{"title":"The interplay between interpersonal and compositional meanings in multimodal texts about animals for young children","authors":"Maria Koutsikou, Vasilia Christidou","doi":"10.18680/HSS.2018.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18680/HSS.2018.0008","url":null,"abstract":"Contemporary science books for preschool children are multimodal texts since they combine different semiotic systems in meaning production. Along with their representational meaning (presentation of processes and participants), image and language in these books realize equally important levels of meaning: the interpersonal (nature of the relationship between writer-reader and reader–represented participants) and the compositional (composition of elements on the page). The study attempts a comparative analysis of two multimodal texts about animals for preschool children, to examine the meanings created visually and verbally at the interpersonal (address, social distance) and compositional (information value, salience) level. The analysis indicates that the two texts differ regarding the role gradually assigned to the reader (address) and the nature of the relationship developed between the reader and the represented animals (social distance). Additionally, these interpersonal meanings are reinforced or weakened through the positioning of the elements on the page (information value) and their relative emphasis (salience). Τhe different possibilities of combining visual and verbal means for communicating interpersonal and compositional meanings that emerged through the analysis, are discussed with regard to their pedagogical appropriateness and may support teachers in the selection, design, and use of multimodal science texts to promote science literacy.","PeriodicalId":36248,"journal":{"name":"Punctum International Journal of Semiotics","volume":"34 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82320652","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The war film as moral space","authors":"Panayiota Chrysochou","doi":"10.18680/hss.2019.0017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18680/hss.2019.0017","url":null,"abstract":"In Cinematic Corpographies: Re-mapping the War Film through the Body, Eileen Rositzka critically examines and interrogates audiovisual and tactile representations of war cinema through semiotic and phenomenological frameworks in an effort to historically ground the spatial production of somatic and aesthetic experience. She uses the term ‘corpography’, coined by geographer Derek Gregory, in order to foreground the relationship between war, cinema and the body and to trace the intersubjectivity of experience. She begins her analysis by arguing that corpography, which establishes a direct link between cartography (the study of maps) and corporeality, allows us to ‘articulate the missing link between already established theories of cartographic film narration and ideas of (neo) phenomenological film experience,’ since they also entail ‘the involvement of the spectator’s body in sensuously grasping what is staged as a mediated experience of war’ (Rositzka 2018: 3). In other words, the audience or spectator is viscerally and actively imbricated in a kind of participatory and/or affective interaction with the signifying qualities of the audiovisual images of war presented in film. Rositzka’s reconceptualization of filmic space as an expressive space of intersubjective or transformative embodiment and perception is indebted to Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology. By deploying Gregory’s and Merleau-Ponty’s theories she succeeds in foregrounding the incorporation of the spectatorial other in film and media studies and in reframing film from a visual genre to one which is both embodied and embedded in socio-historical and phenomenological contexts. According to Merleau-Ponty, perception is prior to being. In The Visible and the Invisible he posits a universal or ‘anonymous visibility’ that inhabits all of us, a vision or visibility of the flesh in the here and now which ‘radiat[es] everywhere and forever’ (1968:142). This flesh of","PeriodicalId":36248,"journal":{"name":"Punctum International Journal of Semiotics","volume":"2021 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80082839","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A multimodal pedagogical approach to teach a foreign language to young learners","authors":"","doi":"10.18680/hss.2019.0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18680/hss.2019.0009","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":36248,"journal":{"name":"Punctum International Journal of Semiotics","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89750865","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The impact of multimodal learning environments on the development of creativity","authors":"I. Sahakyan","doi":"10.18680/hss.2019.0015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18680/hss.2019.0015","url":null,"abstract":"This paper seeks insight into the impact of multimodal learning environments on the development of creativity. It draws on a case study of a three-day workshop ‘Creativity and Innovation’ held with first year Master’s students at the Graduate School of Management of Grenoble Alpes University. The goal of the workshop was to accompany students, through the use of Creative Problem Solving (CPS) techniques, in finding creative and innovative solutions in a real-life problem-solving task: to come up with an idea of an efficient system that would allow a longterm cooperation between students and the Sustainable Planning Office (SPO) for enhancing the sustainable planning of the campus. To this end, students were placed in a multimodal learning environment: designed with a wide range of multimodal practices (individual and team-work in small and large groups; rotation of group members; collective intelligence games; brainstorming; role-play; story-telling, etc.); working in multidisciplinary groups (students majoring in different fields); and were asked to provide multimodal productions (posters; oral presentations; ‘product boxes’, etc.). Participants were explicitly asked to use written language in their productions the least possible. Drawing on the analyses of the learning environment and learners’ multimodal productions, the study aims at contributing to the understanding of the impact of multimodal learning environments on the development of learner creativity.","PeriodicalId":36248,"journal":{"name":"Punctum International Journal of Semiotics","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74934951","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Introduction-Multimodality in Education","authors":"M. Papadopoulou, M. Avgerinou","doi":"10.18680/HSS.2019.