Analysing the language of war monuments

Abstract

This paper seeks an approach for a systematic analysis of the semiotic resources used by the designers of British World War 1 monuments. Semiotic studies of monuments have emphasised on the one hand factors from outside the' text', in other words contextual social and political factors that lead to design decisions, and on the other hand factors within the text, as being maximally important for this - the latter characterising such visual communication, like language, as a system or code. The paper uses an assessment of an example of the latter, O'Toole's functional analysis (1994) of sculptures, using a number of theories of the visual to draw out its limitations and point to a number of characteristics of visual communication that would need to be considered in order to carry out a satisfactory analysis

The discourse of counter-monuments: semiotics of material commemoration in contemporary urban spaces

“…At the same time, counter-monuments -such as most notably the Stolpersteine -aim to deploy non-ideologised and often multiple semiotic forms (in our central case, miniature brass tombstones/plaques). Contrary to the often over-politicised monuments so often driven by such ideologies as, for example, nationalism, nativism or even sexism (Abousnnouga and Machin 2013), counter-monuments allow for de-politicisation and de-ideologisation of commemoration that should be at the foundation of remembrance in contemporary urban spaces of diversity and inclusion.…”

“…also Machin 2014) and in particular its three-dimensional social-semiotic analysis of monuments and related formats of commemoration (Abousnnouga and Machin 2013). Accordingly, the interpretation in the paper is systematised by, inter alia, such multimodal critical-analytic dimensions as (cf.…”

“…Along with that process we see the fulfilment of Foucault's famous thesis that: in every society the production of discourse is simultaneously controlled, selected, organized and redistributed according to a certain number of procedures whose role is to avert its powers and dangers and to cope with chance of events, to evade its ponderous, formidable materiality. (Foucault 1981, 52) At the same time, the analysis of commemoration as a form of socially constructed discourse allows discovering multiple meanings inscribed in as well as communicated by the monuments (Abousnnouga and Machin 2013). In doing so, one is able to deconstruct the order of discourse (Foucault 1981;Fairclough 1992Fairclough , 1995 inscribed into monuments.…”

“…also Berlant 1991;Miles 1997, 46). The practice of erecting/ unveiling monuments and related organisation of public commemorative events is therefore also crucial (Abousnnouga and Machin 2013). It is a practice that links past and present as well as helps sustaining the social and political status quo or (though much less frequently) improve visibility of claims of minority groups often disregarded in the past-to-present relation.…”

“…Accordingly, the interpretation in the paper is systematised by, inter alia, such multimodal critical-analytic dimensions as (cf. Abousnnouga and Machin 2013): semiotic resources as communicating social relations (elevation, size, angle of interaction, etc. ), social semiotics of materiality (materials, solidity and fixedness) or visual grammar (e.g.…”