This dissertation proposes a theory of categorial grammar called Multi-Modal Categorial Grammar with Structured Phonology. The central feature that distinguishes this theory from the majority of contemporary syntactic theories is that it decouples (without completely segregating) two aspects of syntax--hierarchical organization (reflecting…

Iconicity is a property that pervades the lexicon of many sign languages, including American Sign Language (ASL). Iconic signs exhibit a motivated, nonarbitrary mapping between the form of the sign and its meaning. We investigated whether iconicity enhances semantic priming effects for ASL and whether iconic signs are recognized more quickly than…

This study examines the use of Makaton® , a language programme based on the use of signing, symbols and speech, as a pedagogic tool to support the development of talk for pupils learning English as an Additional Language (EAL). The research setting was a Reception class with a high percentage of pupils who have EAL in the initial stages of…

Writing is the dominant mode through which most learning and assessment is mediated in schools. It is through writing that learners are most often asked to demonstrate their understanding of learned concepts and share their understandings of these concepts. If English language learners are to succeed in English medium schools, they must become…

Although much research has gone into the sociolinguistics of the linguistic landscape (space for and language of public signs) in the "peripheral," non-native contexts of English Language use and users, none has been specifically devoted to a Nigerian context. This dissertation is intended to fill this wide gap. Focusing on the Ibadan…

Many studies argue that dynamic features of the artefact Cabri may function as instruments of semiotic mediation. Our study is situated in this perspective and aims to observe the impact of the use of the technological artefact Cabri in a teaching experiment that introduces the notion of a trigonometry function, through the articulation of the…

This dissertation explores the incorporation of Facebook into everyday live activities and practices of a group of young Turkish-American women affiliated with a faith-based movement, known as the "Hizmet" (volunteer's service) movement. In particular, I examine the emergent communicative practices and performances of these young…

This dissertation takes a discursive approach to Hawai'i stand-up comedy, which is a highly dramaturgical genre, and it examines the cultural specificity of Hawaii comedy in an explicitly interactional context. This culturally-specific performative genre is a discursive site where comedians and their audiences jointly construct multivocal humor…

With clinical purposes in mind, a review of the proximaldistal opposition is carried out in order to define a universal parameter of variability in semiotic procedures. By taking into consideration different--although notionally inter-related--senses of the proximaldistal opposition, a cluster of semiotic properties is proposed, which initially…

This work investigates how we process and represent event duration in on-line language comprehension. Specifically, it examines how events of different duration are processed and what type of knowledge underlies their representations. Studies 1-4 examined verbs and phrases in different contexts. They showed that durative events took longer to…

The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) of the World Trade Organization has generated an intense and passionate debate about the relationship between free-trade and education and, specifically, about the effects of trade liberalization in national education systems. This article explores in detail this debate from a critical discourse…

In this text I concentrate on semiotic aspects of the theory of political identity in the work of Ernesto Laclau, and especially on the connection between metaphors, metonymies, catachreses and synecdoches. Those tropes are of ontological status, and therefore they are of key importance in understanding the discursive "production" of…

Case illustrations of a six-year-old boy's adventures with a missing tooth are used in this paper to re-define a broader notion of authorship. Drawing on theories of social semiotics, New Literacy Studies (NLS), and critical positioning, this notion of authorship not only interweaves the boy's preferred modes of meaning-making and communication,…

Semiotic paradigm and Carspecken's (1996) critical ethnography were used in a qualitative research study of elementary teachers' beliefs about minority and Latino/a immigrant students and the role of life experiences, culture and Umwelt in the formation and influence of beliefs. The participants were a kindergarten, first grade, and second grade…

As new times become hard times, there may be little time for multimodality in school unless educators confront the accountability culture. This commentary reviews the arguments for multimodal transformations of school literacy curricula and explores the potential of reflective talk about multimodal meaning-making as an assessment practice. Talking…