Semiotic Resources

Si bien afirmamos con Bajtín que los géneros discursivos son “tipos relativamente estables de enunciados” (1998, p. 248), y que como tales constituyen “arcaísmos vivos” (Bajtín, 1986, p. 156), en el caso de los géneros académicos se observa una cierta fosilización (Barton y McCulloch, 2018), que naturaliza su rasgo de academicidad como algo que simplemente se da por sentado (Molinari, 2022), o como sujeto a un puñado de convenciones formales, invisibilizando los contextos sociales y culturales en donde se gestan, y donde pareciera primar mucho más su condición de arcaísmos que de vivos. De hecho, la escritura académica viene replicando anacrónicamente y en gran medida en archivos textuales digitales los mismos formatos genéricos en papel utilizados hace más de doscientos años (Blanca, 2015), y, en el caso de las ciencias sociales y humanas, pueden rastrearse convenciones de herencia positivista que conciben el lenguaje como “instrumento que interesa que se vuelva lo más transparente, lo más neutro posible, al servicio de la materia científica (operaciones, hipótesis, resultados) que se supone que existe fuera de él y que le precede” (Barthes, 1999, p. 14).
    Ante este panorama, se observa la aparición reciente de nuevas prácticas escriturales académico-científicas, alternativas en términos de Sousanis (2022), que comparten el hecho de subvertir estratégicamente las convenciones genéricas hegemónicas. Así, si “la transparencia, la objetividad, la instrumentalidad serían máscaras que asume la arrogancia, las cuales, a fuerza de haber sido naturalizadas, se invisibilizan y hasta parecen inocuas” (Simón, 2016, p. 76), estas escrituras apuestan en cambio a estrategias discursivas que visibilizan la voz de quien escribe en la primera persona del singular,  y a menudo se vuelven icónicas, ya que tienden a tomar la forma de aquello sobre lo que versan. También tienden a ser performativas, pues en ocasiones el texto no sólo dice sino que emula al mismo tiempo aquello que dice; y multimodales, debido a que desplazan la supremacía de las palabras y se constituyen en la combinación de recursos semióticos diversos. Desde esta perspectiva, hacen foco en la presencia visible del proceso en el texto, se afirman en las operaciones de resemiotización, y explotan el potencial creativo y heurístico de la metáfora.

This paper addresses a historical issue in Brazil that is that topographic mapping has been performed without application of the theories of cartography to local reality. With the lack of research on this subject, the rules and standards for topographic mapping in Brazil are based on solutions that have been developed in other countries. Even though topographic maps are not a frequent topic of cartographic research, as cited by Kent (2009), when the methods, techniques, and standards are imported from other countries, they are established by considering different natural, rural, and urban landscapes; different histories of land use and occupation; and different cultures. Consequently, it is essential to develop studies that address the theoretical issues of topographic mapping and to verify their suitability to Brazilian reality, considering the geographical aspects that must be represented in topographic mapping. Such a foundation of scientific knowledge is essential to producing solutions that are adapted to the environmental conditions and needs of Brazilian users and society. This problem is even more pronounced regarding large-scale mapping, which is necessary for the management of urban settlements. The migration from computer-aided design (CAD) to geographic information system (GIS) environments in map production led to the need for proposing better solutions to define the symbology to be used as well as the digital storage of the maps. Considering this, in 2007, the Câmara Técnica de Cartografia e Geoprocessamento-CTCG of Paraná State, Brazil, formed a working group to improve the technical recommendations for topographic mapping. In those recommendations, the symbology for topographic mapping at large scales for the municipalities of

Esta investigación se basa en analizar 156 carteles preventivos de la salud pública costarricense, publicados entre 2014-2018, se toman en consideración las características, clasificación y jerarquía de los recursos presentes. El propósito es ahondar en la descripción del género de campañas de salud. Los carteles seleccionados forman parte de los archivos digitales de tres instituciones a cargo de la salud en Costa Rica: el Ministerio de Salud, la Caja Costarricense del Seguro Social y el Instituto sobre Alcoholismo y Farmacodependencia. La pesquisa se realizó por medio del software de análisis cualitativo MAXQDA 2020 y se dividió en tres etapas: recolección del corpus, análisis, y sistematización de los resultados. Para la metodología, se partió del enfoque de multimodalidad de Kress y van Leeuwen (2006) y el de organización del hecho lingüístico de Charaudeau (2004, 2006, 2012). Se concluye que la propuesta de Charaudeau permite clasificar los carteles según la instancia de produc...

