Visual Social Semiotics

"Le basi teoriche della Sociosemiotica e le sue applicazioni nell'analisi di film, programmi e canali televisivi, pubblicità e opere di videoarte.

Sociosemiotics theories and their application to the analysis of films, tv programmes and tv channels, advertising and video art."

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate how visual aesthetic referents used in branding can help foster a transnational imagined community (TIC). The authors use brands embedded with Middle Eastern visual aesthetics as a research context. As such, the study aims to examine how Middle Eastern non-figurative art is used by non-Middle Eastern brands to foster an imagined Middle Easternness. Design/methodology/approach – Through a critical visual analysis, the authors apply a visual social semiotic approach to Middle Eastern art canons to better understand the dimensions of transnational imagined communities. Findings – The study finds and discusses six sub-dimensions of Middle Easternness, which compose two overarching dimensions of TIC, namely, temporal and spatial. These sub-dimensions provide brand managers and designers with six different ways to foster transnational imagined communities through the use of visual aesthetic referents in branding. Research limitations/i...

This paper focuses on the urban graffiti painted with a political message by different
movements of the Italian political radicalism in the cities of Rome, Florence, Massa,
Carrara, Verona and Udine. For the purpose of this article, during the period from June
2011 to June 2012, a total of 165 graffiti have been photographed, of which 83 painted by
neo-fascist groups, 72 by extreme left groups and 10 by anarchist groups. These three
macro communities, made of different subgroups, emerged as the most active in expressing
their antagonism towards the parliamentary parties with their graffiti that combine semantic
(words) and semiotic (images) elements. An analysis of the collected graffiti’s language
form, meaning and context allows for the identification of the variety of styles of
communication adopted by the different political antagonisms and the different contents of
their communication through graffiti as well as the key elements of their political identities.
Key words: political radicalism, graffiti, linguistics

بناها معمولاً افزون بر كاربرد بناگونه‌شان، گاه كاركردهاي اجتماعي‌فرهنگي ديگري نيز دارند كه لزوماً برگرفته از عنصر ساختماني آن‌ها نيست. در اين ميان، ‌برخي بناها در شرايط تاريخي و موقعيتي خاصي، ويژگي‌هاي متمايزي پيدا مي‌كنند و در نتيجه تداعي‌گر امور ديگري مي‌شوند. به عبارت ديگر، كاركرد معمارانه‌ی بنا معنايي از آن است،‌ و كاركردهاي ديگر، كه مبتني بر تداعي‌هاي تاريخي، ‌سياسي، اجتماعي، فرهنگي، قومي و مانند آن‌هاست، معناهاي ديگر آن بنا را تشكيل مي‌دهد. پس‌ يك بنا ممكن در طول عمر خود شاهد دگرگوني‌هاي معنايي فراواني شود. گاه همين تداعي‌ها (البته تداعي‌هاي جمعي) به مرور به مرز دلالت و معناهاي مشخص‌تر و شكل يافته‌تر نزدیک مي‌شود. با اين توضيح،‌ برج «آزادي» يا «شهياد» و ميدان پيرامون آن در چهار دهه‌ی‌ عمر خود حامل و بازتابنده‌ی دگرگوني‌هاي اجتماعي‌فرهنگي و نيز گاه موقعيتي و ساختماني متفاوتي بوده است. بنابراين بر بار معناي تداعي‌گونه، و گاه دلالت‌گونه‌ی‌ آن افزوده شده است. اين وضعيت با توجه به تقابل،‌ تعامل و پيوند و رقابت آن با ديگر بناهاي پيرامون،‌ موقعيت پيرامون يا ديگر بناها و موقعيت‌هاي شهر تهران و حتي ايران و خارج از ايران وضعيت پيچيده‌تري به خود گرفته است. در اين ميان، ‌بويژه تلاش مي‌شود،‌ افزون بر بررسي كاركردهاي معنايي تداعي‌گونه‌ی اين بنا و ميدان آن، ارتباطش با «برج ميلاد» نيز بررسي شود.

Chapter Abstract This chapter proposes an educational definition of visual literacy for the early grades. Currently, beginning literacy instruction is far too print-centric, with limited pragmatic use in a highly visual and image-based world. At the same time, "visual literacy" as a field of thought crosses many disciplines: art history, mass media, information technologies, semiotics, philosophy, and so on. While all of these disciplines are highly educational at their roots, teaching reading and writing to young children may not need to delve too deeply into any one of these categories for us to understand how to read an image. Meanwhile, linguistic print itself can take on visual modes (e.g., color, size, slant, shape, etc.), which portends meaning beyond the phoneme-grapheme connection, and which also means we can't throw out linguistic print altogether. Print, after all, is still visual, and is still a form of social semiotics; it just needs to be put in perspecti...

