Analysing the language of war monuments

This paper seeks an approach for a systematic analysis of the semiotic resources used by the designers of British World War 1 monuments. Semiotic studies of monuments have emphasised on the one hand factors from outside the' text', in other words contextual social and political factors that lead to design decisions, and on the other hand factors within the text, as being maximally important for this - the latter characterising such visual communication, like language, as a system or code. The paper uses an assessment of an example of the latter, O'Toole's functional analysis (1994) of sculptures, using a number of theories of the visual to draw out its limitations and point to a number of characteristics of visual communication that would need to be considered in order to carry out a satisfactory analysis.Peer reviewe

Multimodal analysis for critical thinking

This paper proposes a pedagogical approach for teaching and learning critical thinking through multimodal analysis – that is, ‘multimodal analysis for critical thinking'. The approach builds on the conviction that students require competencies that move beyond traditional notions of literacy to meet the changing demands posed by media and technology in the twenty-first century. The approach takes a social semiotic view toward critical multimodal literacy, which aims to provide students with an analytical metalanguage for the systematic analysis of multimodal texts and videos. The pedagogical approach is facilitated through the use of purpose-built software applications with comprehensive analytical frameworks designed to support the systematic teaching and learning of multimodal analysis, with a view to developing the critical literacy skills needed for life in the digital age. The potential efficacies of the approach are illustrated via the exposition of software functionalities and the sample analyses of a printed text with image components, and a short advocacy video