Multimodal Semiotics and Collaborative Design

3.1. The social semiotic approach to communication
The epistemological and methodological perspectives of social semiotics have been mainly shaped
by two theoretical approaches. First in the field of semiotics, as the primary predecessor,
paradigmatic formulations of Ferdinand de Saussure’s structuralist linguistic theory and Charles
Sanders Peirce’s (1998 [1894]) triadic model of signs (object, sign vehicle and interpretant, and
their symbolic, iconic and indexical relations) provided the interpretive semiotic foundation. On
the other hand, the semiotic discourse on the meanings and roles of signs in understanding human
cultures is also a much dismantled field; mainly with the influence of the poststructuralist critique
on the socio-cultural production of meaning, and reading as one of its key constituents. While
‘mainstream semiotics’ focuses on systems as products, it was argued that semiotic systems cannot
be understood in isolation, or independent from their social uses and functions. The second major
influence was instigated by such critiques, and a necessary reconsideration of the social dimension
of meaning-making. The importance of the social dimension in making of signs and meanings is
emphasized in Halliday’s (1978, 2007) functional linguistic analysis of language as a set of social
semiotic meaning potentials (Lemke 2009b). Within this socio-cultural critique of traditional
semiotics, socio-linguistics emerged as a bridge between the text-based pragmatic analysis of
semiotics and social scientific methods for systemic analysis of discourse as social process.
Social semiotics treats all semiotic acts and processes as social acts and processes. What is at
issue always in social processes is the definition of social participants, relations, structures,
processes, in terms of solidarity or in terms of power (Hodge and Kress 1988: 122).
Kress also describes social semiotics as “a theory that deals with meaning in all its appearances, in
all social occasions, and on all cultural sites” (Kress 2010: 2). He deconstructs the overall term
social semiotics, where the social perspective refers to the social relations (actions, interactions
and processes), while the semiotic emphasizes the texts, genres and the social environments in
which messages are organized. The rhetorical approach of social semiotics is thought to
“attribute(s) power to meaning, instead of meaning to power” (Hodge and Kress 1988: 2) by
emphasizing the role of social and political thought in making of signs and meanings. In terms of
analysis, this requires particular attention to the social actors and the power relations with a
phenomenologically-guided social semiotic approach to virtual place-making, which incorporates
individual perspectives of sign-makers (co-designers in three case studies) on how social roles are
enacted and experienced throughout the collaborative design process. My purpose in doing so is to
include the social interaction among the co-designers as a major constituent of analysis, and to
investigate how these power relations are reflected in construction of experiential (ideational),
interpersonal and textual characteristics of co-designed places and artifacts.
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