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Modelling paralanguage using systemic functional semiotics: theory and application Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2024-02-27 Faksi Rana Al-Kahfi, Galang Adhitia Mahardhika, Muhammad Fardiansyah Irwan, Astri Winandari Berlin
Published in Social Semiotics (Ahead of Print, 2024)
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The development of L2 interactional competence: a multimodal study of complaining in French interactions Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2024-02-23 Zhen Li, Guodong Yu
Interactional competence is crucial for language acquisition but has been overlooked in policy and language education, leading to a lack of research on longitudinal trajectories in L2 IC developmen...
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Kongish: translanguaging and the commodification of an urban dialect Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2024-02-21 Junjie Ma
Published in Social Semiotics (Ahead of Print, 2024)
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“Ps. I’ll find you.” The discourse of postmemory in letters to executed and disappeared grandparents in Chile Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2024-02-09 Sol Rojas-Lizana
In 2020, the Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Chile started the digital project Epistolario de la memoria, which aggregates letters addressed to victims of the civic-military dictatorship (1973...
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“(scream)(wriggle)(dismally crawl)” – parentheses as semiotic resources for translanguaging and trans-semiotic practices on Chinese micro-blogging Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2024-01-30 Yi Zhang, Luoxiangyu Zhang, Wei Ren, Yuanbo Liu
While extensive research has explored translanguaging practices online in relation to named languages, written signs, such as punctuation, are under-researched despite their creative, multifunction...
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Discourses that undermine union movements: a multimodal analysis of union-busting videos Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2024-01-19 Theresa Catalano, Julia Schleck
Labor unions in the United States have experienced decades of decline, but recent years have seen a rebirth of union campaigns and successes. Because unions are once again becoming a threat to larg...
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Interpretive Sociology and the Semiotic Imagination Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2023-12-29 Haoda Feng, Gang Zeng
Published in Social Semiotics (Ahead of Print, 2023)
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Interfacing the semiosis of affect and crowdsourced spatialities in the context of post-panoptic surveillance. A case study of Safecity app Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2023-12-29 Rania Magdi Fawzy
The current study investigates the intersection between crowdsourcing apps and postdigital affective polarization of online communities as manifested in the mobile app Safecity. The main thesis is ...
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Artificial intelligence and visual discourse: a multimodal critical discourse analysis of AI-generated images of “Dementia” Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2023-12-14 Emma Putland, Chris Chikodzore-Paterson, Gavin Brookes
This article examines the ideologies reproduced in AI-generated images, focusing in particular on representations of dementia. Utilising Stable Diffusion version 1.4, a text-to-image AI model, we c...
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Translation, adaptation and digital media Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2023-12-06 Zilong Zhong
Published in Social Semiotics (Ahead of Print, 2023)
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Conducting sentiment analysis Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2023-12-06 Yaru Zhao
Published in Social Semiotics (Ahead of Print, 2023)
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New research on cohesion and coherence in linguistics Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2023-12-06 Lu Li, Junqin Huang
Published in Social Semiotics (Ahead of Print, 2023)
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Correction Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2023-11-26
Published in Social Semiotics (Vol. 33, No. 5, 2023)
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Correction Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2023-11-26
Published in Social Semiotics (Vol. 33, No. 5, 2023)
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Semiotic analysis of university prospectuses in Pakistan: marketization, identity, and power dynamics Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2023-11-27 Ambreen Shahnaz, Nazia Suleman
Inspired by neoliberalism, the marketization of higher education is being increasingly used by universities to sustain and grow amid intense competition and shrinking public funding. This paper pre...
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Discourse, modes, media and meaning in an era of pandemic: a multimodal discourse analysis approach Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2023-10-11 Xi Wang, Xinru Chen
Published in Social Semiotics (Ahead of Print, 2023)
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Language ideologies in a Finnish university student union’s Facebook communication practices Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2023-10-11 Mai Shirahata, Malgorzata Lahti, Marko Siitonen
This paper examines language ideologies – sets of normative beliefs about language and its speakers – in a Finnish university student union’s Facebook communication practices. Prior research has di...
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Fueling divisions: a multimodal analysis of Canadian petro-nationalism in the social media discourse of “oil sands strong” Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2023-10-05 Weiqi Tian, Jingshen Ge
This research conducts a multimodal critical discourse analysis of social media posts by Oil Sands Strong (OSS), examining their role in advocating for resource extraction through the use of “petro...