A presente pesquisa explora as maneiras pelas quais as pessoas se dão a ver no mundo ao transitar por determinadas ruas das cidades, “passarelas do cotidiano” nas quais o jogo de visibilidades é imperativo, delineando práticas denominadas como “desfiles do cotidiano”. A problemática é compreender, por meio de observações in loco, como tais exibições da aparência permitem uma construção identitária, por meio dos jogos de visibilidade e interações, tanto entre aqueles
que desfilam quanto entre esses e a cidade pela qual circulam. As ruas de comércio e consumo de Moda, com suas proposições de modos de consumir produtos e sociabilidades, loci dessas interações, são elencadas como objetos de pesquisa. Assume-se como objetivo encontrar, nos vários mecanismos de construção da aparência do sujeito, os processos e dinâmicas de construção identitária individuais e coletivos que se dão entre continuidades e descontinuidades. Partindo
de uma contextualização de locais denominados Quadriláteros da Moda, elabora-se uma tipologia a partir da qual são selecionados dois lugares: a Rua Oscar Freire e adjacências em São Paulo, Brasil; e a Via Brera e arredores em Milão, Itália. O corpus é formado por 1110 fotografias resultantes das observações, as quais foram descritas e analisadas, chegando-se a invariantes globais (o tênis e a camiseta brancos) e locais (as calças do tipo skinny em São Paulo, e retas, em
Milão). A pesquisa tem como fundamentação teórico-metodológica a semiótica de A. J. Greimas e seus desenvolvimentos, como os elaborados por J-M. Floch, A.C. de Oliveira, E. Landowski, F. Marsciani, P. Violi, G. Ceriani, entre outros. Conclui-se que tais Quadriláteros se apresentam como espaços de pertencimento (e de não pertencimento) englobados pelo simulacro do cosmopolitismo, e que a Moda, enquanto tradução intersemiótica entre as linguagens, é também uma forma de
(re)elaboração da memória cultural que ritma o social. Nesse cenário, as dinâmicas dos gostos da Moda nos jogos de aparências se dão tanto por interações estratégicas, quanto pelas interações corpo a corpo, alastrando-se por meio do contágio. Conclui-se ainda que os sujeitos que desfilam por esses Quadriláteros se configuram, principalmente, como o que se chamou de seguidores da Moda, a qual se torna uma instância global normatizadora dos gostos. No entanto, a aparência construída articula variações que não somente evidenciam o local, mas se delineiam como gestos minimais que individualizam o sujeito, como pequenas escapatórias. Essa dinâmica concebe os sujeitos individual e coletivamente e, entre o ser e o parecer, constroem-se os simulacros de identidades e alteridades que arquitetam as interações sociais mediadas pelas aparências.

Umberto Eco (1975; 1985) has invariantly maintained that specular images have no semiosic status, basically because they stand in front rather than instead of an object. In his Kant and the Platypus (1997), Eco returns offering reasons to exclude specular images from signs, and definitely classifies mirrors as visual prosthetic devices. In this paper I argue that Eco is partly right and partly wrong. He is right inasmuch as he claims that seeing an object in a mirror must count as a case of seeing that object rather than as a case of seeing a sign of that object (or, a sign standing for a propositional content about that object). The only reason why we should agree with Eco on this point, however, is that otherwise we would be forced to admit that also when we see the object in normal visual perception, with no mirror involved, what we really see is a sign. But then Eco is wrong because he does not acknowledge that, although mirror phenomena do have no semiosic status per se, they may acquire it by taking advantage of independent sign-functions – thus coming to be part of what I call parasiticly semiosic phenomena. Specifically, since an object that is visually perceived in a mirror may appear to have some spatial or topological properties that the real object does not possess, it is sufficient for the mirror phenomenon to exploit an independent sign-function whose expressions admit spatial or topological properties among their distinctive traits in order for it to become fully (though parasiticly) semiosic.

Within the Bourdiean habitus of Indian culture, one of the most firmly entrenched icons is the Amul Girl. Created as a brand mascot for the Amul Milk Cooperative – a grassroots movement that helped India become the largest dairy producer in the world – the Amul Girl and her hoardings and advertisements have established a unique place in the collective cultural consciousness of both urban and rural India. What sets these advertisements apart is their visual representations of
contemporary issues in politics, culture, sports, and world events. 

Since her appearance in the 1970s, the Amul Girl has appeared on more 4000-plus distinct hoardings and advertisements across the country, and has become an archival repository that allows us to trace the social and cultural changes occurring in the subcontinent. Using these objects as signposts, the paper will analyse the symbiotic relationship between the visual advertisement
and social and popular culture in India.

In compiling The Routledge Companion to Visual Organization our aim was to draw together latest research and current thinking on the role of the visual in understanding organizations from a range of perspectives.  Through this, we seek to provide comprehensive insight into the ways in which organizations and their members visualize their identities and practices and how these practices are understood by those external to the organization, including researchers.  Visual organization studies includes researchers in the traditional management sub-disciplines of marketing and consumer behaviour, accounting, organization studies, operations management and tourism, as well as those working in areas of social policy, sociology of work, media and cultural studies.

In this chapter, I draw on a theory of visual consumption to show how art historical conventions inform contemporary marketing images, infusing them with visual, historical, and rhetorical presence and power. I invoke an analytical concept of consuming difference to describe a relational framework of contemporary brand identity campaigns that draw on what I call the ideology of the group portrait as a visual technique for representing identity. I treat advertising imagery much the way an art historian treats pictures as I proceed to analyze illustrative examples through the classic art historical techniques of formal analysis, compare and contrast, and interpretation—framed within representation understood as a cultural practice.