European Years are a means of promoting European issues at a macro and micro objective of this paper is to provide the visual differences in the f European and national level. The approach visual communication: ATLAS.ti (computer assisted/ aided qualitative data analysis software) and socia l semiotics. The results of our analysis highlight two network views on volu nteering promoted through videos, a salience of transactional processes in the implem entation of volunteering at a European and national level, and a classification of various types of socia into the way in which two different qualitative met hods may be combined in order to provide a visual representation and interpretation to a European iss ue.

Esta investigación se basa en analizar 156 carteles preventivos de la salud pública costarricense, publicados entre 2014-2018, se toman en consideración las características, clasificación y jerarquía de los recursos presentes. El propósito es ahondar en la descripción del género de campañas de salud. Los carteles seleccionados forman parte de los archivos digitales de tres instituciones a cargo de la salud en Costa Rica: el Ministerio de Salud, la Caja Costarricense del Seguro Social y el Instituto sobre Alcoholismo y Farmacodependencia. La pesquisa se realizó por medio del software de análisis cualitativo MAXQDA 2020 y se dividió en tres etapas: recolección del corpus, análisis, y sistematización de los resultados. Para la metodología, se partió del enfoque de multimodalidad de Kress y van Leeuwen (2006) y el de organización del hecho lingüístico de Charaudeau (2004, 2006, 2012). Se concluye que la propuesta de Charaudeau permite clasificar los carteles según la instancia de produc...

Esta investigación se basa en analizar 156 carteles preventivos de la salud pública costarricense, publicados entre 2014-2018, se toman en consideración las características, clasificación y jerarquía de los recursos presentes. El propósito es ahondar en la descripción del género de campañas de salud. Los carteles seleccionados forman parte de los archivos digitales de tres instituciones a cargo de la salud en Costa Rica: el Ministerio de Salud, la Caja Costarricense del Seguro Social y el Instituto sobre Alcoholismo y Farmacodependencia. La pesquisa se realizó por medio del software de análisis cualitativo MAXQDA 2020 y se dividió en tres etapas: recolección del corpus, análisis, y sistematización de los resultados. Para la metodología, se partió del enfoque de multimodalidad de Kress y van Leeuwen (2006) y el de organización del hecho lingüístico de Charaudeau (2004, 2006, 2012). Se concluye que la propuesta de Charaudeau permite clasificar los carteles según la instancia de producción más prolífera y el destinatario meta con mayor relevancia; asimismo que la finalidad es, en la mayoría de los casos, incitar a los destinatarios a llevar a cabo una acción o cambio de conducta, con base en temas relevantes para al ámbito de la salud costarricense actual. Además, de este estudio se deriva la presencia de diferentes modos en los textos y cuáles aparecen repetitivamente; esto indica cuáles son los imperantes para expresar significado. Los resultados demuestran que el modo verbal continúa teniendo un papel dominante en los textos, a pesar de que todos posean un carácter multimodal.

This research thesis reported on the findings of a three-year, three-stage mixed-methods study examining instructors' use of non-linguistic semiotic resources to establish a Community of Inquiry (CoI) in their online subjects. Seven online TESOL instructors and their students at three institutions in two countries were studied and their OLEs were analysed through the lens of multimodality.

The results indicate a shift in CoI presences occurred after the delivery of a professional development intervention, though the non-linguistic semiotic resources that instructors talk about and those that students perceive as contributing to the CoI may differ. Furthermore, the aggregated results of the CoI survey may inform reflective practice undertaken by instructors. The overall findings of the study suggest that the choices instructors make regarding semiotic resource use reflect their beliefs and values in terms of TESOL pedagogy, modelling and the role of English in a global context.

This article has a theoretical aim and explores the semiotics of lists and tables. It takes a historical perspective and looks at both the invention of writing (phylogeny) and the writing development of the child (ontogeny) in order to uncover how meaning-making evolves through the use of semiotic and material resources. Lists on clay followed the invention of writing and were used for bureaucratic purposes, to plan and take control over e.g. food, persons and words, which we recognize in today's grocery lists, participant lists and word lists. When literacy grows and elaborated classification systems are codified, the table becomes an important semiotic tool that enables detailed and systematic comparisons by its use of materiality, where columns and rows intersect and linguistic and numerical signs can be combined. At the end of the article, I synthesize my observations in a model that shows what kind of meaning-making lists and tables are apt for.

