Social Semiotic Approach Research Articles

A social semiotic approach to identifying critical aspects

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to propose a social semiotic approach to analysing objects of learning in terms of their critical aspects.Design/methodology/approach– The design for this paper focuses on how the semiotic resources – including language, equations, and diagrams – that are commonly used in physics teaching realise the critical aspects of a common physics object of learning. A social semiotic approach to the analysis of a canonical text extract from optics is presented to illustrate how critical aspects can be identified.Findings– Implications for university teaching and learning of physics stemming from this social semiotic approach are suggested.Originality/value– Hitherto under-explored similarities between the Variation Theory of Learning, which underpins learning studies, and a social semiotic approach to meaning-making are identified. These similarities are used to propose a new, potentially very powerful approach to identifying critical aspects of objects of learning.

Translating Japanese Typefaces in ‘Manga’: Bleach

This study is concerned with how Japanese-language typefaces used in the popular Japanese ‘manga’ Bleach have been translated into English. By using a social semiotic approach, this article asks two questions: does the typeface fit the role it was intended for and does it get its message across? We analyse one example taken from the Japanese-language source text and compare it with the English-language target text. While there are significant differences between the typefaces used in each text, we claim that the target text may be ‘constrained’, leading the discussion to issues dealing with foreignisation and domestication. We conclude by suggesting that the choices of typefaces in each text achieve their purpose but in different ways.

Emotion prosody and viewer engagement in film narrative

This study adopts a social semiotic approach to model the dynamics of character emotion and the discursive mechanisms of viewer engagement in film narrative. Drawing upon the systemic functional semiotics (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004), this paper proposes a metafunctional framework to elucidate how film characters’ emotions are ideationally construed, interpersonally enacted, and textually organized as a “prosody”. The explication of emotion prosody provides an explicit framework to explain the multi-dimensional, dynamic construction of narrative discourse. With the metafunctional model of emotion prosody, the fundamental mechanisms of viewer engagement, namely, allegiance, empathy and expectancy, are elucidated in a coherent discourse-based framework. Compared to schema-based cognitive film studies that focus on viewers’ emotional reactions, the social semiotic discourse analysis provides a more explicit and analytically reliable framework to explain the multi-dimensional construction of film narrative and the discursive mechanisms of viewer engagement.

English

THE FIVE-YEAR government of national unity tenure in Zimbabwe that brought together three leading political parties namely the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), and the two Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) parties came to an end when the country held successful parliamentary and presidential elections in July 2013. As was the case in 2008, the ruling ZANU-PF party won the 2013 election. Using the social-semiotics approach, this paper examines the representations and portrayal of President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai through editorial cartoons. Specifically, this paper assesses how, why and to what extent The Zimdaily.com editorial cartoons representations reflected the happenings on the ground. Key research methods used in this study are qualitative archival research, textual analysis, semiotics and content analysis. Based on the mass communication theories of gate-keeping, agenda building, representation, media and political economy theories, this paper argues that old fashioned conflict resolution and conflict prevention tactics and strategies need to be improved as the modern society becomes networked than ever. It was clear that peace building approaches such as those recommended by the 1992 United Nations resolution could not apply to Zimbabwe, but modern societies such as those found in Zimbabwe need a multi-task diplomacy approach such as the one employed by the then South Africa President Thabo Mbeki in resolving the Zimbabwean problem. The Zimbabwe conflict had become a sub-continental problem and could have spilled into an armed violence or even an insurrection but for the regional intervention and other multi-task diplomacy approaches, as manifesting through the editorial cartoons, the result was the government of national unity and not war. Key words: Diaspora media, inclusive government, agents of regime change.