This book is an edited volume, with contributions by Barbara Stafford, W.J.T. Mitchell, Jon Simons, Jonathan Crary, and others. It was the product of a combined conference and exhibition of the same name, which has generated another book, "Visual Practices Across the University" (which is uploaded, in its entirety, on this site) and "Visual Cultures" (not yet published). "Visual Literacy" is intended to survey the meanings of the expression, and related notions such as visual competence. Some contributors are interested in the theory of literacy when it pertains to the visual; others in its rhetoric; and others in its implementation at college and secondary school level.

The book is intended to serve as a resource for conversations about what comprises minimal or desirable visual ability, competence, or literacy in a university or secondary-school setting.

This text is the introduction, the only part of the book I wrote--and so the only part I will upload here.

Black women are often victims of subordinating social power and ideologies, occupying the underprivileged sides of class, gender and race binaries. This study, taking into consideration the cross-continental similarities of the consciousness and experiences of Black women, puts forward that there is paucity of feminist studies on musical texts by African literary scholars despite their ideological postulations, as well as a dearth of stylistic studies on the text, Lemonade, to examine the goings in the text. Hence, this study is a stylistic and Black feminist examination of Beyoncé’s Lemonade to explore her choice of expression, in relation to the inclusive anti-racist and feminist discourses in the text.
Lemonade, the studio album contains twelve tracks, which were visually enacted in a sixty-five minute film. Consequently, primary and secondary sources are employed in this qualitative and descriptive research. The analysis in this study is therefore done, addressing the verbal, visual and aural as a full system of signification, by employing the theoretical frameworks of Mills’ 1995 feminist stylistics, Black feminism, guided by the intersectional postulations of Crenshaw (1989, 1991) and Collins (2015) respectively, and the underpinning visual social semiotics.
An analysis of the text, exploring the signification of the text, innate ideologies and observable intertextuality, shows that the singer is resistant to racist and sexist ideologies. The text is equally deconstructionist and intersectional in its approach. Racist and sexist situations were simultaneously interrogated and the power of a conjoined front against dominating social power was put forward. The intertextual references were cross continental to emphasise the inclusivity of Black feminism and the text by extension. In addition, Lemonade showcases the similarities inherent in Black and African feminisms. Essentially, Lemonade is non-radical in its approach, instead it champions rebuilding the lost and broken to a state of redemption.
This study is a part of the growing researches anchored on counter-theories in relation to racial and gendered politics. By using a product of the entertainment media, it is recommended that subsequent scholarships exploit the ideologies inherent in the media and also rightly anchor their researches on relatable and inclusive theories.
Key Words: Black feminism, stylistics, deconstruction, intersectionality, media, Lemonade
Word Count: 346

L'enigma dei volti artificiali è che non esistono volti completamente naturali, eppure non esiste volto che non sia anche naturale. I simulacri di volti, indi-pendentemente da come vengano creati-disegno, pittura, scultura, fino alle creazioni algoritmiche delle reti neurali-in fondo devono sempre basarsi su volti biologici preesistenti in qualche tempo, in qualche spazio e in qualche modo. Al contempo, ognuna di queste facce biologiche presenta un fenotipo che è influenzato dal linguaggio, dalla cultura e dalla moda, a inclusione della stessa moda dei simulacri facciali. I nostri ritratti rimandano a volti naturali, ma questi si atteggiano spesso prendendo quelli a modello. Lo studio semioti-co del volto non può però limitarsi a proclamare questo enigma. Deve anche sviscerarlo. Deve, per ogni categoria e caso di volto significante, delineare la soglia tra natura e cultura, trasmissione genetica e linguaggio.

È estatico ogni discorso che, costruendosi nel linguaggio e col linguaggio, rappresenta nondimeno una fuoriuscita da esso, un bloccarsi della semiosi, un venir meno delle distinzioni che fondano il senso. Trattasi dunque di un’impostura? Dell’evocazione impossibile, fra le maglie dell’immanenza, di una dimensione trascendente nella quale e verso la quale la prima si sfaldi, perdendo la consistenza di strutture e opposizioni? Rispondere affermativamente sarebbe forse semplicistico, sarebbe considerare l’estasi come puro effetto ottico, come sorta di trompe-l’oeil mistico. In realtà, come ogni trompe-l’oeil, anche l’estasi rinvia a qualcosa di più della propria semplice rappresentazione. Essa rimanda ai pregiudizi inconfessati di un’ideologia semiotica, alla trama nascosta, al negativo segreto che regge tutta la concezione moderna del senso e del linguaggio. Il discorso mistico, che corre parallelo e invisibile, spesso represso, a volte perseguitato, lungo tutta la storia delle religioni, esprime allora questo dubbio: e se il senso non fosse distinzione, separatezza, dualità? Se l’immanenza articolatoria che lo viviseziona non fosse che illusoria? A questo punta ogni racconto dell’estasi: al sospetto che i fondamenti della modernità, anti-mistici per definizione, non siano altro che una delle possibilità dell’umano, e che una storia non detta, in filigrana, si dipani accanto e sotto al moderno come traccia sbiadita di un altro percorso, di un altro modo d’intendere e di dire.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate, from a socio-semiotic
perspective, the manner in which the political regimes installed after the forced abdication of King Mihai I (on 30 December 1947) used the Throne Hall in the former royal palace in Bucharest to meet their own needs. In December 1947, Romania was illegally turned from a constitutional monarchy into a popular republic, with the help of
the Red Army. Then, the popular republic was transformed into a socialist republic, in fact, a communist dictatorship. In December 1989, the communist regime collapsed and was replaced by a post-communist one, a regime which did not seem willing to leave behind the communist ideological legacy, manifest, in the 1990s, in the brutal repression of anti-government protesters in University Square in Bucharest, or in the Romanian Mineriads of 1990 and 1991. The political regimes that succeeded to power after 1947 deprived the Throne Hall of its monarchic symbolism and used it in ways incongruent with its inherent function, albeit for official purposes. The manner in which the
communist regime made use of this particular place is indicative of its intent and success in reinventing traditions or adapting older traditions to its ideological goals, in order to alienate Romanians from their recent past, in disrespect for the nation’s heritage. Although the former royal palace was completely transformed into a national museum of art after 1990, a cultural institution meant, by its very purpose, to save at least part of the nation’s memory, political decision makers ignored the symbolism of a national museum such as the National Museum of Art of Romania, known to many Romanians as the former royal palace. In bewildering, yet not unprecedented fashion, the Throne Hall has been recently used, by the Romanian government, as a dining hall in a series of events that preceded the takeover of the presidency of the EU
Council by Romania in January 2019. We claim that the government’s decision can be circumscribed to Jean Baudrillard’s concept of consumerism, characterized by the rule of sign value as a status symbol. In addition, Jan Blommaert’s and Barbara Johnstone’s taxonomies further the argument that the Throne Hall is not a mere space, but a place, its function having been perverted by both ideological
manipulation and aggressive consumerism.