This research explored how the memes were created with multimodal elements that could make meaning to create a humorous sense and function as speech acts. With the complexity of meaning-making, nowadays, it had become a trend that people could communicate online through Memes. Semiotics provides how the combination of modes, media, and potential meanings, that were applied to make meaning in memes. At the same time, pragmatics proposes details on how memes can function as speech acts. This research adopted a qualitative method using multimodal analysis by Leeuwen (2005) and speech acts theory by Bach and Harnish (1980) that were employed as the theoretical framework. A total of 16 memes were retrieved and captured as JPG files from social media and other internet websites; therefore, documentation was the only technique used in this research. The results of the study showed that (1) the integration of semiotic resources such as mode, media, and meaning potentials in memes aided the ...

Apropiación t ransgresiva y mult imodalidad en la escrit ura académica Máximo Daniel Lamela Adó, Mariana Musset t a Novelas desbordadas. Mult imodalidad en la narrat iva mexicana cont emporánea Armando Oct avio Velázquez Sot o Glosario. Mat erialidad y mult imodalidad en nuevas formas de ficción novelesca cont emporánea Mariana Musset t a Download a PDF Pack of t he best relat ed papers 

Recent research indicates that using multimodal learning experiences can be effective in teaching mathematics. Using a social semiotic lens within a participationist framework, this paper reports on a professional learning collaboration with a primary school teacher designed to explore the use of metaphors and modalities in mathematics instruction. This video case study was conducted in a year 2 classroom over two terms, with the focus on building children’s understanding of computational strategies. The findings revealed that the teacher was able to successfully plan both multimodal and multiple metaphor learning experiences that acted as semiotic resources to support the children’s understanding of abstract mathematics. The study also led to implications for teaching when using multiple metaphors and multimodalities.

Te goal of this paper is to present some concepts concerning geographic ontologies and especially the use of spatial relations. Ontologies can be defned as a kind of semantic networks for the description of the real world; they are essentially graphs between concepts linked by relations such as is_a, has_a, part_whole. But the scope of geographic ontologies is to describe not only the geographic features, but also their spatial relationships. Usually, only topological relations are defned, but other spatial and geographic relations must be considered as well. Afer a short presentation of ontologies in general, the characteristics of geographic ontologies will be detailed. Finally, some future challenges shall be outlined.

When we talk about everyday communication, our default perspective is restricted to words or grammar. If we look at textbooks and grammar books, they imply a view of communication as a system of fixed rules and stable conventions. However, everyday communication transcends words. It involves diverse semiotic resources. To appreciate this perspective, an analysis of online and offline communicative practices of ten Japanese and non-Japanese residents of Niigata City was carried out. Findings suggest that as communicators, we are sign-makers who can shape, re-shape, orchestrate and organize semiotic resources to reflect our communicative interests. We also have the agency to select, organize, modify and appropriate resources to suit various communicative goals. Over-all, the results imply a conceptual departure from conventional notions of communication which couched us in predefined signs within a stable and fixed system of choices

The paper reports the initial findings of the first phase of the research and development project PICCORE – Picture Communication in Reception Centres. The goal was to map the use of pictures and other visual modes of communication at reception centres in Finland using an ethnographic, multimodal research approach. The ethnographic data was collected at four reception centres in Finland. A multimodal viewpoint draws attention to how action and meanings are mediated through pictures. The initial findings mark established practices for enabling and coordinating mutual attention, supporting the use of visual and embodied resources in interactions and – as a consequence – supporting mutual understanding.

When we talk about everyday communication, our default perspective is restricted to words or grammar. If we look at textbooks and grammar books, they imply a view of communication as a system of fixed rules and stable conventions. However, everyday communication transcends words. It involves diverse semiotic resources. To appreciate this perspective, an analysis of online and offline communicative practices of ten Japanese and non-Japanese residents of Niigata City was carried out. Findings suggest that as communicators, we are sign-makers who can shape, re-shape, orchestrate and organize semiotic resources to reflect our communicative interests. We also have the agency to select, organize, modify and appropriate resources to suit various communicative goals. Over-all, the results imply a conceptual departure from conventional notions of communication which couched us in predefined signs within a stable and fixed system of choices

No contexto das reflexões de Lamela Adó e Mussetta (2020); Molinari (2022); Mussetta, Lamela Adó e Peixoto (2021); e Sousanis (2015), entre outros, sublinhamos o recente surgimento de certas textualidades que constituem uma problematização das formas fossilizadas de escrita na academia, da própria noção de academicismo como uma característica textual naturalizada, e do monopólio linguístico que ainda prevalece sobre outras formas de expressão.

