Food packages and communication through typeface design: The exoticism of exotypes

Although widely used by brands to communicate an exotic origin, exotypes have never been studied in the marketing literature. This research presents the exotype family of typefaces and then uses semiotic models to examine its power to evoke foreign cultures. One experiment is conducted among 1718 questionnaire respondents in order to study consumer perceptions of six exotypes. The results show that exotypes are able to communicate a specific exotic origin, especially when the connoted meaning of the typeface is congruent with the denoted meaning of the text.     

基于符号学的传统江南园林空间浅析

本文分析了符号学与传统江南园林空间的关系,并采用莫里斯的三分法,对传统江南园林空间的符号系统进行了研究;论文着重分析了传统江南园林空间组合要素符号系统与所表达对象间的关系,从而探索传统江南园林空间在符号学意义上的规律,以期有效作用于现代园林空间设计。     

基于符号思维的现代中式家具设计

本文提出了运用符号思维来进行中式家具的设计,所谓符号思维就是基于符号学理论对中式家具设计的探讨。阐述了在符构学语、符义学两方面如何对中式家具进行创作。并对本课题所设计的作品,用符号学的观点作了详细的分析与说明。     

Human–computer interaction viewed as pseudo-communication

Semiotics is considered fundamental to an understanding of human–computer interaction, and of all computer artifacts. Informatics should therefore be viewed as technical semiotics (or semiotics engineering). In particular, interaction between human and computer is characterized by features of communication, a sort of communication, however, that lacks decisive communicative features. It must be identified as a process of pseudo-communication. Interaction is viewed as the coupling of two autonomous processes: a sign process (carried out by the human user) and a signal process (carried out by the computer). Software appears as a semiotic entity in a duplicate way: calculated and calculating, i.e. both as a result and agent of calculations. This dialectics characterizes the class of signs on the computer medium. Problems of software design (functionality and usability design) are specific problems of the coupling of sign and signal processes.     

室内陈设的符号学意义初探

室内陈设设计作为室内整体环境设计的一个粗成部分,在加强室内环境气氛、创造环境意境等方面有着举足轻重的作用。运用符号学原理探索室内陈设艺术的符号分类以及设计的符号化过程,有助于抓住室内陈设艺术设计的本质及其与建筑室内空间的内在联系,进一步探索陈设形式与意义之间的关系,为室内陈设艺术的设计提供创新的理论依据和方法。     

Emotional responses to branded and unbranded foods

Investigating the emotions elicited by a product considering only its sensory characteristics or both its sensory characteristics and packaging/branding can give a deeper insight into product perception and can help companies in the design and optimisation of products that meet consumer expectations. The aim of this study was to (i) measure how liking changes across blind, package (expected) and informed conditions, and (ii) measure how emotions change across blind and informed conditions, in products representing the widest range of sensory variability and brand identity in the market category of hazelnut and cocoa spreads. In the first session participants (n = 120) tasted each product in a blind condition, expressed their liking and rated emotions using the EmoSemio questionnaire specifically developed for this product category (Spinelli, Masi, Dinnella, Zoboli, & Monteleone, 2014). Then consumers were asked to rate their expected liking for the products, presented in the original packaging by means of photos (pack/expected condition). After one week, consumers tasted each product presented with its own packaging (informed condition), expressed their liking and rated emotions.Emotions were very discriminating in both conditions: in the informed condition all the emotions significantly varied across samples, while in the blind condition 21 out of 23 (91.3%) varied.Results showed a correlation between liking (blind, expected and informed) and emotions. Complete assimilation of liking toward expectations was associated to an overall improvement of the emotional performance of the product: positive emotions increased in the case of complete assimilation towards the expectations, while negative emotions decreased. When there was a mismatch between expected liking evoked by packaging and blind liking (disconfirmation) but an assimilation effect was not found, some positive emotions significantly decreased in the informed condition compared to the blind one.This study suggests the importance of collecting emotion responses in both blind and informed conditions to detect changes in the emotional profile of products due to the brand/packaging providing information useful for product optimisation.     

Interactive fiction: Artificial intelligence as a mode of sign production

Interactive media need their own idioms that exploit the characteristics of the computer based sign. The fact that the reader can physically influence the course of events in the system changes the author's role, since he no longer creates a linear text but anarrative space that the reader can use to generate stories. Although stories are not simulations of the real world, they must still contain recognizable parts where everyday constraints of time and space hold. AI-techniques can be used to implement these constraints. In fact, we suggest that AI is probably best seen as an aesthetic phenomenon.     

A narrative grammar of Chopin's G minor Ballade

A new semiotic model for the generation of musical texts is introduced in this article. The idea of a generative grammar is here understood in the sense of the generative trajectory, a model elaborated by A. J. Greimas. Four levels are chosen from his trajectory for the study of musical texts, namely, those of isotopies, spatial, temporal and actorial categories, modalities and semes or figures.As an illustration, the G minor Ballade by Fr. Chopin has been examined through all these levels. The most formalized aspect of the analysis is constituted by what has been called a modal grammar of the piece (the term modality understood here in its philosophico-linguistic sense). The analysis tries to show how the musical form emerges from its inner processual traits, kinetic, epistemic and other aspects of a modal nature. It thus approaches for instance the problem of segmentation from the processual and dynamic nature of musical works. Moreover, the analysis is also an attempt to study the narrativity in music, since the narrative content of a piece like Chopin's G minor Ballade is clearly seen as the result of its modal processes.     

功能符号学视角下的多模态话语分析——以2010年上海世博会会徽为例

近年来,随着多媒体的发展,社会和文化话语意义产生日益复杂化的趋势,语言不再是意义构建的唯一手段,图像、声音和手势等交流模态也不再作为副语言在语言交流中起着辅助作用,而是和语言符号一起形成更为宽泛的符号资源共同参与构建意义。从功能符号学的视角,在克瑞斯和斯文提出的视觉语法基础上,对2010年上海世博会会徽进行了多模态话语分析,向读者揭示了会徽图像的再现意义、互动意义和构图意义。