Although it wasn’t entirely clear until I read it, James Gee’s (2007) chapter, “Semiotic domains: Is playing video games a ‘waste of time?’” succeeded in bringing together a collection of key concepts I have gravitated toward unknowingly in my past learning and teaching experiences, and throughout this course.
The concept of semiotics is prevalent in visual arts education – how could it not be when art making itself is visual semiotic poetry: what can I evoke in others when I combine this collection of symbols/images/shapes/colours/etc.? Aspiring artists need to learn how to think about how what they create might be perceived and explore then evolve within that realm. Perhaps it was the way in which it was taught, or where my head was at as a young adult, but semiotics made me question everything, considering it all from a new perspective. I fixated on the idea of first seeing, and first connecting conceptual meaning to shapes and objects as a new person in the world (I think of babies as ‘new people’). This perspective acquired in my undergrad allowed me to connect strongly with Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory when I first learned about it early in the MET program.
Gee (2007) describes semiotic domains as “any set of practices that recruits one or more modalities (e.g., oral or written language, images, equations, symbols, sounds, gestures, graphs, artifacts, etc.) to communicate distinctive types of meanings” (p. 18). Not that this description itself encompasses the whole of what is meant by the term. My understand is that a semiotic domain is governed by a specific or rather, specialized topic. For example, some semiotic domains I am part of or on the periphery of are as follows: Art Education, Mid-Century-Modern furniture, Modern Art, Paper Craft, Serigraphy, Reddit, Animal Crossing, Estate Law, Cooking/Food. What forms this semiotic domain as a distinct space is a series of shared social practices, and the internal and external design grammar that Gee (2007) describes (p. 30). Below I have listed the related concepts introduced by Gee that work together to describe different aspects of a semiotic domain. Some of these concepts have already popped up throughout this course:
- Social Practice: “various distinctive ways of acting, interacting, valuing, feeling, knowing and using various objects and technologies” (p. 15).
- Affinity Group: “the group of people associated with a given semiotic domain” (p. 27)
- Internal Design Grammar: “the principles and patterns in terms of which one can recognize what is and what is not acceptable or typical content in a semiotic domain” (p. 30).
- External Design Grammar: “the principles and patterns in terms of which one can recognize what is and what is not an acceptable or typical social practice and identity in regard to the affinity group associated with a semiotic domain” (p. 30).
- Lifeworld Domain: “…’everyday,’ ‘ordinary’ life is itself a semiotic domain. In fact, it is a domain win which all of us have lots and lots of experience…I mean those occasions when we are operating (making sense to each other and to ourselves) as ‘everyday; people, not as members of more specialist or technical semiotic domains” (p. 36).
In my past teaching experiences and currently in my role as a trainer for staff administering estates, my focus has been always been less on the hard facts, that can be easily referenced, and more on the social, interactional aspects (e.g.: how we talk about estates, how we seek out information from others by providing the accepted vernacular, how we understand our roles, and how they allow – or don’t allow – us to take action). To me, it is both these social aspects as well as the workplace culture (within the office, and within the field of estates) that I aim to teach first as I believe it serves as a strong base for future learning.
For me, it feels relatively natural to emphasize these aspects in future teaching for adult learners, but this focus in education would differ in a variety of learning environments. I wonder if others actively tie these concepts into their teaching methods, or (like me) have been inspired to devise ways to further integrate the notion of semiotic domains in their future lessons.
References:
Gee, J. (2007). Semiotic domains: Is playing video games a “waste of time?” In What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy (pp.17-45). New York: Palgrave and Macmillan.