Social Semiotic Theory Research Articles

Production and exchange of meaning in instagram beauty influencer visual content in Indonesia: a social semiotic analysis

The development of technology aligns with the evolution of information media, which is increasingly dynamic in contemporary times. Instagram serves as a social media platform employed by beauty influencers to disseminate information pertaining to beauty. Visual content showcasing diverse beauty reviews captivates a substantial female audience, resulting in millions of followers on Instagram. This study aims to interpret the conveyed meanings by Indonesian female beauty influencers, such as Tasya Farasya, Kesha Ratuliu, and Hanggini. The qualitative methodology employs social semiotic theory to extract meanings embedded in the text or discourse presented by each influencer, considering social and cultural perspectives. This research adopts a constructivist paradigm, emphasizing the production and exchange of meanings. The study analyzes the meaning behind the messages conveyed by each beauty influencer on social media. The images portrayed by Tasya Farasya, Kesha Ratuliu, and Hanggini exhibit distinct representations both interactively and compositionally. The interactive metaphoric function is evident in the endurance of their image, showcased through visually appealing content on Instagram photos. This results in the creation of a multimodal visual composition in the photos.

Data becomes quilt: Encoding meaning through social semiotics

There are accepted academic traditions about how data is visually represented, most often in the form of graphs, tables and maps. To visually represent the findings of a study about quilt makers in New Zealand and be congruent with the research topic, the researcher made a quilt to represent the findings. While much of the existing research about quilts focuses on the analysis of meaning, this article is about encoding meaning in a quilt. The article describes the processes of design and making which drew on a diverse range of quilt making traditions and forms of data representation exemplified by the theory of social semiotics. Quilt design decisions were informed by pattern, symbolism and fabric choice and drew on traditions where quilts have been made to convey information such as quilts as signs for escaping slaves on the underground railroad, storytelling tivaevae quilts from the Cook Islands, and the contemporary temperature quilts where daily high and low temperatures are recorded. Data is also communicated in traditional ways such as through graphs made from fabric. This article describes the process of conceptualizing the design and includes photographs of the finished work.

Researching ideologies

Abstract Previous critical studies of language textbook analysis have explored politics of content selection in textbooks, examining the way selection of certain materials instead of others or the interaction between various multimodal contents selected for textbooks reinforces certain ideological meanings at the expense of certain others. The current study views language textbooks through lenses of politics of content creation, analyzing such politics in a series of English as a Foreign Language textbooks produced by Iranian Ministry of Education. Using a theoretical framework that draws on theories of language ideology and social semiotic theories of multimodality, the study explores the way ideological meanings are simultaneously created at different orders of language and the way such created meanings multimodally shape different contents of the textbooks, such as lessons and learning activities. The study contributes to the filed of critical language textbook analysis by uncovering the relation between power and ideologies within the generic structure of language textbooks.

Semiotic Analysis of Political Cartoons of Urdu Print Media in Pakistan During Election 2024

Among several modes of communication, the language of images and cartoons has also been frequently used by print media across the globe. It has drawn the attention of the masses also because of its sense of humor, satirical meaning, and interpretation. Thus, semiotic studies help viewers and readers decode the hidden meanings and agendas behind the images or cartoons. History shows that numerous attempts have been made to discover the main objective and essence. Therefore, the study explores and discovers the meaning hidden in the political cartoons in the Urdu print media of Pakistan before the general election in 2024 throughthe lens of social semiotic theory. The study focuses on van Leeuwen and Gunther Kress' Social Semiotic Theories. Around ten (10) political cartoons were selected and investigated by Daily Jung Newspaper which has vast circulation across the country.

