A multisemiotic analysis of ‘skinscapes’ of female students at three Western Cape universities

Magister Artium - MAThis study used a multisemiotic/multimodal discourse analysis approach to analyze tattoos of selected female students at three Western Cape Universities: the University of the Western Cape (UWC), the University of Cape Town (UCT), and Stellenbosch University (SUN). This study looked at the popular cultural practice of tattooing as a site for identity formation. The aim of this research project was to establish how popular culture is semiotized and resemiotized on corporeal landscapes. The focus was on the kind of semiotics that female students draw on when getting their tattoos, and also where they put these tattoos. The researcher intended to investigate the semiotics of female bodies within the broader field of linguistic landscaping, with a specific look at corporeal linguistic landscapes (Peck & Stroud, 2015). This research was also interested in establishing whether the historical background of each university has an influence on the student population, and subsequently, the tattoos they choose to inscribe on their bodies. This study sought to answer whether there are similarities and/or differences in the tattoos the participants chose across the different campuses and to what effect the social context affects the type of tattoos they chose. All participants were selected via purposive sampling. This means that only those with visible tattoos were approached, as they met the criteria described above (cf. Patton, 1990; Kumar, 1999). Methodologically, interviews as well as text data collection were used to collect the data. In addition, a multimodal text analysis was used as the tattoos were read as texts. Among others, the findings indicated that female participants negotiate their femininity by acquiring traditionally feminine tattoo designs, relatively small in size, which are typically placed where they can be concealed easily. This in contrast with male tattoo designs which tend to be bigger and more visible. It was found that there was preference for solitary texts designs across the three campuses followed by a combination of text and image. In terms of agency, it was found that participants were agentive by being able to control who read and how others read their bodies. The study concludes that women are mindful of their female identity when they choose the designs, sizes and placements of their tattoos. It was found that they typically defy social norms through getting tattoos, but at the same time adhere to social (and feminine) norms by using small tattoos emplaced in hidden body spaces. This means there is a restriction on who is allowed to consume the tattoos. This study adds to a deeper understanding of tattooing as popular culture at universities in post-apartheid South Africa. It also contributes to recent development in corporeal linguistic landscapes studies. In turn, it offers a profound understanding of the concept of ‘skinscapes,’ which allows for a deeper understanding of how female bodies are ‘authored’ by the tattooee as well as how they are ‘read’ and consumed by onlookers

A social semiotic approach to multimodality in the Vagina Varsity YouTube campaign series

Philosophiae Doctor - PhDThis study investigated the semiotic resources used by Vagina Varsity, a campaign by sanitary towel brand Libresse on the social media platform YouTube to construct meanings around the female body. Vagina Varsity is a South African online advertising campaign on YouTube which marketed their sanitary products, whilst educating, as well as breaking the social stigma, around the black female body. In this study, YouTube was utilized as a space in which to analyze online identities and communication. The study was located within the field of linguistic landscape (LL) studies, including the sub-field virtual linguistic landscapes (VLL), later reformulated as virtual semioscapes. The conceptual framework was undergirded by multimodality/multisemioticity and feminist theory. The study used a mixed methods approach to data collection, and used a virtual linguistic ethnography (VLE) framework to collect the data sources, which included YouTube videos, YouTube comments, and emails. A focus group interview was also conducted, where the Vagina Varsity videos were shown to a group of diverse youth at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. The embodied discourses which emerged, as well as the discourse strategies of the commentators, were multimodally analysed. The study found that the Vagina Varsity course makes use of multiple modes, including embodied semiotics such as gestures and stylizations of voice, visual modes such as cartoon figures, as well as the strategic use of sound. In addition, the study found that educational content and marketing strategies are both embedded in this campaign, with the educational content overshadowing the advertising aspect. It is for this reason that the YouTube comments and focus group interview were centered on the program itself and not the advertisement. Furthermore, when looking at the medium this campaign used, one sees that the virtual space allows for the teaching of taboo topics, which would not be allowed in traditional educational domains. The virtual space is not only bridging the knowledge gap in the topic of sex education, it also bridges the gap between different communities, as the YouTube comment section allows for people to interact across regional, national and even cultural boundaries. This study also found that Vagina Varsity not only recontextualized the educational genre, but they have also recontextualized the production and consumption of a topic which would otherwise be considered taboo. In terms of the implications for the study, one finds that the stigma that is attached to this subject is removed from this content. Although one cannot say for certain that this type of education will take over the African traditional initiation ceremonies for girls, for example, it can be used to complement some of the content that traditional counselors and social workers use to teach young African women. The fact that the program is formalized in a curriculum that can be found online opens up possibilities for open dialogue across cultures and nations in terms of feminine hygiene. This study contributes to the field of Linguistic Landscapes studies, with specific focus on virtual linguistic landscapes. The study also illustrates that the affordances of the online space allows for a hybrid edutainment space where people can learn about topics which are considered taboo in the domain of formal education. This study also extends the concept of multimodality, by including notions such as semiotic remediation and resemiotization, as well as immediacy and hypermediacy, as tools of multimodal analysis. This study also contributes to studies on gender and sexuality.2022-08-3