This dissertation explores the implications of new photographic and computer technologies that offer the transduction of modalities. The fundamental argument, here, is that such technologies ‘change’ the process of sense-making resulting in a new asymmetry that informs the visual language of the creative work. I argue that the processes of language analysis can assist us in the interpretation of multimodal texts and that a digital illustration can be analysed via the theoretical framework ‘built’ from the first linguistic concepts such as those to be found in the texts of Plato, Aristotle, Augustine and Locke. A semiotic method applied in the context of digital artwork, and developed from the linguistic-semiotic stand-point, is well suited for an examination of the intermodal relations (the relations between layers in a multi-layered image file). By examining the layered structures of my images I demonstrate the evident similarity between the disconnection of the components of the linguistic sign on the one hand and the visual sign on the other hand. The analysis of a digital image, especially created for this purpose, is expanded by an investigation that offers a partial reading from an insider’s point of view that involves an image being analysed on the conceptual level. This involves the examination of the primary internal relations between the layers of the image, and on the level of expression, the examination of the primary external relations between the layers and the narrative of the image. In its deployment the semiotic method I use investigates the existence and the conditions of a space in which the individual readings from the perspective of outsider and insider might be conceptualized and presents a partial reading derived from an outsider’s interpretation of the same image. After comparing both readings I arrive at the conclusion that the different texts’ modalities have an impact on the degree of the sign components’ disconnection. My conclusion, then, is that an outsider who cannot view the image in its multimodal form assigns sign components in a higher degree of disconnection than an insider who has access to the intermodal relations of the image file.

This dissertation explores the `sign' of visible face make-up and examines how women consume appearance in everyday life in contemporary Australia. Using a semiotic framework, it presents a novel new method for interpreting and gaining increased meaning into an everyday consumption phenomenon. The purpose of the study is to gain insights into why women wear make-up. It seeks to provide understanding of what this medium signifies to women and what the `sign' of make-up symbolises to the female individual. It explores how visible face make-up affects the way women consume appearance in everyday life, how they feel about themselves, and the role make-up plays in defining their own self-identity. The study utilises an interpretivist approach and uses a qualitative methodology in the form of phenomenology. The theoretical framework used to underpin this research is semiotics and this study examines the sign of make-up using two different semiotic perspectives previously not used together. The significance of this process is that by combining these perspectives a richer and more in-depth understanding is derived.

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In 1980s, following the urbanization and industrialization, the rate of dual-earner and nuclear family increased in Taiwan. The changing family form also influenced the time-distribution between parents in housework and child-caring. Men started to participate in these kinds of work. The image of ¡§New father¡¨ or ¡§New mother¡¨ also appeared in mass media. However, the images of parenthood provided by advertisements are not neutral and value-free. Thus, the aims of this study are to discover the power relationship and sex ideology through using semiotics to analyze the parenthood¡¦s images on advertisements in Taiwan. 15 processed milk advertisements are chosen as the samples for this study. The major findings revealed that the images of parenthood in processed milk advertisements are full of patriarchy ideology. Although there are some new parent¡¦s images appeared in the advertisements, the images of parenthood are in some measure full of patriarchy ideology. Mother is still children¡¦s major caretaker in the advertisements. The distribution of child care is different. Mother has to do repetitive, scheduled and important housework like preparing lunch. In comparison, father only has to do easy caring work like playing with children. Because of the different work distribution, mother is imprisoned in the private sphere. In addition, mother is idealized and marginalized in the advertisements. Mother can be good mother easily with the help of processed milk. However, the product, processed milk, is more important than mother in the advertising. Mother can only be completed with the help of processed milk. Mother is simplified as buyer and user of the product.

This study evaluated photographs used in Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News and World Report in stories about biotechnology and food safety issues from the years 2000 and 2001. This study implemented a semiotic methodology to determine if the messages conveyed by the photographs positively or negatively communicated agricultural issues. This research found that the news magazines had a balanced number of positive and negative photographs. Data indicated that many of the photographs involved similar subjects and, therefore, could be promoting stereotypes. This research also examined the technical methods used by photographers and found that the majority of the photographs were taken with very similar camera settings. This study also found that magazines use a large number of staged shots as opposed to a more documentary style. This staging indicates that photographers have control in the messages communicated to the viewer of the photograph.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2008. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 238-244).

