Shielding the learned body: a semiotic analysis of school badges in New South Wales, Australia
-
Colin Symes
Abstract
School badges, though an integral part of education’s “aesthetic order,” of its signage and apparel, have not been the subjects of much of analysis. In addressing this oversight, the following paper examines the badges of New South Wales government schools and argues that like their counterparts elsewhere in the world, they draw on heraldic models and are constructs of colors, names, motifs, and mottoes that in various ways have local cogency and significance. For example, many badges draw on Australia’s flora and fauna or refer to aspects of its colonial history and thereby induct pupils into the nation’s identity. Some schools, under the pressure to be more business-oriented, have turned their back on the traditional badge in favor of logos and slogans that, arguably, are more commensurate with their times.
References
Aagard-Hansen, Jens & Perez Ochwal Oyugi. 2013. School mottos in Western Kenya as a reflection of educational values and principles. Global Research Journal of Education 3(1). 12–19.Suche in Google Scholar
Ball, Stephen & Deborah Youdell. 2008. Hidden privatization in education. Brussels: Education International.Suche in Google Scholar
Baskerville, Bruce. 2010. Coat of arms. In Melissa Harper & Richard White (eds.), Symbols of Australia: Discovering the stories behind the myths, 107–113. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Bessant, Bob. 1984. Influence of public schools on early schools in Victoria. The Australian New Zealand History of Education Society 13(1). 48–57.Suche in Google Scholar
Bogatto, François & Christine Hélot. 2010. Linguistic landscape and language diversity in strasbourg: The “Quartier Gare”. In Elana Shohamy, Eliezer Ben-Rafael & Monica Barni (ed.), Linguistic landscape in the city, 275–291. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.10.21832/9781847692993-017Suche in Google Scholar
Carter, Paul. 1987. The road to Botany Bay: An essay in spatial history. London: Faber.Suche in Google Scholar
Conway, Jill Kerr. 1962. The road from Coorain. London: Minerva.Suche in Google Scholar
Craik, Jennifer. 2005. Uniforms exposed: From conformity to transgression. Oxford: Berg.10.2752/9781847881212Suche in Google Scholar
Davidson, Alexander. 1990. Blazers, badges, and boaters: A pictorial history of the school uniform. HordenScope.Suche in Google Scholar
Dussell, Inés. 2005. The shaping of citizenship with style: A history of uniform vestimentary codes in argentinian public schools. In Martin Lawn & Ian Grosvenor (eds.), Materialities of schooling: Design-technology-objects-routines, 97–122. Oxford: Symposium.Suche in Google Scholar
Education & Training Committee. 2007. Inquiry into dress codes and school uniforms in Victorian schools. Melbourne: Victorian Government Printer.Suche in Google Scholar
Evans, Richard. 2015. South Africa’s changing linguistic frontiers: Latin mottoes in schools and universities. Language Matters 46(1). 139–156. https://doi.org/10.1080/10228195.2014.986186.Suche in Google Scholar
Fox-Davies, Arthur C. 1978. A complete guide to heraldry. New York: Bonanza.Suche in Google Scholar
Frutiger, Adrian. 1989. Signs and symbols: Their design and meaning. London: Studio.Suche in Google Scholar
Gottdiener, Mark. 1995. Postmodern semiotics: Material culture and the forms of postmodern life. Oxford: Blackwell.Suche in Google Scholar
Gottschall, Kristina, Natasha Wardman, Kathryn Edgeworth, Rachael Hutchesson & Sue Saltmarsh. 2010. Hard lines and soft scenes: Constituting masculinities in the prospectuses of all-boys, elite private schools. Australian Journal of Education 54(1). 18–30. https://doi.org/10.1177/000494411005400103.Suche in Google Scholar
Halavais, Alexander M. C. 2012. A genealogy of badges: Inherited meanings and monstrous hybrids. Information, Communication & Society 15(3). 354–373. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118x.2011.641992.Suche in Google Scholar
Hobsbawn, Eric. 1983. Introduction: Inventing tradition. In Eric Hobsbawn & Terence Ringer (eds.), The invention of tradition, 1–14. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Suche in Google Scholar
James, Clive. 1981. Unreliable memoirs. London: Picador.Suche in Google Scholar
Karlen, Peter H. 2008. The aesthetics of trademarks. Contemporary Aesthetics 6. 1–22.Suche in Google Scholar
Kassimeris, Christos. 2010. Football comes home: Symbolic identities in European football. Plymouth: Lexington.Suche in Google Scholar
Kostanski, Laura. 2015. Toponymic attachment. In Carole Hough (ed.), The Oxford handbook of names and naming, 413–414. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199656431.013.42Suche in Google Scholar