Assessing Students’ Multimodal Texts in the Subject of English: Synthesising Peers’ and Teachers’ Recognition of Semiotic Work

While learning activities and text production in language subjects typically include multiple forms of multimodal expression, assessment in the subjects continues to a great extent to depend on students’ written texts. As a contribution to an increasing call for alignment of curricular activities and assessment, this article explores an approach to assessment of upper secondary students’ production of multimodal persuasive texts in the subject of English as an additional language (EAL). The article reports from a design-based study comprising two classroom interventions where assessment of students’ multimodal texts was conducted separately by peer groups and the teacher and researcher in collaboration, applying assessment criteria informed by multimodal social semiotic theory and operationalisations of communicative competence. Comparing the results of peer and teacher assessment of students’ multimodal persuasive texts, agreement was found relating to representational, interactional, and compositional aspects of the texts, whereas differences in views mostly concerned nuances in interpersonal aspects. Unpacking these nuances, the article concludes that peers’ and teachers’ assessments of multimodal texts complement each other in ways that can prompt fruitful discussions on meaning making in the light of context and social factors and thus contribute to heightened semiotic awareness and a broader recognition of the students’ communicative competence in the subject.

A Socio-Semantic Etymological Analysis of Selected Nicknames Within the Zambian Senga Social and Cultural Onomastics Cosmology

This study examined the social-semantic meaning of selected Zambian Senga nicknames within the Senga social and cultural milieu. It unveiled the social- semantic significance of selected Senga nicknames in relation to their social and cultural setting. It also established the etymology of the names as well as the social cultural significance of meanings expressed in the nicknames. This study adopted a qualitative approach. A purposive sampling technique was employed through which fourteen persons, who were considered sufficiently knowledgeable in the Senga language, provided an accurate explanation of the data. The participants were drawn from Chama District of the Eastern Province of Zambia. Data was collected through an interview guide, which was administered to the selected research participants. Data was analysed using Social Semiotic Theory. In line with social semiotics, nicknames express both connotative and denotative meanings. In addition, Senga nicknames have social and cultural significance in that they warn witches, discourage selfishness, provide wisdom, encourage, demonstrate endurance, reprimand, teach self-reliance, show ownership, discourage laziness, expose promiscuous behaviour, hard work and traditional beliefs. Lastly, it is recommended that other aspects of Senga anthroponyms may be researched on. These might include personal names, their etymology and semantic value.

The beautification of men within skincare advertisements: A multimodal critical discourse analysis

This study draws on the theory of Social Semiotics and the methodology of Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (MCDA) to examine the textual and visual design of skincare advertisements targeted towards men. The current proliferation of the market for male-oriented facial products represents an important shift towards the increased attention to the beautification of male bodies in Western societies. Such beautification encourages men to work on and improve the self (and face) through intensifying practices of “aesthetic labour.” Aesthetic labour places emphasis on an entrepreneurial self-care and self-control regime that promotes an active late lifestyle fostered through ideas about “successful ageing.” As expected, the analysis of the corpus consisting of advertisements from L'Oréal Men, Nivea Men and Clarins Men shows that the male face is generally constructed as a “problem” that can be cured through the consumption of skincare products. The consumption of these products increases men's visual literacies of the face and hence normalises male beauty practices that seemingly encourage men to care for and work on their skin, which can be construed of as a feminising practice. Nonetheless, the advertisements employ masculine traits and strategies that link cosmetic products to traditional values of masculinity. The beautification of the male body, thus, turns the consumption of skincare products into a performance through which men can maintain their already privileged status in society, rearticulating the double standard of ageing (Sontag, 1972).

Critical Visual Analysis

The paper explained the use of critical visual analysis for understanding and contextualizing the images as well as applied the theories of visual consumption and social semiotics to analyze certain visual materials. Furthermore, this study examined the visual representations of refugees and immigrants who faced atrocities at the time of the partition of the Subcontinent along with the Mongol leader who was responsible for the largest empire in history. The research aimed at answering the question related to the significance of visual communication and critical visual analysis for comprehending those visuals. The paper used qualitative methods of research to answer the research question. Critical visual analysis helps not only in describing the physical features of the images but also in interpreting the notion and meaning behind the visuals. In todays technologically advanced world, visuals have gained prominence in the aspects of advertisement and meaning explanation. Therefore, critical visual analysis is paramount in this era.