Beyond the Line: Violence and the Objectification of the Karitiana Indigenous People as Extreme Other in Forensic Genetics

Utilizing social semiotic approaches, this article addresses how genetic researchers’ organizing narratives have involved extensive ontological and epistemological violence in their objectification Karitiana Indigenous people of Western Brazil. The paper analyses how genetic researchers have represented the Karitiana in the US and Canadian courts, post-9/11 forensic identification technology development, and patents. It also considers disputes over the sale of Karitiana cell lines by the US National Institutes of Health-funded Coriell Cell Repositories. These case studies reveal how the prominent population geneticist Kenneth K. Kidd of Yale University and other genetics researchers have constituted the Karitiana as Extreme Other; liminal figures who define the boundaries of humanity. Originally sampled in 1987 by a Yale University epidemiologist, forensic genetic researchers have since utilized Karitiana cell lines to metonymically represent the Karitiana. The practices of objectification have imposed a genetically distinct special status upon the Karitiana that restricts recognition of their self-determination, rights and dignity, and which imposes onerous obligations to serve as research objects for the greater good of Humanity. The Karitiana are included as biological labour, but excluded from decision-making or asserting any other claims. Scientists have organized and maintained biotechnologically-mediated colonial relationships in which they and their institutions extract nearly all immediate and tangible benefits. The fusing of genetic research’s ontological and epistemological violence with the violence of state legal institutions raises important questions about the scope and practices of sovereignty, particularly in determining and enforcing states of exception through violence.

Multimodality as a Premise for Inducing Online Flow on a Brand Website: A Social Semiotic Approach

The aim of this paper is to propose a new approach in the form of multimodality as a semiotic method that can be used by marketers and semioticians to induce online flow, a psychological state, on a brand website. First, we refer to multimodality as a semiotic analysis that can be used for a better optimization of semiotic resource sets in meaning-making, and we distinguish it from another similar concept: multimedia. Second, after a critical literature review, we address the flow construct - a state of mind sometimes experienced by people who are deeply involved and immersed in some event, object or activity. Previous quantitative studies show a correlation between online flow experience and other variables such as design, content, sound and layout that are suggested to be its antecedents. In our study, these flow antecedents are viewed as sets of signs or modes that can be orchestrated in order to create different levels of perceived challenge for brand website users. We consider that multimodality can be used for a better optimization of these various meanings as expressed by modes that are “essentially different in nature” (Bateman, 2008, p.54). Also, we refer to the online marketing outcomes of the online flow experience, in order to outline its importance and its implications in the online environment. The main conclusion of our paper is that multimodality can be used by scholars and practitioners as a premise to induce online flow on a brand website, by optimizing the sets of signs or modes.Originality – our contribution consists of an interdisciplinary approach. We use concepts from semiotics, positive psychology, and online marketing for a better understanding of how marketers and semioticians can positively influence online customer behaviour.

Communicating the ideas and attitudes of spying in film music: A social semiotic approach

Taking the example of two 1960s popular spy films this paper explores how social semiotics can make a contribution to the analysis of film music. Following other scholars who have sought to create inventories of sound meanings to help us break down the way that music communicates, this paper explores how we can draw on the principles of Hallidayan functional grammar to present an inventory of meaning potentials in sound. This provides one useful way to describe the semiotic resources available to composers to allow them to communicate quite specific ideas, attitudes and identities through combinations of different sounds and sound qualities, by presenting them as systems of meaning rather than as lists of connotations. Here we apply this to the different uses of music and sound in Dr No and The Ipcress Files which allows us to show how we can reveal different ideologies of spying.

Understanding semiotic technology in university classrooms: a social semiotic approach to PowerPoint-assisted cultural studies lectures

In this paper, we propose a social semiotic approach to studying PowerPoint in university classrooms. Our approach is centred on two premises: (1) PowerPoint is a semiotic technology that can be integrated into the pedagogical discourse of classrooms, and (2) PowerPoint technology encompasses three interrelated dimensions of social semiotic practices: the design of the software, the composition of the slides and the slideshow-supported presentations, i.e. lectures. Using this approach, we explore how PowerPoint has been used in seven cultural studies lectures in an Australian university. Our analysis demonstrates how multimodal resources in PowerPoint have been used for pedagogic recontextualisation. More specifically, it shows how different semiotic resources have been deployed and combined to recontextualise two key types of knowledge – signifying practice and subjectivity – in the classroom discursive space, and how different strengths of pedagogic framing are achieved multimodally.

