Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / This study explores how HIV and AIDS discourse is differently constituted and evaluated across different modes by different communities of speakers in Malawi. Particularly, the study explores how different languages and other social semiotics are used as resources across the different modes. Among other things, it further investigates the implications of the unequal social distribution of modes of communication and semiotic resources in Malawi (eastern region in particular) for the fight against HIV and AIDS. The study employed the Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA) approach, the notions of Resemiotisation (Kress and van Leeuwen 2006, Norris 2004, Martin and Rose 2004) and semiotic remediation (Prior and Hengst 2010) in analysing the data. This approach is necessary as the study focuses on HIV and AIDS communication which is essentially multimodal in nature. The study used both quantitative and qualitative methodologies involving questionnaires, interviews, focus group discussions, document analysis and observation of television programs, traditional dances and other modes such as music videos. The study found that different practices have been semiotically remediated and reformulated for health palatability. As a result, taboos have been de-tabooed and technical terms have been ‗untechnicalised‘ so that even ordinary people are able to use health technical terms. The study also shows how cultural practices (such as having ‗live‘ sexual contact with the widow) have been semiotically remediated with the usage of condoms or herbs for cleansing rituals. The study further finds that literacy is not a major challenge for the consumption of HIV and AIDS messages. However the study also shows that wrongly presented messages such as textual overcrowding, usage of proverbs and depiction of western culture in HIV and AIDS messages obscure consumption. In addition the study reveals that proverbs can hardly iv be understood by all consumers and in turn led to division between mostly the older generation and rural who understand and the younger and urban people who have difficulty comprehending the proverbs. Lastly the study finds that some modes of communication did not prove effective, for instance, SMS, television and radio as these do not benefit all consumers as they are socioeconomically determined.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / The focus of the thesis is conceptually-based and problematizes the notion of a transformed society while addressing and evaluating its meaning in the multicultural post-apartheid neighbourhood of Observatory, Cape Town. Confluent concepts such as ‘multilingualism’, ‘hybridity’ and ‘community’ are discussed within the historical and contemporary context of a newly established democratic South Africa. Through a poststructuralist discourse analysis, the study endeavours to explore discourses of language and identity in the previously predominantly English-speaking community of Observatory. It is hoped that this research will build upon knowledge of inter alia social interaction, translocations and community membership, identity, language and integration in Observatory. Focus therefore rest on issues such as hybridity, identity options, translocal and transnational cultural flows, localization and globalization. All these issues fall under the broader theme of discourse of transformation and integration in multilingual spaces. The study strictly works within the framework of a qualitative approach with the focus resting on a discourse analysis of generated narratives supplied by informants during interviews and temporal and spatial descriptions of research sites. Arising from this study it is hoped that a deeper understanding of migration, transnational and transcultural flows, hybridity and identity will be reached. Critically, this study delves into two ‘new’ areas which subsume sociolinguistics, specifically semiotic landscape and place branding. Exploration into the appropriation of space by ‘newcomers’ and the subsequent reimaginings of space into place are of keen interest here. In this respect, this study aims at shedding light on recurrent, contesting and and new imaginings of diversity in post-apartheid living.

This thesis is submitted to the University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD). This study developed an experimental small group teaching method in the Realistic Mathematics Education tradition for teaching fractions using models and contexts to year 7 children in Brunei (N=89) whose effectiveness was evaluated using a treatment-control design: the E1 group was given the experimental lessons, the E2 group who was given “normal” lessons taught by the experimenter, and a whole class (E3) group which acted as the control group. The experimental teaching was video recorded and subject to semiotic analysis, aiming to describe the objectifications that realized ‘learning of fractions’ by the groups.The research addresses two research questions:1. How effective was the experimental teaching in helping learners make sense of fractions, with respect to equivalence of fractions and flexibility of unitizing?2. What were the semiotic learning and teaching processes in the experimental group of the RME-like lessons? This study used a mixed method approach with a quasi-experimental design (QED) for the quantitative side, and a semiotic analysis for the qualitative side. Quantitatively, the experimental teachings proved to be relatively effective with an effect size of 0.6 from the pre- to the delayed post-teaching test, compared to the E2 and the control groups.The basic findings pertaining to the semiotic analyses were:a. The mediation of the production of fractions in terms of length, from the production of fractions in terms of the number of parts which led to equivalence of fractions;b. The use of language and gesture help to objectify the equivalence of fractions and the flexibility of unitizing–in some case it involved gesturing to the self;c. The role of the Hour-Foot clock (HFC) as a model in a realistic context; andd. The complexity of the required chains of objectifications reflects the difficulties of the topic.

