Bob Hodge

Gunther R. Kress

Robert Ian Vere Hodge

Robert Hodge

A textbook in communication and cultural studies. It offers a comprehensive approach to the study of the ways in which meaning is constituted in social life.

Social Semiotics

Vijay Mishra

Australian Literature and the Postcolonial Mind (Australian Cultural Studies)

Dark Side of the Dream

Gabriela Coronado

Summary: Four social scientists from the University of Western Sydney explore management and organizations today, along with their theories and practices, as the 2008 worldwide financial crisis continues, from a perspective that questions much of the intellectual trappings of neo-liberalism. They cover what is wrong with business education, the Larrikin Principle, managerialism, neo-liberalism and its discontents, corruption, power versus goodness at the edge of chaos, soft capital and the informal polity, and culture and organizations in a global world.

Working with Organisations in a Neo-liberal World

Chaos Theory and the Larrikin Principle

Kam Louie

An innovative text which adopts the tools of cultural studies to provide a fresh approach to the study of Chinese language, culture and society. The book tackles areas such as grammar, language, gender, popular culture, film and the Chinese diaspora and employs the concepts of social semiotics to extend the ideas of language and reading. Covering a range of cultural texts, it will help to break down the boundaries around the ideas and identities of East and West and provide a more relevant analysis of the Chinese and China.

The Art of Reading Dragons

Politics of Chinese Language and Culture

Social semiotics reveals language's social meaning – its structures, processes, conditions and effects – in all social contexts, across all media and modes of discourse. This important new book uses social semiotics as a one-stop shop to analyse language and social meaning, enhancing linguistics with a sociological imagination. Social Semiotics for a Complex World develops ideas, frameworks and strategies for better understanding key problems and issues involving language and social action in today's hyper-complex world driven by globalization and new media. Its semiotic basis incorporates insights from various schools of linguistics (such as cognitive linguistics, critical discourse analysis and sociolinguistics) as well as from sociology, anthropology, philosophy, psychology and literary studies. It employs a multi-modal perspective to follow meaning across all modes of language and media, and a multi-scalar approach that ranges between databases and one-word slogans, the local and global, with examples from English, Chinese and Spanish. Social semiotics analyses twists and turns of meanings big and small in complex contexts. This book uses semiotic principles to build a powerful, flexible analytic toolkit which will be invaluable for students across the humanities and social sciences.

Analysing Language and Social Meaning

Social Semiotics for a Complex World

Vladimir Dimitrov

Fuzziology studies the fuzziness inherent in what we know about ourselves, the sources and nature of our experience, our thoughts and feelings, drives for understanding and urges to create and realise our potential. This kind of fuzziness is at the core of our existence, at the essence of our humanness. It affects any field of human activity, be it mathematical study of fuzzy equations and fuzzy integrals; engineering design and implementation of fuzzy logic-based methodologies; fuzzy control systems or fuzzy robots. Social fuzziology investigates the role of fuzziness in understanding the dynamic complexity of human existence in the social world. It is a study of the nexus between the complex demands of life -individual and social -and the fuzziness of thinking. Since human evolution over 2 billion years has seen the co-evolution of social complexity with human language and thought, it is likely that the fuzziness of language and thought is especially intimately formed by the demands of social complexity, just as social complexity is sustained by the inherent fuzziness of language and thought. Social fuzziology is not simply one field of application of fuzziology. Given the initial state of the development of fuzziology, social fuzziology needs to develop hand in hand with fuzziology, each helping to advance the other.

Study of Fuzziness of Social Complexity

Social Fuzziology

Graeme Turner

John Fiske

This book, first published in 1987, sets out to examine and extend our understanding of Australian popular culture, and to counter the long-established, traditional criticism bewailing its lack. The authors argue that the 'knocker's' view started from an elitist viewpoint, yearning for Australia to aspire to a European culture in art, music, literature and other traditional cultural fields. They argue however that there are other definitions of culture that are more populist, more comprehensive, and which represent a vitality and dynamism which is a true reflection of the lives and aspirations of Australians. Myths of Oz offers no comprehensive definition of Australian culture, but rather a way of interpreting its various aspects. The barbeque or the pub, an expedition to the shops or a day at the beach, the home, the workplace or the job queue; all these intrinsic parts of Australian life are examined and conclusions drawn as to how they shape or are shaped by what we call popular culture. The authors look too at monuments and symbols, from Ayers Rock to the Sydney Opera House, which both shape and reflect Australian culture, while a chapter on the Australian accent shows how language and terminology play a powerful role in establishing cultural standpoints. A particular strength of this book is that while delivering a provocative and stimulating series of viewpoints on popular culture, it also makes use of current academic tools and methodology to ensure that we gain new insights into the meanings and pleasures we derive from our everyday experiences.

Bob Hodge

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