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- Stampoulidis, Georgios, et al.
(author)
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A cognitive semiotic exploration of metaphors in Greek street art
- 2019
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In: Cognitive Semiotics. - : Walter de Gruyter GmbH. - 2235-2066. ; 12:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Cognitive linguistic and semiotic accounts of metaphor have addressed similar issues such as universality, conventionality, context-sensitivity, cross-cultural variation, creativity, and “multimodality.” However, cognitive linguistics and semiotics have been poor bedfellows and interactions between them have often resulted in cross-talk. This paper, which focuses on metaphors in Greek street art, aims to improve this situation by using concepts and methods from cognitive semiotics, notably the conceptual-empirical loop and methodological triangulation.In line with the cognitive semiotics paradigm, we illustrate the significance of the terminological and conceptual distinction between semiotic systems (language, gesture, and depiction) and sensory modalities (sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste). Thus, we restrict the term multimodality to the synergy of two or more different sensory modalities and introduce the notion of polysemiotic communication in the sense of the intertwined use of two or more semiotic systems.In our synthetic approach, we employ the Motivation and Sedimentation Model (MSM), which distinguishes between three interacting levels of meaning making: the embodied, the sedimented, and the situated. Consistent with this, we suggest a definition of metaphor, leading to the assertion that metaphor is a process of experiencing one thing in terms of another, giving rise to both tension and iconicity between the two “things” (meanings, experiences, concepts). By reviewing an empirical study on unisemiotic and polysemiotic metaphors in Greek street art, we show that the actual metaphorical interpretation is ultimately a matter of situated and socio-culturally-sensitive sign use and hence a dynamic and creative process in a real-life context.
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| 2. |
- Stampoulidis, Georgios, et al.
(author)
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A cognitive semiotics approach to the analysis of street art : The case of Athens
- 2018
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In: Cross-Inter-Multi-Trans : Proceedings of the 13th World Congress of the International Association for Semiotic Studies (IASS/AIS) - Proceedings of the 13th World Congress of the International Association for Semiotic Studies (IASS/AIS). - 2414-6862. - 9786090215548 ; , s. 787-797
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This paper is part of my ongoing doctoral research centered on “Street Art and Cognitive Semiotics: The case of Athens” at the division of Cognitive Semiotics at Lund University. More concretely, in this article, a fresh approach, based on a constructive (verbo-) pictorial argument, is taken to attending the relationship between a cognitive semiotics approach and street art signs in a programmatic way. This study is based on fieldwork research that was carried out during several periods in central Athens between 2014 and 2017, including photo documentation and semi-structured ethnographic interviews with street artists. In the following, my intention is first to outline a cognitive semiotic conceptual toolbox for street art understanding furnished mainly by Sonesson (2008, 2013, 2014). Second, three concrete examples indicative of these attempts are examined and analyzed semiotically.
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| 3. |
- Stampoulidis, Georgios
(author)
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A Colorful and Multiform Language : Wall Writing Protest in times of Crisis in Athens
- 2015
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In this poster presentation, Ι discuss about the urban writing on Athenian walls as a creative medium of intercommunication occurring during the hard times of socioeconomic and political crisis in Greece, the last seven years. Analyzing works of street art both as visual artifacts and as performative practices, I argue that they are not merely representations of the given socio-cultural context they are embedded in but also have the potential to actively transform and politicize the urban space. The findings of my mostly qualitative analysis highlight that politicized public writing constitutes a modern wall language, expressing vibrant socio-political messages construed mainly by the visual semiotics and multimodal discourse analysis transforming the wall slogans and murals as the fundamental means of the current socio-political propaganda.
