Social Semiotics Research Articles

A response to “A theory of educational linguistics”

Abstract Kress used the opportunity of responding to Halliday’s paper (see the preceding paper in this issue) to advance ideas which have subsequently been foundational to work in multimodality within the general theoretical of social semiotics.1

Campus repertoires: interrogating semiotic assemblages, economy, and creativity

Abstract Framed within the broader theoretical context of social semiotics, we attempt to show how university students communicate using a variety of unique means, in particular social contexts. We privilege Pennycook and Otsuji’s semiotic assemblages, Jimaima and Simungala’s semiotic creativity, and the notion of semiotic economy as critical ingredients that conspire to give rise to the unique and complex coinages and innovations constituting students’ repertoires. We argue that, born out of creativity, the students’ repertoires are semiotically and economically charged discourses that generate extended narratives such that more is realized with less. We show that this reality undoubtedly constitutes a multi-semiotic meaning-making endeavor that enacts and sustains students’ imagined and lived experiences in real sociocultural, historical, and political spaces in the multilingual landscapes of university campuses.

MULTIMODAL DIMENSION OF ENGLISH PUBLIC SPEECHES BY TED TALKS IN EDUCATION

This article explores the multimodal dimension of the TED speeches in the field of education, focusing on the research of semiotic resources. The term "multimodality" refers to the interaction between different modes of information presentation. Multimodal representations reflect sociocultural ways of combining modes in communication. The study draws on the theoretical framework of social semiotics to analyze the application of sense-making principles to semiotic modes. The research examines the linguistic, auditory, visual, gestural, and spatial modes of presentation. The study employs quantitative and qualitative analyses to explore the stylistic figures used in the selected TED talks. The article discusses the challenges and peculiarities of translating TED speeches. The findings highlight the prevalence of stylistic figures such as alliteration, metaphor, repetition, and rhetorical questions in the linguistic mode. The auditory mode is characterized by clear diction, proper pronunciation, and controlled speech tempo. The visual mode includes the use of slides, highlighting key words and phrases, and incorporating images to engage the audience. The gestural mode involves intentional gestures, body movements, and facial expressions that complement verbal discourse. The spatial mode encompasses effective management of physical space, strategic movement on stage, and the use of props to enhance communication. The study concludes by suggesting further research directions, including the analysis of the impact of multimodal modes on recipient cognitive processes and the study of stylistic figures and their cultural variations in intercultural communication.

Social semiotics of news reports on the change of the halal logo in detik.com for March 2022

The news reports on the change of the halal logo issued by the Halal Product Assurance Organizing Agency (BPJPH) officially replaced the current halal logo from the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), followed by its authority, based on Law Number 33/2014 on Halal Product Assurance. The halal logo is not only an accessory of the label but also the leading indicator to identify and guarantee the halalness of a product. This paper aims to show the social semiotics of news reports by examining issues on the new halal logo on Detik.com for March 2022. The research data was collected from the online news portal Detik.com and other articles and supporting journals. Based on this problem, this study used a descriptive qualitative method using the social semiotic analysis approach by M.A.K Halliday. The result showed that Detik.com delivered various news reports; some favored the new halal label, while other reports were neutral and even harmful. The implications of this research suggest that our perspective on the news discerns more from the text and its context. ***Pemberitaan perubahan logo halal yang dikeluarkan Badan Penyelenggara Jaminan Produk Halal (BPJPH) resmi menggantikan logo halal yang ada saat ini dari Majelis Ulama Indonesia (MUI), berikut kewenangannya berdasarkan Undang-Undang Nomor 33 Tahun 2014 tentang Jaminan Produk Halal. Logo halal tidak hanya menjadi pelengkap label tetapi juga menjadi indikator utama untuk mengidentifikasi dan menjamin kehalalan suatu produk. Tulisan ini bertujuan untuk mengkaji semiotika sosial terkait pemberitaan isu logo halal baru di Detik.com bulan Maret 2022. Data penelitian dikumpulkan dari portal berita online Detik.com dan artikel serta jurnal pendukung lainnya. Berdasarkan permasalahan tersebut, penelitian ini menggunakan metode deskriptif kualitatif dengan pendekatan analisis semiotika sosial oleh M.A.K Halliday. Hasilnya menunjukkan bahwa Detik.com menyampaikan pemberitaan yang beragam; beberapa mendukung label halal baru, sementara laporan lainnya netral dan bahkan negatif. Implikasi dari penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa perspektif kita terhadap berita lebih memahami teks dan konteksnya.

