Department of European Languages & Literature

Fall Semester - 2022

Language &
Media
ELAN - 448
 A1 - Language & Mediation

A2 - Media, Modes & Materialities

A3 - Media, Genre & Style

Section A
INTRODUCTION A4 - Media Storytelling

KEYTOPICS IN THE

STUDY OF LANGUAGE A5 - Truth, Lies, & Propaganda

AND MEDIA

Department. of European
Fall - 2022 Languages & Literature


Section A2 A2 - Media, Modes & Materialities

Introduction

What is mode?

Media & their materialities

Department. of European
Fall - 2022 Languages & Literature
What is Mode?
A2 - MEDIA, MODES, AND MATERIALITIES

What is mode?
Modes are ‘regularized’ and ‘organized,’ and it is this fact that makes them
efficient tools for communicating.

Easiest to see: in the modes of writing and speech, where among a

group of users of a particular language variety is a consensus about
what certain words and grammatical structures mean.
This regularity is documented in things like dictionaries and grammar
books.
Not all modes are regularized, organized, or so immediately obvious.
What is a mode?

Meaning in some images Meaning in most images (as

are less ambiguous: well as other modes like
traffic signs and emojis gesture, gaze, facial
expression, music, and
smell) tend to be more
polysemous ; their meanings
are less fixed, and they might
be interpreted in multiple
ways.
What is mode?

What does this mean?

This does not mean that these modes are
not regularized or organized, just that the
degree of regularization (or consensus
among users of the mode) may be weaker
and that their meanings might be more
dependent on the contexts in which they
are used.

What is mode?

The famous semiotician Charles Sanders

Peirce (2003) pointed out that ‘signs’ (such as
words, gestures, and objects) can convey
meaning in a variety of different ways.
What is mode?

Peirce calls these icons: Some signs communicate

meaning though their resemblance to the thing or
concept they are trying to represent.

communicate meaning based on an

represents the print function
agreement between sign users
What is mode?
Peirce calls these Symbols: When there
is no particular relationship of
resemblance between the sign and what
it means apart from the fact that it has
become a conventionalized way of
meaning a particular thing.

Most words are like this.

What is mode?

Peirce calls these

Indexes: These are
kinds of signs that
convey meaning
through the way they
‘point to’ or interact
with other elements in
the physical or social
environment.
What is mode?
If you think of these three things
(icons, symbols, & indexes) not so
much as different kinds of signs but
as different ways we can make
meaning, we can see that different
modes tend to exploit different kinds
of 'meaning making' to different
degrees.
 Written language tends to be more
What is mode? symbolic (though it also has iconic and
indexical dimensions).

Images tend to be more iconic, with

elements in them often (but by no
means always) resembling what they
represent.

Speech (along with gesture, gaze, and

facial expression) can be said to make
particular use of indexical meaning
making.
What is mode?
Written Language
Tends to be more symbolic (can also be iconic and have indexical
dimensions).
"Symbolic" language consists of various sound symbols and their
graphological counterparts that are employed to denote some objects,
occurrences, or meaning. These symbols are arbitrarily chosen and
conventionally accepted and employed.

“Iconic” language means that they visually look like the definition
they're trying to convey (e.g., Chinese/Japanese characters).

"Indexical" language is a linguistic expression whose reference can

shift from context to context (e.g., You).
What is mode?
Images
They tend to be more iconic, with elements in them often (but by no
means always) resembling what they represent.

Cat Whiskers Raising the flag on

Iwo Jima
What is mode?
Speech
Speech (along with gesture, gaze, and facial expression) can be
said to make particular use of indexical meaning making.

"Indexical" language is a
linguistic expression
whose reference can shift
from context to context
(e.g., You, she, he, etc.).