Arlene Archer
Biographic Data
| ID | 3923064 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Arlene Archer |
| GIVEN NAMES | Arlene |
| FAMILY NAME | Archer |
| SIGNATURE | ARCHER A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Cape Town |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9013-7788 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 9 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 11 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 9 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
A multimodal approach to English for academic purposes in contexts of diversity
This article focuses on the affordances of multimodal pedagogies in teaching English for academic purposes (EAP) in diverse and multilingual contexts. It draws on South Africa as an example of a multilingual, culturally diverse site in a recently decolonized country. Here theorizing and pedagogical practices around EAP often have a social justice agenda in order to redress the inequalities of the past. The importance of recognizing the multilingu…
Resemiotization
University students in landscape architecture need to mobilize a range of resources in their design trajectories in order to resolve their designs. Often design education settings are influenced by design traditions of the global north, and thus may favour particular ways of knowing. This article aims to contribute to a multimodal pedagogy for diversity exploring the ways in which diverse students mobilize resources to move between spatial, verba…
Semiotics of destruction
Research in fields such as multimodality and semiotics has focused on creation of value in different forms: aesthetic, economic and symbolic. However, the destruction of value has attracted much less attention. The aim of this article is to identify social, semiotic and ideological functions of acts of destruction based on an analysis of the traces these acts leave on the urban environment. Five overarching acts of destruction are discussed, but …
Establishing authenticity and commodifying difference
This article investigates a semiotic phenomenon within the global fashion industry: the branding of designer jeans as ‘authentic’ and ‘genuinely local’, focusing on the Swedish brand Sarva. Drawing on a social semiotics approach, the authors see authenticity as a discursive construct and look at the ways in which Sarva authenticate their jeans as Sámi in multimodal texts. The aim is: (1) to reveal how places and narratives are commodified in text…
Semiotic technologies
This paper examines semiotic technologies, both in terms of the resources they harness and the practices developed around their use. It draws on data collected as part of an ethnographic investigation into the meaning-making practices deployed within civil engineering study. The data is used as a case study for examining semiotic technologies as socially situated resources for disciplinary practices. Using a multimodal social semiotic approach, w…
Combining autoethnography and multimodal social semiotics
Different methodological approaches allow varying access to the objects of inquiry and enable one to ask different kinds of questions. This paper explores the possibilities that emerge through the combination of multimodal social semiotics and autoethnography. We discuss the epistemological and methodological bases for each approach and show the potentials in combining them. Drawing on an autoethnographic study in civil engineering, we argue that…
Fluidity of modes in the translation of manga
This article explores the fluidity of modes in manga where the written mode is often treated as a visual and the visual treated as a written entity. The analysis focuses on a particular text, Naruto, by Masashi Kishimoto (2003). In manga, writing is a visual entity and is often governed by the logics of space where position influences value and sequence of reading. This has implications for the relation between onomatopoeia, typography and transl…
Red socks and purple rain
This article explores the extent to which colour functions as an independent mode in a particular context and explores the culturally produced regularities in the uses of colour in this context. Drawing on a Hallidayan metafunctional view of text, we look at how colour instantiated systems of knowledge and belief (ideational function) and social relations and identities (interpersonal function) in South Africa during the last decade of the aparth…
Invisible landscapes
This paper examines the discourses that students draw on and propagate in a course on rural development in a first‐year engineering foundation programme. It looks at the way ‘rural’ is often constructed as ‘lack’ and therefore ‘other’, the dangers of constructing development as linear, the ways nostalgia and utopianism feed into discourses of development and how ‘propriety’ serves to maintain boundaries between nature and people, society and indi…
Semiotics of destruction
Research in fields such as multimodality and semiotics has focused on creation of value in different forms: aesthetic, economic and symbolic. However, the destruction of value has attracted much less attention. The aim of this article is to identify social, semiotic and ideological functions of acts of destruction based on an analysis of the traces these acts leave on the urban environment. Five overarching acts of destruction are discussed, but …
Red socks and purple rain
This article explores the extent to which colour functions as an independent mode in a particular context and explores the culturally produced regularities in the uses of colour in this context. Drawing on a Hallidayan metafunctional view of text, we look at how colour instantiated systems of knowledge and belief (ideational function) and social relations and identities (interpersonal function) in South Africa during the last decade of the aparth…
