Abstract
Although ‘voice’ is a contested concept used in many different ways, it is often used to indicate degrees of authorial agency and, as such, is useful for exploring interest and design in artwork and three dimensional artefacts. This paper investigates the semiotic signifiers of voice in artwork, arguing that the notion of materiality is crucial for understanding voice in designed three dimensional artefacts. The methodological approach is multimodal social semiotics where meaning is seen to be made through the selection and configuration of modes in texts and through the interest of the sign-maker in a particular context. This position paper focuses on authorial engagement as realized through semiotic choices, and explores the relationship between creativity and constraints in sign-making. It also investigates ways in which voice is constructed intertextually through citation in artwork. It argues that in designed artefacts, citation takes the form of explicit or implicit negotiation with authoritative conventions, and it is also realised through sensory and connotative provenance. The overall aim is to find apt semiotic terms to talk about voice across modes, genres and domains. Identifying these semiotic tools and signifiers of voice may be useful in a number of domains, including the pedagogical where voice often instantiates the negotiation between students’ lifeworlds and the new ideas, contexts and genres they encounter.
References
Andrew, D. (2014). An aesthetic language for teaching and learning: Multimodality and contemporary art practice. In: Multimodal Approaches to Research and Pedagogy: Recognition, Resources and Access, A. Archer and D. Newfield (eds), 174–191. London and New York: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar
Archer, A. (2013). Voice as Design: Exploring academic voice in multimodal texts in Higher Education. In: Multimodality and Social Semiosis. Communication, Meaning-Making, and Learning in the Work of Gunther Kress, M. Bock and N. Pachler (Eds), 150–161. New York and London: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar
Archer, A., and Björkvall, A. (2017). The ‘semiotics of value’ in upcycling. In: Advancing Multimodal and Critical Discourse Studies: Interdisciplinary Research Inspired by Theo Van Leeuwen’s Social Semiotics, S. Zhao, A. Björkvall, M. Boeriis and E. Djonov (eds.), 165 – 180. London and New York: Routledge.10.4324/9781315521015-11Search in Google Scholar
Archer, A., and Stent, S. (2011). Red socks and purple rain: The political uses of colour in late apartheid South Africa. Visual Communication, 10(2):115–128.10.1177/1470357211398437Search in Google Scholar
Bakhtin, M. (1981). From the Prehistory of Novelistic Discourse. In: The Dialogic Imagination. Four Essays by M. Bakhtin, M. Holquist (ed. and trans), 41–83. Austin: University of Texas Press.Search in Google Scholar
Bateman, J. (2008). Multimodality and Genre. A foundation for the systematic analysis of multimodal documents. United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan.10.1057/9780230582323Search in Google Scholar
Bell, S. (2016). Writing against formal constraints in art and design: Making Words Count. In: Multimodality in Higher Education, A. Archer and E. Breuer (eds.), G. Rijlaarsdam and T. Olive (Series Eds.), Studies in Writing, Vol. 33, 136–166. Leiden: Brill.Search in Google Scholar
Bezemer, J., and Kress, G. (2008). Writing in multimodal texts. A social semiotic account of designs for learning. Written Communication, 25(2):166 – 195.10.1177/0741088307313177Search in Google Scholar
Björkvall, A., and Karlsson, A.-M. (2011). The materiality of discourses and the semiotics of materials. A social perspective on the meaning potentials of written texts and furniture. Semiotica, 187(1):141–165.10.1515/semi.2011.068Search in Google Scholar
Blommaert, J. (2005). Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511610295Search in Google Scholar
Brenner, J., and Archer, A. (2014). Arguing Art. In: Multimodal Approaches to Research and Pedagogy: Recognition, Resources and Access, A. Archer and D. Newfield (eds.), 57 – 70. Oxon and New York: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar
Cope, B., and Kalantzis, M. (Eds.), (1993). The powers of literacy. A genre approach to teaching writing. London and Washington: Falmer Press.Search in Google Scholar
Djonov, E., and Van Leeuwen, T. (2011). The semiotics of texture: From tactile to visual. Visual Communication, 10(4):541–564.10.1177/1470357211415786Search in Google Scholar
Elbow, P. (2007). Voice in Writing Again. Embracing contraries. College English, 70(2):168–188.Search in Google Scholar
Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and social change. Cambridge: Polity Press.Search in Google Scholar
Halliday, M. A. K. (1978). Language as social semiotic: The social interpretation of language and meaning. London: Edward Arnold.Search in Google Scholar
Huang, C. 2015. Argument as design: a multimodal approach to academic argument in a digital age. Unpublished PhD thesis. University of Cape Town.Search in Google Scholar
Hyland, K. (1999). Disciplinary discourses: Writer stance in research articles. In: Writing: Texts, Processes and Practices, C. Candlin and K. Hyland (eds.), 99 – 121. London and New York: Longman.Search in Google Scholar
Hyland, K. (2005). Stance and engagement: A model of interaction in academic discourse. Discourse Studies, 7(2):173–192.10.1177/1461445605050365Search in Google Scholar
Hyland, K., and Jiang, F. (2016). Change of attitude? A diachronic study of stance. Written Communication, 33(3):251–274.10.1177/0741088316650399Search in Google Scholar
Ivanič, R. (1998). Writing and Identity. The discoursal construction of identity in academic writing. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/swll.5Search in Google Scholar
Jewitt, C. (ed.), (2009). The routledge handbook of multimodal analysis. London New York: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar
Jewitt, C., Bezemer, J., and O’Halloran, K. (2016). Introducing multimodality. Oxon, New York: Routledge.10.4324/9781315638027Search in Google Scholar
Kress, G. (2010). A social semiotic approach to contemporary communication. Oxon, New York: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar
Kress, G., and Van Leeuwen, T. (2001). Multimodal discourse. The modes and media of contemporary communication. London: Arnold.Search in Google Scholar
Kress, G., and Van Leeuwen, T. (2002). Colour as a semiotic mode: Notes for a grammar of colour. Visual Communication, 1(3):343–368.10.1177/147035720200100306Search in Google Scholar
Kress, G., and Van Leeuwen, T. (2006). Reading images. The grammar of visual design. London: Routledge.10.4324/9780203619728Search in Google Scholar
Lillis, T., and Scott, M. (2007). Defining academic literacies research: Issues of epistemology, ideology and strategy. Journal of Applied Linguistics, 4(1):5–32.10.1558/japl.v4i1.5Search in Google Scholar
Machin, D. (2013). What is multimodal critical discourse studies?. Critical Discourse Studies, 10(4):347–355.10.1080/17405904.2013.813770Search in Google Scholar
Mitra, A., and Watts, E. (2002). Theorizing cyberspace: The idea of voice applied to the internet discourse. New Media and Society, 4(4):479–498.10.1177/146144402321466778Search in Google Scholar
Prince, R., and Archer, A. (2014). Exploring academic voice in multimodal quantitative texts. Literacy and Numeracy Studies, 22(1):39–57.10.5130/lns.v22i1.4178Search in Google Scholar
Thesen, L. (2001). Modes, Literacies and Power: A University Case Study. Language and Education, 14(2 and 3):132–145.10.1080/09500780108666806Search in Google Scholar
Thesen, L. (2014). Risk as productive: Working with dilemmas in the writing of research. In: Risk in Academic Writing. Postgraduate Students, Their Teachers and the Making of Knowledge, L. Thesen and L. Cooper (eds.), 1–24. Bristol, Buffalo, Toronto: Multilingual Matters.Search in Google Scholar
Thompson, Z. 2014. A multimodal social semiotic approach to printmaking pedagogy. An exploration of the intaglio process. Unpublished Masters thesis. University of Cape Town.Search in Google Scholar
Van Leeuwen, T. (2008). New forms of writing, new visual competencies. Visual Studies, 23(2):130–135.10.1080/14725860802276263Search in Google Scholar
Van Leeuwen, T., and Jewitt, C. (eds.), (2001). Handbook of visual analysis. London/Thousand Oaks/New Dehli: SAGE Publications.Search in Google Scholar
© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Research Article
- Academic Voice Reimag(in)ed: Interest and Design in Artwork and Three Dimensional Artefacts
- Multimodal Humour: Integrating Blending Model, Relevance Theory, and Incongruity Theory
- A Multimodal Analysis of Affect and Attitude Education in China’s English Textbooks
- Peircean Semiotics and Multimodality: Towards a New Synthesis
Articles in the same Issue
- Research Article
- Academic Voice Reimag(in)ed: Interest and Design in Artwork and Three Dimensional Artefacts
- Multimodal Humour: Integrating Blending Model, Relevance Theory, and Incongruity Theory
- A Multimodal Analysis of Affect and Attitude Education in China’s English Textbooks
- Peircean Semiotics and Multimodality: Towards a New Synthesis