A Semiotic Framework to Understand How Signs in a Collective Design Task Convey Information: A Pilot Study of Design in an Open Crowd Context

A leading factor in reshaping boundaries between participatory design and co-creation is the power of crowd-sourcing; however crowd sourced design often produces less innovative results than smaller expert design teams. In design, representation plays a fundamental role whilst in crowd sourced design the collective interaction with representations is restricted. We propose more effective design in collective intelligence lies in the crowd’s ability to generate meaningful contributions via the content of shared representations. In order to investigate this, the current paper examines how meanings are generated through the use of visual representations. We introduce a semiotic framework to understand the mechanisms of how signs convey con-textual information in a collective design task, and illustrate the framework by applying it in an analysis of the signs used by the crowd engaging in an openly shared design task

The semiotics of models

The paper sheds light on the concept of model in ordinary language and in scientific discourse from the perspective of C. S. Peirce’s semiotics. It proposes a general Peircean framework for the definition of models of all kinds, including mental models. A survey of definitions of scientific models that have been influential in the philosophy of science and of the typologies proposed in this context is given. The author criticizes the heterogeneity of the criteria applied in these typologies and the lack of a semiotic foundation in typological distinctions between formal, symbolic, theoretical, metaphorical, and iconic models, among others. The paper argues that the application of Peirce’s subdivision of signs into the trichotomies of the sign itself, its object, and its interpretant can offer a deeper understanding of the nature of models. Semiotic topics in the focus of the paper are (1) the distinction between models as signs and (mental) models as the interpretants of signs; (2) models considered as a type (or legisign) and models considered as tokens (or replicas) of a type; (3) the iconicity of models, including diagrammatic and metaphorical icons; (4) the contribution of indices and symbols to the informativity of models; and (5) the rhetorical qualities of models in scientific discourse. The paper argues in conclusion that informative models are hybrid signs in which a diagram incorporates indices and symbols in a rhetorically efficient way

Linking Programming to Representations : Understanding meaning-making in physics education through semiotic resources

Programming is investigated with a social semiotic lens to study how programming can contribute to meaning-making in physics. The analysis focuses on how new and dynamic representations can be created with the help of programming and how programming allows students to investigate and create their own models of physical phenomena. This is described from a semiotic perspective and the semiotic perspective is also developed with new theoretical constructions to better describe the students' use of representations in physics

Thinking with semiotic-dialogism: Re-orientating augmented reality and visual literacy

Augmented reality (AR) apps, like Adobe’s Aero, enable users to turn Photoshop layers into interactive AR experiences and are considered promising for higher education. But what we see or do not see are mediated via histories, cultural values, ideologies, social practices and technologies. Simultaneously, the ways we receive knowledge, communicate and learn are more than ever being communicated via visual technologies. Yet, theories of visuality within educational research represent a longstanding gap within scholarship and theorising of visual technologies, including AR, is lacking. This study re-orientates conceptions of AR visual literacy through ‘thinking with’ semiotics, which is the study of signs, images, sounds or any phenomena communicating meaning (Peirce, 1908). Semiotics is synthesised with dialogism, defined as the exchange of texts, perspectives and voices (Bakhtin, 1986). The semiotic-dialogic framework is applied to a series of AR exhibits at Adobe’s (2020) Festival of the Impossible. The analysis re-orientates commercialised conceptions of AR pedagogy to reveal that, while AR experiences can be developed without coding knowledge, they still require visual literacies

Iconizing the Digital Humanities: Models and Modeling from a Semiotic Perspective

Models are ubiquitous in the digital humanities. Against the backdrop of the recent discussion in the philosophy of science about what models are and what they do, this paper presents a semiotic perspective on models in the framework of Charles S. Peirce’s theory of signs that sheds light on the practice of modeling in the digital humanities. As a first step, it is argued that models are icons, i.e. signs that represent their specific objects by being regarded as similar to them; and that there are, in all, three basic types of model, namely “images,” “diagrams,” and “metaphors.” A second step explicates relevant implications of this model-theoretic approach, especially as they relate to the digital humanities. In particular, it is shown that models are not identical to the things they represent and that they only represent them partially; that the representation operates on the basis of a mapping relation between select properties of the model and its object; that each model and each instance of modeling has a theoretical framework; and that models are the true basis for genuine creativity and progress in research

