Semiotics and Verbal Texts: How the News Media Construct a Crisis

by Jane Gravells

Overview

This book offers an innovative approach to analysing written texts, grounded in principles of semiotics. Envisaging whole news media representations as ‘signs’, and using the real-world example of the BP Deepwater Horizon crisis, the author demonstrates how business crises are constructed through language. Gravells identifies patterns of language which show a progression from one kind of ‘current news’ representation to a different kind of coverage. This coverage positions the crisis as having symbolic and conventional meaning within varied social contexts, including the arts, business and the environment. Using a wealth of examples from the BP story to illustrate her practical research approach, Gravells draws ‘language maps’ of different phases of the crisis representation, showing how an early ‘iconic’ phase of representation moves through an ‘indexical’ to a ‘symbolic’ phase, and projects a return to a ‘naturalised icon’. This book will be of interest to researchers andstudents of semiotics, those exploring research methods and linguists with an interest in business and media communications.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781349954568
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	07/11/2018
Series:	Postdisciplinary Studies in Discourse
Edition description:	Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 2017
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x (d)

About the Author

Jane Gravells is a lecturer in Linguistics at Aston University. Her research interests have been in those areas where language and business intersect. Her work in semiotics relates to the role of written language in multimodal texts. Jane has taught applied linguistics and business studies at several leading universities. Before this, she had a successful career in qualitative Marketing Research.

Table of Contents

.- PART I: Written language and semiotics.- Chapter 1: Researching the representation of a crisis.- Chapter 2: Semiotic Discourse Analysis .- PART II: A Barthesian conceptualisation of written language.- Chapter 3: Theoretical foundations.- Chapter 4: Data collection and research principles.- Chapter 5: A Barthesian analysis of the BP data in four stages.- Chapter 6: Stage 1: Contextualisation of the BP texts.- Chapter 7: Stage 2: Preliminary analysis of the BP texts.- Chapter 8: Stage 3: A depth analysis at the level of the sign.- Chapter 9: Stage 3: A depth analysis at the level of the code.- Chapter 10: Stage 3: A depth analysis at the level of mythic meanings.- Chapter 11: Stage 3: A depth analysis at the level of ideology.- Chapter 12: Stage 4: A holistic analysis of a single text.- PART III: A Peircean conceptualisation of written language.- Chapter 13: Theoretical foundations.- Chapter 14: A Peircean interpretation of the BP data.- PART IV: Concluding thoughts.- Chapter 15: Other events, other contexts.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“This important book marks a new departure in contemporary discourse analysis. Simultaneously deploying and extending semiotic theory, it traces convincingly how a media event passes from factual description to symbolic shorthand. By integrating theory, data analysis and critique in a strikingly innovative way, Gravells provides an exciting model for a new path of investigation which will enrich enquiry across a range of disciplines and at all levels of research.” (Guy Cook, Professor of Language in Education, King's College London, UK)

“Jane's engaging book helps us to understand the way people make sense of extreme events such as a business crisis over time. She argues for the concept of a spiral of representation that moves from supposed Iconic representation, through an Indexical to a Symbolic stage and back to a new 'naturalised' Icon. Her original application of semiotic models to news media discourse offers scholars new ways of conceptualizing, analysing and interpreting written as well as multimodal texts.” (Judith Baxter, Emeritus Professor of Applied Linguistics, Aston University, UK)