmica” como ponto de partida, este artigo examina três questões relativas à ação semiótica encontrada na caligrafia e tipografia gráficas. Primeiro, examina a fenomenologia experimentada no momento em que um texto ilegível de repente é reconhecido e lido em palavras. Em seguida, voltando-se à noção de Peirce de uma distinção tipo/token, o artigo argumenta que a escrita não-verbal ou quase-verbal mostra que os dois tipos de relações tipo/token acontecem simultaneamente quando lemos um texto, apesar de Peirce conflitar os dois em sua conhecida passagem. O termo “arquétipo” é proposto como uma forma de distinguir o tipo gráfico do tipo verbal em tipo/token. O artigo conclui apontando que a legibilidade tem um custo, e que formas gráficas ilegíveis nos ajudam a tomar consciência do que está perdido – a expressão oculta que funciona subconscientemente sob o verbal, mesmo quando lemos um texto que parece transparente.

“Ruled Britannia”: Metaphorical Construction of the EU as Enemy in UKIP Campaign Posters

The sweeping tide of populism across the globe has given rise to isolationist sentiments that call for the closing of national borders and a return to nativist roots. This has been most evident in Britain in terms of the controversial vote to exit the European Union (EU) during the 2016 referendum (to Leave or Remain) and more recently with the lead up to a general election and mounting pressure on the government to implement an exit strategy. The most vocal proponent of the “leave” movement was the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), reframing the debate on EU membership in terms of invasion and oppression. This paper focuses on precisely this discursive construction of the EU by analyzing UKIP campaign posters through application of Bhatia’s Discourse of Illusion framework on three levels: historicity (use of the past to justify the present or predict the future), linguistic and semiotic action (subjective conceptualizations of reality made apparent through metaphorical rhetoric), and degree of social impact (emergence of delineating categories through ideological narrative).

Music as sexual violence? Investigating the case of bar/club-based sex trafficking and sonic harm

ABSTRACT Accounts of human trafficking suggest music’s uniquely insidious role for victims forcibly trafficked into strip club-based sex work, wherein music is ubiquitous. In sociological fieldwork, sex workers and trafficking victims testify to various effects of musical sound: against their will, the onset of music commands bodies to perform erotic dance, and songs’ formal and rhythmic features compel forms of movement. In situations of strip club-based trafficking, events of musicalsound therefore amount to coercion – itself defined as a form of sexual violence by the World Health Organization. Comprehending structures of trafficking victims’ abjection requires communicative,semiotic understandings of coercion’s mechanisms, and must resist conflating violence andphysical materiality. Building on J. L. Austin’s theorization of how verbal utterances perform certain kinds of semiotic actions, I argue that musical sound can behave like certain assaultive and coercive speech acts: acts of signaling that command sexual performances from trafficking victims within gross power asymmetries. A discourse analysis of the public forum online “The Ultimate Strip Club List” (TUSCL), which hosts discussions amongst both sex workers and patrons of strip clubs, suggests situations where the entanglement of sound and materiality loses explanatory and emancipatory power to critique music’s injurious capacities.

What is Musical Meaning? Theorizing Music as Performative Utterance

In this article, I theorize a new conception of musical meaning, based on J. L. Austin’s theory of performative utterances in his treatiseHow to Do Things with Words. Austin theorizes language meaningpragmatically: he highlights the manifold ways language performs actions and is used to “do things” in praxis. Austin thereby suggests a new theoretic center for language meaning, an implication largely developed by others after his death. This article theorizes an analogous position that locates musical meaning in the use of music “to do things,” which may include performing actions such as reference and disclosure, but also includes, in a theoretically rigorous fashion, a manifold of other semiotic actions performed by music to apply pressure to its contexts of audition. I argue that while many questions have been asked about meanings of particular examples of music, a more fundamental question has not been addressed adequately: what does meaning mean? Studies of musical meaning, I argue, have systematically undertheorized the ways in which music, as interpretable utterance, can create, transform, maintain, and destroy aspects of the world in which it participates. They have largely presumed that the basic units of sense when it comes to questions of musical meaning consist of various messages, indexes, and references encoded into musical sound and signifiers. Instead, I argue that a considerably more robust analytic takes the basic units of sense to be the various acts that music (in being something interpretable) performs or enacts within its social/situational contexts of occurrence. Ultimately, this article exposes and challenges a deep-seated Western bias towards equating meaning with forms of reference, representation, and disclosure. Through the “performative” theory of musical utterance as efficacious action, it proposes a unified theory of musical meaning that eliminates the gap between musical reference, on the one hand, and musical effects, on the other. It offers a way to understand musical meaning in ways that are deeply contextual (both socially and structurally): imbricated with the human practices that not only produce music but are produced by it in the face of its communicative capacities. I build theoretically with the help of various examples drawn largely from tonal repertoires, and I follow with lengthier analytical vignettes focused on experimental twentieth and twenty-first century works.