A Multimodal Approach to Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL) in the Digital World

This research investigates a cohort of bilingual Chinese teachers' use of a multimodal approach in their Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) teaching. The data include the participants' CFL teaching practices and their reflections on multimodal teaching as recorded in their theses and a focus group discussion. The theoretical underpinning of this paper is based on Paivio's dual coding theory (DCT) and Kress's social-semiotic theory (SST). This research found that the teachers' multimodal use in CFL teaching demonstrated their research-informed committed endeavour in designing content specific activities to achieve pedagogical purposes, utilizing some digital technologies as a resource. The uniqueness of the written form of the Chinese language availed these teachers the opportunity to engage the multiple modes and advance their own understanding of multimodality as a concept. This research also found the teachers' meaning making through the multimodality did not always equate to that of their students' due to their social and cultural differences.

A Multimodal Discourse Analysis of the Geographical Indication trademark of China Intangible Cultural Heritage

Guided by the theories of systemic functional linguistics and social semiotics, this paper analyzes the specific embodiment of representational, interactive and compositional meanings of the geographical indication trademark of China intangible cultural heritage within the theoretical framework of multimodal discourse analysis. Based on the analysis results, this paper aims to reveal the effective linkage and meaning construction of language and images while expressing the deep value meaning of intangible cultural heritage geographical trademark and provide ideas to raise people’s concern over and multimodal literacy of China intangible cultural heritage, thus better protect and promote it.

Pragmatic Analysis of 2019 Nigerian Presidential Election-Related Newspaper Cartoons

This study undertook a pragmatic analysis of the 2019 Nigerian Presidential Election-Related Newspaper Cartoons to establish the central issues, their contextual underpinning, the engendering pragmatic acts and strategies and their implication to media, society and politics. It was designed to address the knowledge gap created by extant studies which evaded the appraisal of this slant of political discourse that would provide a better understanding of the political cartoons. To address this issue, the paper adopted the Pragmatic acts theory and the theory of social semiotics to account for the ensuing issues and their semiotic significance. The descriptive research design was adopted with a purposive sampling technique to allow for a qualitative analysis of the data selected for the study. Twenty-five cartoons were purposively selected for this paper. The selection was premised on the critical issues that tainted the general elections of 2019. These were subjected to pragma-semiotic analysis. Three discourse issues were identified – partisan contest, electoral fraud, and corruption. These were constrained by six contexts, which are the contexts of rivalry, game, defeat, victory, corruption, and war with the pragmatic acts of satirizing, warning, and sensitizing, strategically crystalized through the strategies of negative lexicalization of opposition, satirisation of politicians’ identity, and invocation of actor’s precedence. It, therefore, concludes on the note that it takes more than a literal sense to understand the construction of political cartoons of criticism and thus needs conscious efforts to unravel the issues and pragma-semiotic means of decoding them. The study hence recommends that political cartoon studies should be initiated and their proliferation should be censored due to their sensitive construction of reality and its implication for media, politics and society.

A Social Semiotic Analysis of Gender Representations in Biology Textbooks for Upper Secondary Schools in China

The gender gap remains an issue in the biological education community. This study explores the extent to which an egalitarian gender ideology, encapsulated in five biological science textbooks for upper secondary schools in China, manifests through representational, interactive and compositional meanings of social semiotic theory. The findings reveal that females in the textbooks tend to be depicted as passive and inferior to males. More males are represented as playing pioneering and leading roles, as opposed to females, who are cast in assistant and subordinate roles in professional activities. The gendered messages delivered have the potential to disempower female students’ career aspirations and adversely regulate their perceptions and projections of gender identities in biological science.

