Semiotics of Advertising Communication in WEB 2.0 Network Social Services

The article is devoted to the study of semiotics in the advertising communication of web 2.0 network social services. The purpose of the article is to analyze the publications of various brands on social Internet services focused on communication with the consumer and the subsequent study of the features of the use of semiotics tools. The relevance of the article is due to the fact that the modern information society has increased interest in semiotic systems, including in the field of Internet communication. The modern vision of semiotics has gone beyond the traditional framework and defined it as part of global and local communication in web 2.0 social network services, not only between Internet users, but also in the areas of B2B and B2C. The study of the possibilities of semiotics in advertising communication on web 2.0 social platforms, using the example of search engine applications, the social network Instagram, and company sites, in this article is based on the works of R. Barthes, J. Baudrillard, Y. Lotman, and U. Eco. This material confirms our hypothesis that today, especially since the beginning of the pandemic, communication on web 2.0 services is not limited only to text with a picture/photos or videos, more and more often there are visualized scenes created with the help of graphic design with the use of symbols and iconic signs that are familiar to the consumer, which he easily decodes, since they are inscribed in his socio-cultural coordinate system. The innovation of the research is based on the fixation of modern criteria of advertising Internet communication: polycode, intertextuality and multimedia, used as a way of working with target audiences. The novelty of the material consists of the understanding that semiotics today is a new look not only at the branch of scientific knowledge, but also at the practical possibilities of sign systems in the digital age, when the sign becomes a part of the socio-cultural space, a trend of the global world, a tool for transmitting information, knowledge, positioning, a tool for manipulation, influence, and attracting attention. Thus, brands working with the audience in todays realities should take into account not only the product preferences of consumers, but also broadcast their social / civic activity.

Jeden świat. Reklama społeczna w dobie pandemii

The article is an excerpt from a wider research project carried out by the author in October– December 2020, concerning advertising materials used by WHO and selected countries (Poland, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa) in social campaigns during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. This text presents one case study – a campaign used in Poland, comparing its messages with WHO advertising materials. The main thesis was taken from the thought of Ivan Krastev, who claims that the pandemic made everyone realize that all people are inhabitants of “One World” in the face of a global threat. The entire study used the triangulation of two research methods – case study and compositional interpretation by Gillian Rose. Roman Jakobson’s model of linguistic communication was used to examine the verbal layer of messages. In the linguistic layer of the messages, their considerable persuasiveness was assumed. In the visual layer, due to the simplicity of the form, it is limited to the compositional modality, with particular emphasis on colors and iconic signs. The text shows how important a role in communication, especially in times of a pandemic, is played by social advertising campaigns. Paradoxically, a pandemic that threatens humanity may also open up new, comparative areas of research on the effectiveness of mass communication means used in some countries, which can be successfully used in others.

Object and handling handshapes in 11 sign languages: towards a typology of the iconic use of the hands

This article looks at cross-linguistic variation in lexical iconicity, addressing the question of to what extent and how this variation is patterned. More than in spoken languages, iconicity is highly frequent in the lexicons of sign languages. It is also highly complex, in that often multiple motivated components jointly shape an iconic lexeme. Recent typological research on spoken languages finds tentative iconic patterning in a large number of basic lexical items, underlining once again the significance of iconicity for human language. The uncontested and widespread use of iconicity found in the lexicons of sign languages enables us to take typological research into lexical iconicity to the next level. Indeed, previous studies have shown cross-linguistic variation in: a) the use of embodying and handling handshapes in sign languages (mostly of European origin) and b) the frequency of space-based size depiction in African and European sign languages. The two types of variation may be interrelated, as handling handshapes may use space-based size depiction. In this study, we first replicate earlier studies on the distribution of embodying and handling handshapes, this time in a data set consisting of a relatively large set of sign languages (n = 11), most of which are used in Africa. The results confirm significant variation across these sign languages. These findings are then compared to the use of space-based size depiction, revealing that these patterns independently from the distribution of embodying/handling handshapes. We argue that the results call for expanding typological studies on representational strategies in iconic signs beyond the now relatively well studied instrument/manipulation alternation. Fine-grained analyses on a multitude of iconic features in signs are likely to reveal cross-linguistic variation in iconic tendencies in SL lexicons.

The distribution of handshapes in the established lexicon of Israeli Sign Language (ISL)

Our study focuses on the perception of the iconicity of handshapes – one of the formational parameters of the sign in signed language. Seventy Hebrew speakers were asked to match handshapes to Hebrew translations of 45 signs (that varied in degree of iconicity), which are specified for one of the handshapes in Israeli Sign Language (ISL). The results show that participants reliably match handshapes to corresponding sign translations for highly iconic signs, but are less accurate for less iconic signs. This demonstrates that there is a notable degree of iconicity in the lexicon of ISL, which is recognizable even to non-signers. The ability of non-signers to detect handshape to form is explained by the fact that word meanings are understood by both deaf and hearing peoples via the mental elaboration of simple iconic sources in which handshape meanings are grounded. The results suggest that while language external iconic mapping could ease the learning of direct iconic forms, it has a more limited capacity to help hearing non-signers learn indirect and opaque forms. The full semiotic distribution of handshapes in the lexicon and their use in language remain difficult for hearing non-signers to understand and depends on more specific language and cultural knowledge.