Di tutte le annunciazioni che popolano la storia umana e le sue svariate tradizioni, al semiologo non interessa la fonte in sé, il numinoso che all’umano si rivolge per significargli di volta in volta la propria presenza, intenzione, sensibilità; interessa, piuttosto, il modo in cui a seconda delle epoche storiche, dei contesti culturali, delle vicende sociali, ma anche delle sensibilità individuali, uomini e donne hanno utilizzato i materiali del mondo, quelli dell’immanenza, per forgiare i significanti del divino. Ovvero, specularmente, il modo in cui hanno immaginato, e creduto con fermezza, che tali materiali divenissero d’un tratto appannaggio di una divina intenzione di comunicare, stoffa della rivelazione, parole annuncianti. Al teologo, non al semiologo, spetta immaginare la ricostruzione della totalità a fronte della quale si dipana il messaggio divino nella sua vicenda immanente. Al semiologo tocca invece un compito che è insieme più modesto e più costrittivo; innanzitutto raccogliere e inventariare queste tracce: in quali circostanze gli uomini e le donne hanno raccontato e raccontano di un loro incontro con il divino? Utilizzando quali segni? Piegandoli a quali necessità comunicative? Il compito successivo, più arduo, è analizzare questi segni, con gli strumenti di cui dispone la metodologia semiotica, per capire se si possano in qualche modo catalogare, suddividere in tipologie, distribuire in atlanti che, anche al di là e a dispetto delle differenze d’origine storica e confessionale, manifestino nondimeno dinamiche comuni nella costruzione e nell’elaborazione del linguaggio.

This study explores the image sharing site Instagram to reveal how affordances, or uses of the platform, occur within a nexus of technological architecture, sociocultural contexts, and globalized commercial practices. It suggests social actors draw upon Instagram’s affordances at material, conceptual, and imaginary levels while using social media. This triadic modelfor theorizing affordances of Instagram responds to the need for mapping ontologies and typologies of social media within increasingly visual, intercultural, and non-Western contexts. The lenses of critical multimodality and a participant-centered method consider how female Gulf-Arab social media influencers operate through an interplay of shifting affordances in ways that challenge current conceptions of authenticity surrounding social media influencers. It is suggested that the triadic affordances of Instagram, occurring at material, conceptual, and imaginary levels, provide both influencers and followers with strategies of “fantastical authenticity” for navigating conflicting modes of representation and self-presentation within local and globalized economies.

This chapter consists of two main sections. In the first I consider the literature defining digital memes and suggest that digital memes can be conceptualised as an everyday social interaction involving movement, and need to be understood as groups of images. I also define selfies as digital memes. In the second section I draw on the previous chapter to locate digital memes as ideas of looking involving self, others and community. I then locate digital memes within the literature about visual speech and conversation.

