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Social Semiotics
Abstract
This entry provides a brief overview of social semiotics. It begins with a brief historical account, presents some major texts and mentions some research which has contributed to the development of the theory. Key concepts are introduced, such as mode, interest, sign, design, semiotic work, text and meaning making. The issues of literacy and education are discussed under a social semiotic perspective, showing how these fields are related to each other. An example from teaching-learning practice is used to exemplify some of the concepts.
Considering the popularity of websites in social contexts and their significant force in producing collective discourses, attitudes, and patterns of behaviors, this study critically examined the projection of visual ageism on news websites during the COVID-19 pandemic. The social semiotic theory of visual grammar developed by Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006, 2020) was the theoretical framework for the visual semiotic analysis of photographs. The search for data was conducted between March 2020 and July 2020. The study searching protocol included strings “older adults AND COVID-19”, “the elderly AND coronavirus”, “older people AND COVID-19”, and “old people AND coronavirus” in Google led to retrieving 71 photographs of Iranian older adults from Iranian news websites. The semiotic analysis of the photographs showed that the Iranian new websites continue to embrace a mindset that degrades the old people.
This article outlines a “strong” theoretical approach to sustainability literacy, building on an earlier definition of strong and weak environmental literacy (Stables and Bishop 2001). The argument builds upon a specific semiotic approach to educational philosophy (sometimes called edusemiotics), to which these authors have been contributing. Here, we highlight how a view of learning that centers on embodied and multimodal communication invites bridging biosemiotics with critical media literacy, in pursuit of a strong, integrated sustainability literacy. The need for such a construal of literacy can be observed in recent scholarship on embodied cognition, education, media and bio/eco-semiotics. By (1) construing the environment as semiosic (Umwelt), and (2) replacing the notion of text with model, we develop a theory of literacy that understands learning as embodied/environmental in/across any mediality. As such, digital and multimedia learning are deemed to rest on environmental and embodied affordances. The notions of semiotic resources and affordances are also defined from these perspectives. We propose that a biosemiotics-informed approach to literacy, connecting both eco- and critical-media literacy, accompanies a much broader scope of meaning-making than has been the case in literacy studies so far.
The 21st century is awash with ever more mixed and remixed images, writing, layout, sound, gesture, speech, and 3D objects. Multimodality looks beyond language and examines these multiple modes of communication and meaning making. Multimodality: A Social Semiotic Approach to Contemporary Communication represents a long-awaited and much anticipated addition to the study of multimodality from the scholar who pioneered and continues to play a decisive role in shaping the field. Written in an accessible manner and illustrated with a wealth of photos and illustrations to clearly demonstrate the points made, Multimodality: A Social Semiotic Approach to Contemporary Communication deliberately sets out to locate communication in the everyday, covering topics and issues not usually discussed in books of this kind, from traffic signs to mobile phones. In this book, Gunther Kress presents a contemporary, distinctive and widely applicable approach to communication. He provides the framework necessary for understanding the attempt to bring all modes of meaning-making together under one unified theoretical roof. This exploration of an increasingly vital area of language and communication studies will be of interest to advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students in the fields of English language and applied linguistics, media and communication studies and education.
This accessible textbook introduces multimodality: its origins, scope and the potential of multimodal research for understanding the ways in which people communicate. The authors illustrate the key concepts and methods in various domains while demonstrating how to engage critically with the notion of multimodality. Readers will learn to recognize similarities and differences in theoretical and methodological positions, and the limitations of different approaches are highlighted – including advice on how to mix and ultimately choose the most apt approaches for a study.
The book challenges widely held assumptions about language and presents the practical steps involved in setting up a multimodal study, including:
• formulating research questions
• collecting research materials
• assessing and developing methods of transcription
• considering the ethical dimensions of multimodal research.
With a wide range of examples, clear practical support and a glossary of terms, Introducing Multimodality is an ideal reference for undergraduate and postgraduate students in multimodality, semiotics, Applied Linguistics and media and communication studies. A self-study guide is also included, designed as an optional stand-alone resource or as the basis for a short course to help readers engage with the issues raised by the book.
This state-of-the-art account of research and theorizing brings together multimodality, learning and communication through detailed analyses of signmakers and their meaning-making in museums, hospitals, schools and the home environment. By analyzing video recordings, photographs, screenshots and print materials, Jeff Bezemer and Gunther Kress go well beyond the comfortable domains of traditional sites of (social) semiotic and multimodal research. They steer away from spurious invention and naming of ever more new and exciting domains, focusing instead on fundamentals in assembling a set of tools for current tasks: Namely, describing and analyzing learning and communication in the contemporary world as one integrated field. The theory outlined in the book is grounded in the findings of the authors wide-ranging empirical investigations. Each chapter evaluates the work that is being done and has been done, challenging accepted wisdom and standing much of it on its head. With extensive illustrations and many examples presented to show the reach and applicability of the theory, this book is essential reading for all those working in multimodality, semiotics, applied linguistics and related areas.
