Design in Gunther Kress’s social semiotics

Abstract

Gunther Kress’s multimodal and social semiotic theory of communication has moved beyond the realm of linguistics, which originally framed his work, and has reached out to inform other fields, such as those of education, museum studies, as well as the humanities and social sciences more broadly. This article brings together our insights in relation to a concept from Gunther Kress’s theory, that of design. Drawing from our research, we reflect on Kress’s conceptualisation of design in social semiotics and discuss how this idea has inspired us to advance research across the domains of formal learning in schools, informal learning and communication in museums, and in everyday communication and social interaction. We consider that the contribution of design is to challenge the boundaries of concepts such as ‘competence’, ‘interpretation’ and ‘critique’, associated respectively with the dominant discourses and practices in the worlds of education, museums and everyday communication and research practice. We look at design as: (1) learning; (2) transformation of resources; and (3) an engaged and engaging social semiotic research, and argue that as an interpretative resource it enables us to move beyond the limitations posed by institutions such as schools, museums and academia.

The Worlds of UCL: teaching, learning and institutional histories

“…In 2022, the IOE commemorated the anniversary of its 1902 founding under the brand IOE120 through a series of public-facing events and an updated edition of its centenary history (Aldrich and Woodin, 2021). A number of articles in the London Review of Education critically examine a wider range of topics in the IOE's history, including questions of decolonisation in international development (Unterhalter and Kadiwal, 2022), the important research of the Thomas Coram Research Unit (Brannen et al, 2022), and the significance of critical thinkers, including Berry Mayall and Roy Bhaskar (Alderson, 2022), Susan Isaacs (Leaton Gray, 2022) and Gunther Kress (Adami et al, 2022). Spaces at the IOE's Bedford Way building were renamed in honour of former staff members, including the Whitty Wing after Geoff Whitty (1946Whitty ( -2018, who was IOE Director for a decade, from 2000 to 2010.…”

The 120th anniversary of IOE: critical engagement with educational and social thought, practice and development

“…These include: Jagdish Gundara, UNESCO chair and founding director of the International Centre for Intercultural Education, whose contribution is recognised by Namrata Sharma (2022); Jan Blommaert, whose concept of pedagogy for precarity from applied linguistics is illustrated in dialogic form involving Ahmad Jaber Benswait, a would-be doctoral researcher whose battle to establish his claim as an asylum seeker is supported by his IOE tutor Miguel Pérez-Milans, who notes that they are effectively losing voice (Benswait and Pérez-Milans, 2022); Roy Bhaskar, whose theoretical insights, conceptualised as critical realism, inspired a whole new field of research and scholarship, as celebrated by Priscilla Alderson (2022); Gunther Kress, who also established a new field of multimodal and social semiotic theory, which not only analyses communication through a linguistic lens, but also acknowledges many signifiers that inform fields, including education, museum studies and the humanities and social sciences. His considerable global influence is discussed by Elisabetta Adami et al (2022) using the example of his concept of design.…”