Semiotics (sometimes spelled “semeiotic”) is the name first given by John Locke, and later reprised by Charles S. Peirce, for the “doctrine of signs,” or the study of how some things can stand for other things to still other things. This deliberate inquiry can be contrasted with “folk semiotic” accounts, which assume that there is some intrinsic feature about, say, the human voice or a painted board that makes them capable of signifying. Such a naive assumption does not withstand serious scrutiny. From a philosophical standpoint, what makes something a sign is an involvement in a specific sort of triadic relation. This relation is found in human/nonhuman and deliberate/nondeliberate signs alike. Semiosis, the action of signs, is what permits communication, but it is wider than communication. For example, if while in an adjacent room I smell that the turkey in the oven is ready, my pet dog can smell it too, and the turkey is not trying to “tell” us anything. But if the cook in the kitchen tells me it is ready, I receive that message, while my dog hears the sounds but is none the wiser (in contemporary semiotic parlance, my dog and I couple our Umwelten via indices, but the symbols at hand generate interpretants only in my anthroposemiosis). In spite of the fact that it has a long and distinguished history (especially during the medieval period), general inquiry into signs became an organized research program only in the mid-20th century. Today, in addition to philosophers, semiotics attracts a wide range of scholars, such as ethologists, cognitive scientists, linguists, art historians, logicians, media theorists, literary critics, computer programmers, biologists, sociologists, and so on. From a methodological standpoint, then, parochialism is not an option. The scholarly literature can nevertheless be fruitfully divided into theoretical and applied strands. Not surprisingly, most philosophers drawn to semiotic questions work in the former strand. Semiotics is not to be confused with “semiology,” a (now largely defunct) project that originated in the lectures of the linguist Ferdinand de Saussure and which was active in the 1960s, mainly in France. Semiotics, by contrast, is a vibrant tradition that continues to flourish worldwide. Although some persist in employing the term “semiotics” when discussing narrow studies that focus exclusively on cultural codes, such terminological misuse masks the fact that a study of signs is broader than a study of language. A sustained philosophy of signs, then, promises (as Locke initially surmised) to yield truly novel insights.

Objectives: To help students: (1) think critically about how they perform gender through clothing choices; (2) recognize how different cultures define masculinity and femininity.
Courses: Communication Theory, Gender and Communication, Popular Communication, Rhetorical Theory, Visual Rhetoric

The present paper focuses on the concepts of urban and linguistic space. It considers the city as a diamesic melting pot. Graffitism is seen as a communication channel that needs to be examined in order to better understand the urban language and its many forms.
Key words: graffiti, linguistics, diamesia

The study focuses on the republican murals painted on the walls of two cities, Belfast and Derry, in May 2009. The idea for the study was born during a trip to Northern Ireland during which I had the opportunity to observe the murals and to talk with some of the authors and with persons who had actually experienced
the events represented in the murals.
The nationalist murals have been studied by the author under different perspectives: language, iconography, political symbolism and social environment. Murals are, for sure, the community’s reaction to the British political and violent domination on Northern Ireland and they become instruments of rebellion representing
a collective request for freedom and independence. But they also represent a more complex phenomenon as they embody values and perspectives of the entire nationalist community in Northern Ireland. The study analyses the murals both as single artworks and as a collective phenomenon.A strong focus is given at all the political and social themes represented in the murals and at the different linguistic and iconographic styles of communication
as well as how different themes and styles combine. The nationalist murals are also examined under an artistic perspective with a special focus on the figure of the “artista armato”, the artist as a warrior that uses art as an instrument for communicating higher, collective (moral, social, religious, political) values. This
perspective brings the author to draw and analyse a parallel between the phenomenon of nationalist murals and Futurist art: a comparison based on the themes represented in the artworks, on the placing of the art pieces and on the social role of the artists.
If words, pictures and colours used in the nationalist murals become, as analysed in the study, the voice of the Catholic community in Northern Ireland, a voice not so often listened in the EU, it becomes crucial to understand what the artists
want to communicate, why and how. This study aims also to open up to a new research perspective based on a multidisciplinary approach through the integrated use of semiotics and semantics in ethnography in order to offer a more complete and holistic interpretation of the phenomenon of the Northern Irish republican
murals.

In the language of television advertising, it is discovered that there are observable linguistic elements stylistically conditioned by the copywriters to create effects on the viewers. It is therefore possible and necessary to find a simple statistical model that will explain, in a clear term, what makes advertisements on television typified and unique.Attempt is made, in this paper, to observe the style used in eight television advertisements selected as samples in order to identify the distinctive stylistic features used in the advertisements at the level of language. The stylistic features of the language of advertisement identified in the sampled advertisements are ellipsis, substitutions, coordination, contraction, repetition, simple sentence and declarative sentence; all used distinctively as style.

"Through explication of a visual research method, this paper theorizes how masculine identity interacts with consumption—of imagery, products, desires, and passions in advertising and consumer culture. We analyze the male body as a discursive “effect” created at the intersection of consumption and several marketing discourses such as advertising, market
segmentation, and visual communication, balancing between brand strategy—what the marketer intends—and brand community—the free appropriation of meaning by the market. The paper’s contribution rests in extending previous work on male representation into historical, ontological, and photographic realms, providing a necessary complement
between understanding advertising meaning as residing within managerial strategy or wholly subsumed by consumer response. We argue that greater awareness of the connections
between the traditions and conventions of visual culture and their impact on the production and consumption of advertising images leads to enhanced ability to understand how advertising works as a representational system and signifying practice."