Is social semiotics a unitary research field? An introductory and comparative mapping of Argentinean, Brazilian, French, Italian and English-speaking semiotic approaches to social meaning-making

In the 1980s, researchers from different academic circles around the world started paying attention to the functioning of the social realm with a focus on signification and sense-making. Since then, they have shown particular interest in studying practices, interactions and spatiality, among other objects of study, as activities that convey social meaning and produce sense. This is how the field of social semiotics emerged within general semiotics. However, the emergence of this new research field occurred in a fragmented manner. Nowadays, English-speaking ‘social semiotics’ coexists with at least two French sociosémiotiques, with Argentinean sociosemiótica, with Italian sociosemiotica and with Brazilian sociossemiótica. This article examines these five accounts of social semiotics in a comparative manner with a focus on the theoretical and methodological references they use as their sources. Therefore, the article should function as an introductory roadmap for researchers within the social and human sciences interested in approaching contemporary social semiotics and sociosemiotic research.

Research on Symbolic Design of Creative Products based on KJ Method

Semiotics, as a meta-science, is combined with other disciplines to form disciplinary research fields with different characteristics, such as product semiotics, cultural semiotics and social semiotics. The development of semiotics is extended to explore, and the mutual influence and common development of modern social semiotics and product design is explored in combination with the field of product design. Promote the birth and development of design disciplines and schools such as product semantics and unconscious design. This topic starts from the discussion of the birth and development of semiotics, takes product semiotics as the main research object, explores the related concepts of semiotics design and the influence of product symbols on users' behavioral concepts, and combines with KJ analysis to sort out and summarize the design elements of symbolized products, looking for the application solutions of symbolized products. Finally, from the perspective of symbolic development of future product design, methods and strategies are proposed: with the help of new technologies in the Internet era, get rid of the bondage of appearance service modeling; Pay attention to users' personalized and personal needs; Integrate the creative points.

Wood-off-cuts as a creative resource: A metaphorical reflection on “The Ruler and The Ruled” sculpture project

As a process-oriented studio exploration, “The Ruler and the Ruled” is a generic name of a body of work that engages a joinery method to upcycle wood-off-cuts. It creates visual imagery that metaphorically interprets the consequences of Nigeria’s socio-political settings. Genesis of Disintegration is an art piece selected for discussion. It conceptually addresses the plights of the downtrodden. The use of wood offcuts effectively exploits upcycle in a creative interpretation of joinery processes distinct as practised by other artists. This reflection attempts to validate how wood offcuts form part of the ongoing dialogue of the downtrodden. Focusing on joinery and its aesthetic effects, emerging forms are metaphorically interpreted while their formal features are conceptually analyzed using theories and models of visual social semiotics. Significant socio-political issues were raised that addressed the plight of the downtrodden and its implications.

A multimodal analysis of (de)legitimation through argumentation in extremist discourse: The case of Dabiq

Abstract Even after the demise of its territorial caliphate in 2019, ISIS persists as a potent threat, adapting to new technologies and maintaining its status as an active insurgency. Amidst the backdrop of the terror group’s demonstrated resilience, this paper examines its practice of (de)legitimation and language of persuasion through a multimodal argumentation analysis. It combines the argumentation strategies (topoi) proposed by Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA) and tools from Social Semiotics with argumentation theories, achieved through a comprehensive enthymematic deconstruction of arguments in ISIS’s e-magazine, Dabiq. The findings reveal four interrelated sets of plausibly inferable premises, namely, advantage and disadvantage; threat and obligation; negative consequence and history; and authority and Shariah law. These premises fall within broad social, political, historical, and religious categories and are deliberately crafted to lend support to ISIS’s desired conclusions, aimed at systematically altering the addressees’ state of knowledge and eventually eliciting acceptance from the intended public.

