Abstract
As the complexity of society has increased tremendously over time, new tools and approaches are needed for people to understand and cope with social reality. In Social Semiotics for a Complex World: Analysing Language and Social Meaning, Bob Hodge makes connections among multiple disciplines and offers an examination of text excerpts to argue that social semiotics provides a powerful and inclusive framework to analyze and make sense of social meaning.
Drawing on extensive knowledge in linguistics and semiotics, Hodge reflects on the implications of social semiotics and its contribution to a multidisciplinary approach in understanding language, meanings, and society. The book’s nine chapters are organized into three sections. Part One introduces the basics of social semiotics, including the key concepts, principles, and methodology. Echoing the sociological imagination, a term coined by C. Wright Mills, Hodge argues that a similar type of analysis can be conducted in semiotics to “make it strange” by incorporating methods from different disciplines—the semiotic imagination.
In Part Two, Hodge discusses the connections between linguistics and semiotics in words, grammar, and reading, connections that aim to bridge Chomsky and Halliday’s linguistic approaches. Part Three focuses on applying analytic methods introduced in previous chapters to different social realities and unrealities, such as ideology, connecting semiotics with interaction, and society. Chapter Eight puts extra emphasis on the significance of multiscalar analysis in conducting semiotics research and investigating complicated realities with new interpretations of sociological concepts. The conceptualization of a general social semiotic theory is concisely summarized in Chapter Nine.
Ideal reading for scholars and students in linguistics, semiotics, and sociology, as well as people who are interested in obtaining new analytic tools to conduct content analysis, this volume provides an innovative and inclusive approach investigating diverse multidimensional social facts.