This research explored how the memes were created with multimodal elements that could make meaning to create a humorous sense and function as speech acts. With the complexity of meaning-making, nowadays, it had become a trend that people could communicate online through Memes. Semiotics provides how the combination of modes, media, and potential meanings, that were applied to make meaning in memes. At the same time, pragmatics proposes details on how memes can function as speech acts. This research adopted a qualitative method using multimodal analysis by and speech acts theory by Bach and Harnish (1980) that were employed as the theoretical framework. A total of 16 memes were retrieved and captured as JPG files from social media and other internet websites; therefore, documentation was the only technique used in this research. The results of the study showed that (1) the integration of semiotic resources such as mode, media, and meaning potentials in memes aided the readers to understand the background knowledge of memes (2) two types of communicative illocutionary acts were found in the memes: constative and directive illocutionary acts which function to express the emotion or opinions and question something (3) the effects of using internet memes could be seen through verbal and nonverbal perlocutionary acts which showed an agreement and had the same feeling as in the memes. Finally, the memes containing multimodal components composed of semiotic resources interacted creatively to make humorous sense, and it could aid the readers to communicate online.

This research explored how the memes were created with multimodal elements that could make meaning to create a humorous sense and function as speech acts. With the complexity of meaning-making, nowadays, it had become a trend that people could communicate online through Memes. Semiotics provides how the combination of modes, media, and potential meanings, that were applied to make meaning in memes. At the same time, pragmatics proposes details on how memes can function as speech acts. This research adopted a qualitative method using multimodal analysis by Leeuwen (2005) and speech acts theory by Bach and Harnish (1980) that were employed as the theoretical framework. A total of 16 memes were retrieved and captured as JPG files from social media and other internet websites; therefore, documentation was the only technique used in this research. The results of the study showed that (1) the integration of semiotic resources such as mode, media, and meaning potentials in memes aided the ...

This research explored how the memes were created with multimodal elements that could make meaning to create a humorous sense and function as speech acts. With the complexity of meaning-making, nowadays, it had become a trend that people could communicate online through Memes. Semiotics provides how the combination of modes, media, and potential meanings, that were applied to make meaning in memes. At the same time, pragmatics proposes details on how memes can function as speech acts. This research adopted a qualitative method using multimodal analysis by Leeuwen (2005) and speech acts theory by Bach and Harnish (1980) that were employed as the theoretical framework. A total of 16 memes were retrieved and captured as JPG files from social media and other internet websites; therefore, documentation was the only technique used in this research. The results of the study showed that (1) the integration of semiotic resources such as mode, media, and meaning potentials in memes aided the ...

This research explored how the memes were created with multimodal elements that could make meaning to create a humorous sense and function as speech acts. With the complexity of meaning-making, nowadays, it had become a trend that people could communicate online through Memes. Semiotics provides how the combination of modes, media, and potential meanings, that were applied to make meaning in memes. At the same time, pragmatics proposes details on how memes can function as speech acts. This research adopted a qualitative method using multimodal analysis by Leeuwen (2005) and speech acts theory by Bach and Harnish (1980) that were employed as the theoretical framework. A total of 16 memes were retrieved and captured as JPG files from social media and other internet websites; therefore, documentation was the only technique used in this research. The results of the study showed that (1) the integration of semiotic resources such as mode, media, and meaning potentials in memes aided the ...