AN EXPLORATORY CONSTRUCTIVIST GROUNDED THEORY STUDY: HOW SECONDARY SCHOOL SCIENCE TEACHERS INTERPRET STUDENTS’ SCIENTIFIC MODELS THAT ARE COMPRISED OF DRAWING ACTIVITIES

Extant literature lacks an explanation of the thought processes used by secondary school science teachers to interpret students’ scientific models that are comprised of drawing activities. In this exploratory study, a constructivist grounded theory (CGT) was developed to generate an interpretive understanding. The CGT was generated from observations, interviews, and document analyses of five research participants consisting of secondary school science teachers from lower New York State. To generate a CGT, concepts, terms, assumptions, and definitions from selected theories—decolonizing methodologies theory (DMT), visual semiotic theory (VST), and cultural studies theory (CST)—collectively provided a fresh onto-epistemological lens for initially examining and bringing transparency to the invisible influences on the intangible thought processes of science teachers when they interpret students’ scientific models. At the end of the study, a CGT was developed which is expressed as nine assertions, a diagrammatic display/axial coding paradigm, and an explanation consisting of found poetry developed from the research findings. Using reflective and reflexive analytical memos, this study revealed that the thoughts of secondary school science teachers consist of five themes: (1) direction or rules, (2) forms of communication, (3) creations (4) interpretation or understanding, and (5) problem-solving heuristics during students’ struggle. In addition, the theory illustrated that in the context of lower New York State, science disciplinary culture works by crossing borders (Aikenhead & Elliott, 2010; Carter, 2011; New York State Education Department, 2019a; Rasheed, 2001, 2006; Snively & Corsiglia, 2001) between Western cultural thoughts and non-Western/Indigenous cultural thoughts. This study will benefit both stakeholders and scholars. For stakeholders, this study offers a substantive theory for understanding the assessment practices of science teachers. For scholars, this study provides a CGT that integrates theories/subdisciplines that are epistemologically distant/close and generates ongoing research. In particular, the theory provides scholars with findings that can be used to subsequently conduct a quantitative study, whereby a culturally sensitive survey instrument can be generated and validated

Coupling Performance Measurement and Collective Activity: The Semiotic Function of Management Systems. A Case Study

Theories about management instruments often enter dualistic debates between structure and agency: do instruments determine the forms of collective activity (CA), or do actors shape instruments to their requirements, or are instruments and concrete activity decoupled, as some trends of new institutionalist theory assume? Attempts to overcome the dualistic opposition between structure and activity stem from diverse sources: actors’ networks theory, structuration theory, pragmatism, theory of activity, semiotics. Performance measurement and management systems can be defined as structural instruments engaged in CA. As such they constrain the activity, but they do not determine it. Reciprocally, they are modified by the way CA uses them and makes sense of them. The central thesis of this paper will be that it is impossible to study the role of performance measurement as a common language in organizations independently from the design of the CA in which it is engaged. There is a not deterministic coupling between structure (i.e. management technical tools) and CA (i.e. business processes). The transformation of CA entails a transformation in the meaning of the “performance” concept, in the type of measurement required and in the performance management practices. The relationship between performance measurement and CA is studied here in the production division of a large electricity utility in France. The research extended over several years and took place when two new management systems were simultaneously implemented: a new management accounting system and an integrated management information system (ERP), both in the purchasing process. The new management accounting system was designed by the purchasing department; the new management information system was designed by the operational departments. Whereas the coherence between both projects could have been given by their common subordination to the rebuilding of CA (the purchasing process), their disconnection from concrete CA opened the possibility of serious dissonances between them. Both the new performance management system and the new ERP met difficulties to provide common languages, since the dimension of CA was taken for granted and consequently partly ignored in the engineering of both systems. When CA incurs radical transformations, actors’direct discursive exchanges about it, “collective activity about collective activity”, become necessary to ensure a flexible and not deterministic coupling between CA and new management systems. This reflexive and collective analysis of the process by actors themselves requires the establishment of “communities of process”, which can jointly redesign the CA and its performance measurement system. We conclude that performance measurement can be a common language as far as there is a clear and shared understanding of how CA should concretely take place and should be assigned to the different categories of actors.Business Process; Collective Activity; Community of Process; Management Instruments; Performance Measurement; Semiotics; Theory of Activity