Visual communication, as a subject, can be complex; as a practice, it is dynamic nonetheless. Its influence can be far-reaching, affecting consciousness, beliefs, behaviour, taste, among others. The skills required for its practice is broad-ranging. But with the accessibility of graphics and editing softwares, the profession in visual communication has become competitive in terms of "over supply", though not necessarily in terms of quality. This accessibility to editing softwares brought forth scores of visual designs that are found wanting in terms of visual grammar and meaningful design aesthetics. On the other hand, the availability of skills training in visual design did not necessarily address the need for students to understand visual communication as a practice that requires a load of meaning-making.
The last statement has caused the author of this module to develop a module in basic semiotics. This is also motivated by the idea that images in visual communication could only have their linguistic and communicative function when their use and development is informed by some fundamental degree of understanding and knowledge of semiotics. Semiotic skills, therefore, should begin the journeys visual designers must undertake in discovering their potential in the good command of visual vocabulary, part of the totality that is visual communication. The author, thus, thought that, prior to plunging students to the more technical parts of design thinking, a short course on semiotics is in order. However, as semiotics is a highly and technically academic field of study, this module is uniquely developed for students with little interest in academic jargons and engagements. As such, many of the terms and demonstrations in semiotics are replaced in this module with the use of more popularly understood vocabulary. Nonetheless, extra care has been observed by the author so as not to trivialize​ the theories developed by semioticians, mostly coming from the field of academics.

Un vento di protesta sta scuotendo il mondo intero. È un vento che soffia da lontano, ma in questi ultimi tempi si è fatto impetuoso. Le elezioni presidenziali in Iran nel 2009, i moti di rivolta in Tunisia, Egitto, Siria, per tutto il Medio Oriente; l’occupazione simbolica di Wall Street; il “15 de M” spagnolo, con la Plaza de Sol gremita di dimostranti; i sollevamenti contro il TAV Torino-Lione in Italia, le lotte degli operai e quelle dei disoccupati; il sommovimento politico contro governi vecchi e inefficienti. Pare che a un certo punto della storia il mondo si sia acceso, e continui a pulsare con luce intermittente sin da allora: fuochi di protesta divampano, si diffondono, divorano regimi, governi, leggi; alcuni si propagano da una parte all’altra del globo attraverso la nuova scintilla di Internet, altri si sopiscono ed estinguono.
Lo studioso può, come ogni altro, entusiasmarsi di fronte a tanta energia umana, a tanto desiderio di rinnovamento, allo spettacolo del motore della storia che sembra come per incanto prendere abbrivio e non arrestarsi più; lo studioso può appassionarsi a tutto questo e forse deve. Però lo studioso deve, innanzitutto, capire e aiutare a capire. Perché la protesta si scatena in certe circostanze e non in altre? Cosa muove gli individui, i gruppi, i popoli a sognare uno stato di cose differente, ad accorgersi dell’inadeguatezza delle proprie esistenze, a produrre linguaggio e azione per cambiarne i connotati? Che cosa fa scattare in alcuni la molla della protesta, e cosa spinge invece gli altri a tacere, a sopportare, ad accettare? E poi come si costruiscono i modi della protesta, secondo quali leggi, quali regolarità, quali innovazioni?
Comprendere i modi attraverso cui individui e gruppi attualmente costruiscono i testi della protesta e come tali testi si volgano in testimonianza sociale più o meno efficace pare un compito imprescindibile per una semiotica che si voglia sempre più al centro della società contemporanea e delle pressanti richieste di conoscenza che da essa promanano.

Meine Abschlussarbeit an der Uni beschäftigt sich mit der Multimodalität im japanischen Manga und insbesondere von der Ansicht der Theorie Social Semiotics von Gunther Kress und  Theo van Leeuwen. Es geht um eine relativ umfangreiche  Untersuchung im Feld Mangas durch die drei bedeutungsschaffende Systeme der Theorie Social Semiotics.     

Stand: 27.5.2016

The social sciences have mostly focused on the formation of social opinions from a semantic point of view: given a certain semantic field, interviews, statistics, and other analytical instruments are commonly deployed in order to map the distribution of views, their evolution, their conflicts, and their agreements. Socio–semiotics, social semiotics, and the other semiotic branches that bear on social inquiry have contributed to the effort by providing semiotic grids of categorization. These grids too, however, have been mostly related to semantic contents circulating through societies and their cultures. The present article pursues a different hypothesis. After briefly recalling the events of 7–9 January 2015 in the Parisian area, the article seeks to survey and map the syntax of progressive differentiation of opinions circulating in the social networks about such events. Some patterns are identified and semiotically described: 1) cleavage; 2) comparative relativizing; 3) blurring sarcasm; 4) anonymity; 5) unfocused responsibility; 6) conspiracy thought. A new semiotic square is created to visually display these patterns, their positions, their relations, and their evolution.

Typographic mimicry is the wrapping of writing in a “foreign dress,” i.e. the use of typefaces in which one’s script (e.g. Latin) is made to visually resemble a different script (e.g. Chinese) with the goal of evoking associations with a “foreign” culture. First, this paper addresses the formal aspects of this practice, specifically the choice of visual features to be mimicked. The core part then focuses on typographic mimicry as a social practice and includes a discussion of both the typographic knowledge that different actors – both lay and expert producers and recipients – must apply to establish and recognise the associated cultural indexicality and the typographic ideologies (i.e. beliefs and attitudes) these actors hold. The central question being investigated is how typographic mimicry is discursively negotiated. An exemplary metapragmatic discourse analysis of online reactions to a food ad and comments to two articles covering the topic catered at readers with different knowledge backgrounds highlights that typographic mimicry is not a “neutral” practice. It shows that central aspects being debated are the (re)appropriation of cultural stereotypes by users both outside and within the respective cultures and the related question of whether using typographic mimicry is generally (in)appropriate (or even racist).