This study seeks at applying the speech act theory in medical text by undergraduate EFL learners in Nasiriya province. It delves into discourse analysis of some selected medical reports . It aims at analyzing the speech acts to get conceptualization of the medical texts understudy. The study also wants to explain how the speech acts can be manipulating to the medical texts understudy. In addition to that, Showing how effectively the text is achieved by those speech acts and how clearly that four major categories of illocutionary communicative acts : constative, directives, commissives, acknowledgment applied in the text .Finally, The findings arrived at in this study involve the use of indirect spoken acts which are more favoured in the production of speech than direct spoken acts

This research explored how the memes were created with multimodal elements that could make meaning to create a humorous sense and function as speech acts. With the complexity of meaning-making, nowadays, it had become a trend that people could communicate online through Memes. Semiotics provides how the combination of modes, media, and potential meanings, that were applied to make meaning in memes. At the same time, pragmatics proposes details on how memes can function as speech acts. This research adopted a qualitative method using multimodal analysis by Leeuwen (2005) and speech acts theory by Bach and Harnish (1980) that were employed as the theoretical framework. A total of 16 memes were retrieved and captured as JPG files from social media and other internet websites; therefore, documentation was the only technique used in this research. The results of the study showed that (1) the integration of semiotic resources such as mode, media, and meaning potentials in memes aided the readers to understand the background knowledge of memes (2) two types of communicative illocutionary acts were found in the memes: constative and directive illocutionary acts which function to express the emotion or opinions and question something (3) the effects of using internet memes could be seen through verbal and nonverbal perlocutionary acts which showed an agreement and had the same feeling as in the memes. Finally, the memes containing multimodal components composed of semiotic resources interacted creatively to make humorous sense, and it could aid the readers to communicate online.

Political humor has always been a powerful tool to convey messages of resistance, criticism, sarcasm, etc. The growth of digital tools and social networking sites has provided a new platform for the creation and sharing of political humor. This study explores the functions of political humor employed by Egyptian users of Facebook (FB) in reaction to a number of political events and difficult circumstances through investigating the pragmatic functions of a number of humorous posts published on two satirical public FB pages /portō ṭora min ʔajlika ʔant/ and /sōbar faʃxa/. Fifty-nine posts have been selected for analysis. The selected posts focused on two main themes: The Egyptian presidential elections in 2018, and price inflation, the latter including the subcategories of metro tickets, fuel, vegetables, clothes and others. Results of the study revealed that posts during the elections performed assertion of the lack of real democracy, as well as protest against the bad electoral process. On the other hand, posts addressing price increases performed complaint about the impact on citizens' life. Furthermore, the pragmatic functions detected in this study show that humor functions as a tool to vent frustration, and to express resistance indirectly in the absence of more direct tools to implement change and express resistance, and in an environment where both the lack of democracy and fear of suppression dominate

The study entitled “Direct and Indirect Directive Illocutionary Acts in the Movie Penguin of Madagascar” is aimed at identifying the direct and indirect directive types of illocutionary acts and explaining and analyzing the meaning of the utterances interpreted by the listeners. The data of this study were taken from the movie entitled Penguins of Madagascar, and it was chosen because of many utterances identified as directive of illocutionary acts. The observation and documentation methods were used in collecting the data since the data were obtained from the spoken source in the movie. The data were analyzed using the descriptive qualitative method since the purpose of this study is to analyze the social phenomena like speech acts. The first theory proposef by Bach and Harnish (1979: 47) is used to analyze the type of directive of illocutionary acts. The second theory, the context of situation proposed by Dell Hymes (1972, is used to analyze the meaning of directive of illocutiona...

Weather charts in the popular media constitute a specific field of semiosis, meaning that they allow procedures of production and transfer of information by means of visual signs which, unlike other semiotic systems, are not firm and standard. The article deals with the ways 9 year old children interpret visual signs appearing on a website for weather predictions. The hypothesis of the research was that in order to interpret these visual signs correctly, the children have to reveal the semiotic system they are part of and then, discover the semiotic principles behind the formation of every sign or group of signs. As visual signs appearing at weather charts may be hypo-icons, indexes or symbolsregarding the relation they have to their dynamic objects-, the children's correct sign interpretation has to be based on the resemblance, the causality or contiguity and the symbolic value of the signs, correspondingly. Visual language is not always transparent and universally understood; therefore, children should be trained into it at school as part of the development of their general visual literacy.