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| 5. |
- Stampoulidis, Georgios
(author)
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Approaching Athenian Graffiti as a Multimodal Genre with GIS Application
- 2017
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Graffiti as an ever-changing form of urban art and visual communication is naturally multimodal, focusing on text–image relations (Bateman 2014; Forceville 2008; Kress 2006), which owe their existence mainly to the sociocultural and historical knowledge of the represented world of our experience – Husserlian Lebenswelt [Lifeworld] (Sonesson 2008; 2015). These relations constitute an interesting challenge to multimodal interpretations, because both verbal and/or pictorial representations can introduce the overall meaning possibilities of multimodal graffiti artefacts. An innovative technique for systematic monitoring of Athenian graffitiscape is needed to protect graffiti. Towards this direction, this talk suggests a new framework for employing Geographical Information System (GIS) technology (Longley 2015), as an exploratory platform to perform multimodal analysis. The graffiti data that have been already gathered from Athens in two time periods: 2014 – 2015 and 2016 – 2017 will be stored in a free and online digital archive. The main advantage of this database is to address issues of metadata services giving to the researcher the opportunity to actively interact with the metadata. Engaging with a database it is possible to link the data with any way we want – alphabetically, chronologically, thematically, locationally etc. and even re-arrange the data sets in anyway depending on the new findings.Three graffiti examples of multimodal discourse, as indices of construction, function (intended effects), and circulation (Sonesson 2008) are visually analyzed. The results suggest that the methodology applied is effective: a) in the understanding of the relational infrastructure of graffiti as another kind of complex multimodal genre, and b) in the conversion of the urban semiotic landscape into a modern intercommunication notebook between the graffiti creators and the passersby. The work described is a sort of preliminary work in progress: I am planning to apply the GIS methodology on a much wider scale at European graffiti corpora across time and space.
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| 6. |
- Stampoulidis, Georgios, et al.
(author)
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Bringing metaphors back to the streets : A corpus-based study for the identification and interpretation of rhetorical figures in street art
- 2023
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In: Visual Communication. - : SAGE Publications. - 1470-3572 .- 1741-3214. ; 22:2, s. 243-277
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Research on (verbo-) pictorial metaphors and other rhetorical figures is primarily focused on the genre of advertising, leaving other genres under-investigated. In this study, we focus on street art, a visually perceived cross-cultural medium used to address sociopolitical issues. This genre typically combines two interacting semiotic systems – language and depiction – and is thus a form of polysemiotic communication. Our analysis is based on a corpus of 50 street artworks addressing the financial, sociopolitical, and migrant/refugee crisis in the city of Athens (2015-2017). We present a data-driven procedure for the identification and interpretation of metaphors and other rhetorical figures in street art, informed by cognitive linguistic and semiotic models.Quantitative analyses show that our model can be reliably applied to street art and can enable us to distinguish metaphors from other rhetorical figures within these images. At the same time, qualitative analyses show that this genre usually requires the integration of conceptual, contextual, socio-cultural, and linguistic knowledge in order to achieve successful interpretation of these images.We discuss our findings within the theoretical framework of Cognitive Semiotics.
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| 7. |
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| 8. |
- Stampoulidis, Georgios, et al.
(author)
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Facing metaphors as the most complex iconic signs: Toward a synthetic analysis of figuration in Greek street art
- 2019
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Cognitive linguistic and semiotic accounts of metaphors have often discussed the complex phenomenon of metaphor in various ways, often addressing factors such as universality and conventionality, context-sensitivity, cross-cultural variation and creativity, deliberateness and “multimodality”. However, in most cases, such factors are investigated in isolation (cf. Gibbs 2017). Therefore, we propose a cognitive semiotic approach that can help us to seek convergences instead of divergences among such long-standing debated issues by using a coherent and consistent terminology, informed by cognitive semiotics.Cognitive linguistic approaches to metaphor propose an understanding of metaphor as an instrument of thought, rejecting the traditional notion of metaphor as a figurative device (e.g. Grady 1997; Lakoff and Johnson 1980). Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) emphasizes that metaphors are more or less fixed (and static) conceptual mappings based on bodily and cultural experiences. What we argue instead is that such cognitive correspondences are not metaphors per se, but rather diagrams, serving as motivations for the use of contextually situated and culturally embedded metaphors.Taking the overall theme of the conference, iconicity, we highlight that similarity-based analogies (diagrams) between source and target are the dominant motivating factors for metaphor creation and interpretation. At the same time, the semiotic grounds of indexicality and symbolicity (based on sociohistorical awareness, background knowledge and context) are closely interacting with iconicity. This conforms with the view that metaphors are the most complex iconic signs (Peirce 1974 [1931]) especially when understood as creative, emergent, and dynamic processes, which are socio-culturally derived and contextually influenced (Kövecses 2015, Müller 2008, Sonesson 2015).Our presentation argues for a synthetic cognitive semiotic investigation of metaphors in Greek street art by bringing together complementary perspectives from semiotics and cognitive linguistics.
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