К семиотическому определению понятия «модель» как гиперонима понятия «знак» 1. On semiotic definition of the concept of «model» as a hypernym for the concept of «sign». Аннотация В статье рассматриваются различные философские определения понятия «модель». Дается их критика. Рассматривается структура ситуации моделирования. На основе этого рассмотрения делается попытка заново определить понятие «модель». Вводится понятие транзитивной цепочки моделей с целью использовать его для определения понятия «знак». The paper concerns different philosophical definitions of the concept of «model». They are subjected to criticism. A new scheme of modelling is discussed and a new definition of the concept of model is proposed. A concept of a transitive chain of models is introduced and it will be used to define the concept of sign. Ключевые слова: моделирование, модель, определение понятия «модель», знак, структура знака, определение понятия «знак».

This article documents the operation of multimodal and rhetorical strategies in cosmetic surgery leaflets, with a focus on the interplay between the verbal and visual channels. It describes how advertising discourse exploits the image of an idealized female body in order to achieve its economic goals. Recipients are targeted through the application of the prevalent ideology of femininity, which in the Western context is increasingly dependent on patterns of consumption of body-oriented products and services against the background of (male) expectations of the female body ideal. It is argued that in this situation, which merges the private with the public and in which women willingly participate in the self-perpetuating ideology of male-defined femininity, women may, for various reasons, identify with the super-ideal sexualized images of women offered to them, while indulging in a mixture of fantasy and reality and sharing in the guilty knowledge that their own imperfect bodies need to be fixed. This article points out that such ideologies are very effectively studied through their multimodal realizations, where the visual mode, in particular, can non-verbally draw on and reproduce stereotyped representations.

This is a book review of: Frank Serafini (2022). Beyond the Visual: An Introduction to Researching Multimodal Phenomena. New York: Teachers College Press. The proof-read version was published ahead of print, and can be accessed at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/14703572221102531

What does the evolution of upright posture have to do with the origins of creative analogy? I propose that the two are vitally related. This book[*] documents the first phase of a larger project devoted to testing and refining this basic hypothesis. To do so, it becomes necessary to pay extensive attention to arms and legs—our appendage sets and the relationships that hold between them in movement and memory across our horizontal and vertical midlines. At their most extreme, the relationships that hold between our appendages give rise to new possibilities—prominently including the felt meanings, rhetorical powers and modeling affordances of X. The X figure is ubiquitous in contemporary culture, but attempts to explain our fixation with X are rare. In these pages, I explore the possibility that the X-mark is a figure of extremes and reversals—not primarily because of arbitrary cultural encoding but more basically because of entrenched body memories. These body memories involve our extremities, extended at extreme angles to form an extreme posture—a posture that is approximated across a wide range of experiences, many of which are extreme opposites. 

Chief among the uses and experiences of X are its tendencies to involve us in surprising reversals and blends. In ancient times the X-pattern was discussed as “chiasmus”, a figure which, according to Maurice Merleau-Ponty, informs the most basic elements of our bodily experience, calling into question polarized dichotomies such as subject versus object. Pushed to extremes, presumed opposites like these tend to reverse suddenly. Likewise, blended experiences of our bodily extremities - arms and legs, toes and fingers, hands and feet - provide a plausible source of grounding for unique human abilities like creative analogy or "double-scope conceptual integration". The book illustrates these dynamics by drawing attention to uses of X in history, prehistory and daily life, from sports and advertising to world mythology and languages around the world.

In short, the book argues that the origins and meanings of X go far beyond alphabets and archetypes to remembered feelings of body movements. These body memories are then projected onto other patterns and dynamics to help us make sense of the world. The argument is accomplished using a blend of insights from linguistic anthropology, cognitive linguistics, rhetoric culture and process semiotics to bring together revealing clues from languages, cultures and thinkers around the world. The Semiotics of X is the first step towards developing a larger argument on the important but neglected role that chiasmus plays in cognition. It aims to inspire continued exploration on the figure, with the full expectation that chiasmus will become for the 21st century what metaphor became for the 20th century: a revolution in thinking about the way we think.

*[Note: the uploaded pdf includes title pages, Table of Contents, Preface and Chapter 1 only].

This paper explores the inner connections between images and their traditional “others”, such as concepts, words, and numbers. Instead of inquiring into images as static entities, it focuses on what images do, that is, on their operational functioning. The aim is to develop a notion of images as “differential tools” that play an integral role in exploration, knowledge, and discovery, no matter whether they are used for artistic or scientific purposes. What I argue is that the development of such a bridging notion requires a rethinking and broadening of the notion of image, and perhaps more surprisingly, of the notion of measurement. Further, what I argue is that Cassirer’s notion of symbolic function is a promising candidate for a bridging notion of mediation that brings to the fore the inner connections between the sensible and the intelligible, the presentational and the discursive, the visual and the logical – and, by extension, between images and measurements. As Cassirer conceives it, mediation amounts to a kind of “seeing”, and simultaneously, to a kind of “measuring”. Drawing on this idea, I argue that media and technologies operate by a “differential logic”, and further, that the differential mode of operation is the inner link between imaging methods, usually classified as qualitative and observational, and measurement methods, commonly considered as quantitative and calculative.