Este artículo propone explorar la existencia de otra escritura académica posible, una que problematice su supuesto carácter formal, lineal, objetivo, transparente, y mayormente lingüístico, para indagar sobre prácticas textuales no canónicas, aquellas que involucran la invención, el juego, el asombro, el volver lo familiar extraño. Presenta algunos argumentos deleuzianos, como la necesidad de crear nuevos modos de expresión para hacer filosofía, en pos de una escritura consciente de sí misma, desbordada, transgénero, fuera de sí, y toma nociones de la semiótica multimodal para explicitar una serie de trabajos que contemplan imbricaciones de modos y recursos semióticos verbales y no verbales, los que se vuelven potencia expansiva no sólo de leer y escribir, sino también de ver y de pensar. Palabras clave: Escritura académica alternativa. Multimodalidad. Recursos semióticos no verbales. RESUMO Este artigo propõe explorar a existência de outra escrita acadêmica possível, que problematize o seu suposto caráter formal, linear, objetivo, transparente e sobretudo linguístico, para indagar sobre práticas textuais não canônicas, as que envolvem a invenção, o jogo, o assombro, e tornar estranho o familiar. Apresenta alguns argumentos deleuzeanos, como a necessidade de criar novos modos de expressão para se fazer filosofia, em posse de

In the age of disruption and in today’s platform society (Van Dijck et al., 2019), communication between nation states is influenced by the development of technology. The nation state is responding to the new communication environment through “techplomacy” and through the use of Artificial Intelligence as a strategic asset in the global tech race. Artificial Intelligence (AI), including the strategies to come up with viable AI, has a big potential for nation branding, being also a competitive advantage for countries worldwide. In this context, the aim of our research is to investigate technology as a soft power (Nye, 2004) instrument for Romania and to analyze how the nation brand is constructed in relation to technology. In doing so, our research revolves around the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Strategy for Romania, presented at the IT&C Summit on May 8, 2019, and 50 news articles, published in the quality press (Adevărul, Gândul, România Liberă) employing mixed methods such as framing analysis (Entman, 1993) and critical discourse analysis (Van Dijk, 1993). The results show that there are four dominant media frames: (1) artificial intelligence, (2) the 5G technology, (3) education and (4) smart city, while both journalists and public actors have an active role in constructing technology as a public issue in Romania.

In the age of "digital disinformation 2.0" (Bârgăoanu, 2018) and "digital deceit" (Ghosh & Scott, 2018), nation branding has become part of a new paradigm of strategic communication between states, trying to seduce various audiences. According to Korjus (2017), the next big industry to face digital disruption will be our nations. For instance, Estonia's brand image is based on the idea of a digital state, both for domestic and foreign audiences. In Denmark, Casper Klynge has become the first nation state ambassador to Silicon Valley, describing his job as "techplomacy" (Baugh, 2017). The nation-state is responding to the new communications environment by reinventing itself in the current climate of intercultural dialogue for Europe. An interesting case is to be found in contemporary Romania, ranked 46 th in the world, in terms of digital competitiveness at global level (World Digital Competitiveness Ranking, 2019). Overall, the aim of our research is to investigate technology as a soft power (Nye, 2004) instrument for Romania and to analyze how journalists and public actors construct the topic of new technology as a competitive advantage. In doing so, our research revolves around 50 news articles, published in the Romanian quality press (Adevărul, Gândul, România Liberă), employing mixed methods such as framing analysis (Entman, 1993) and critical discourse analysis. The results show that journalists have an active role in constructing technology as a public issue in Romania, related to future policy-making and regulation endeavors, as well as the future of public diplomacy.

This paper examines the visual framing of Roma migrants in the British online press in the two months prior to January 1st 2014, when Romanian and Bulgarian citizens gaining the same immigration rights to the UK as other EU citizens. By identifying recurring visual content in photojournalistic representations and analysing their connotative meanings using semiotic analysis, the frames of meaning in which Roma migrants were place were identified. It was found that migrants were framed ultimately as threats, parasites and Others, as has been similarly observed in previous literature on migrant representation. Visual frames were created on a very subtle level, built upon the inclusion of semiotic signs that had specific meanings and implications in relation to British cultural codes. It was also found that the sample images visually reinforced prevailing negative political and media discourses towards EU immigration.

Memes are a common way for individuals to communicate online.
Internet users often use memes to reply to each other on social
networking sites or other online forums. This research argues that
memes are successfully used for communication purposes
because certain memes (specifically image macros) are essentially
speech acts and are also understood as being speech acts by
internet users. When creating a meme, choices are made
concerning the specific semiotic resources to be used and the
internet community then interprets these resources to facilitate
communication between the meme creator and the internet
community. Memes can be recreated for different purposes and
therefore it is possible to group memes under already existing
speech acts and speculate about the ways in which these might
correspond to speech acts in the future. To accomplish this, a
limited amount of specific meme types are analysed and discussed.