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18680/HSS.2019.0002","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":36248,"journal":{"name":"Punctum International Journal of Semiotics","volume":"166 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73274165","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Beyond the bio-reductionist symbolic code: Experiences of multimodal education in Italy","authors":"Francesco Piluso, P. Demurtas","doi":"10.18680/hss.2019.0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18680/hss.2019.0011","url":null,"abstract":"Medical education is mostly based on a reflexive bio-reductionist paradigm, characterized by a technical language that is abstracted from the social materiality of the body and the disease. This linguistic code learnt during lectures is reproduced during the apprenticeships, in which a deceptive restoration of iconic and indexical links with the patient is integrated and exploited by the main symbolic modality of education. In this case, the implementation of multiple semiotic modes of meanings, such as visual and/or gestural, consolidates a rituality aimed to the embodiment of the medical role by the students (hidden curriculum) and to a further objectification of the patient. In Italy, groups of medical students and young doctors have been trying to experiment alternative multimodal practices of education and implementation of their competence. The aim of these experiences is to shift the focus from the pathology as a mere object of medical abstracted knowledge (and power) to the patient’s incorporated experience of illness and to the entire social and material process that determines health and disease. In these cases, multimodality is conceived as a strategy to restore a fair exchange of knowledge and practices with the patient, recognized as an active social subject in the whole care process. Through the comparison of these two medical educational approaches, the aim of this study is to demonstrate that an alternative medical education method should overcome the bio-reductionism paradigm. To this purpose, we will identify multimodality and its effectiveness not merely in the implementation of different tools (other than the linguistic ones) in educational practices, but in the adoption of multiple modes of sign relation beyond the hegemonic symbolical one.","PeriodicalId":36248,"journal":{"name":"Punctum International Journal of Semiotics","volume":"70 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83201821","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Reading as designing: A multimodal approach to literary texts","authors":"Rumiko Oyama-Mercer","doi":"10.18680/hss.2019.0012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18680/hss.2019.0012","url":null,"abstract":"The theme of the current paper has arisen from the context of teaching literature to undergraduates in Japan. I will base my discussion on several examples of visual translation done by my students. They were asked to visualise what seems most crucial to them in the story they read in the literature class. The paper explores the relationship between the choice of represented participants and what is perceived as a salient element in the story; namely, how written words in literary texts can be translated into visual manifestations and most importantly how the given visualisation is motivated by the reader and what it indicates about their interpretation of the written text. The paper first gives a brief outline of some issues of reading in the age of the internet and its impact on reading in general in terms of social semiotics. It will then draw attention to some specific data in order to explore the relationship between the affordances of two modes. What is there to tell the story and show the world-view of the reader? The data shows how different readers position their point of view, from which the story is appreciated. By looking at how the given text can contribute to a more active understanding of the story. The paper therefore explores some positive outcomes of a multimodal reading of literary texts. My proposal here is that the approach can actually enhance awareness towards language use rather than pushing it aside – in order to visually translate the verbal narrative, one needs to have a precise focus or a specific perspective from which the story is read and interpreted. The current research demonstrates the potential of reading as a more open-ended and creative sign-making activity.","PeriodicalId":36248,"journal":{"name":"Punctum International Journal of Semiotics","volume":"25 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88203355","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Vygotsky’s theory of mediation in digital learning environment: Actuality and practice","authors":"Aleksandr Fadeev","doi":"10.18680/hss.2019.