The chapter deals with implicit meanings in political advertising. It argues that an adequate interpretation of some messages, particularly those that appear vague, ambiguous and semantically indeterminate, needs to be contextualized with reference to diverse extra-linguistic variables. These include shared presuppositions, institutional frames, genre constraints, as well as socio-cultural background, which may involve, among other things,knowledge of the speaker’s discursive history. Within such a context,words and other extra-linguistic signs may yield the relevant meanings which–though deniable by the speaker–constitute interpretations that are contextually plausible. Based on an analysis of an election slogan by a politician ill-famed for racist remarks and actions in the past, the article shows that a message can ambiguously convey preferred overt and covert meanings, with the latter potentially deniable once the recipients arrive at meanings that are dispreferred and excessively face-threatening to the speaker. The mechanism identified in the article is a common discursive strategy of racist and other discriminatory discourse, in that such discourse is subtly provocative, yet strives to stay within the limits of public acceptability.

Costruire e saper interpretare significati espressi attraverso immagini è una competenza sempre più necessaria nella società occidentale contemporanea, che fa ampio uso di messaggi visivi per raggiungere un pubblico più ampio rispetto a quello che verrebbe raggiunto con messaggi espressi in una determinata lingua. Questo però non implica che il linguaggio visivo sia universale e venga interpretato esattamente nello stesso modo da diverse comunità linguistiche: anche le immagini possono essere ambigue, e dare adito ad interpretazioni differenti, che dipendono in parte anche dalla lingua e dalla cultura di partenza dell'osservatore. In questo contributo vengono analizzate le vignette utilizzate come stimoli visivi per elicitare racconti di apprendenti nel corpus di italiano L2/LS Valico, attraverso un noto modello per l'analisi di immagini. Nella seconda parte del capitolo, invece, vengono presentate le peculiarità dei testi prodotti da apprendenti anglofoni, proprio in relazione alle caratteristiche visive delle suddette vignette. 1. Introduzione La ricerca relativa alla comunicazione multimodale e ai diversi mezzi di espressione del linguaggio è stata recentemente posta al centro di molti studi di carattere interdisciplinare e multidisciplinare. Questo fenomeno sembrerebbe dovuto principalmente al fatto che la società contemporanea occidentale è sempre più multilingue e multiculturale. Queste caratteristiche hanno comprensibilmente favorito e facilitato il diffondersi di modalità espressive che vanno aldilà del linguaggio verbale, come ad esempio la modalità visiva, in quanto un'immagine raggiunge e può essere compresa da un pubblico più ampio rispetto a uno slogan espresso in una determinata lingua. La comunicazione visiva, infatti, è sempre più presente nella vita quotidiana di tutti noi, basti pensare, ad esempio, a quanto sono cambiate le interfacce tra computer e utente negli ultimi trent'anni: se prima era necessario conoscere determinati codici (linguaggi) informatici per poter utilizzare un computer, oggi l'interfaccia visiva basata su icone rende l'utilizzo e la comunicazione tra uomo e macchina più intuitivi e interattivi. Un altro esempio di come la comunicazione visiva riesca a raggiungere facilmente un pubblico più ampio di quella verbale, è costituito dai manuali di istruzioni più recenti, come ad esempio quelli allegati agli arredamenti di marca Ikea. Questi manuali sono forniti in dotazione agli arredi Ikea su tutto il globo terrestre, e proprio

The call for applications of the doctoral program in semiotics at the University of Turin has just been published.

Scholarships are available for both Italian and international candidates.

https://en.unito.it/postdegree/phd/arts-and-humanities

Les média parlent tout le temps de « fondamentalisme religieux » comme d’un élément essentiel de la scène sociale, culturelle, politique, et même militaire contemporaine. Mais qu’est-ce que c’est, au juste, le fondamentalisme religieux ? Comment peut-on distinguer un message fondamentaliste ? Et d’où dérive-t-elle la force communicative par laquelle ce type de discours se répandit de façon globale, surtout à travers internet et les nouveaux social networks ? Pour comprendre la nature profonde du fondamentalisme religieux, il faut étudier non seulement ce qu’il dit mais également, et peut-être surtout, sa façon de dire, sa rhétorique, sa manière d’évoquer un imaginaire et d’y situer le bien et le mal, les alliés et les ennemis, les fidèles et les infidèles. C’est en connaissant les stratégies de communication des fondamentalismes religieux, en outre, qu’on pourra comprendre que peut-être partagent-ils tous, malgré les différences de langue, confession, époque, milieu, et moyens d’expression, un « air de famille », une perspective particulière sur le sens du langage, du monde, de la vie. C’est donc à la sémiotique, la science de la signification et de la communication, qu’on doit demander de décrire de façon rigoureuse les formes persuasives du fondamentalisme contemporain.

Landscape photography is a visual construction of nature. Viewing recurrent representations of landscape photographs can contribute to the creation of national and political visual heritages, appropriation, and cultural claims over lands.  Thus, landscape photographs serve as mediums for influencing political agendas and ideologies. These ideas are illustrated in this study by analyzing European, Palestinian, and Zionist landscape photographs of  the Holy Land (Zion/Palestine) from the middle of the nineteenth century and up to contemporary artistic Israeli photography.  I contend that landscape photography was employed as a political tool at the hands of European and pre-statehood, Zionist photography for cultural land appropriation in their political struggles, while local Palestinian documentation was absent from this arena.