Reading maps and using them to find the way from one location to another is part of our culture. When creating maps, reality is abstracted and scaled down. This process diminishes the precision with which locations are represented. Special symbols can only partly compensate this effect. A neglected question is whether humans take the imprecision of a map into account when searching for a location. We first clarify the difference between accuracy, reliability and precision. Thereafter we present an experiment investigating whether humans adapt their behaviour when searching for a location that was more or less precisely defined on a map.

This paper discusses the role news images play in framing Romanian immigrants to the UK and how they construct the social issue of migration, in the context of freedom of movement for workers in Great Britain. In doing so, it focuses on the stereotypes about Romanians embedded in visuals published in national newspapers and on framing devices as semiotic resources. Using a qualitative and social semiotic approach, based on Kress and van Leeuwen's (1996/2006) framework, this article analyses 101 press photographs and captions from the digital editions of three Romanian newspapers (Adevărul, Gândul and Jurnalul Național), published during January 2013 – March 2014. By regarding the visuals as independently organized and structured messages, the analysis considers their positioning on the web page as well as their modes of representation, interaction, and composition (framing). The results show that the Romanian media reinforce especially the categorization of Roma people and three dominant visual frames emerge: the public security, economic and employment frames. The Romanian press is conflicted about its own national representation, dismissing the stereotypes about migrants only after having fully imported the frames from the British press.

Résumé
Cet article aborde le rôle de les nouvelles photos dans les cadrages médiatiques de les roumains migrer au Royaume-Uni et la construction de l'immigration comme une probléme sociale, considerér le contexte de la libre circulations des travailleurs dans le Grande Bretagne. La discussion se concentrera aux les stéréotypes sur les roumains dans les images diffusées par la presse quotidienne nationale roumain et le cadre-dispositif comme ressource sémiotique. Méthodologiquement, sera employé une recherche qualitative et une approche sémiotique sociale basée sur le modèl proposé par Kress et van Leeuwen (1996/2006), pour analyser 101 photographies de presse et leur légendes, publié en Janvier 2013 – Mars 2014 dans les éditions digitales des trois journaux roumaines (Adevărul, Gândul et Jurnalul Național). Ainsi, considérer les visuelles organisés indépendant et comme messages structurés, l'analyse se concentrera au le positionnement de site web et aux les modes de représentation, interaction et composition (cadres). Les résultats démontre que les média en Roumanie renforce la catégorization des Roms et trois cadrages visuelles dominantes émerge: les cadrages de la sécurité publique, de l'économie et du travail. La presse roumaine est confuse de sa représentation nationale, rejeter les stéréotypes sur les migrantes depuis importer les cadrages médiatiaques de la presse bretonne.

Reading maps and using them to find the way from one location to another is part of our culture. When creating maps, reality is abstracted and scaled down. This process diminishes the precision with which locations are represented. Special symbols can only partly compensate this effect. A neglected question is whether humans take the imprecision of a map into account when searching for a location. We first clarify the difference between accuracy, reliability and precision. Thereafter we present an experiment investigating whether humans adapt their behaviour when searching for a location that was more or less precisely defined on a map.

Various forms of uncertainty are important for decision making. How aware are we of the precision of knowledge, and how accessible it is? In three experiments, an assessment of the precision of spatial memory was needed to make optimal decisions. First, we examined search strategies in a search task in which the most efficient strategy was to head to one side of the target by a margin depending on the precision of spatial information, the "where to start" task. We found that nine out of of our 20 human subjects adapted the margin according to precision. Second, we let the subjects search for the location of a sample picture. On one-third of the trials, the target was not present, making it a "when to stop searching" task. We found that the subjects did not adjust their investment in search according to their precision. In the third experiment, we looked at whether there was transfer between the two tasks. Subjects who had been reminded of the relevance of uncertainty by the "where to start" task increased their search effort more in the "when to stop searching" task. Thus, the results show that the use of information about precision is not automatic, but can be triggered.

Reading maps and using them to find the way from one location to another is part of our culture. When creating maps, reality is abstracted and scaled down. This process diminishes the precision with which locations are represented. Special symbols can only partly compensate this effect. A neglected question is whether humans take the imprecision of a map into account when searching for a location. We first clarify the difference between accuracy, reliability and precision. Thereafter we present an experiment investigating whether humans adapt their behaviour when searching for a location that was more or less precisely defined on a map.