A Social Semiotic Multi-Modal Approach to Communication Practices in Early Christianity

ABSTRACTIncreasingly, New Testament scholars have been calling attention to the interrelationship between spoken words and written words in the rhetorical world of the first century CE. In this essay, I examine these two forms of verbal expression through the lens of social semiotic multi-modal theory as articulated by Gunther Kress. In attending to how spoken words and written words give material realization to meaning through modality as well as how they are employed in systems of meaning making within specific historical, cultural and social contexts, I endeavor to introduce a new level of complexity to our understanding of communication systems in early Christianity and how they were employed to generate meaning. The studies of Pieter Botha on orality and literacy serve as my point of entry for the ancient world.

Semiotic technology and practice: a multimodal social semiotic approach to PowerPoint

Semiotic technology and practice: a multimodal social semiotic approach to PowerPoint

Embodiment and meaning: moving beyond linguistic imperialism in social semiotics

Social semiotic approaches to multimodality have tended to take language as the model for other modalities even when their professed aim is to move away from it. This kind of “linguistic imperialism” causes problems for theorising the relationship between the two basic semiotic planes of expression and interpretation in different modalities, and how the affordances of the expression plane relate to the meanings of the interpretation plane in each case, as well as in understanding the particular role of language in multimodal texts. The current paper brings together insights from semiotics, sociology of music and philosophy of language, as well as critiques of social semiotic approaches, in order to argue that the missing element in accounts of semiotic systems like language and music is the fundamental role played by embodiment in both these systems.

The multimodal representation of emotion in film: Integrating cognitive and semiotic approaches

This study provides a semiotic theorization of how emotion is represented in film to complement the cognitive approach, which focuses on how film elicits emotion from viewers. Drawing upon social semiotic theories and cognitive theories of emotion, we develop a multimodal framework in which filmic representation of emotion is seen as combinations of semiotic choices derived from cognitive components of emotion. The semiotic model is employed to investigate how emotive meaning is realized through verbal and nonverbal resources. At the discursive level of film, the choices available in the shot organization of eliciting condition and expression are examined. The paper demonstrates how the social semiotic approach, combined with cognitive theory of emotion structure, is able to provide a comprehensive theoretical account of how various film techniques represent emotion. It is also significant for the study of viewer emotion, which to a large degree stems from character emotion.

Uma abordagem sociossemiótica das imagens publicitárias nas revistas femininas

Há razões para acreditar que os corpos das mulheres heterossexuais ganharam um novo protagonismo na publicidade e nas revistas de moda atuais com o surgimento de uma nova figura, crescentemente globalizada, da mulher que afirma a sua feminilidade por meio de um corpo sexy – e não apenas belo, mas “saudável” –, e na escolha e afirmação livre do mesmo, um processo apresentado como fonte de empoderamento individual, motivo de celebração, de divertimento e de prazer. Neste artigo, pretendo, a partir de uma abordagem sociossemiótica, sublinhar a complexidade dos processos envolvidos na comunicação desse tipo de imagem no contexto de revistas femininas publicadas em Portugal. Importa compreender essa complexidade antes de opinarmos sobre os modos como esse tipo de imagem interfere na relação que cada uma de nós tem consigo mesma.

Reading Meaning through the Visual Images: Social Semiotic Approach to TELL Magazine in Nigeria.

Several studies have been carried out on verbal communication but with the recent trends and development of communication in conveyance of meaning, the importance of the cover-pages of news magazine in the print media deserves to be given attention. Hence, the employment of social semiotic approach of Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006)’s Multimodal Discourse Analysis to four selected editions of TELL magazine. The purpose is to present a shift from the usual study of visuals in line with the semantic indicators to an examination of visual images in isolation. The research brought to the conclusion that the visual images such as pictorials, colour, signs, posture, distance and symbols go a long way to convey meaning in print media especially, news magazines that need to attract the attention of the public. Keywords : Advertisement, media, multimodal, images and context.