Exploring WhatsApp as Teaching and Learning Activities during Covid-19/New Normal era: A Semiotic Technology Analysis

In the landscape of modern education, the integration of technology, particularly within language learning, has gained substantial scholarly attention. Among digital platforms, WhatsApp has undergone a notable transformation, evolving from a basic messaging application to a versatile social hub. Its role expanded significantly during the Covid-19 pandemic, becoming a pivotal tool for online teaching and learning activities, prevalent not only in higher education but also across secondary levels. While existing studies have predominantly focused on user interaction within WhatsApp, limited attention has been directed toward the technical aspects or the application’s usage in the teaching and learning process. This research aims to comprehensively explore WhatsApp’s potential as a facilitator for English language studies, employing a semiotic multimodal analysis approach guided by Poulsen’s seminal work on semiotic technology. The study delves into WhatsApp’s intricate network of semiotic resources, semiotic regimes, and interactions, unveiling the complex interplay between language elements, multimodal features, and cultural aspects within this digital realm. Through the lens of semiotics, multimodal studies, and social semiotics, this investigation endeavors to offer a holistic understanding of WhatsApp’s use as an educational tool, shedding light on its multifaceted role in contemporary educational contexts.

Low proficiency level learners' translingual and transmodal practices in teletandem: Challenging the separation of languages principle

Teletandem is a model of virtual exchange in which two speakers of different languages meet over videoconferencing tools so that they can learn each other's language and culture. Research and practice on teletandem draw on the principles of autonomy (each participant should make decisions about their own learning), reciprocity (each participant should assist their partner's learning), and separation of languages (each language should have its own moment of practice and should not be mixed). Some researchers, however, do not consider separation of languages to be a principle of tandem learning and few studies have challenged it from the theoretical perspective of code-switching (Picoli & Salomão, 2020) and investigated learner interaction using translanguaging (Canals, 2021; Satar, 2020; Walker, 2017). In this paper, data come from the MuLTeC teletandem corpus. Using social semiotics, we investigate six recorded videoconferencing sessions of a Brazilian/American dyad with low language proficiency level and explore learners' transformative engagement with signs (Bezemer & Kress, 2016). Results reveal that participants draw on all the resources in their complete language repertoire (García & Wei, 2014) through translingual and transmodal practices, which allows them to make meanings beyond what they can express within their target language proficiency, creating opportunities to extend their semiotic repertoires. The findings evidence the inappropriateness of the separation of languages principle which neither works in practice nor is useful within current perspectives in language learning and teaching. Therefore, we propose a reframing of the principle as the translanguaging principle: based on the notion of translanguaging as co-learning, each participant should play fluid roles of expert/learner and capitalise on opportunities to extend each other's semiotic repertoires within multilingual and multimodal interaction.

Educators’ uptake of Kress’s ideas on meaning-making and literacy: a case study from South Africa

Abstract This article is a practitioner-based account of the uptake of Kress’s ideas on literacy, literature and meaning-making in South African educational contexts, in particular, his integration of politics, semiosis and literacy. It examines the affective force of these ideas in South African classrooms in certain institutions during the immediate post-apartheid period from 1994 onwards, showing how Kress’s key concepts and principles provided a transformative theoretical framework for the work of progressive educators. A Kress-inspired framework propelled new conceptualisations of literacy and meaning-making in these classrooms and beyond – at all levels, from primary through to tertiary – and fuelled research from 1994 into the first decade of the new millennium. Given Kress’s insistence on the social, as in social semiotics, and his stress on the integration of representation, communication and situatedness, this article focuses on his ideas in context, how and why they were put to work and what their outcomes were. It is proposed that the South African case – although unique in many ways – may be relevant to postcolonial and decolonising educational contexts in the South more generally.