Learning to Put Everyday Creativity, Semiotics and Critical Visual Literacy Using Inquiry Graphics (IG) Visual Analysis to Work in Social Care

This article argues that despite CORU’s recognition of Creative Arts as integral to Social Care Practice, there are ‘pedagogical, theoretical and practice gaps’, which might be addressed through a ‘process orientated novel creative pedagogy’ (PONCP) introduced in this paper. The PONCP is built on two tenets, firstly that creative expression is not just for professional artists – everyone is capable of creative expression, though cultural messages make us believe otherwise, and secondly engaging in creative practice is therapeutic in varying degrees from passing time productively to psychoanalytic engagement. A curriculum is proposed comprising: edusemiotics (the interpretation and creation of meaning), multimodality (the use of different modes / tools of/for expression) and Inquiry Graphics (a tool for critical analysis of photographs) (Lacković, 2010, 2020). Through this PONCP the author hopes to establish a terrain for future research and elaboration, and to develop creative, reflective and analytic capabilities for effective, high-quality practice with service users. The PONCP aims to support social care creative work by promoting everyday creativity and imagination as an affirming expressive and adaptive ability through understanding how ‘signs’ construct meaning and therefore learning. By critically reading and analysing the visual world through ‘signs’, socially constructed ideologies and accepted visual meaning can be challenged revealing hidden truths. Overall this may serve to enhance professional practice as well as professional critical appraisal in keeping with the CORU Standards of Proficiency

Hypersemiotics in Printed Commercial Advertising

Commercial advertising is currently created with an imaginative look. The elements are framed in verbal and nonverbal ways, and there is a structure of discourse where the message is hidden by the advertiser or copywriter. This article attempts to explore how advertisements uses verbal and nonverbal elements or signs, the relationships between these elements, and how these elements are interpreted. To understand the meaning and message of the advertisement, the elements will be analyzed with van Dijk’s concepts such as macrostructures (comprehension for complex information), superstructures (the schematic form that organizes the global meaning of a text), and microstructures (text grammars), and to understand signs especially nonverbal sign the hyper-semiotics theory will be used

ELL\u27s science meaning making in multimodal inquiry: A case-study in a Hong Kong bilingual school

This paper reports on a multimodal teaching approach delivered to grade 5 elementary students in a bilingual school in Hong Kong, as part of a larger research study aimed at supporting English Language Learners (ELLs) in science class. As language demands of reading, writing and talking science place additional challenges on ELLs, there is much research interest in exploring the use of multiple modes of communication beyond the dominant use of verbal and written language. Research has shown that students develop a better scientific understanding of natural phenomena by using and alternating between a variety of representations. Yet, questions remain as to what meanings ELLs make during a multimodal discourse and, in turn, how such discourse provides support to ELLs in learning science. Drawing on social semiotics, which theorizes language as a meaning making resource comprising a range of modes (e.g. gestures and diagrams), we used a case-study approach to examine how a multimodal instructional approach provided 10 students with multiple avenues to make sense of science learning. Video recordings (capturing gestures, speech and model manipulation) and student works (drawing and writing) were collected during nine inquiry science lessons, which encompassed biology, physics and chemistry science units. Multimodal transcription allowed discourse to be analysed at a fine-grain level which, together with analysis of student works, indicated that the multimodal instructional approach provided the necessary inquiry opportunities and variety of language experiences for ELLs to build science understandings. Analysis also revealed how the affordances of modes attributed to the meaning making potentials for the ELLs and how they provided alternate communication avenues in which new meanings could be made. The findings from this study have implications for ELLs learning science within the growing multilingual Asia-Pacific region