#secondcivilwarletters from the front: Discursive illusions in a trending Twitter hashtag

When conservative media personality and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones warned of an impending Second Civil War to be initiated by Democrats, he instigated a viral hashtag on Twitter – #secondcivilwarletters – which drew tweets of political commentary and critique in a style mimicking war letters from the American Civil War. Using a sample of these tweets, this article explores the evocation of discursive illusions already established within mainstream and alternative media discourse about contemporary partisan politics in America – that is, the divide between the Republicans and the Democrats and how they categorise each other. To do this we adopt Bhatia’s framework of the discourse of illusion and its three main components of linguistic and semiotic action, historicity and social impact. The analysis reveals the extent to which this illusion has permeated the consciousness of the users as they present their ideological beliefs and positions in this new media context.

A Critical Discourse Analysis of Radi’s Dramas From behind the Windows and Hamlet with Season Salad Based on Van Leeuwen’s Framework "Representing Social Actions"

Different representations of social actions create distinct types of discourses. Applying van Leeuwen’s 'Social Actions' framework (2008), the present study critically analyzes the power relations between the main characters of Radi’s dramas From behind the Windows and Hamlet with Season Salad. The objective of our study is to account for the differences between the discourse of the dominant and the discourse of the dominated. In order to elucidate such differences we count and analyze the characters’ social (re)actions and, in turn, identify four types of contrasts: cognitive vs. affective and perceptive reactions; material vs. semiotic actions; transactive vs. non-transactive actions; interactive vs. instrumental actions. Two opposing discourses emerge from these contrasts. On the one hand, the dominant characters mostly react cognitively and their actions are often semiotic, transactive, and interactive. On the other hand, the dominated characters’ reactions are often affective and perceptive, while most of their actions are material, non-transactive, and instrumental. As the results show, the author’s linguistic choices underscore the power relations between the dominant and the dominated characters. Building upon the fact that our analysis sheds light on the underlying ideologies and intentions of the author, we tentatively conclude that despite its being predominantly employed in the analysis of political discourses, van Leeuwen’s framework also proves effective in the critical analysis of literary works.

Preschool teachers as keepers of traditions and agents of change

ABSTRACT According to the Swedish Preschool Curriculum, one of the tasks of the preschool is to pass on a cultural heritage, its values, traditions and history, language and knowledge, from one generation to the next. The formulation indicates that cultural heritage plays an important role in defining the tasks of preschool teachers as far as the transmission of cultural norms is concerned. The aim of the overall study was to explore how Swedish preschool teachers implement and reflect on the task of transmitting a cultural heritage. This paper has its focus on how a particular cultural tradition, Easter, is celebrated in two preschools. The empirical data consists of 227 min video data from two preschools. The video data were analysed through qualitative content analysis with a focus on how different semiotic resources, actions and artefacts are used to perform Easter. The different modes of enacting traditions are used as instruments of socialisation into a cultural heritage as well as means of actualisation of a preschool pedagogy. While preschool teachers can be seen as agents of change who challenge some of the ways of celebrating a tradition, they are also agents of national reproduction. Thus, the teachers both enact the curriculum and build a bricolage of elements, some of which represent continuity, while others represent change.

Fabricating the American Dream in US media portrayals of Syrian refugees: A discourse analytical study

The months preceding and following the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States have incited furious debate about the authenticity of media discourse in the shaping of reality (cf. fake news), including in particular the reporting of refugees from predominantly Muslim regions and their resettlement in Western nations. Much of this debate is rooted in how opposing discourse clans, such as liberal and conservative ideologies, construct a narrative of nationhood around contested views of refugees. Examining mainstream and alternative media from a critical discourse analytic perspective, the article uncovers how two key narratives about the Syrian refugee crisis emerge when the media attempt to orient their respective audiences to government policy through the discursive formation of the American Dream. Drawing on aspects of historicity, linguistic and semiotic action, and social impact, the analysis of the data reveals a discursive fracas between a humanistic perspective on the crisis that exploits a banal understanding of the American Dream and a more dichotomous narrative that homogenises refugees as a threat to the American way of life. These observations add to the growing body of literature that questions the ways in which the media discursively shapes, and is shaped by, political ideologies.