Adolescents’ critical, multimodal analysis of social media self-representation

In a digital society, adolescents’ lives are heavily influenced by various multimodal texts published on social media platforms. Digital texts challenge conventional forms of literacy teaching while requiring new forms of critical media literacy. Previous research has shown that teachers require professional development and support to include critical media literacy in the classroom. In this article, we report the findings from a study of two lower secondary school teachers and their students (n = 43; ages 13–14) in Norway. The study explored a framework for increasing students’ understanding of multimodal texts and meaning making on social media. Drawing on theories of social semiotics, multimodality, and critical literacy, the study explored how students developed meta-semiotic competence to scaffold their ability to critically deconstruct, challenge, and produce multimodal, digital texts. The study indicates that multimodal analysis and production of self-representations can be an effective framework for developing critical media literacy in the classroom. The study demonstrates that students can compose intricate texts that are distinct from social media images when supported to understand the meanings behind the symbols they employ. It highlights specific kinds of semiotic understandings that must be introduced to students to enable them to approach social media texts analytically and critically.

Non-Profit Organizations’ Online Engagement and the Limits of Charity Rhetoric: The Case of the United Arab Emirates

ABSTRACT This paper examines the use of social media, particularly Facebook, for public engagement purposes by nonprofit organizations (NPOs) in the United Arab Emirates. It draws on an interpretation of engagement as a multidimensional process with cognitive and affective characteristics where power relations between an organization and its public should be addressed. This paper combines content analysis with social semiotics to examine the multimodal production and enactment of engagement as a relational process at the level of the verbal, visual, and paratext modes. The study reveals that the use of Facebook by NPOs is marked by a strong control over discourse and low affective involvement, where fundraising becomes the primary function of the platforms. This demonstrates that the philanthropic identity and mission of most NPOs obscure the relationship management objective of these organizations and undermine their ability to effectively engage stakeholders on social media.

Toward the total semiotic fact

Abstract This paper explores the quest for an account of the total linguistic or semiotic fact. Speech act theory, sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, and social semiotics have all attempted, in various ways and at various times, to find a way to describe as much as possible what is going on around any speech event. While this search for the total linguistic fact will always be a chimerical goal, this paper draws on the inspirational work of Jan Blommaert to suggest a framework for moving in this direction. The acronym SEMIOSIS points to the complexity of what is at play, comprising social relations, emotional and affective domains, multilingual practices, iterative activity, objects and assemblages, spatial repertoires, interactivity, and sensory relations. Looking at data from a small Bangladeshi-run store in Tokyo, the paper shows how bringing in this wider set of concerns allows a more comprehensive account of semiotic moments.

Social Semiotic of Covid-19 Health Protocol: Systemic Functional Linguistics

Social Semiotic of Covid-19 Health Protocol: Systemic Functional Linguistics

When Actors Take Over the Products: Showcasing Hallyu-Influenced Indonesian Beauty Product Advertising Through Multimodal Analysis

The research attempted to address the research gaps in the semiotics of Korean-related media, considering that there were only a few studies on advertisements that had been influenced by the Korean craze. Capitalizing on the Hallyu Wave, an Indonesian cosmetics company, Scarlett Whitening, changed its Instagram marketing strategy to focus on its South Korean brand ambassador, Song Joong Ki. The data were two Instagram advertisements of Scarlett Whitening that represented their change of strategy in September 2021. The data were analyzed using multimodal analysis to find out the three metafunctions of the advertisements, referring to Kress and Leeuwen’s social semiotics theory. Results show that the representational meaning of both advertisements contains a solid narrative to invite readers to buy the product so that they can be closer to the South Korean actor. The interpersonal metafunction influences consumers to believe that the human model is very familiar with the product, and the compositional metafunction highlights the association between Song Joong Ki’s white skin, white clothes, and white product with the brand’s name. However, the analysis also indicates an extreme spotlight on the South Korean actor and a stark neglect of the product across the linguistic, visual, and spatial semiotic systems. The research is significant in revealing a potentially concerning upcoming business marketing strategy that capitalizes on the popularity of Korean culture at the cost of neglecting the authenticity of their products.

