Yuliya Martinavichene
Applied semiotics, or How I taught students stop worrying and love the science of signs.
Abstract
Today's educational environment is a highly dynamic and constantly changing field that ceaselessly reassesses its global relevance as well as ability to generate revenue and contribute to economic growth. Research excellence is also often evaluated through the lens of its economic contribution. Is there a place for semiotics in this context, and what semiotics do we need at university – in a world where advanced and emerging industries are predominantly created by STEM alumni?
When it comes to discussing fields of scientific inquiry that bring the largest economic revenues, humanities are not the first option that comes to mind. As Northrop Frye (2008) states it, "the business of the humanities is to nurture the capacity to articulate". However, the "crisis of humanities" that has already become an orthodoxy and a topoi of public speculations on (post)modern university. The drop in enrollments across humanities disciplines signalises an obvious and bitter fact that humanities departments have lost the battle for an educational market share. The reasons for this have been widely discussed, and I won't duplicate the debate. In this context semiotics has a twofold position: general semiotics is often being criticised by a wide public for a hermetic language and puzzling theories, while applied semiotics has successfully found its market niche providing unique insights and solutions for problems arising in a wide range of industries beginning from marketing, public communication and ending with HCI and UX.
At the same time semiotics is still a rare guest in university curricula. As I want to argue, hosting a right type of semiotic course can be a great competitive advantage for any university, but, as we have to admit, any course of this kind should be converted from a purely theoretical semiotic inquiry into a multidimensional experience of theories that are retranslated into applied scrutinies across a wide range of industries. Such approach helps to encourage students enter a successful career in semiotic studies not only within academia but also outside it.
As a particular example of such 'practical' shift in teaching semiotics two courses developed by the author are discussed – "Visual semiotics for designers" and "User Interfaces in Media: UX research".
Bionote
Yuliya Martinavichene is a lecturer at the European Humanities University. Having obtained MA in Visual and Cultural Studies with a particular focus on visual semiotics, she has been teaching semiotics, design semiotics, and the theory of advertising at the Department of Social Sciences (European Humanities University, Vilnius) for already 8 years. Her main research interests include visual social semiotics, semiotics of marketing, semiotics of design and UX.
Abstract
Today's educational environment is a highly dynamic and constantly changing field that ceaselessly reassesses its global relevance as well as ability to generate revenue and contribute to economic growth. Research excellence is also often evaluated through the lens of its economic contribution. Is there a place for semiotics in this context, and what semiotics do we need at university – in a world where advanced and emerging industries are predominantly created by STEM alumni?
When it comes to discussing fields of scientific inquiry that bring the largest economic revenues, humanities are not the first option that comes to mind. As Northrop Frye (2008) states it, "the business of the humanities is to nurture the capacity to articulate". However, the "crisis of humanities" that has already become an orthodoxy and a topoi of public speculations on (post)modern university. The drop in enrollments across humanities disciplines signalises an obvious and bitter fact that humanities departments have lost the battle for an educational market share. The reasons for this have been widely discussed, and I won't duplicate the debate. In this context semiotics has a twofold position: general semiotics is often being criticised by a wide public for a hermetic language and puzzling theories, while applied semiotics has successfully found its market niche providing unique insights and solutions for problems arising in a wide range of industries beginning from marketing, public communication and ending with HCI and UX.
At the same time semiotics is still a rare guest in university curricula. As I want to argue, hosting a right type of semiotic course can be a great competitive advantage for any university, but, as we have to admit, any course of this kind should be converted from a purely theoretical semiotic inquiry into a multidimensional experience of theories that are retranslated into applied scrutinies across a wide range of industries. Such approach helps to encourage students enter a successful career in semiotic studies not only within academia but also outside it.
As a particular example of such 'practical' shift in teaching semiotics two courses developed by the author are discussed – "Visual semiotics for designers" and "User Interfaces in Media: UX research".
Bionote
Yuliya Martinavichene is a lecturer at the European Humanities University. Having obtained MA in Visual and Cultural Studies with a particular focus on visual semiotics, she has been teaching semiotics, design semiotics, and the theory of advertising at the Department of Social Sciences (European Humanities University, Vilnius) for already 8 years. Her main research interests include visual social semiotics, semiotics of marketing, semiotics of design and UX.