Towards a social semiotics of rhythm in popular music

There have been attempts to describe rhythm in technical and musicological terms, yet it has remained one of the most elusive aspects of music for theorists as it is comprised of a range of interacting sounds. This article explores the contribution that could be made by a social semiotic approach to rhythm in popular music. The paper provides an inventory of sound qualities that can be seen as a set of meaning potentials for the creation of certain kinds of groove or movement in music, since these have different kinds of associations in terms of ideas, moods, and attitudes.

Representing emotive meaning in visual images: A social semiotic approach

This study examines how emotive meaning is represented in visual images using the semiotic resources of facial expression, touch and body orientation. Complementing the cognitive metaphorical interpretation, the visually represented emotive behaviors are theorized as partial iconic representations of real life behaviors, which are in turn indexes of emotion. Adopting a social semiotic approach, this paper formulates facial expression, touch, and body orientation as inter-related systems of meaning, the selection and combination of which constitutes a systemic functional “lexico-grammar” for analyzing and interpreting meaning making in visual imagery. The systems are then used to explain how emotive meanings are represented in comic books. The analysis shows that cartoonists’ systemic choices for representing emotions are largely consistent with the coding accuracy of facial behaviors on the one hand, and style guidelines advocated in comic handbooks on the other. Through the examination of both American and Japanese comics, it is demonstrated that the social semiotic lexico-grammatical approach is not only effective in explaining the emotion resources in nonverbal behavior, but also useful for investigating cultural differences in the visual depiction of emotion. The systemic choices also provide artists with a framework to “design” emotion in creative visual media such as comics, and possibly in computer vision, game design and related domains.

Discourses of unity and purpose in the sounds of fascist music: a multimodal approach

This article, taking a social semiotic approach, analyses two pieces of music written, shared and exalted by two pre-1945 European fascist movements – the German NSDAP and the British Union of Fascists. These movements, both political and cultural, employed mythologies of unity, common identity and purpose in order to elide the realities of social distinction and political–economic inequalities between bourgeois and proletarian groups in capitalist societies. Visually (through art, sculpture, architecture, the aesthetics of dress, uniform and gesture) and inter-personally (through political marches, parades and rallies), the fascist cultural project communicated a machine-like certainty about a vision for a new society based on discipline, conformity and the might of the nation. In this article, we are interested in the ways that these very same discourses are also communicated through sound and music in two songs: The Horst Wessel Lied and the BUF marching song, two songs that used the same melody. We analyse the discourses communicated by the semiotic choices made in melody, arrangements, sound qualities, rhythms as well as in lyrics. The article first identifies some of the underlying semiotic resources for meaning making in sound and then shows how these are used in order to communicate specific ideas, values and attitudes.

Engaging with Old Testament Stories: A Multimodal Social Semiotic Approach to Children Bible Illustrations

Studies based on Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA) do not only abound but have remained on the increase in recent times. However, focus has not been on the multimodal analysis of Children Bible stories through the linguistic framework of social semiotics. This paper, informed by this need presents and analyses pictorials of Children Bible stories, thus reflecting at one level the linguistic features and how they are being complemented by visual features on another level. Also, the paper emphasizes the importance and effectiveness of visual features by revealing meanings. The study concludes that despite the fact that linguistic features could convey meaning, certain meanings are best conveyed through the use of visual images especially to children who are passive readers.

Book review: Gunther Kress, Multimodality: A Social Semiotic Approach to Contemporary Communication

Book review: Gunther Kress, <i>Multimodality: A Social Semiotic Approach to Contemporary Communication</i>

Tracking visual segmentation: connecting semiotic and cognitive perspectives

This article introduces a new methodology for deriving the dynamics of visual segmentation in relation to the underlying cognitive processes involved. The method combines social semiotics approaches to visual segmentation with eye-tracking studies on authentic image viewing and simultaneous image description. The authors’ thesis is that visual segmentation suggested by the social semiotic approach is traceable in the behaviour of the viewers who perceive images while creating meaning. From this perspective, visual zooming is seen as both perceptually, cognitively, grammatically and analytically relevant. The interdisciplinary approach developed in the article presents new perspectives on the ways images are segmented and interpreted.