This dissertation is mainly concerned with the photography of Christer Strömholm. In studying his work semiotics is used as a method in analysing the rhetoric of his photographs and their relations to the photographic world, the artworld and the lifeworld. Especially the phenomenologically based visual and cultural semiotics of Göran Sonesson is adopted. The work of Strömholm is first understood in the context of surrealism; especially in the ”dark” surrealism of Georges Bataille´s. In relation to the I - here and nowposition of the lifeworld the surrealism of Bataille can be seen as a downwardgoing rhetoric on the Great Chain of Being, the hierarchy of the lifeworld, from stone, via object, plant and man, to society or God. Bataille´s highlighting of the material and animal nature of man is an opposition to the upwardgoing spiritualising rhetoric of André Breton´s. The main rhetorical device in Strömholm’s photography is a downwardgoing isolation of the object from the lifeworld, according to Jan-Gunnar Sjölin surrealism’s first maneuvre. However, Bataille´s rhetoric and Strömholm´s photography may also be seen as a modern variant of the ancient grotesque degradation that according to Michail Bakhtin once took place in popular carnivals and marketplaces. The degradation of Bakhtin, George Lakoff and Mark Turner’s notion of conceptual metaphor suggests a rhetoric of the lifeworld itself, which may allow us to understand pictorial rhetoric without the help of the theories of the artworld, such as surrealism’s theories. Strömholm´s work is studied in relation to Roman Jakobsons functions in the process of communication. The dominant function in the photographs is the metasemiotic, since pictures and other signs are depicted and commented on. Also the photographs of transsexuals depict and comment signs, men that are signs of women. His photographs of transsexuals has been interpreted as a social realistic documentary, but is better understood as a surrealist union of two terms as unlike as possible, femininity and masculinity. Another important function in his photographs is the interpersonal function suggesting a conjunction of emotive and conative functions. Along with isolation concealment of the object is used, which makes the object difficult to identify. We are not allowed to complete the act of perception, we see only the point of view. In Strömholm’s photography, the point of view of the invisible ”picture-self” with its unique perspective replaces the customary photographic referential image supposed to show “reality.” The notion of ”picture-self” suggests a differentiation between photographer and ”picture-self”, a ready-prepared position for a subject, that the photographer or viewer can place him/herself in. In being placed in this position an existential particualrization occurs, which is termed ”la condition humaine”. Walter Benjamin´s idea of ”the outmoded” and ”the ruins of the bourgeoisie”, Susan Sontag´s idea of the role of ugliness in modern photography, is seen in relation to Strömholms photography and the downwardgoing surrealist rhetoric. In Benjamin´s ”age of reproduction” there is in the photographic work of Strömholm, a tension between ”centripetality” and ”centrifugality”; of remaining in or departing from the artworld. His work is also discussed in relation to postvisualization as an opposition to the well known photographic notion of previsualization.   In order to explain different rhetorical maneuvres semiotically in relation to the spatial lifeworld, the notion of familiarization is used as an opposition to Victor Shklovskys well known notion of estrangement. In the model of “the Great Cross”, with its origo as the familiarity of the I-here-nowposition of the core of the lifeworld, a vertical axis is the Great Chain of Being, ending on both ends with what is considered strange. Also ending with what is strange is a horizontal axis with rhetorical relations on the same level. A similar cross is used to explain rhetorical temporal movements between past and present and present and future with the present I - here and nowsituation of the origo. A conclusion is that visual and cultural semiotics is an enlightening tool for practical analyses even of an œuvre that is as enigmatic as that of Strömholm´s.

Thesis (MTech. degree in Fine Art) -- Tshwane University of technology, 2011. / This dissertation investigates associated themes of the Pre-Raphaelite artists Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) and William Holman Hunt (1827-1910), in context of their idealized and spiritual portrayal of the human figure. Semiotics is used to analyze the artwork of these artists in order to attain a deeper understanding of these artworks, and to investigate potential meanings that certain signs might signify. The possible symbolism of these signs are sourced from the key symbolist theorist, Juan Eduardo Cirlot (1916-1973), from his systematic study of symbolic signs. The research identifies semiotics validity as a system for interpreting signs, and seeks to show that there are deep and complex meanings, even in a painting. Semiotics is also philosophical: it suggests that reality does not exist outside of individual interpretation, but that reality is a system of signs.

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This thesis sets out to describe sign systems for communication using Axiomatic Functionalism as its theoretical framework. In doing so, the thesis also provides an important test to the claim of Axiomatic Functionalism that by using its premisses the semiotician (or linguist) has all the necessary "tools" s/he needs for the analysis and description (the one implies the other) of any semiotic system for communication (including Language). Using Axiomatic Functionalism the author attempts to describe a number of graphic semiotic systems for communication. He finds that for an adequate description of the signa (a generic term which includes various types of signs and symbols) in these systems further theoretical notions and definitions are needed. Discussing these the author concludes that for Axiomatic Functionalism to maintain its claim of universal applicability to any sign system for communication it needs to incorporate in its premisses the notions and definitions proposed here. The thesis begins by a brief general introduction to semiotics. This is followed by a discussion of what constitutes scientific theories in relation to semiotics (including linguistics). The relevant aspects of Axiomatic Functionalism are then discussed, after which certain original theoretical notions are introduced. These include: “mnemonic economy" (with its many manifestations including "mnemonic/pictorial motivation"), the "general organising principle" ("systemic principle"), "principle of coinage" (a mechanism for generating signa), and "signum-family”. Having established the necessary theoretical background, the author proceeds to describe various graphic “signum-systems" discussing their important features and establishing the types of signum they consist of and, consequently, the types of system they are, their complexity and the "plerology” (grammar) of each system, where present. The systems discussed include various systems used in books on plants; a system used in a book on "lace knitting"; a system used in working models; a system used in providing information about paintings in the "Classics of World Art" series of books; and a system used in the "Automobile Association" handbooks. Further Axiomatic Functionalist theoretical notions, directly relevant to the systems described thereafter, are then introduced. This is followed by a description of three systems: two computer "languages", the "Hexadecimal notation" and the "binary code", and the "Library of Congress classification system". A final brief "Epilogue" concludes the thesis.