La visualisation d'information est une discipline récente en pleine expansion et qui a pour objet l'étude des méthodes de représentation visuelle de données abstraites, c'est-à-dire non géolocalisées. La sémiotique est quant à elle une discipline beaucoup plus ancienne (fin du XIXième siècle) qui s'intéresse aux divers systèmes de signes nécessaires aux processusde communication. A ce jour, peu de travaux ont été réalisés pour mettre en parallèle ces deux disciplines. C'est pourquoi le premier chapitre de cette thèse est dédié à l'étude de la visualisation d'information selon les paradigmes élaborés par son ainée tout au long du XXième siècle. Nous montrons en particulier comment l'un des modèles les plus aboutis de validation de visualisations (modèle imbriqué de Tamara Munzner) correspond au processus d'étude sémiotique d'énoncés. Le second chapitre est consacré à la visualisation de graphe, outil de modélisation puissant de divers ensembles de données abstraites. Nous proposons d'une part une application permettant de visualiser et de naviguer à travers les pages Internet retournées par un moteur de recherche et d'autre part un algorithme de visualisation de hiérarchies dynamiques sous forme de "cartes géographiques". Enfin, nous évoquons dans le troisième chapitre un autre outil de modélisation de donnéesabstraites : les hypergraphes. Nous proposons des résultats théoriques concernant leur représentation et donnons une ébauche de solution permettant de les visualiser. / Information visualization aims at designing visual representations of abstract data, furthermore relying on interaction as a mean to discover knowledge. The first part of this thesis challenges Information Visualization by drawing a parallel with semiotics, a 19th century research field focusing on systems of signs required for communication. We develop a point of view on Information Visualization based on the paradigms developed by semioticians during the 20th century. In particular, we show how the visualization validation model proposed by Tamara Munzner is related to the process used by semioticians for utterance analysis. The second part of the thesis focuses on graph visualization and describes two techniques and system prototypes targeting specific application domains. The first one is an interactive technique to visualize and navigate through Web search results. The second one is an algorithm for the visualization of dynamic hierarchies exploiting the analogy with “geographical maps”. Finally, the third chapter is devoted to another model used to structure abstract data : hypergraphs. We propose theoretical results on hypergraph drawing and a preliminary technique to visualize hypergraphs.