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Review of Language, Discourse and Anxiety Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2023-10-05 Min Xie, Wen Li
Published in Social Semiotics (Ahead of Print, 2023)
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Guided to Guider: the “∼ed” and “∼er” roles in professional development materials for guided Reading Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2023-09-15 Maria Nicholas, David Kellogg
ABSTRACT This paper takes a social semiotic, Bernsteinian, view of the language used to describe the Guided Reading teaching strategy in Professional Development session materials for in-service teachers in Australia. We use categories from Michael Halliday’s systemic-functional grammar and Ruqaiya Hasan’s stylistics to demonstrate a radical discontinuity between content and form. While the content
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The geosemiotics of ethno-political graffiti in Kosovo: polyphony, emplacement and heteroglossia Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2023-08-03 Uranela Demaj, Mieke Vandenbroucke
ABSTRACT This article examines the nature of graffiti semiotics in the public space of Kosovo’s capital Pristina. By adopting a perspective on graffiti as a historically situated and semiotic practice, we identify distinct ethno-political voices, each relying on highly multimodal-linguistic resources to convey their respective political messages to a wider audience. The corpus was gathered during a
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Examining the role of television programmes in legitimising inherited wealth and privilege for the super-rich in a society that values meritocracy Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2023-07-28 Philippa Carr, Simon Goodman, Adam Jowett, Jackie Abell
ABSTRACT Recent years have seen the proliferation of television broadcasts that focus on the lavish lifestyles and consumption of “rich kids.” However, flaunting inherited wealth is an accountable activity within UK society that claims to be based on meritocratic values. Whilst wealthy individuals are a source of public spectatorship, they are also attributed with contributing to economic inequality
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Analyzing the meaning of social images during pandemic lockdown Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2023-07-27 Juan R. Coca, Claudio J. Rodríguez H, Juan A. Roche-Cárcel, Alberto Soto-Sánchez
ABSTRACT Our paper focuses on the semiotic analysis of images as shot by photojournalists. The photographs we analyze were taken in two different cities in Spain during a period of strict enclosure. For the analysis, we asked photojournalists to select several images. Once we received a selection, we analyzed the content of the images and categorized them. We processed the resulting information through
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Investigating the relation between mind and semiotic systems: a review Linguistic relativity today Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2023-07-13 Hongying Xu
Published in Social Semiotics (Ahead of Print, 2023)
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The moral metaphor system: a conceptual metaphor approach Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2023-07-11 Jie Huang
Published in Social Semiotics (Ahead of Print, 2023)
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Advances in discourse analysis of translation and interpreting: linking linguistic approaches with socio-cultural interpretation Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2023-07-03 He He, Bing Xiong
Published in Social Semiotics (Ahead of Print, 2023)
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Corpus-assisted Ecolinguistics Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2023-07-03 Zirui Xiong
Published in Social Semiotics (Ahead of Print, 2023)
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Language choice and identity in the linguistic landscape of Barcelona Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2023-06-15 Marguerite Morlan, Steven Byrne
ABSTRACT The present research examines the linguistic landscape (LL) of two demographically distinct neighborhoods in Barcelona: Vila de Gràcia and El Barri Gòtic. The aim of this study is to analyze how language choice among Catalan, Castilian, and English indexes collective and individual aspects of identity in written messages on public walls. All transgressive artifacts in both communities were
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Review of introducing relational political analysis political semiotics as a theory and method Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2023-05-25 Kristian Bankov
Published in Social Semiotics (Ahead of Print, 2023)
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Misrepresenting autism in university promotional videos advocating robot therapy: a multimodal critical discourse analysis Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2023-05-01 Ian Roderick
ABSTRACT This paper presents a critical account of the way in which university marketing, public communication of science, and crisis narratives about autism are made to intersect in three promotional videos. The videos highlight research conducted at one UK and two US universities and showcase using social robots to diagnose and treat autistic children. The paper begins by contextualizing how a problematic
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Making meaning of an artwork: promoting expression of thoughts through artwork for patients with eating disorders Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2023-04-19 Kristina Timonen
ABSTRACT The purpose of the study was to demonstrate how art could be connected to therapeutic treatment processes. The intervention took place between 2020 and 2021 at an eating disorder (ED) unit in Vaasa Central Hospital, Finland. Eating disorder patients and reference group saw an art video by artist Johanna Ketola depicting nature and mystical features. Participants then discussed thoughts stimulated
