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The materiality of discourses and the semiotics of materials: A social perspective on the meaning potentials of written texts and furniture
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Anders Björkvall
and
Anna-Malin Karlsson
Published/Copyright:
September 29, 2011
Abstract
Based on two studies of different meaning-making phenomena, post-it notes and furniture, this paper highlights the role of materiality in everyday semiosis. A perspective on the semiotics of material artifacts is adopted, in which the “social” in combination with the specific affordances of materials are crucial for meaning-making. Partially in opposition to a Saussurean view of the semiotic sign, it is argued that materiality in itself contributes to meaning-making, through discourses and activity types. This paper contributes to the theoretical and the methodological dialogue between social semiotics and other approaches in the wider field of semiotic research.
Published Online: 2011-09-29
Published in Print: 2011-October
© 2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston
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Keywords for this article
semiotic resource;
social semiotics;
discourse;
materiality;
postit notes;
furniture
Articles in the same Issue
- Blending in mathematics
- Film as specific signifying practice: A rational reconstruction of Stephen Heath's “On screen, in frame: Film and ideology”
- Quarantine
- An inconvenient truth? Can a film really affect psychological mood and our explicit attitudes towards climate change?
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- Reading movies as interactive messages: A proposal for a new method of analysis
- Fame and politics: The persuasive poetics of leadership
- Cosmos and creativity: Man in an evolving universe as a creative, aesthetical agent — some Peircean remarks
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- IT terminology, translation, and semiotic levels: Cultural, lexicographic, and linguistic problems
- Formation of interpretants in Roentgen semiotics
- Automation of the linguistic translation processes: A study on viability
- An excess of signification: Or, what is an event?
- The illustration of beauty: Super-exposed in the U.S., veiled in Iran
- A novel semio-mathematical technique for excavating themes out of group dynamics
- Compound constructions: Waterproof three-storey brick and tile fire stations?
