M.Tech. / My research investigates the relationship between context and the interpretation of signs within ‘scripto/visual’ communication processes. I focus on the belief that no interpretation is context free. I have experienced that context is not consistent as it is based on the cultural, social and personal backgrounds of each individual. As there is always a context that serves to anchor the sign to our experiences, we construct a specific meaning when we interpret a sign. This specific meaning is, however, not necessarily the one originally intended by the sender. Central to my project is the argument that the choices made which affect the interpretation of signs when encoding and decoding them are influenced by the context of both the sender and the receiver, as well as the specific context within which the exchange takes place. I have chosen, amongst many other modes of sign interpretation, the operational processes of similarity and association. I investigate why both of these processes, in relation to the unfixed nature of context, are problematic and result in miscommunication. I have chosen to include discussions on specific artworks by two South African artists: Joni Brenner and Willem Boshoff as I feel that both artists make work in response to the fact that interpretation does not produce a ‘fixed truth’.

There is scant research within educational literature on the nature of visual cognition, language, and expression in relation to cross-culturally driven socio-cognitive and socio-economic development. Indeed, the integrated, multi-disciplinarian approach needed to address the nature of this complex relationship is still being devised. / This dissertation examines a community of artisans located in Kenya's remote western highlands. Over the past ninety years, the community has developed a unique soapstone carving cottage industry. This creative commercial response to the pernicious effects of Western acculturation has somewhat mitigated the severe environmental, demographic, and economic stresses being experienced by most other Gusii communities in the region. / The community-cottage industry's structural and longitudinal dynamics meld traditional artisanal and social practice to Western market mores. However, the industry could not have evolved, nor could it have sustained itself, without a corps of competent artisan-merchants. The creation of such a corps is the result of a distinctive bi-modal educational system consisting of both indigenous training and Western-style schooling. This system, in its totality, helps to develop the requisite cognitive, affective, psychomotor, and linguistic skills essential to artisanal-mercantile practice. Consequently, participating Gusii youth generally graduate knowing how to produce and market soapstone carvings. / This dissertation, drawing from studies in history, economics, psychology, sociology, ethnography, phenomenology, communications, and aesthetics, examines the foundation and growth of this cottage industry as well as its bi-modal education system in tam of its socialization patterns and learning processes. These patterns and processes are related to cross-cultural theories of socio-cognitive and socio-linguistic development and learning. One of the principle features of this particular educational system involves the of visual acumen among its trainees. Such an enhanced faculty is for those whose livelihoods depend literally on pleasing the eyes of Western consumers. Explication of this system, therefore, provides the necessary framework within which to consider the central role that visual cognition, Language and expression plays in the cottage industry.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2005. / Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center; full text release delayed at author's request until 2010 Aug 16.

This study compares how newspaper yearbooks and current upper secondary school history textbooks represent the Cold War between the years 1985-1991. As earlier research, this multimodal study focuses discourses and images. In addition I examine the usefulness of mediatization as illuminating tool in this context. For these aims, I have constructed a three-step model, in which concepts from mediatization theory are operationalized, and combined with Theo Van Leeuwen’s social semiotic theory. This thesis compares 356 representations from two yearbooks to 16 ones from three textbooks. At present, historical images are neither addressed nor regulated in the national curriculum, yet both educators and researchers within the field of education address them. The contribution of this paper is hence to shed light on the complexity of images, which shows how their meanings, including degree of mediatization, depend on context. Thereby I add a new aspect to multimodal literacy research.

Thesis (doctoral)--University of Bath, 2001. / BLDSC reference no.: DX217256.

Denna studie syftar till att undersöka hur elever läser bilder.Frågeställningen som undersöks är Vilka olika sorters inferenser göreleverna när de kommunicerar kring lästa bilder? Empirin som är hämtadi en årskurs två och tre analyseras genom en kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Detframkom sex underkategorier av inferenser; Inferens genom kopplingar tillegna erfarenheter, Inferens genom kopplingar utanför och mellanbilderna, Inferens genom att förutspå och förklara handling, Inferensutifrån tolkning av karaktären, Inferens genom koppling mellan fantasioch verklighet och Inferens genom att koppla bild till onomatopoetiska ordsamt ord i text. Studiens slutsats är att elever spontant gör olika sortersinferenser och att det finns många faktorer som påverkarinferensskapandet. Studien visar även att eleverna behöver stöd i form avfrågor när de ska utveckla inferensförmågan samt att de förhåller sig tillbildmaterialet på olika vis.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Wollongong, 2005. / Typescript. Bibliographical references: leaf 333-362.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--University of Western Sydney, 2007. / A thesis presented to the University of Western Sydney, College of Arts, School of Education, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education. Includes bibliographies.

The design process demands comprehensive knowledge of visual signs and symbols with a focus on visual literacy; it is related to visual syntax, semantics, and the pragmatics of contexts. My work is an interdisciplinary investigation into how designers integrate polysemantic signs into their design process for particular and highly individualized audiences. By analyzing the role of signs in specific contexts across the spectrum of arts, society, literature, and semiotics, a designer's understanding of the cyclical nature of interpretation and reinterpretation in complex environments creates an avenue for cultivating a new schema that provides further levels of interpretations and different access points. By removing elements from their original context, and fusing these elements into new narratives, we implement new meanings and emphasize the value of interpretation.

The design process demands comprehensive knowledge of visual signs and symbols with a focus on visual literacy; it is related to visual syntax, semantics, and the pragmatics of contexts. My work is an interdisciplinary investigation into how designers integrate polysemantic signs into their design process for particular and highly individualized audiences. By analyzing the role of signs in specific contexts across the spectrum of arts, society, literature, and semiotics, a designer's understanding of the cyclical nature of interpretation and reinterpretation in complex environments creates an avenue for cultivating a new schema that provides further levels of interpretations and different access points. By removing elements from their original context, and fusing these elements into new narratives, we implement new meanings and emphasize the value of interpretation.