The Dynamics of Multimodal Literacy Development: The Tunisian EAP Context as a Case Study

The present study aims to explore the dynamics of multimodal literacy development in English for Academic Purposes (EAP). Ten Tunisian PhD students from the field of management participated in the present study. They displayed disparate features (visual proficiency, background knowledge and attitudes to verbal and visual modes). The participants were requested to perform three tasks based on a research article (RA) gauging visual comprehension and design skills. The present study demonstrates that, while performing the tasks, the participants construe meaning out of the multimodal text from purely visual data and from the combination of modes. The participants are also required to cope with the divergence in the realization of meaning across the verbal and visual modes. Therefore, the present study argues for the combined use of the theories of functionalism, genre analysis and the social semiotic theory of the grammar of graphical design for the identification and classification of these skills that enabled the study participants to perform the tasks. The results of the study have revealed that multimodal literacy in EAP is an interactive process involving a dynamic dialogue between the participants and the multimodal RA. Participants with different features (background knowledge, visual proficiency, attitudes to the modes) displayed distinct abilities at coping with the cognitive requirements imposed by the multimodal text.

Healthy Snacks: Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis of Traditional Food Brand Corporate Storytelling

This research analyzes how a snack manufacturer uses corporate storytelling on social media to promote healthy eating. The new public health period has developed a market for healthy or well-being-related items. Many firms have emerged to give healthy food options. Social semiotic theory and multimodal critical discourse analysis ask: How do these organizations use corporate stories to make themselves seem superior to their competitors? How do they market healthy, appealing products? How does this marketing encourage healthier product choices? One healthy snack company's corporate story reveal that health discourse colonizes healthy eating for marketing and branding. These companies also claim abstract, symbolic, and commercial health. These company stories may mislead consumers who want to eat healthy into eating less healthful goods.

The characteristics of diagrams in scientific explanations: Multimodal integration of written and visual modes of representation in junior high school textbooks

AbstractThere is a growing research examining the use of visual diagrams in scientific explanations. However, current research in this area is mostly based on case studies involving a few explanations from one or two topics in science. There are few systematic studies that examine more broadly how diagrams are used in relation to scientific explanations across a range of scientific texts. The aim of this study is to investigate the characteristics of diagrams in scientific explanations found in Grade 7–10 science textbooks covering many topics in biology, chemistry, earth and space sciences, and physics. The study is informed by the theories of systemic functional linguistics and social semiotics and applies a mixed methods approach to textbook analysis. A content analysis was first carried out to systematically identify the image functions (e.g., narrative, analytical, classificational) in all the diagrams (N = 749) and compare their distributions across different genres (e.g., explanation, information, experiment). This is followed by a multimodal discourse analysis to understand how the various image functions are combined with the linguistic features of the written text in the construction of scientific explanations. Quantitative results reveal explanation diagrams are characteristically different from diagrams used in other genres in terms of a higher usage of narrative function, temporal function, and annotated caption. Qualitative results further show how these image functions are typically used to support the reasoning of the explanation focusing on dynamic processes and time‐bounded sequences. This study has implications to our understanding of how diagrams are used to support the construction of scientific explanations.

From designing for needs to meaning: Towards a social semiotic model of innovation in entrepreneurship education

The current entrepreneurial pedagogy focuses on enhancing students’ ability in discovering opportunities based on an understanding of users’ needs. This study challenges this dominant pedagogy by proposing a method to help students generate innovative ideas and create entrepreneurial opportunities by transforming the existing product’s meanings, or through a meanings design process, instead of only trying to understand users’ needs. The paper draws on social semiotic theories and theoretically proposes that, by transforming three product meanings (i.e., presentational, orientational and organizational), students are able to design a novel product and thus identify an entrepreneurial opportunity. A brief case study along with some students’ design projects are provided to illustrate how to use this method in teaching. This study is intended to provide entrepreneurship educators with a fresh tool to nurture students’ ability in identifying innovative opportunities and to immerse them in a more creative learning process while shaping their entrepreneurial mindset.

