The aim of this study was to define a semiotics of poetry, to apply that semiotics to analyze seven poems by L.D. Raditladi and to determine how cultural elements are transformed in Raditladi's poems. The study comprises four chapters. The central problems, aims, central theoretical statement and method were outlined and motivated in the first chapter. The second chapter defined a theory of semiotics based on M. Riffaterre's views about the kinds of indirection in poetry and Y. Lotman's view of symbols. Chapter three analysed the indirection and the use of cultural symbols in seven poems from Raditladi's collection Sefalana sa menate (1984). The different variants of the central ideas of phrases (matrices) were traced in the poems. By using symbols and indirection, the poems do not so much express the ideas and emotions of the speaker and the hidden meanings behind the signs, but rather take the reader on fascinating journeys of meaning generation. The analysis of Raditladi's use of symbols revealed the cultural meaning of each poem. Raditladi's seven poems support the idea that symbols, images and indirection provide vital semiotic clues to a poem's significance. It was also shown that the speaker adopts different stances towards traditional Batswana cultural material, like irony, exaggeration, nostalgia and celebration. / Thesis (M.A. (African Languages))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2009.

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The U.S. farm populace is declining rapidly, and the majority of Americans are generations removed from food and fiber production. Society now receives the majority of its information about agriculture-related topics from sources removed from the industry itself, including entertainment media such as films and television programs. To better understand how these entertainment media influence societal perceptions of the food and fiber industry, the researcher sought to explicate the content of entertainment media texts related to agricultural production and to compare that content to previously recorded public perceptions of the industry. Using themes outlined by the Kellogg Foundation’s 2002 survey of perceptions of rural life—the pastoral fantasy, the traditional family farm, and the decline of the agrarian tradition—a social semiotic content analysis of 23 films and television programs released between 1950 and 2012 was conducted to identify parallels between the content of those media texts and the findings of the Kellogg study. Films and television programs released between 1950 and 1990 contained narrative and visual elements that closely linked those texts to the three themes identified by the Kellogg researchers, indicating that those perceptual elements could have been influenced by pervasive images of traditional agricultural production practices. Films and programs released after 1990 also contained components strongly tying them to the Kellogg study themes with added emphasis on the decline of the agrarian tradition theme.

This thesis offers one step in a direction that will help consumers make better choices in response to a growing demand for a more sustainable living (Grant 2008, Pollan 2008). In a world of seismic economic, environmental and social change the need for a more sustainable way of behaving is rapidly becoming a priority for mere survival (Porritt 2006). Indeed, it has been suggested that the collapse of economic growth in 2008 has primarily been the result of a dependence on outmoded models of consumption (Hamilton 2003, James 2008). The first section of the thesis documents as a narrative the shift from a label design, which is the result of a research paper, to the launch of a food brand within a university community, which is the commercial outcome of research. The second section of the thesis is the study that examines a nascent label design consisting of a list of ingredients as semiotic triggers that inform the consumer about the product at the point of purchase. The methodology is drawn from mediated discourse analysis (Scollon 2005, Norris & Jones 2005) and multimodal discourse analysis where each mode is viewed as a system of representation with rules and regularities attached to it (Kress & van Leeuwen 2006). I focus on the nascent shift in modal values of packaging design within the site of engagement of a supermarket. The site of engagement is where mediated actions at moments in time and space occur (Norris & Jones 2005). These mediated actions are the focus of attention of the relevant participants (Scollon 2005), and operate at different levels of attention (Norris 2004). The third section contains the appendices.

Doctor of Philosophy(PhD) / There is increasing awareness among linguists that discourse analysis inevitably involves analyses of meanings arising from the combination of multiple modes of communication. The evolving multimodal pedagogic environment for teaching English as a foreign language (henceforth EFL), among other communicative contexts, calls for a social, semiotic, and linguistic explanation. Situated within the theoretical landscape of social semiotics and in the pedagogic context of EFL education, the present study aims to elucidate how linguistic and visual semiotic resources are co-deployed to construe interpersonal meaning in multimodal textbooks. The data drawn upon are eighteen EFL textbooks for primary and secondary schooling, published by People’s Education Press between 2002 and 2006. The research design consists of three complementary sub-studies. First, it investigates the ways in which the semantic regions of ENGAGEMENT and GRADUATION can be modelled in multimodal texts, with special reference to the interplay of voices in textbook discourse. The second sub-study analyzes how verbal and visual semiotic resources are co-deployed to construe the ‘emotion and attitude’ goal highlighted in curriculum standards, with a particular focus on verbiage-image relations. Third, it extends the linguistic concept ‘modality’ to multimodal discourse, exploring coding orientation in texts for different educational contexts and between different constituent genres. The main findings of this thesis are as follows: (1) A range of multimodal resources (i.e. labelling, dialogue balloon, jointly-constructed text, illustration and highlighting) are identified as enabling editor voice to negotiate meanings with reader voice and character voice. It is found that the way in which an ENGAGEMENT value can be scaled is strongly associated with the intrinsic property of the given multimodal resource. The interaction between multiple voices is closely related to contact, social distance, and point of view. (2) It is shown that images play an essential role in realizing attitudinal meanings. Together with verbal APPRAISAL resources, visual semiotic features work to position the readers in ways that align them to set pedagogic goals, guiding them in completing jointly-constructed texts. Moreover, an attitudinal shift from an emotional release to a more institutionalized type of evaluation can be identified as students advance through the school years. (3) It is argued that what counts as real in multimodal texts is socially defined and specific to a given communicative context. The nature of pedagogic discourse should be taken into account when visual displays are produced for pedagogic materials. The implications of this study include both theoretical and pedagogic aspects。Theoretically it adapts and extends APPRAISAL analysis to multimodal discourse, exploring the intersemiotic complementarity and co-instantiation in construing global evaluative stance. This semiotic exploration, in return, suggests ways in which discourse analysis may help textbook users better understand and interpret the multimodal features. With the affordances as well as limitations of semiotic resources made explicit, we may have one step further towards a comprehensive and critical understanding of multimodal construal of interpersonal meaning in pedagogic materials.

Legal positivism insists upon a distinction between the inside and outside of law. The common law and statutory rules of interpretation assist in maintaining this distinction, establishing the myth that legal decision-making is a purely objective and rational process, giving rise to internal truths. While critical theorists have illustrated the ways in which the lines between the inside and outside are always blurred, there remains a perceived distinction, in law, between the interpretation of concepts that occurs in the law and that which occurs outside the law. Only the former have legal legitimacy. The idea of the legal family is a case in point, where the law defines family according to its own prescriptions irrespective of how family is constituted by non-legal communities. In this thesis, I consider the meanings of family in different spheres to show how the lines between the social, the political and the legal consistently overlap. I then develop a mechanism by which the law can acknowledge and affirm that which is ‘outside’. This requires, firstly, a conception of law as communication and of legal interpretation as a constructive process. Secondly, the task demands that jurists engage with the semiotic processes of the everyday and that legal concepts, at least those that exist independently of the law (family for example) be framed with an open indexicality. This might enable such concepts to be interpreted according to a range of contexts, other than (or in addition to) the legal one. Finally, using the family as an example, I illustrate how a semiotic approach can assist legal interpretation, reform and analysis.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Murdoch University, 2003. / Thesis submitted to the Division of Arts. Bibliography: p. 273-289.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Murdoch University, 2004. / Thesis submitted to the Division of Arts. Bibliography: leaves [260]-275.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Murdoch University, 2008. / Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Arts and Education. Invitation to exhibition titled: In the eye of the beholder, in back of thesis. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 116-118).