Kress, Gunther & Theo van Leeuwen. 1996. Reading images: The grammar of visual design. London: Routledge.Suche in Google Scholar
Lister, Martin & Liz Wells. 2001. See beyond belief: Cultural studies as an approach to analyzing the visual. In Theo van Leeuwen & Jewitt Carey (eds.), Handbook of visual analysis, 61–91. London: Sage.10.4135/9780857020062.n4Suche in Google Scholar
Liverani, Mary Rose. 1975. The winter sparrows: Growing up in Scotland and Australia. Melbourne: Nelson.Suche in Google Scholar
Logan, K. Otto. 1937. Do public school names have any educational significance. The Social Studies 28(8). 339–342.10.1080/00220973.1934.11016215Suche in Google Scholar
McVeigh, Brian. 2000. Wearing ideology: State, schooling and ideology in Japan. Oxford: Berg.10.2752/9781847888976Suche in Google Scholar
Nanni, Antonio & Fredericio Bellentini. 2018. The meaning making of the built environment in the Fascist city: A semiotic approach. Signs and Society 6(2). 379–411. https://doi.org/10.1086/696850.Suche in Google Scholar
Puttock, A. G. 1988. Heraldry in Australia. Child: Frenchs Forest.Suche in Google Scholar
Redfern, Walter. 1984. Puns. Oxford: Blackwell.Suche in Google Scholar
Rivzi, Fazal. 2016. Old elite schools, history and the construction of the new imaginary. In Jane Kenway & Cameron McCarthy (eds.), Elite schools in globalizing circumstances: New conceptual directions and connections, 126–144. London: Routledge.Suche in Google Scholar
Saint-Simon, Fernande. 1990. Semiotics of visual language. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Slater, Stephen. 2013. The illustrated book of heraldry: An international history of heraldry and its contemporary uses. Wigston: Lorenz.Suche in Google Scholar
Symes, Colin. 2021a. Sitting on the fence: A geosemiotic analysis of school perimeters. Linguistic Landscape 7(1). 60–85. https://doi.org/10.1075/ll.19024.sym.Suche in Google Scholar
Symes, Colin. 2021b. No by any other name: The onomastics of government schools in New South Wales, Australia. Journal of Onoma 56. 251–268. https://doi.org/10.34158/onoma.56/2021/13.Suche in Google Scholar
Synott, John & Colin Symes. 1995. Genealogy of school badges: An iconography of badges and mottoes. British Journal of Sociology of Education 16(2). 139–152. https://doi.org/10.1080/0142569950160201.Suche in Google Scholar
Taylor, Jane. 2010. Southern cross. In Melissa Harper & Richard White (eds.), Symbols of Australia: Discovering the stories behind the myths, 13–21. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Van Langendonck, Willy. 2007. Theory and typology of proper names. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110197853Suche in Google Scholar
Waugh, Linda R. 1994. Degrees of iconicity. Journal of Pragmatics 22. 55–70. https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(94)90056-6.Suche in Google Scholar
Wilcox, Craig. 2017. Badge, boot, button: The story of Australian uniforms. Canberra: National Library of Australia.Suche in Google Scholar
© 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- A pragmatic view of the poetic function of language
- “Little music” or “rough music”?: Ishion Hutchinson, modernist poet
- How binding and bonding communicate interpersonal meanings in a children’s museum to address Jordan’s energy and water challenges
- Autocommunication in crib speech and private speech
- From action to performative gesture: the Slapping movement used by children at the age of four to six
- An important chapter in the history of semiotics: inference from signs in Philodemus’ De signis
- Meaning and the evolution of signification and objectivity
- Shielding the learned body: a semiotic analysis of school badges in New South Wales, Australia
- The primordiality of representation
- The existential signs through the works of Alev Ebuzziya Siesbye
- Paratexts and the reframing of a classic: Korean translations of the Japanese Women’s Analects
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- A pragmatic view of the poetic function of language
- “Little music” or “rough music”?: Ishion Hutchinson, modernist poet
- How binding and bonding communicate interpersonal meanings in a children’s museum to address Jordan’s energy and water challenges
- Autocommunication in crib speech and private speech
- From action to performative gesture: the Slapping movement used by children at the age of four to six
- An important chapter in the history of semiotics: inference from signs in Philodemus’ De signis
- Meaning and the evolution of signification and objectivity
- Shielding the learned body: a semiotic analysis of school badges in New South Wales, Australia
- The primordiality of representation
- The existential signs through the works of Alev Ebuzziya Siesbye
- Paratexts and the reframing of a classic: Korean translations of the Japanese Women’s Analects