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Making sense of platform-mediated residences in tourist destinations. A semiotic analysis of the controversy around home sharing in Barcelona Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2023-03-27 Elsa Soro, Ricard Espelt, Mayo Fuster Morell
ABSTRACT In 2021, the city of Barcelona made the controversial decision to prohibit short-term rentals of private rooms to tourists. The ban renewed the heated debate around the uses and functions of private property in the context of the contemporary tourist city, where the market of tourist accommodation has been significantly impacted by players such as Airbnb. This study aims to give an account
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Corruption, language and popular agency Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2023-03-21 Federico Bellentani
Published in Social Semiotics (Ahead of Print, 2023)
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Membership categorization devices in courtroom opening and closing speeches Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2023-03-09 Krisda Chaemsaithong
ABSTRACT Through the lens of Membership Categorization Analysis, this study explicates the process of discursive categorization in courtroom opening and closing statements, focusing on the use of mundane categories as well as associated activities to negotiate the legal facticity of a criminal offense. Based on the official transcripts of a high-profile Anglo-American trial, the study reveals that
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The social semiotics of Switzerland's far right: how campaign posters by the Swiss National Party communicate across different domains Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2023-02-21 Claudio Scarvaglieri, Martin Luginbühl
ABSTRACT This contribution investigates the campaign posters of the right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP) in four communication domains: in public space, in the mass media, their impact on other political actors and manipulations of the posters. This approach combines social semiotics, discourse analysis, media linguistics, and linguistic landscaping to present a comprehensive account of the posters’
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A reappraisal of the marketing offerings: consumer experience from the perspective of post-structural semiotics Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2023-02-21 Alain Perusset
ABSTRACT Since the mid-1980s, “experience” has become a central object of reflection for marketing as well as for semiotics, to the extent that meaning is always created during an experience. However, English and French literatures on experiential marketing often approach the concept of experience differently. This article argues that these divergences concern the thematic of the experience (i.e. shopping
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Semiotic representations of neoliberal dystopia in Black Mirror Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2023-01-20 Marissa K. L. E, Sabine Tan
ABSTRACT Neoliberalism as phenomenon has been noted for its pervasiveness, persistence and negative impact in society. The uncertainty, pessimism and tension associated with neoliberal societies have found expression in popular culture entertainment, more specifically in dystopic depictions of societies influenced by neoliberal logic. These dystopic presentations offer fantastical depictions as allegories
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In search of the social in social semiotics: a historical perspective Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2023-01-17 Lauren Alex O’Hagan
ABSTRACT This paper reflects on the importance of the social to the analysis of historical multimodal texts and how some concepts and analytical tools from SFL can prevent researchers from getting the most from their data. Building on the work of Ledin and Machin (2018), it looks at three main areas of concern when dealing with historical multimodal texts—context, attention to micro, meso and macro
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Romaphobia in the UK Right-Wing Press: racist and populist discourse during the Brexit referendum Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2023-01-12 Petre Breazu, Aidan McGarry
ABSTRACT This article investigates contemporary expressions of racism toward Roma in the context of growing populism in the UK. We focus on how and why Romaphobia becomes widespread in times of socio-political crises, especially during the 2016 referendum when the UK voted to leave the European Union. Drawing on content analysis and Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis, we provide an in-depth account
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For a semiotics of culture as a critique of culture* Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2023-01-12 Anna Maria Lorusso, Franciscu Sedda
ABSTRACT The text aims at investigating the vitality of Lotman's thought, focusing on its theoretical specificities (compared to other methodological approaches), on its recurring themes, but above all on its analytical, somehow “operational” utility. In particular, the authors reflect on the critical scope of Lotman's thought and on how the traditional unveiling vocation of semiotics finds in Lotman
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Inside Facebook’s semiosphere. How social media influence digital hate and fuel cyber-polarization Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2023-01-11 Remo Gramigna
ABSTRACT The journey inside Facebook’s semiosphere revolves around the present-day controversy on how algorithms foster polarization and discord in one of the biggest and most popular social media platforms, namely, Facebook. The present work focuses on the so-called Facebook Files as a specific case study. By drawing on these investigations, the present study discusses what are the principles used