Orientador: Guilherme do Val Toledo Prado / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Educação / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-24T13:38:20Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Serodio_LianaArrais_D.pdf: 34247088 bytes, checksum: f112750b1cbdf35dc349f04ea97c98a7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014 / Resumo: Composições musicais e co-envolvimento dos alunos, em atividade didática musical, se configuram em textos e contextos intrigantes e conflituosos, levando uma professora de música à investigação da própria prática. Crianças de 4º ano e jovens de 7° ano, do Ensino Fundamental, respectivamente em escola confessional (atendendo, em geral, classe econômica média) e em organização não governamental (atendendo, exclusivamente, classe econômica baixa), pertencentes à rede privada de ensino, localizadas em dois grandes centros urbanos do estado de São Paulo, são produtores das composições, "textos sem os quais não há pesquisa nas ciências humanas" (M. M. Bakhtin). Como percurso metodológico, a pesquisa se baseia na narrativa docente (G. V. T. Prado) em três movimentos: registro do cotidiano escolar; instrumento de (auto)formação; gênero textual da pesquisa. O locus privilegiado de formação e investigação é a escola básica, onde o ensino e a música, áreas diversas e específicas de estudo, constituem e se constituem de intertextualidades, simultaneidades em experiências verbais e musicais, desde sua interferência e ressonâncias mútuas nos sujeitos: alunos e professora. Na pesquisa, a opção por um estudo dos signos que aí surge impõe, como "ato responsável, sem álibi" (M. M. Bakhtin) da professora e pesquisadora de música, o firme posicionamento semioético (A. Ponzio e S. Petrilli) da divulgação da capacidade humana de modelização, que nos permite criar "infinitos mundos possíveis" (T. A. Sebeok) nas mais diversas linguagens e da iconicidade, tida como a principal estratégia representacional humana. Considerando a expressão semiótica como produtora de pensamento (M. M. Bakhtin) e tendo no signo musical um dos mais característicos signos de espécie icônica, além de ser o mais refratário à tradução (A. Ponzio, C. Caputo, S. Petrilli), de signo em signo, numa semiose infinita (C. S. Peirce), chega-se ao enorme potencial formativo da atividade didática de composição musical, para a criança e jovem. Não se pode deixar de assinalar que na base da interpretação semioética estão os princípios bakhtinianos de escuta responsiva, alteridade e, portanto, de não indiferença e confiança em cada criança/jovem aprendiz, como seres cognitivo-estético-éticos, compositores de músicas e de relações humanas, na cultura escolar. Dentre as lições mais marcantes da pesquisa, está a compreensão de que o trabalho de composição no ensino de música pode iniciar-se precocemente na escola, desde que não se espere da criança/jovem um conhecimento simbólico/teórico convencional anterior ao próprio trabalho de criação; a descoberta do outro enquanto alteridade, que se dá no processo de criação e escuta da composição musical e da relação da criança/jovem compositora, com a outra criança/jovem no processo de criação e escuta de sua composição musical e no coletivo de crianças/jovens compositoras e a professora, também aprendendo a escutar e a criar, a criar e a escutar, em seu ensino de música para crianças/jovens / Abstract: On a musical teaching activity, musical compositions and the co-involvement of the students with each other configure on intriguing and conflicting texts and contexts, leading a teacher of music to her own teaching practice research. The "texts without which there is no research in the human sciences" (M. M. Bakhtin) are the compositions whose authors are the 5th and 7th grades of the elementary school, respectively, in confessional school (average economy class) and NGO school (exclusively low economic class), that belong to the private education iniciative located in two large urban centers of the state of São Paulo. The research methodological approach is based upon the teacher narrative (G. V. T. Prado) in three movements: daily school record; (self) educating tool; literary of the research genre. The elementary school is the privileged research locus for the research, where education, teaching music and diverse and specific fields of study constitute and are constituted of intertextualities and simultaneities in both individual verbal and musical experiences, having mutual interference and resonance on both students and teacher. The option that arises in this research and imposes one "responsible act without excuse" (M. M. Bakhtin) a steady semioethics positioning of the music teacher and researcher (A. Ponzio and S. Petrilli): the modeling human capacity which allows us to create "infinite possible worlds" (T. A. Sebeok) in several languages and the music signs iconicity, which is the main human representational strategy. Considering the semiotic expression as a producer of the thought (M. M. Bakhtin) and having in the musical sign one of the most characteristic signs of the iconic species, as much as being the most refractory sign to translation (A.Ponzio, C.Caputo, S.Petrilli), from sign to sign, in an infinite semiosis (C. S. Peirce), one reaches the enormous formation potential of the didactic activity of musical composition, for children and teenagers. One cannot fail to notice that in the base of semioethics interpretation are the bakhtinian concepts of responsiveness listening and otherness, therefore, of "not indifference" and confidence in each child/young apprentice, as cognitive-aesthetic-ethical beings, music and human relations composers in the school culture. Among the most important lessons of this study is the understanding that the composition work in music education can be initiated early in the school, as long as no one expects a previous conventional theoretical/symbolic knowledge of the child/teenager prior to the proper creation work; the discovery of the other while alterity, which happens in process of creating and listening to the music composition and the relationship of the child/teenager composer with other children/teenageres in the creative process and listening to his/her music composition and in collective children/teenagers composers and the teacher, also learning to listen and to create, to create and to listen, in the process of teaching music education for children/teenagers / Doutorado / Ensino e Práticas Culturais / Doutora em Educação

Submitted by Renata Lopes (renatasil82@gmail.com) on 2015-12-10T12:29:28Z No. of bitstreams: 1 joaoguilhermecunhaevallo.pdf: 949071 bytes, checksum: b17b26c22e35d472ab0dc4057fa55bd9 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2015-12-10T14:10:44Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 joaoguilhermecunhaevallo.pdf: 949071 bytes, checksum: b17b26c22e35d472ab0dc4057fa55bd9 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-12-10T14:10:44Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 joaoguilhermecunhaevallo.pdf: 949071 bytes, checksum: b17b26c22e35d472ab0dc4057fa55bd9 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-03-26 / O teletrabalho é uma das atividades mais relevantes para entender as dinâmicas de trabalho da contemporaneidade. Com o passar dos anos, aumentam os profissionais que, de alguma forma, dedicam parte ou a totalidade de suas jornadas a tarefas fora de um escritório fixo. Dependente da tecnologia e afim da inovação, a prática de trabalho a distância está sempre se atualizando. Trata-se de um campo fértil para os estudos de processos comunicacionais, seja pelo estudo das mídias em si, seja pela análise dos conteúdos ou quaisquer outro aspecto da comunicação humana que se intencione recortar. O fenômeno de comunicação que pretendemos investigar são as relações que os empregados estabelecem entre si e com a empresa em que trabalham quando estão em regime de teletrabalho. Mediadas por celulares e computadores, essas relações, acreditamos, definem o sucesso ou o insucesso das metas a serem alcançadas. Nossas hipóteses são atravessadas pela ideia de que a efetividade está ligada à adequação da comunicação entre os atores. A pesquisa começa pelas questões próprias dos estudos em redes sociais complexas. Em seguida, apresentaremos os modelos desenvolvidos para descrever esses fenômenos e optaremos por uma maneira de modelizar específica que trabalharemos melhor ao longo da dissertação. Concluiremos apresentando as mudanças apontadas pela teoria capazes de aprimorar os processos que nós modelamos e analisamos de forma crítica. / Telework is one most relevant activities to comprehend contemporary work dynamics. Over the years, more and more professionals have adopted homeoffice journeys, but also other formats of work away from the office. Dependent on technology and innovation, working upon distance is an always updating matter. This is surely a fertile ground for studies about communication processes, study of the media itself and content analysis or any other aspect of human communication. The communication phenomenon that we intended to investigate are the relations established by employees among themselves and directed to the company when teleworking. Mediated by telephones and computers, these relations, as we believe, are determinant to say if a process is successful or a failure. Our hypotheses are crossed by the idea that the effectiveness is linked to some level of harmony perceivable in communication between actors. The pursuit of our goal begins with the studies in complex social networks and technology development. Then we tried to sketch a simple model to understand the phenomena in regard to the methodology used, which will be described best along the lasts chapters of the dissertation. Finally, we conclude pointing some changes induced by the theory to enhance the processes we modeled and analyzed critically.

