Technical advances and digital means of communication have led to the development of digital semiotics which is characterised by its multimodality and abounds in paralinguistic elements such as ...emojis, emoticons, memes, etc. These extralinguistic elements serve as a compensatory mechanism in the new communication means. The increasing interest of users in various iconic signs and symbols generates the research interest in different fields of knowledge. The study aims to consider cognitive, semiotic and psycholinguistic features of emojis in interpersonal communication through analysing their functions in text messages and in social network messages. An attempt to reveal their persuasive mechanism is made. The research is based on a large scale dataset comprised of the private text messages as well as public posts on social networks which include verbal and nonverbal / iconic elements. The research data presents a multilingual bank of English, Russian and French sources. The research methods include context analysis, linguistic and pragmatic analysis and content analysis. The findings show that emojis in private interpersonal communication perform a number of functions, namely nonverbal, emotive, pragmatic, punctuation, substitutional, decorative and rhetorical functions. These iconic symbols incorporated in the interpersonal digital communication present a compensatory mechanism and the means of persuasion of a message addressee / recipient. The combination of verbal and iconic elements triggers a double focusing mechanism, and the perception is shaped by all cognitive mechanisms including rational and emotional, unconscious components.
Linguopragmatic Scopes of Modern Media Texts Akhrenova, Natalia A.; Zaripov, Ruslan I.
Vestnik Rossijskogo universiteta družby narodov. Seriâ: Teoriâ âzyka, semiotika, semantika (Online),
10/2023, Letnik:
14, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The study is devoted to the description of the linguopragmatic potential of media texts in the context of the informational and psychological impact on the individual and collective addressee of mass ...information broadcasting. As the key modern form of text existence in the information space, a media text contains not only verbal elements that influence the audience through either spoken or written words, but also non-verbal ones, introduced through video, picture and various sound means other than speech. The combined combination of communicative means of linguistic and non-linguistic nature enhances the information-psychological impact on the audience by achieving a synergistic effect. Due to the fact that with the complex use of verbal and non-verbal means, the media text acquires such essential characteristics as polycode and multimodality, its analysis should take into account not only the linguistic proper, but also the extralinguistic aspects of communication. Modern media text has a complex communicative structure that combines a text, hypertext, dynamic (static) image and sound, and provides a non-linear, multi-channel, multi-layered and multidimensional perception of the embedded conceptual and stylistic meanings. The aim of the study is to analyze linguopragmatic characteristics of a media text as the primary form of the informational and psychological impact realization in the modern mass media discourse. Descriptive, synchronic, diachronic and functional methods of research, as well as methods of contextual and communicative-pragmatic analysis have been employed. As to the material, the study is based on the analysis of theoretical works by Russian and foreign linguists for the past 30 years. The authors concluded that the information-psychological impact is enhanced by the use of PR and advertising techniques in the media text and is largely based on their application.
This article examines the functioning of the traditional genre of Russian folklore, specifically the religious legend, through the example of retelling the legend of the city of Kitezh on YouTube. ...The paper highlights the specifics of video content on YouTube, which can be defined as multimodal texts. The legend is presented in two main types: variants of texts recorded earlier and texts conveying personal verbalized mystical experience of communication with the city of Kitezh (folklore legend). The paper identifies three main types of retelling the previously recorded variants of the legend: brief retellings, expanded retellings with reference to “The Kitezh Chronicler,” and expanded retellings with the addition of other historical, quasi-historical, and mythological elements. The article establishes that these multimodal texts can be distributed into three groups depending on the number of resources used: weak multimodality — using only two resources; medium multimodality — using three or more resources; strong multimodality — using more than 4—5 resources. The article shows that the told / retold legend is a fragment of a more complex multimodal text or cycle of texts.