Combining autoethnography and multimodal social semiotics
Different methodological approaches allow varying access to the objects of inquiry and enable one to ask different kinds of questions. This paper explores the possibilities that emerge through the combination of multimodal social semiotics and autoethnography. We discuss the epistemological and methodological bases for each approach and show the potentials in combining them. Drawing on an autoethnographic study in civil engineering, we argue that…
Fluidity of modes in the translation of manga
This article explores the fluidity of modes in manga where the written mode is often treated as a visual and the visual treated as a written entity. The analysis focuses on a particular text, Naruto, by Masashi Kishimoto (2003). In manga, writing is a visual entity and is often governed by the logics of space where position influences value and sequence of reading. This has implications for the relation between onomatopoeia, typography and transl…
Invisible landscapes
This paper examines the discourses that students draw on and propagate in a course on rural development in a first‐year engineering foundation programme. It looks at the way ‘rural’ is often constructed as ‘lack’ and therefore ‘other’, the dangers of constructing development as linear, the ways nostalgia and utopianism feed into discourses of development and how ‘propriety’ serves to maintain boundaries between nature and people, society and indi…
Red socks and purple rain
This article explores the extent to which colour functions as an independent mode in a particular context and explores the culturally produced regularities in the uses of colour in this context. Drawing on a Hallidayan metafunctional view of text, we look at how colour instantiated systems of knowledge and belief (ideational function) and social relations and identities (interpersonal function) in South Africa during the last decade of the aparth…
Fluidity of modes in the translation of manga
This article explores the fluidity of modes in manga where the written mode is often treated as a visual and the visual treated as a written entity. The analysis focuses on a particular text, Naruto, by Masashi Kishimoto (2003). In manga, writing is a visual entity and is often governed by the logics of space where position influences value and sequence of reading. This has implications for the relation between onomatopoeia, typography and transl…
Combining autoethnography and multimodal social semiotics
Different methodological approaches allow varying access to the objects of inquiry and enable one to ask different kinds of questions. This paper explores the possibilities that emerge through the combination of multimodal social semiotics and autoethnography. We discuss the epistemological and methodological bases for each approach and show the potentials in combining them. Drawing on an autoethnographic study in civil engineering, we argue that…
Semiotic technologies
This paper examines semiotic technologies, both in terms of the resources they harness and the practices developed around their use. It draws on data collected as part of an ethnographic investigation into the meaning-making practices deployed within civil engineering study. The data is used as a case study for examining semiotic technologies as socially situated resources for disciplinary practices. Using a multimodal social semiotic approach, w…
Establishing authenticity and commodifying difference
This article investigates a semiotic phenomenon within the global fashion industry: the branding of designer jeans as ‘authentic’ and ‘genuinely local’, focusing on the Swedish brand Sarva. Drawing on a social semiotics approach, the authors see authenticity as a discursive construct and look at the ways in which Sarva authenticate their jeans as Sámi in multimodal texts. The aim is: (1) to reveal how places and narratives are commodified in text…
Semiotics of destruction
Research in fields such as multimodality and semiotics has focused on creation of value in different forms: aesthetic, economic and symbolic. However, the destruction of value has attracted much less attention. The aim of this article is to identify social, semiotic and ideological functions of acts of destruction based on an analysis of the traces these acts leave on the urban environment. Five overarching acts of destruction are discussed, but …
A multimodal approach to English for academic purposes in contexts of diversity
This article focuses on the affordances of multimodal pedagogies in teaching English for academic purposes (EAP) in diverse and multilingual contexts. It draws on South Africa as an example of a multilingual, culturally diverse site in a recently decolonized country. Here theorizing and pedagogical practices around EAP often have a social justice agenda in order to redress the inequalities of the past. The importance of recognizing the multilingu…
Resemiotization
University students in landscape architecture need to mobilize a range of resources in their design trajectories in order to resolve their designs. Often design education settings are influenced by design traditions of the global north, and thus may favour particular ways of knowing. This article aims to contribute to a multimodal pedagogy for diversity exploring the ways in which diverse students mobilize resources to move between spatial, verba…
Sociology (8 works) · Linguistics (6 works) · Computer Science (5 works) · Epistemology (5 works) · Philosophy (5 works) · Political science (5 works) · Semiotics (5 works) · Discourse Analysis in Language Studies (4 works) · Philosophy (4 works) · Social science (4 works)