Social Semiotics for a Complex World

Author: Bob Hodge
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745696244
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Book Description
Social semiotics reveals language's social meaning – its structures, processes, conditions and effects – in all social contexts, across all media and modes of discourse. This important new book uses social semiotics as a one-stop shop to analyse language and social meaning, enhancing linguistics with a sociological imagination. Social Semiotics for a Complex World develops ideas, frameworks and strategies for better understanding key problems and issues involving language and social action in today's hyper-complex world driven by globalization and new media. Its semiotic basis incorporates insights from various schools of linguistics (such as cognitive linguistics, critical discourse analysis and sociolinguistics) as well as from sociology, anthropology, philosophy, psychology and literary studies. It employs a multi-modal perspective to follow meaning across all modes of language and media, and a multi-scalar approach that ranges between databases and one-word slogans, the local and global, with examples from English, Chinese and Spanish. Social semiotics analyses twists and turns of meanings big and small in complex contexts. This book uses semiotic principles to build a powerful, flexible analytic toolkit which will be invaluable for students across the humanities and social sciences.

Critical Global Semiotics

Author: Maureen Ellis
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429666659
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 269

Book Description
Critical Global Semiotics: Understanding Sustainable Transformational Citizenship incorporates powerful unifying frameworks which make explicit a developing global consciousness. It explores transdisciplinary ‘common wealth’ through focus on multimodality, media, and metaphor, testing two universally applicable humanitarian frameworks: critical realism (CR) and systemic functional semiotics (SFS). Every day, global citizens encounter an overwhelming host of genres and sub-genres, emergent semantic triangles, evolving semiotic trinity. Embodying philosophy, incorporating active engagement, this book addresses the political economy and cultural politics of diverse domains. Challenging daily drama and performative dharma, 24 analysts from 13 countries present current issues in Anthropology, Architecture, Dance, Feminism, Film, Health, Law, Management, Medicine, Music, Politics, Pharmaceuticals, Sociology, Sustainability Education, and Urban Development. The book’s integrative, unifying foundations will be of interest to researchers, academics, and post-graduate students in the fields of linguistics, semiotics, and critical realist philosophy, as well as to policy makers, curriculum developers, and civil society.

Bloomsbury Semiotics Volume 3: Semiotics in the Arts and Social Sciences

Author: Jamin Pelkey
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350139386
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 313

Book Description
Bloomsbury Semiotics offers a state-of-the-art overview of the entire field of semiotics by revealing its influence on a wide range of disciplinary perspectives. With four volumes spanning theory, method and practice across the disciplines, this definitive reference work emphasizes and strengthens common bonds shared across intellectual cultures, and facilitates the discovery and recovery of meaning across fields. It comprises: Volume 1: History and Semiosis Volume 2: Semiotics in the Natural and Technical Sciences Volume 3: Semiotics in the Arts and Social Sciences Volume 4: Semiotic Movements Written by leading international experts, the chapters provide comprehensive overviews of the history and status of semiotic inquiry across a diverse range of traditions and disciplines. Together, they highlight key contemporary developments and debates along with ongoing research priorities. Providing the most comprehensive and united overview of the field, Bloomsbury Semiotics enables anyone, from students to seasoned practitioners, to better understand and benefit from semiotic insight and how it relates to their own area of study or research. Volume 3: Semiotics in the Arts and Social Sciences presents the state-of-the art in semiotic approaches to disciplines ranging from philosophy and anthropology to history and archaeology, from sociology and religious studies to music, dance, rhetoric, literature, and structural linguistics. Each chapter goes casts a vision for future research priorities, unanswered questions, and fresh openings for semiotic participation in these and related fields.

Social Semiotics

Author: Robert Ian Vere Hodge
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801495151
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 300

Book Description
A textbook in communication and cultural studies. It offers a comprehensive approach to the study of the ways in which meaning is constituted in social life.

A New Philosophy of Songwriting

Author: Andy Ward
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1666931683
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 161

Book Description
Songs, pervasive sonic ephemeral acts that combine words and music, live in a contemporary world of commercialization as commodity. Flowing through our everyday lives as a given and oft-underacknowledged artifact to accompany our shopping, car trips, date nights, and gym days. Yet songs have a history as long as humanity and language. They hold a place, up until recently in our evolution, as an oral history library of the human species. Why then is there limited scholarship about how songs tell stories, and the ways in which those stories come together with sounds? And why is there a disconnect between songwriting as industrial practice and academic thought? A New Philosophy of Songwriting argues that all songwriting choices are storytelling choices and asks the question: how can we think about Song as one of the most memorable, potent, multimodal, and portable storytelling devices ever devised? In doing so, Andy Ward and Briony Luttrell make the case for rethinking the analysis of songs and practice of songwriting with an emphasis on listening. This is a book for songwriters, scholars, and song lovers alike. Ultimately, the authors challenge contemporary thinking on music and song itself and argue for a new theorisation of song as a multimodal storytelling sonic act.