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18680/hss.2019.0004","url":null,"abstract":"This paper researches Lev Vygotsky’s theory of mediation in order to address the challenges of forming a holistic approach in the analysis of digital learning environments. It attempts to analyse Lev Vygotsky’s approach to mediation and sign operation in learning, as well as the role of communication in the Zone of Proximal Development in order to establish the actuality of Vygotskian theory for the analysis of learning and teaching in terms of digital educational environments. To this end, this paper analyses how the simultaneous representation of artistic texts through various digital media, i.e. study material, shapes the process of learning and teaching. The paper explores the role of inner speech in mediation of study material by means of various sign systems, in order to illustrate the educational value of using various forms of media in learning. The theoretical foundations developed in the paper were illustrated by the examples from the digital platform ‘Education on Screen’. The platform represents a research project of the Transmedia Research Group at the University of Tartu, Estonia. The platform offers digital solutions for learning literature, history, social and culture studies in terms of school curriculum.","PeriodicalId":36248,"journal":{"name":"Punctum International Journal of Semiotics","volume":"27 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90658892","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Further advances in Linguistic Landscape research: Language and identity-work in public space","authors":"Robert Blackwood, E. Lanza, Hirut Woldemariam","doi":"10.18680/hss.2019.0016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18680/hss.2019.0016","url":null,"abstract":"Negotiating and Contesting Identities in Linguistic Landscapes is a collected volume featuring selected papers presented at the 4th Linguistic Landscapes (LL) Workshop which was held in Addis Ababa (November 2012). Brewed during a time of rapid changes in LL research, in the aftermath of landmark publications inaugurating a wider semiotic and ethnographic turn in LL research (see, e.g., Shohamy & Gorter, 2009; Shohamy, Ben-Rafael & Barni 2010; Jaworski & Thurlow 2010; Blommaert 2013, 2015; Blommaert & Maly 2014; Blommaert & De Fina 2015, to name just a few) and the launching of Linguistic Landscapes: An International Journal in 2015 (see esp. Shohamy & Ben-Rafael 2015; Shohamy 2015), it invites interested readers to engage with a whole new range of concepts, methodological innovations, and priorities, while critically revisiting previous findings. Incidentally, anyone who attended the 10th LL Symposium, appropriately subtitled X-Scapes and held in Bern in May 2018, will understand that the work in the present volume, albeit initiated earlier, has set the tone for the surprising variety of approaches and areas of investigation which were the trademark of X-Scapes. The book is organized in five parts –featuring three papers each— which are the major axes this review shall examine. Although the choice of having a bare minimum of papers in each part of the volume may compartmentalize research, it has an obvious advantage: it suggests (from the very table of contents) that LL is by now a radically interdisciplinary and multilayered field, even if we limit ourselves to issues of identity construction. The first part, Political and Economic Dimensions of Identity Constructions in the Linguistic Landscape, which follows a short preface, opens with Christopher Stroud’s contribution on issues of citizenship in the LL of post-apartheid South Africa, ‘a restless society in the midst of an extensive transformation’ (p. 3), in which the author documents the (regulation of) circulation of performing bodies-in-place, exploiting both verbal and non-verbal data. Stroud prePunctum, 5(1): 264-270, 2019","PeriodicalId":36248,"journal":{"name":"Punctum International Journal of Semiotics","volume":"211 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76500656","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A framework for developing preschoolers’ critical viewing of multimodal texts in formal educational settings: The case of commercial videos","authors":"Sofia Goria","doi":"10.18680/hss.2019.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18680/hss.2019.0005","url":null,"abstract":"Over the last years new communication contexts have reshaped print-based literacy pedagogy into a multimodal one. The changing nature of literacy is also reflected in the new curriculum for early childhood education, however without clearly articulating how this shift will be implemented in educational settings. Consequently, teachers are not familiar with ways to promote students’ multimodal competencies and are not trained to develop instructional plans aligned with multimodal pedagogies. The article discusses an on-going exploratory research aimed to provide insight into teaching multimodal literacy in Early Childhood Education. Specifically, it focuses on formulating learning experiences in order to enhance preschoolers’ critical viewing competencies concerning the intentions and meaning strategies employed by commercial video producers. The research included a framework of teaching multimodal texts, such as commercial videos, based on previous frameworks found in literature reviews. Specific learning experiences with commercial videos were designed and implemented in a Greek Kindergarten with twelve students. These learning experiences were organized in several units. Each unit included the spontaneous engagement of students with various commercial videos, the guided analysis of the structural features and typical functions of the videos as well as the guided ‘reading’ of literal and inferential meaning in them based on the explicit teaching of both meaning strategies employed by video resources and a metalanguage for justified interpretations and detailed descriptions of students’ responses drawn from textual evidence. In the current article, this particular teaching framework is presented in detail as an integrated part of the research project which is briefly discussed as well for the implementation of multimodality in teaching practices in early childhood settings and the enhancement of preschoolers’ literacy skills. Also, the constraints and further issues of both the research project and the teaching framework are being discussed.","PeriodicalId":36248,"journal":{"name":"Punctum International Journal of Semiotics","volume":"44 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91202642","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}