To produce norms and beauty ideals through visual representations - A semiotic and multimodal study of how companies construct the “perfect body”.The aim of this qualitative study is to investigate how clothing companies, with the help of visual representations, construct, confirm and/or whether they challenge different norms and ideologies regarding the "perfect body". Based on the above-mentioned research aim, this thesis aspires to answer the following research questions:- How do visual representations on Instagram contribute to constructing, confirming and/or challenging beauty ideals and norms? - What are the norms regarding each gender according to the analyzed visual representations?In order to address the study’s aim and research questions, this study adopts a case study design which is based on qualitative methodology. More specifically, this thesis conducts a multimodal semiotic analysis of a Swedish clothing company’s Instagram posts. Based on a purposeful collection method, the study offers an in-depth analysis of six Instagram posts, considered to be representative of the company’s overall marketing strategy.Drawing from theoretical perspectives such as, social constructivism, social semiotics, self-discrepancy and poststructuralist feminism this thesis shows cases that both can confirm and contest society’s norms and beauty ideals. In summary, this thesis shows that the company under investigation both constructs and contests ideals and norms regarding the "perfect body", for the individual gender. These ideals are confirmed by creating visual representations where only people who meet society's ideals and norms are presented. The company thus does not challenge the notion of the "perfect body", which is a fit and thin body.

La autora de esta publicación explica, mediante un minucioso estudio semiótico, el fenómeno fanfiction como una forma para construir versiones paralelas o alternativas de la historia original. La primera parte del libro se centra en la base teórica y contextual para comprender la interacción de los participantes que generan fanfictions. La segunda parte explica el análisis de la interacción a través de la recopilación de casos de intercambios en la plataforma fanfiction.net / The publication’s author explore, by a thorough semiotic study, the communicative phenomenon named fanfiction which is a way to build alternatives stories of the original plot. The first part of the book focusses on the theoretical and contextual basis to comprehend the participant’s interaction with fanfictions. The second part explains the analysis of the participant’s interaction through the collection of cases in the fanfiction.net web site.

The aim of this diploma thesis is to explore the way how the gender performativity is portrayed in Xavier Dolan's films. The theoretical part of the thesis first deals with the definition and theoretical grounding of gender performativity from the perspective of several authors, mainly Judith Butler. This part of the thesis will detailly introduce the concepts of gender performativity, which will be necessary for the analysis of the studied films. The theoretical part also presents the queer theory and the related chapter devoted to queer film, which would also include Dolan's work. Lastly, this part also includes a chapter devoted to the concept of mise-en-scène. The methodological part introduces the method of semiotic analysis and introduces the synopsis of the studied films. The analytical part of the work presents its own semiotic analysis of the examined films. The aim of the analytical part is to find out how Dolan works with gender performativity in his films and how it is visually portrayed.

The topic of the present diploma work is the representation of the civil conflict in Lebanese cinema. The work is divided into two parts. The first one provides an overview of the historical and discursive contexts of the last two civil wars in Lebanon (1958 and 1975-1991) and describes how these events are reflected in the work of Lebanese filmmakers. The second part of the diploma work focuses on the war period cinematography, generally less known due to the long public unavailability of a large part of the film production of that time. Four feature fictions made between 1975 and 1985 are selected for a more detailed analysis, more precisely by those filmmakers that are considered to be the pioneers of a new auteur cinema in Lebanon: Mārūn Baġdādī, Burhān ˁAlawīya and Jocelyne Ṣaˁb. The chosen method is the semiotic analysis focusing on characterisation features of the film characters and on conflicting oppositions present in the films. Key words: civil war, civil conflict, Lebanese cinema, fiction film, semiotic analysis, connotation.