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Remembering the other, repositioning oneself: the right to a biography and autocommunication in perpetrator and collaborator descendant documentaries* Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2022-12-31 Cristina Demaria, Mario Panico
ABSTRACT Can the perpetrator or the collaborator “speak”? How, and for whom? Do they have a “right to a biography” and, if so, what are the terms of this right? Who can speak for them? In short, what does it mean to work through their lives and the crimes they committed for those who decide to tell their stories? The main goal of this paper is to answer these questions using a particular kind of documentary
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Looking at the stars in the twenty-first century: Lotman's semiotics, progress and utopia Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2022-12-31 Inna Merkoulova
ABSTRACT In the article, we consider special cases of technological progress and social dystopia studied by Yuri Lotman from the point of view of the inhabitants of the first quarter of the twenty-first century. The analysis is illustrated by works of literary fiction: Kazuo Ishiguro's dystopian novels Never Let Me Go (2005) and Klara and the Sun (2021). Among the central issues discussed are the limits
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Affectivization of borders in the digital sphere: migration-related online narratives in Argentina Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2022-12-31 Laura Gherlone
ABSTRACT The topic of borders is an active research area in Lotmanian studies. Starting from this scholarship, the article aims to open up fresh possibilities for interpretation of Lotman's spatial-driven theory, making it dialogue with the cultural affect studies and the current communication-focused research on the digital sphere. This theoretical framework underpins the case study covered in the
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Qanons, anti-vaxxers, and alternative health influencers: a cultural semiotic perspective on the links between conspiracy theories, spirituality, and wellness during the Covid-19 pandemic Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2022-12-31 Paolo Demuru
ABSTRACT Scholars have highlighted the bond between conspiracy theories, new-age spirituality (conspirituality), and wellness. This paper contributes to this scholarship by critically analysing the underlying semiotic mechanisms that govern the overlap between QAnon, antivax, and Covid-19 related conspiracy theories, new age spirituality and wellness. From a Lotmanian perspective, I draw a critical
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The linguistic landscapes of nature trails: creating presence, marking absence, shaping meaning Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2022-12-06 Simona Soica, Michelle Metro-Roland
ABSTRACT Physical landscapes are often designated and given meaning through linguistic landscapes, markers, street signs and placards. While these are ubiquitous in urban areas, within the natural environment, linguistic landscapes serve to designate parts of nature, give significance, and educate. The dynamic, changeable character of nature means there is not always congruence between the linguistic
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“Yea I’m a f* Tomboy”: “girl crush,” postfeminism, and the reimagining of K-pop femininity Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2022-11-30 Xiaomeng Li
ABSTRACT “Girl crush” is a relatively new genre in South Korean pop music (hereafter “K-pop”). Unlike the stereotypes of female idols being cute and submissive, idols of the “girl crush” genre usually show provocative “girl power,” challenging the patriarchy by incorporating feminist messages in their works. In March 2022, a girl group (G)I-DLE released a song entitled Tomboy, which went viral for
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Actions and digital empathy in the interactive storytelling of serious games: a multimodal discourse approach Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2022-11-24 Chiao-I Tseng, Leandra Thiele
ABSTRACT This paper proposes a multimodal discourse method for analysing empathy-related actions in the interactive narratives of serious games. It first reviews recent theories of socially impactful designs in serious games, particularly the debates about whether serious games should focus on actions of tackling social issues or on the player’s emotional engagement. This paper then sets out a multimodal
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Metaphors of the virtual: how ordinary people frame what the internet is Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2022-11-14 Marina Dekavalla
ABSTRACT This article explores how experiences of the virtual are metaphorically articulated in people’s narratives of these experiences. It analyses a database of 171 responses by UK adults of all ages and backgrounds to establish how they used metaphor to frame their experiences online, at a time when the internet was increasingly becoming a platform for living everyday life. The article finds that
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Ghost signs at the mall: structuring semiotics and (formerly) branded retail space Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2022-11-11 Myles Ethan Lascity
ABSTRACT Research from both managerial branding and social semiotics has acknowledged the construction of space for retail establishments, while the experiential turn in brand practice has resulted in the more deliberate use of space to build identifiable characteristics across outlets. As a “retail apocalypse” has been sweeping across the U.S., forcing numerous chains and malls to close, these outlets
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The multimodal construction of political personae through the strategic management of semiotic resources of emotion expression Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2022-10-17 Nicolae-Sorin Drăgan, Gheorghe-Ilie Fârte
