ENG324 Signs and Symbols in Written and Visual Communication
Course Aims Semiotics is the study of signs, symbols, and icons in relation to their meaning, be it social convention or idiosyncratic innovation. But how does meaning take effect and how does it remain stable, yet open to change? This course takes the work of two highly influential semioticians, Saussure and Pierce, as its starting point. Outlining their formal understanding of semiotic meaning will ground an exploration of signs, symbols and icons across media, and beyond words into the visual. At a time when the (printed) word has long lost predominance in mass media and the algorithmic, digital media recombine words with icons at a dizzying pace, retracing our steps across media will equip students with the conceptual tools for a critical understanding of meaning-making and reproduction—what influential linguist Claire Kramsch refers to as symbolic competence. Important steps along the way include the way meaning is produced in the visual, combined with words in news and advertising, the aesthetic use of icons in fashion or architecture, and their recombination in comic books and digital memes. Social semiotics and symbolic competence pro-vide the conceptual toolbox for an interdisciplinary inquiry into signs and symbols that is attuned to cultural difference and inquisitive as to the problem of bias in the so-called 'post-truth' era.