In the present paper the design and development of a software appropriate for introducing basic cartographic principles to school children aged from nine to fourteen years old is analyzed and discussed. The selection of the concepts incorporated in the software design takes in ...

Making meaningful signs requires understanding both the informational and representational value of them. Signs convey specific information concerning the real object (referent) they “stand for” in an encrypted form. The current paper deals with the investigation of preschoolers’ coding orientation of cartographic symbols. The main purpose of the study was to investigate the degree of iconicity applied by preschoolers in the cartographic design they produced. It is assumed that preschoolers mainly construct highly iconic cartographic symbols according to a naturalistic approach to coding orientation. An experimental research was conducted in 3 nursery schools in a rural area of central Greece and comparative, qualitative analysis of data gathered during the pre- and post-test process was implemented. The sample consisted of 24 children: 12 boys and 12 girls (aged 4 to 6). The results indicate that systematic exposure to conventional cartographic symbols along with planned instruction and explicit teaching of the principles of graphic design in a cooperative and authentic learning environment yields positive learning results regarding children’s cartographic literacy.

Keywords: symbols, icons, cartographic signs & design, maps, visual communication, visual grammar, semiotic resources

Περίληψη: Η κατανόηση των συμβόλων προϋποθέτει αντίστοιχη αναγνώριση τόσο της πληροφοριακής όσο και της αναπαραστατικής λειτουργίας της σημείωσης σ’ αυτά. Τα σύμβολα εμπεριέχουν σε κωδικοποιημένη μορφή πληροφορία σχετική με το πραγματικό αντικείμενο (αναφερόμενο) το οποίο και αναπαριστούν (αντικαθιστούν). Η παρούσα εργασία καταγίνεται με τη διερεύνηση του τρόπου που τα παιδιά κωδικοποιούν την πληροφορία στα χαρτογραφικά σύμβολα. Στόχο της μελέτης αποτέλεσε η διερεύνηση του βαθμού εικονιστικότητας των χαρτογραφικών συμβόλων που παράγουν τα παιδιά προσχολικής ηλικίας. Θεωρείται ότι τα νήπια αρχικά παράγουν υψηλά εικονιστικά σύμβολα σε σχέση με το βαθμό ρεαλιστικότητας με τον οποίο αποδίδουν την πραγματικότητα. Στην έρευνα παρουσιάζεται μια πειραματική έρευνα σε τρία νηπιαγωγεία αγροτικής περιοχής του Ν. Μαγνησίας. Η κωδικοποίηση των ευρημάτων έγινε με  ποιοτική ανάλυση των δεδομένων που συλλέχθηκαν κατά τη διάρκεια της διεξαγωγής του pre και post-test. Το δείγμα αποτέλεσαν 24 παιδιά (12 αγόρια και 12 κορίτσια) ηλικίας 4-6 χρονών. Τα αποτελέσματα μαρτυρούν ότι η συστηματική έκθεση των παιδιών προσχολικής ηλικίας σε συμβατικά χαρτογραφικά σύμβολα, παράλληλα προς τη συστηματική και οργανωμένη διδασκαλία των αρχών που διέπουν τη χαρτογραφική γραφιστική μέσα σ’ ένα αυθεντικό και συνεργατικό περιβάλλον, οδηγεί σε θετικά μαθησιακά αποτελέσματα όσον αφορά στο χαρτογραφικό γραμματισμό των παιδιών της συγκεκριμένης ηλικιακής ομάδας.

Researchers from a wide variety of disciplines, such as philosophy, art, education or
psychology, have over the years sustained the idea that blind persons are incapable
or nearly incapable of formulating complex mental diagrammatic representations, which
are schema based on the similarities found within internal logical relations between sign
and object.

Contrary to this widely accepted opinion, we will present an alternative approach in this
paper: Our main idea is that blind and visually impaired people relying upon tact as a main
knowledge source are capable of diagrammatic reasoning very well, but use a different
method for this purpose, namely the method of inductive reasoning. Such method can
effectively provide the mind with the data necessary to the elaboration of mental maps.
Therefore, wayfinding as a semiotic process in which a route is planned and executed from
marks or navigation indexes, is also enabled by tact.