ABSTRACT This paper presents an analytical framework for analyzing how multimodal resources of emotion expression are semiotically materialized in discursive interactions specific to political discourse. Interested in how political personae are emotionally constructed through multimodal meaning-making practices, our analysis model assumes an interdisciplinary perspective, which integrates facial expression
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Tourist discourse and carnivalesque humour in children’s television narratives: learning travel from Thomas, Peppa and the Go Jetters Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2022-10-06 Deepti Ruth Azariah
ABSTRACT This paper extends academic debates occurring in the discursive intersections between childhood studies and tourist studies. Drawing on theoretical concepts devised by Mikhail Bakhtin and Erving Goffman, it employs a critical discourse analysis that focuses on the representation of tourists in selected travel-themed episodes of three popular children’s television series. This study investigates
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Street art as “street fetish”- a new signifier of social class? The case of Brazil’s “Beverley Hills” Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2022-10-06 Kellie Gonçalves
ABSTRACT This study explores street art's changing symbolic value and emplacement, the latter of which is reaching beyond the city limits and so-called 'public' space, where commissioned practices are being carried out on individuals' private homes and elite households in non-urban spaces. In this paper I focus on the process of “street fetish”, which has resulted from street art's contemporary institutionalization
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“The Amazingly Fabulous Tuk tuk Race”: mobility and carnival praxis in the semiotic landscape of Phnom Penh Pride Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2022-09-28 Benedict J. L. Rowlett, Christian Go
ABSTRACT In this semiotic landscape study we examine the 2019 pride celebrations in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, with a focus on its main event, the “Amazingly Fabulous Tuk Tuk Race.” This event emphasizes mobility vis-à-vis select participants who race in decorated tuk tuks, the city's iconic everyday mode of transport, across the city to complete a scavenger hunt. The study analyzes these tuk tuks as forms
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Russian train graffiti: a history of performance Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2022-09-17 Davida Fernández-Barkan
ABSTRACT This article highlights the “performative” aspect of graffiti on Russian trains during the late 1990s and early 2000s. “Performative” here refers to Judith Butler’s understanding of performance as comprised of repeated acts without an essential "core." Graffiti on trains proliferated in Russia at the turn of the millennium through Russian writers’ repetition of imagery from books, magazines
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To preserve and to protect vanishing signs: activism through art, ethnography, and linguistics in a gentrifying city Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2022-09-14 Edward Snajdr, Shonna Trinch
ABSTRACT This article explores how a semiotics of the artistic aesthetics of New York City storefronts is deployed as activism against processes of gentrification and redevelopment. We examine how this creative endeavor by two local photographers compares to our own ethnographic and linguistic interventions uncovering and addressing storefront signage in gentrifying Brooklyn. We also compare this art
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What do vegans know and how do they learn? Veganism as a social text and a form of knowledge Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2022-09-12 Liora Gvion
ABSTRACT This paper suggests looking at veganism as a set of knowledge that produces and reproduces habitual food practices and changes in semiotic habits and the meanings attached to foods. A semiotic analysis of veganism as a system of knowledge suggests its being a translated text that recognizes scientific and medical knowledge and the non-vegan alimentary system. However, it reconfigures them
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Street art/art in the street – semiotics, politics, economy Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2022-09-08 Kellie Gonçalves, Tommaso M. Milani
ABSTRACT The last decades have seen the ideological transformations of graffiti and street art once constructed as criminal acts and associated with urban decay to being acceptable and profitable forms of commercial art. The spaces and places where these art forms are found have long transcended streets to art galleries and corporate advertising billboards and campaigns making them “the most visible
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The battle for 5Pointz and signifying regimes: desirable subjects, hierarchies of value, and legitimizing state power Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2022-09-05 Ronald Kramer
ABSTRACT This article offers an analysis of semiotic regimes that accompanied the redevelopment of 5Pointz and the ensuing civil lawsuits. Located in Queens, New York, 5Pointz was a building owned by GM Realty, who allowed Jonathan Cohen to curate graffiti works on its exterior and interior walls from 2002 through to 2013. I identify the ideological significance of three semiotic regimes generated
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The white worker’s hotdog and the not-so-white worker’s falafel: food-based public art and urban redevelopment in a changing society Social Semiotics (IF 1.568) Pub Date : 2022-08-31 Johan Järlehed
ABSTRACT This paper discusses the dialectics of urban place and its public image, approached via an examination of the public process of proposing, debating, and selecting new monuments for the city of Gothenburg, Sweden. The analysis shows that while the proposed monument to the local foodstuff halv special (a type of hot dog) is generally received in a positive way, the proposal of a monument to