There has tended to be an overemphasis on the teaching and analysis of the mode of writing in ‘academic literacies’ studies, even though changes in the communica- tion landscape have engendered an increasing recognition of the different semiotic dimensions of representation. This paper tackles the logocentrism of academic lit- eracies and argues for an approach which recognises the interconnection between different modes, in other words, a ‘multimodal’ approach to pedagogy and to theoris- ing communication. It explores multimodal ways of addressing unequal discourse resources within the university with its economically and culturally diverse student body. Utilising a range of modes is a way of harnessing the resources that the students bring with them. However, this paper does not posit multimodality as an alternative way of inducting students into academic writing practices. Rather, it explores what happens when different kinds of ‘cultural capital’ (Bourdieu, 1991) encounter a range of generic forms, modes and ways of presenting information. It examines how certain functions are distributed across modes in students’ texts in a first year engineering course in a South African university (specifically scientific discourse and student affect) and begins to problematise the visual/verbal distinction.
Genres are not what they used to be. They are both more and less. More in the sense that today many genres of interest are increasingly multimodal, making their meanings through the co- deployment of resources from both language and other semiotic systems. Less in the sense that as people cross institutional and genre boundaries on shorter and shorter timescales (surfing across television channels from genre to genre, across websites from institution to institution, and living their lives between as well as within multiple jobs, tasks, and institutions), we in- creasingly not only hybridize formerly insulated genres, but we now also make meaning along our traversals across traditional genres. Genres are becoming units, raw material, for flexible trans-generic constructions: resources for meaning in a new, externally-oriented sense. Looking at genre from these contemporary viewpoints provides insights into the phenomenon of genre from new functional perspectives,
ABSTRACT: The increasingly integrative use of images with language in many different types of texts in electronic and paper media has created an urgent need to go beyond logocentric accounts of literacy and literacy pedagogy. Correspondingly there is a need to augment the genre, grammar and discourse descriptions of verbal text as resourcesfor literacy pedagogy to include descriptions of the meaning-making resources of images. Some augmentation along these lines has involved the articulation of Hallidayan systemic functional descriptions of language, mainly focussed on verbal grammar, with the social semiotic descriptions of the meaning-making resources of images described in a grammar of visual design proposed by Kress and van Leeuwen. However, current research indicates that articulating discrete visual and verbal grammars is not sitfficient to account for meanings made at the intersection of language and image. This paper adopts a systemic functional semiotic perspective in outlining a range of different types of such meanings in different kinds of texts, suggesting the significance of such meanings in comprehending and composing contemporary multimodal texts, and the importance of developing an appropriate metalanguage to enable explicit discussion of these meaning- making resources by teachers and students.
Abridged transcription of his talk about the different affordances of various media, especially books and screens. For the former, written text is foregrounded, whereas images are foregrounded for the latter.
Hallidayan systemic functional descriptions of language, mainly focussed on verbal grammar, with the social semiotic descriptions of the meaning-making resources of images described in a grammar of visual design proposed by Kress and van Leeuwen. However, current research indicates that articulating discrete visual and verbal grammars is not sufficient to account for meanings made at the intersection of language and image. This paper adopts a systemic functional semiotic perspective in outlining a range of different types of such meanings in different kinds of texts, suggesting the significance of such meanings in comprehending and composing contemporary multimodal texts, and the importance of developing an appropriate metalanguage to enable explicit discussion of these meaning-making resources by teachers and students
On November 26, 1857, Swiss linguist and semiotician Ferdinand de Saussure was born. His ideas laid the foundation for many significant developments both in linguistics and semiotics in the 20th century. Moreover, de Saussure is widely considered one of the fathers of 20th-century linguistics and together with Charles Sanders Peirce one of two major fathers of semiotics.
Exploration of teacher and high-school students' co-construction of word meanings through multimodal representations and sociopolitical reality of learners' lives.
Signo is a website devoted to Applied Semiotic Theories. The study of Signs, Semiotics is the primary purpose of this site and explains various semiotic theories.
Exhibition space of the Ontological Museum of the International Post-Dogmatist Group. The poetry on this site has been selected from 'CollagePoetry' postings.
Touchon's works are constructed from distressed street posters that have been carefully edited...almost become recognizable letters or perhaps proposals for a new poetic alphabet but always slip back into forms and spaces...
The human brain seems hardwired, no matter what, for pattern recognition and for metaphor making. All good poetry is actively engaged in the latter. All good concrete poetry actively engages both.
...immediately apprehended in the way a road sign or...a navigational icon is. Slipping in under the threshold of awareness, the twisting scalpel of subverted meaning can strike that much deeper...
Collection of Ambiguous Statements. Helps Clarify the Enormity of the Semantic Web Project, in Which Machines Must Make Sense of Humanababble, or Folksononsense...
Collection of Ambiguous Statements. Helps Clarify the Enormity of the Semantic Web Project, in Which Machines Must Make Sense of Humanababble, or Folksononsense...
Semantics (Greek semantikos, giving signs, significant, symptomatic, from sema, sign) refers to the aspects of meaning that are expressed in a language, code, or other form of representation. Semantics is contrasted with two other aspects of meaningful ex
Semantics (Greek semantikos, giving signs, significant, symptomatic, from sema, sign) refers to the aspects of meaning that are expressed in a language, code, or other form of representation. Semantics is contrasted with two other aspects of meaningful ex