THE LOGIC AND POSSIBILITIES OF AN ICONIC ANALYSIS OF REASONING

Статья показывает, каким образом логические диаграммы способны вносить свой вклад в изучение природы рассуждений. Диаграммы многомерны, мультимодальны и жестко не связаны с вербальным языком. Они акцентируют внимание на структурных особенностях, а потому весьма продуктивны для изучения рассуждений. Такие схемы способны рассказать о рассуждениях то, что порой вызывает сложности у алгебраического подхода. Настоящая работа очерчивает основные исторические вехи в их развитии (от Дж. Вивеса до Ч. Пирса и современных исследований), а также акцентирует внимание на, пожалуй, самой важной составляющей подобных конструкций – их иконической природе. На протяжении многих столетий диаграммы использовались в логике как вспомогательный материал для обучения студентов логике, но относительно недавно возник интерес и к их устройству. В наши дни мы можем наблюдать как за развитием диаграмматических теорий, так и непосредственно за изучением внутреннего устройства логических схем, которые в семиотической классификации относятся к знакам-иконам, то есть к знакам, которые имеют определенное сходство со своим объектом. В отличие от знака-символа, икона репрезентирует информацию, делает ее наблюдаемой и извлекаемой: если символ коннотирует, то икона обозначает. Однако даже это развернутое определение требует немалых уточнений. Во втором и третьем разделах речь идет о разнообразии иконических знаков и об особенностях иконического анализа соответственно. Иконическая составляющая в разных диаграммах проявляет себя по-разному: схемы Л. Эйлера наделены семантической базой, у Дж. Венна они показывают процесс исключения ненужной информации, а подход Пирса демонстрирует процедуру трансформации посылок в заключение. Строго говоря, если в диаграммах Эйлера наблюдаемо заключение, то у Пирса мы видим последовательность переходов. Это объясняется различиями не только между типами икон (образ, диаграмма, метафора), но и между уровнями иконичности (оптимальная и операционная). На сегодняшний день в рамках семиотики исследователи предлагают делить логические языки на языки, ссылающиеся на тип знака, и языки, ссылающиеся на его явление. Эта дихотомия опять же проясняет природу диаграмм. Уточнения природы знака-иконы и видов иконичности дают надежду на использование диаграмм для разностороннего изучения рассуждений в недалеком будущем. В статье отстаивается позиция, что логические диаграммы способны на своем уровне предоставлять ответы на вопросы «Как протекает рассуждение?», «Какова природа логического следования?», «Как в рассуждениях появляются новые знания?» и так далее. The article contributes to the debates on logical diagrams and reasoning studies. Diagrams in logic are multidimensional, multimodal, and language free (reasoning does not need a certain language to be introduced). They emphasize structural peculiarities and, consequently, tell us about reasoning in a way that causes difficulties for the algebraic approach. The article lists historical landmarks in developing such schemes (from Juan Luis Vives to Charles S. Peirce, and other contemporary investigations) and pays attention to the essential aspect of diagrammatic constructions, namely, their iconic nature. For a long time, diagrams had a supportive function; they were used as a tool for “dull-witted students”, but later they became an object of research. Today both diagrammatic approaches are developed and the essence of diagrams is studied. From a semiotic point of view, diagrams are icons. It means they are signs that resemble their objects. In contrast to symbols, icons represent information; they make it observable. Briefly, if symbols connote, icons denote. However, this detailed definition has to be substantially clarified. That is why issues of the second and third sections introduce the variety of iconic signs and characteristics of an iconic analysis, respectively. Different diagrams have different specific iconic features: Leonhard Euler’s schemes possess meaning-carrying relationships, John Venn’s circles (or cells) demonstrate the elimination of “unnecessary information”, while Peirce’s approach introduces the procedure of transforming premises into conclusions. Strictly speaking, if the conclusion is observational in Euler’s diagrams, Peirce’s constructions shift this observational advantage to the process (transformation with the line of identity is observational). First of all, these differences can be explained with various types of icons (image, diagram, and metaphor), but also, which is even more important, with levels of iconicity (optimal and operational). In addition, contemporary scholars propose to distinguish two types of logical languages (“type-referential” and “occurrence-referential”). If we admit that different diagrams belong to different kinds of languages, we get another clarification of diagrammatic variety. The icon and iconicity specification provides possibilities for applying diagrams in investigations on the nature of reasoning in the near future. Indeed, these logical schemes can study reasoning from various perspectives and answer such questions as “How does reasoning flow?”, “What is the logical essence of reasoning validity?”, “How does reasoning provide new knowledge?”, etc.