The research aims to compare and contrast British and American visual communication texts which are based on the combination on semiotically diverse modes. Using Multimodal Critical Discourse ...Analysis the paper explores the way a specific segment of reality - the COVID-19 pandemic - is covered in political cartoons that employ the same language but are grounded in different cultural settings. To this end, a contrastive analysis of editorial cartoons used in British and American mass media was carried out. The sample encompasses 130 British and 130 American graphical texts published in 2020-2021 on the web sites of The Guardian and U.S. News World Report . The article focuses on the way the new meaning is produced due to the interaction of visual and verbal modes using the information shared by members of a specific linguacultural community. At first the pragmatic and functional properties of the sample texts are examined, then the stylistic features of the texts verbal components are studied. Taking a functional perspective, the research reveals the marked differences in two respective samples: the British COVID-19 cartoons criticize the governments policies, whereas the American ones do not only satirize but also acclaim, creating a positive image of those responsible for vaccination production and rolling out. They tend to use slogans to mobilize the public, performing the function typical of political posters. Drawing on the stylistic analysis of linguistic resources, the paper analyzes the differences in registers and rhetorical means used by British and American cartoonists to shape their messages. Both pragmatic aspects of the cartoons and the choice of stylistic devices used in their linguistic elements proved to be culture-specific, despite the similarity of issues the texts address. The research elucidates the way the cultural landscape affects the meaning-building processes in multimodal texts that employ different variants of the same language.
The following article is devoted to considering multimodal metaphors in the political media discourse. The figurative representation of the surrounding reality, the use of various associations, the ...inevitable deciphering of cultural codes by the reader may well contribute to the realization of author's intentions. Placing a metaphor in the introductory part of a text influences the discourse perception: metaphors route the reader. Cognitive peculiarities of metaphors let the author attach the meanings, implications and evaluations essential to the perception of the discourse idea. Together with the capabilities of digital mass media, use of metaphors gives huge potential for mass reader manipulation.
The importance of text complexity has gained recognition since the Common Core State Standards (CCSS-ELA) were developed. The Linking Science and Literacy for All Learners (LS&L4AL) program uses ...multimodal STEM text sets to link reading grade-band complex texts with Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) sense-making. We define a multimodal STEM text set as a coherent collection of resources pertaining to an anchor phenomenon and line of inquiry that support learners’ acquiring the disciplinary literacy skills and sense-making called for by the NGSS and CCSS-ELA shared practices. The anchor phenomenon and line of inquiry are determined by the anchor text—a rich, complex grade-band level text about natural phenomena with research-generated data from recent STEM primary literature. In this study, we report on a qualitative analysis of how English language arts, special education, and science middle school teachers (N=11) scaffolded instruction to support students, including students with learning disabilities, in reading complex STEM texts to develop sense-making of scientific phenomena.
The comprehension and calibration of 54 undergraduates were investigated as they read excerpts from an introductory geology textbook on weather and soil in print and digitally. All excerpts were ...approximately 1600 words in length and contained a graph, a diagram, and three photographs that complemented or extended the written text. Each student read two texts with medium and topic counterbalanced. Prior to reading, the students completed a demographic survey, rated their topic familiarity, and completed two topic knowledge pretests. They next read one chapter on either weather or soil in print or digitally and then answered a series of short-answer questions. The questions drew on content from the written text only, visuals only, or both. The same procedure was then repeated in the other medium. Analyses indicated processing multimodal texts in print was significantly more advantageous than processing those same texts digitally, and this difference was more pronounced for questions focused on visuals only. Students' self-rated topic familiarity was compared to their demonstrated topic knowledge for weather and soil and their predicted comprehension performance was compared to actual comprehension performance. Results showed that undergraduates' calibration was poor overall, but comprehension was overestimated more often when students read multimodal texts digitally.
The multiplicity of semiotic resources employed in communication, the rapid advancement of information, communication, and technology (ICT), and burgeoning interdisciplinary research into ...multimodality have led to a paradigmatic shift from a mono-modal to the multimodal perspective of communication. Conversely, actualising multimodal concepts in teaching and learning practises remains underexplored, notably in developing the students’ multimodal communicative competence (MCC). For this reason, this study endeavoured to probe genre-based multimodal text analysis in fostering the students’ MCC. Grounded on Action Research (AR), the present study facilitated students to cultivate their MCC through the activities of Genre-based multimodal text analysis (hereafter, GBMTA). Practically speaking, students performed the analysing practises in the course at an English Education Department of a state university in Tasikmalaya, West Java, Indonesia, namely Grammar in Multimodal Discourse (GiMD. Four Indonesian EFL students were recruited as the participants. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analysed with thematic analysis. The findings showed that the students could: (1) build their knowledge on multimodality, (2) engage with theoretical and practical learning activities, (3) assign analytical and reflective task-based learning activities, and (4) provide constructive feedback about their learning performances, and (5) raise awareness of the contributions of multimodality to prospective English teachers’ competences. The main implication of this study is the promotion of increased awareness of deploying multimodal aspects to English language teaching, learning, and investigative practises to attain optimum MCC.