Embodied modes in L2 French video reflections: Supporting metalinguistic awareness, organization, and community

AbstractIn recent years, research in multimodality has established the benefits of using multiple semiotic modes like image, sound, and text in digital second language (L2) communication. However, researchers have yet to investigate how L2 learners make meaning through embodied modes—or gestures and facial expressions. Grounded in the social semiotic theory of multimodality, this study leverages multimodal transcription and discourse analysis to describe how 126 college learners of L2 French used embodied modes in their video reflections. Findings reveal how gestures and facial expressions served to augment students’ metalinguistic awareness and organizational capacities in French. Further, embodied modes supported students in connecting to their audience. Because online language learning has increased during pandemic times, the findings shed light on the important role of embodied modes in designing L2 video assignments.

A multimodal analysis of the online translanguaging practices of international students studying Chinese in a Chinese university

Abstract Previous research has recognised the value of translanguaging in Chinese language teaching but has focused primarily on using English as the medium of instruction. However, teachers and students may not share a common language with which to communicate in a multilingual class, which is a significant challenge in Chinese learning and teaching. This study incorporates translanguaging into the pedagogical design by implementing a translanguaging-based task, perceiving Chinese learners as creative agents orchestrating numerous semiotic resources in meaning-making. The participants were a cohort of beginner-level Chinese learners with diverse ethnolinguistic backgrounds taking an online Chinese course at a Chinese university. Data sources included the participants’ video-recorded oral presentations and their reflective journals. Drawing on social semiotic theory, analysis of the video recordings shows that the learners moved creatively between modalities (written and spoken, visual and auditory, gesture and drawing) that worked together as an assemblage to make meaning beyond their linguistic capacity while ensuring audience comprehension. The reflective journals, however, reveal ambivalent attitudes: using multilingual resources eased concerns about the audience’s reception of the participants’ meaning-making, but also generated guilt among the participants. Based on these findings, this study argues for the transformative power of translanguaging-based pedagogy and highlights the communicative affordance of semiotic resources including cultural artefacts and knowledge. The pedagogical implications of designing translanguaging-based tasks in the teaching of Chinese and other Asian languages are discussed.

The Narrative Bodies of James Baldwin: A Discussion of Literary and Sartorial Style

Inspired by Terry Newman’s literary and sartorial analysis of writers in her book Legendary Authors and the Clothes They Wore, I analyze James Baldwin’s literary and sartorial style using excerpts from his works and archival photography. I also add a signifier/signified analysis using social semiotic theory. According to De Saussure, there are two main parts to any sign, the signifier, which connotes any material thing, and the signified, which is the meaning that is made of that thing by the receiver. Social semiotics changes the focus from the sign to the way people use semiotic resources to produce communicative artifacts, collectively. In the semiotic tradition, I extend the literary text (Go Tell it on the Mountain, Another Country, and Just Above My Head) to a larger reading of the culture in which it was created and to the more universal structures that are inherent within it. Clothing is also considered a critical semiotic resource because it is viewed as a sign that signifies a particular meaning. In my analysis, I illuminate how Baldwin’s sartorial style is a mirror (signifier) to reflect his literary style and reflects the creative and spiritual (signified) essence of his work, connected to and with collective Black narratives of style.

Semiotic Analysis of Three QSR Instagram Posts During COVID-19 Outbreak

The COVID-19 outbreak has impacted various aspects of human life, and this includes the economy. Therefore, businesses must address their survival promptly by implementing more aggressive and creative marketing methods that use social media platforms. Although touted as Malaysia’s top three quick service restaurants (QSR), the pandemic also affected KFC, McDonald’s, and Pizza Hut. Therefore, this research was conducted to investigate the advertisement language of these three brands’ Instagram posts. The paper intends first to study how text producers use linguistic and non-linguistic representations to position their businesses amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Second, it aims to explain how specific language use, image, and style can bring about meaning to customers of the position of the brands during these trying times. The theory that underpins this paper is M. A. K. Halliday’s Social Semiotic Theory of Language (1978). Semiotic analysis was employed as an analytic tool due to its ability to foreground aspects that may not be noticeable in plain reading. The data for this study was collected from the Instagram pages of the three brands during the period of the first Movement Control Order (MCO) exercised in Malaysia from March 18 to May 3, 2020.