Discourses, Modes, Media and Meaning in an Era of Pandemic

Author: Sabine Tan
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000772373
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 293

Book Description
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all aspects of our everyday lives – from the political to the economic to the social. Using a multimodal discourse analysis approach, this dynamic collection examines various discourses, modes and media in circulation during the early stages of the pandemic, and how these have impacted our daily lives in terms of the various meanings they express. Examples include how national and international news organisations communicate important information about the virus and the crisis, the public’s reactions to such communications, the resultant (counter-)discourses as manifested in social media posts and memes, as well as the impact social distancing policies and mobility restrictions have had on people’s communication and interaction practices. The book offers a synoptic view of how the pandemic was communicated, represented and (re-)contextualised across different spheres, and ultimately hopes to help account for the significant changes we are continuing to witness in our everyday lives as the pandemic unfolds. This volume will appeal primarily to scholars in the field of (multimodal) discourse analysis. It will also be of interest to researchers and graduate students in other fields whose work focuses on the use of multimodal artefacts for communication and meaning making.

Multimodality Studies in International Contexts

Author: Liliana Vásquez Rocca
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 100382532X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 285

Book Description
This collection responds to the need for theoretically informed and methodologically grounded empirical research on the global transformations in multimodal human communication and social practices in light of recent widespread change. The volume highlights the need to expand on the established approaches--Social Semiotics, Multimodal Discourse Analysis, and Multimodal (Inter)action Analysis--by complementing them with other analytical frameworks to better understand the impact of unprecedented global challenges, such as Covid-19, on the way humans communicate and make use of meaning-making resources. Bringing together established and emergent scholars from a variety of geographical, cultural, and linguistic contexts, the collection presents studies from both the Global North and Global South, including South Africa, Latin America, Brazil, and the Caribbean, to showcase new perspectives in multimodality research. This innovative book will be of interest to students and scholars in multimodality, social semiotics, and discourse analysis.

Visual and Multimodal Research in Organization and Management Studies

Author: Markus A Höllerer
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315454998
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 233

Book Description
This volume brings together two hitherto disparate domains of scholarly inquiry: organization and management studies on the one hand, and the study of visual and multimodal communication on the other. Within organization and management studies it has been recognized that organizational reality and communication are becoming increasingly visual, and, more generally, multimodal, whether in digital form or otherwise. Within multimodality studies it has been noted that many forms of contemporary communication are deeply influenced by organizational and managerial communication, as formerly formal and bureaucratic types of communication increasingly adopt promotional language and multimodal document presentation. Visual and Multimodal Research in Organization and Management Studies integrates these two domains of research in a way that will benefit both. In particular, it conceptually and empirically connects recent insights from visual and multimodality studies to ongoing discussions in organization and management theory. Throughout, the book shows how a visual/multimodal lens enriches and extends what we already know about organization, organizations, and practices of organizing, but also how concepts from organization and management studies can be highly productive in further developing insights on visual and multimodal communication. Due to its essentially interdisciplinary objectives, the book will prove inspiring for academics and scholars of management, the sociology of organizations as well as related disciplines such as applied linguistics and visual studies.

Introducing Social Semiotics

Author: Theo Van Leeuwen
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415249430
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Book Description
Introducing Social Semiotics uses a wide variety of texts including photographs, adverts, magazine pages and film stills to explain how meaning is created through complex semiotic interactions. Practical exercises and examples as wide ranging as furniture arrangements in public places, advertising jingles, photojournalism and the rhythm of a rapper's speech provide readers with the knowledge and skills they need to be able to analyse and also produce successful multimodal texts and designs. The book traces the development of semiotic resources through particular channels such as the history of the Press and advertising; and explores how and why these resources change over time, for reasons such as advancing technology. Featuring a full glossary of terms, exercises, discussion points and suggestions for further reading, Introducing Social Semiotics makes concrete the complexities of meaning making and is essential reading for anyone interested in how communication works.

Decolonising Governance

Author: Paul Carter
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351213016
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 300

Book Description
Power may be globalized, but Westphalian notions of sovereignty continue to determine political and legal arrangements domestically and internationally: global issues - the legacy of colonialism expressed in continuing human displacement and environmental destruction - are thus treated ‘parochially’ and ineffectually. Not designed for dealing with situations of interdependence, democratic institutions find themselves in crisis. Reform in this case is not simply operational but conceptual: political relationships need to be drawn differently; the cultural illiteracy that prevents the local knowledge invested in places made after their stories needs to be recognised as a major obstacle to decolonising governance. Archipelagic thinking refers to neglected dimensions of the earth’s human geography but also to a geo-politics of relationality, where governance is understood performatively as the continuous establishment of exchange rates. Insisting on the poetic literacy that must inform a decolonising politics, Carter suggests a way out of the incommensurability impasse that dogs assertions of indigenous sovereignty. Discussing bicultural areal management strategies located in south-west Victoria, Maluco (Indonesia) and inter-regionally across the Arafura and Timor Seas, Carter argues for the existence of creative regions constituted archipelagically that can intervene to rewrite the theory and practice of decolonisation. A book of great stylistic elegance and deftness of analysis, Decolonising Governance is an important intervention in the related fields of ecological, ecocritical and environmental humanities. Methodologically innovative in its foregrounding of relationality as the nexus between poetics and politics, it will also be of great interest to scholars in a range of areas, including communicational praxis, land/sea biodiversity design, bicultural resource management, and the constitution of post-Westphalian regional jurisdictions.