Multimodal meaning-making in student presentations: the impact of explicit feedback in a German as a foreign language classroom

Abstract This study examines the impact of teacher feedback on seven students’ presentations on social and cultural topics held in a German-as-a-foreign language classroom in Japan. Following the submission of self-recorded presentation drafts on an online learning platform, students received explicit feedback on how their spoken commentary related to the visible information on slides derived from the theoretical insights of social semiotics and systemic functional linguistics. After allocating one class to revising their work, students presented their finalized presentations, which were video recorded, cut, and prepared for analysis. Subsequently, a total of 14 sections that underwent alterations in both the draft and in-class presentation were scrutinized following a qualitative multimodal discourse analytical framework. By demonstrating the differences between two students’ early drafts and their final in-class presentations, this study shows how adding verbal language that extended a slide’s content strengthened audience engagement through interpersonal functions in language, gaze, body orientation, and gesture. Further, restructuring and inserting additional entities on the PowerPoint slide helped emphasize the talk’s ideational components. The findings of this study have implications for multiliteracies pedagogy in a foreign language context, highlighting the importance of a holistic approach that considers language and other modes as complementary aspects of communication.

Exploring the materiality of science learning: analytical frameworks for examining interactions with material objects in science meaning-making

ABSTRACT Background With a growing new materialism paradigm and research on multimodality, there is an increasing attention on the role of material objects in science teaching and learning. However, there is currently no available framework, coding scheme, or method of inquiry to specifically analyze the use of material objects in science meaning-making. Purpose This paper presents and discusses two analytical frameworks developed to examine teachers’ and students’ interaction with material objects during classroom discourse. Design and methods The first analytical framework was theoretically informed by multimodal interaction analysis (MIA), focusing on humans’ situated interaction using embodied and disembodied modes located in the material world. The second framework was informed by social semiotics multimodal analysis (SSMA), focusing on material interaction as a semiotic mode with unique affordances for sign-makers to make meaning alongside other semiotic modes (e.g. speech, gesture). Sample Both frameworks are used to analyze two vignettes of classroom discourse generated from video data to illustrate their applications, coding procedures, and interpretative potential. Results The MIA-informed framework highlighted the dynamic and reciprocal relations between students’ experiences and the transformation of materials, while the SSMA-informed framework highlighted the subtle meanings constructed with the unique affordances of the material mode. Conclusion The affordances and limitations of the two frameworks are discussed, along with their compatibility and complementary relations. This work contributes to the emerging field of materiality in science education research and provides a foundation for future studies on the analysis of material interaction in science meaning-making.

Multimodal Discourse Analysis Theory Applied to Senior High School English Reading Teaching

Reading English is required for high school students to gain language proficiency, enhance their cultural awareness, and broaden their global perspective. This study incorporates the theory of multimodal discourse analysis into English reading teaching for high school students based on the principles of social semiotics and systemic functional linguistics. The results indicate that utilizing multimodal discourse analysis theory in high school English reading enhances students' focus in class and boosts their English reading scores. Additionally, it facilitates their comprehension of text information and establishes a solid basis for developing multiple literacies.
 
 Keywords: Multimodal discourse analysis theory; Senior high school; English reading teaching

Konstruksi Kecantikan Perempuan Pada Feature How To Do Di Kanal Beauty Fimela.Com

This study aims to examine the construction of women’s beauty and how existentialist feminists observe the how-to-do feature on the beauty channel Fimela.com. This article utilizes social semiotics as explained by M.A.K Halliday. The beauty construction formed by Fimela.com refers to a healthy, clean, fresh body, shining eyes, smooth clean face, free of black spots and has small pores, glowing face, no eye bags and acne scars. Beauty can be obtained in three ways: naturally, through makeup, and through instant methods. In respect of existentialist feminism, women have not yet realized their right to be free and are still objects of patriarchy. Narcissism appears in features with many women considering physical beauty important to be recognized in the public sphere. Beauty care is very important for women. This is illustrated from the discourse field: discussing beauty tips and tricks, beauty steps achieved instantly and naturally through makeup. Involvement of discourse: resource persons with domestic or international credentials who have high credibility in their fields, are intelligent, and have positive inspiration for readers. Means of discourse: there are terms of cosmetology and medical terms using semi-formal language.