The aim of this paper is to advance an understanding of power in linguistic landscape research. After setting out and discussing the concepts of 'power over', 'power to' and 'power through', we present a case study of Chinese semiotic assemblages in the Australian regional city of Bendigo. Our research includes ethnographic details of the…

This study aims to explore the political cartoons that highlight the displacement of Palestinians in the village of Sheikh Jarrah. It investigates the way this discourse is portrayed as well as the predominant themes of these cartoons. The data of this study consists of eight political cartoons drawn from Palestinian online newspapers from May to…

This essay explores the way that the social interactions of the classroom play a role in shaping sign production. It examines the talk of one second year Advanced Level English literature class in North London during their study of John Webster's "The Duchess of Malfi" through the lens of Volosinov's theories of language. It seeks to…

Integrated science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education is becoming increasingly common in K-12 classrooms, and small group activities are ubiquitous to STEM instruction. This article includes both theoretical and practical descriptions of a microethnographic approach to critical multimodal discourse analysis that we used to…

As multivalent concepts, projects and formations such as China's Belt and Road Initiative continue to cleave through new spaces, it is increasingly important to attend to the construction, framing, maintenance and dissemination of the sign systems that enable them. Whether or not these systems constitute forms of cultural imperialism, move across…

Despite boasting its self-characterization as the "land of the free," US American "freedom" is, at times, tainted with historical amnesia, hypocrisy, and inhumanity. This article examines today's socio-political climate by drawing from de Tocqueville's (2003) prediction that American democracy is a tyranny of the majority.…

At the heart of the nineteenth-century educational soundscape lies a paradox. Whilst "modern" classrooms generally strived for orderly silence, the goal of its educational practices was the production of competent "citizens". Middle-class boys in particular were expected to acquire a voice fit for business, the professions, or…

Symbolic competence, "the ability to actively manipulate and shape one's environment on multiple scales of time and space" (Kramsch & Whiteside, 2008, p. 667), offers researchers and educators the ability to understand how learners position themselves. This positioning involves a vying for semiotic resources as a means to question…

This case study focuses on the diverse discourses Latinx bilingual students bring to class to make sense of power relations in the world. The study implements critical literacy practices such as read-alouds, discussions, writing, and drawing activities that help students critique and disrupt power discourses embedded in texts and visuals. With the…

Researchers have shown that mentoring has a positive impact on student teachers' professional learning during their practicum, but it can also be highly problematic due to the inherent power roles in mentor-mentee relationships. Via this study, I offer new insights by examining how we can leverage information technology to address the tensions…

This paper explores the different uses of symbols to express power and interpersonal relationship in Ngugi's bulkiest novel "Wizard of the Crow" (2006), with a few illustrations from "Matigari" (1987). It draws on the semiotic approach and identifies about a hundred discourse strings in which signs are used to express tenor…

This study explores how transnational students who go or return to Mexico understand the complexities of language, identity and schooling in their new context after having been raised and educated in the United States. The study used narrative networks and Blommaert's discourse analysis framework to analyze the narratives of twenty transnational…

This qualitative case study is an exploration of the phenomenon of the ways in which Urdu as the national language is represented in discursive practices of senior business academia. The research design, built on Fairclough's Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) model (2009) is of dialectical-relational approach. The participant in this single case…

Analyzing discourses can shed light on language as a social semiotic system, the construction of identity and the operations of ideology and power. The purpose of this study is twofold. Firstly, it aims to unveil Thai fourth-year English-major students' utilization of lexical choices with connotations that enact the identities of the Baan Nontapum…

An ethics of youth media production is the interplay of identities, media literacy, and modality that shape the environment within which young people produce media, yet how "voice" is fostered and/or constrained in these environments could still be explored more fully. This paper stems from a larger qualitative study of how youth created…