Pantomimic fossils in modern human communication

Bodily mimesis, the capacity to use the body representationally, was one of the key innovations that allowed early humans to go beyond the ‘baseline’ of generalized ape communication and cognition. We argue that the original human-specific communication afforded by bodily mimesis was based on signs that involve three entities: an expression that represents an object (i.e. communicated content) for an interpreter . We further propose that the core component of this communication, pantomime, was able to transmit referential information that was not limited to select semantic domains or the ‘here-and-now’, by means of motivated—most importantly iconic—signs. Pressures for expressivity and economy then led to conventionalization of signs and a growth of linguistic characteristics: semiotic systematicity and combinatorial expression. Despite these developments, both naturalistic and experimental data suggest that the system of pantomime did not disappear and is actively used by modern humans. Its contemporary manifestations, or pantomimic fossils , emerge when language cannot be used, for instance when people do not share a common language, or in situations where the use of (spoken) language is difficult, impossible or forbidden. Under such circumstances, people bootstrap communication by means of pantomime and, when these circumstances persist, newly emergent pantomimic communication becomes increasingly language-like. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Reconstructing prehistoric languages’.

A Tale of Two Modalities: Sign and Speech Influence Each Other in Bimodal Bilinguals

Bimodal bilinguals are hearing individuals fluent in a sign and a spoken language. Can the two languages influence each other in such individuals despite differences in the visual (sign) and vocal (speech) modalities of expression? We investigated cross-linguistic influences on bimodal bilinguals’ expression of spatial relations. Unlike spoken languages, sign uses iconic linguistic forms that resemble physical features of objects in a spatial relation and thus expresses specific semantic information. Hearing bimodal bilinguals ( n = 21) fluent in Dutch and Sign Language of the Netherlands and their hearing nonsigning and deaf signing peers ( n = 20 each) described left/right relations between two objects. Bimodal bilinguals expressed more specific information about physical features of objects in speech than nonsigners, showing influence from sign language. They also used fewer iconic signs with specific semantic information than deaf signers, demonstrating influence from speech. Bimodal bilinguals’ speech and signs are shaped by two languages from different modalities.

The ASL-LEX 2.0 Project: A Database of Lexical and Phonological Properties for 2,723 Signs in American Sign Language

ASL-LEX is a publicly available, large-scale lexical database for American Sign Language (ASL). We report on the expanded database (ASL-LEX 2.0) that contains 2,723 ASL signs. For each sign, ASL-LEX now includes a more detailed phonological description, phonological density and complexity measures, frequency ratings (from deaf signers), iconicity ratings (from hearing non-signers and deaf signers), transparency (“guessability”) ratings (from non-signers), sign and videoclip durations, lexical class, and more. We document the steps used to create ASL-LEX 2.0 and describe the distributional characteristics for sign properties across the lexicon and examine the relationships among lexical and phonological properties of signs. Correlation analyses revealed that frequent signs were less iconic and phonologically simpler than infrequent signs and iconic signs tended to be phonologically simpler than less iconic signs. The complete ASL-LEX dataset and supplementary materials are available at https://osf.io/zpha4/ and an interactive visualization of the entire lexicon can be accessed on the ASL-LEX page: http://asl-lex.org/.

Flat design as a marker of hypermodernism

The subject of this research is flat design as the basic sylistics and visual expression of the era of hypermodernism. Since modern design no longer corresponds to the characteristics of postmodernism, an assumption is made on the advent of the new period in design – hypermodernism. Hypermodernism is the term that implies the enhancement of design trends founded in the era of modernism: orientation towards modernity, design for manufacturability, split with the past, and absence of aesthetic hierarchy. Flat design is a style that visually expresses the aforementioned trends. The research material includes the final research projects in graphic design, interior design and industrial design, completed by the students of the department of Design of the Moscow Power Engineering Institute and the department of Graphic Design and Visual Communications of the Russian State University named after A. N. Kosygin. The article employs the method of semiotic analysis, which allows determining the key attributes used in flat design explicating the essential characteristics of flat design. The conclusion is made that flat design reflects the basic request of the era of hypermodernism – democratization of mentality, leveling of any differences up to the destruction of individuality. The idea of leveling of social differences, underlying the design of modernism, in hypermodernism reaches the idea of erasing any differences, any hierarchy, including the aesthetic. The presence of aesthetic hierarchy in design suggests the use of expressive means – index signs, iconic signs, and symbolic signs. The deconstruction of aesthetic hierarchy leads to the use of unexpressive signs – simulacrums. Most unexpressive sign is the fourth-stage simulacra – the sign, which relationship to any reality is reduced to zero. Flat design uses fourth-stage simulacra as the main form, thus meeting the demand of hypermodernism.