Volume 10, Issue 3

The concept of authenticity has received much discussion in applied linguistics and educational studies. Valuable insights have been gained into how authenticity is problematised in language teaching and how to improve the situation by engaging learners with better-designed materials and activities. These achievements notwithstanding, empirical evidence remains insufficient to understand learners’ meaning-making endeavours in real-life learning scenarios. The current study attempts to examine authenticity in additional language learning from a semiotic perspective, which may shed new light on the complex cognitive process of beginner learners’ first encounter with a new language and how this process could be motivated and facilitated by teachers in a classroom setting. Evidence of semiotic articulation and production of authenticity from a low-pressure Spanish classroom is analysed focussing on cultural authenticity, interactive authenticity and authenticity of behaviour and engagement. The evidence is discussed to find how semiotic resources in combination with lived experiences may help learners’ comprehension and appreciation of the target language and its culture. These findings reveal the relevance and value of semiotic approaches to language teaching research and provide practical implications for exposing pre-tertiary young learners to languages other than English for more diverse and extensive learning experiences.

Malcolm Bradbury’s novel Rates of Exchange , taking the economic term “rates of exchange” as a central metaphor, depicts various exchanges occurring in the socio-economic landscape of Britain during the 1970s and 1980s. In the context of governmental emphasis on economic development, the novel intricately explores exchanges among diverse entities, playing with multiple meanings of the term “exchange”. In this way, the novel itself becomes a form of “legal tender,” exchanged for reader comprehension, communication, and participation. It highlights the ubiquitous presence of exchange and the risks associated with the uncertain exchange rates between different entities. Furthermore, it invites readers to participate in the story-telling and the nostalgic journey back to British literary tradition. This paper, drawing on Roland Barthes’s semiotic theory along with structuralist and poststructuralist concepts, investigates the multifaceted meanings of “exchange” in the novel. Through this analysis, the paper aims to illuminate the semiotic significance of various narrative forms and the profound thematic concerns in Bradbury’s work.

Newspaper political cartoons, known for their satirical nature, employ semiotic and linguistic techniques to comment on or criticise political leaders and events humorously. While previous studies on Nigerian newspaper political cartoons have focused on ideological issues and discourse frames, little attention has been given to the linguistic investigation of semiotic humour techniques in these cartoons. This study, therefore, investigates these humour techniques, utilising Salvatore Attardo and Victor Raskin’s General Theory of Verbal Humour (GTVH) as the framework within a descriptive design. Three newspapers – Punch , The Guardian , and Daily Trust – were purposively selected for their regular publication of cartoons, criticising Nigeria’s politics. Eleven political cartoons were purposively selected for their semiotic and humorous depictions of Nigeria’s politics, and subjected to linguistic analysis. Six semiotic humour techniques were identified in the cartoons: exaggeration, humorous metaphor, distortion of formulaic expressions, neologism, innovative collocation, and sarcasm. These techniques were employed to satirise three governance issues in Nigeria – misgovernance, corruption and insecurity.

This research paper delves into the intricate role of music as a symbolic form in Pascal Quignard’s novel Tous les matins du monde , exploring its capacity to convey profound human emotions and experiences. Set against the backdrop of 17th-century France, the narrative follows the lives of Monsieur de Sainte Colombe and Marin Marais, renowned viola da gamba players, to contemplate the essence of music and its representation of human sentiment. The paper examines the semiotic nature of music, its relationship with memory and emotion, and the philosophical inquiry into music’s intrinsic value as an art form. It also discusses the novel’s adaptation into a film and its impact on the revival of Baroque music. Furthermore, the paper draws parallels between the myth of Orpheus and the characters’ personal journeys, highlighting the transformative power of music and its ability to transcend reality. The analysis is grounded in the works of various scholars, including Ferdinand de Saussure, Suzanne Langer, and Charles Sanders Peirce, to provide a comprehensive understanding of music’s symbolic essence in Quignard’s literary creation.

This essay is a re-application of the language codes of Roland Barthes and Jonathan Culler’s concept for Structuralist Poetics. The approach I use explores the codes demonstrated in Barthes’ well-known text, S/Z with slight modifications for their application to poetry. The concepts borrowed from Mr. Culler are from his book of the same title: Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics and the Study of Literature (Cornell University Press, 1975). Culler’s main argument is that there must be other, un-attempted strategies combined with conventional approaches in literature of that time period. His answer to this problem was to develop a set of linguistic-based concepts to compensate for the reader in the analysis of literary works. I have applied in this essay my approach based on Culler’s methodology and the language codes of Roland Barthes: semantic, symbolic, cultural-referential, actional and hermeneutic. I apply Culler’s concepts to a reading of poetry followed by an application of the language codes as a further development of my work in revitalizing this never-before applied method.

This paper explores the deployment of metaphors in the BBC Yoruba-medium football results of the English Premier League, examining how cultural metaphorical choices shape meaning in online sport discourse. Through a discourse analysis of Yoruba-medium football results, the study reveals how metaphors drawn from Yoruba cultural milieu and everyday life are used to create vivid descriptions of game events, players, and teams. The study relies on Lakoff’s conceptual metaphor theory, complemented by Kress and van Leeuwen’s social semiotic approach to multimodality. Findings reveal that metaphors describe game events, teams, and players, thus, framing the contest in unique and evocative manners, drawing on cultural and shared knowledge to shape the understanding of the game in an adversarial sense. This study, therefore, argues that metaphors are deployed to convey deeper cultural meanings and values, and add creativity to match results. The findings point to the role of language and culture in shaping the experiences of football fandom in sports and media.

The release of nuclear wastewater by Japan has generated strong opposition from Japanese citizens, governments of neighboring countries, and global environmental advocates. China, representing the concerns of neighboring countries, has underscored the illicit and detrimental nature of this action. This study explores the metaphors employed in Chinese media regarding the discharge of Fukushima nuclear-contaminated water. Based on the self-built corpus, we reveal the rhetorical motives underlying the metaphors, drawing on the framework of critical metaphor analysis. The study centers on two major metaphors – war and liar metaphors – in the discourse of two Chinese official media, China Daily and People’s Daily Online . It is found that according to Chinese media, initiating and protesting the discharge of Fukushima nuclear-contaminated water is a war; and that the Japanese government and TEPCO are liars. The metaphor choices reflect China’s stance of opposition and condemnation against the discharge and its intention of uncovering deceptive and misleading information.