The Semiotics of Toys and Games

The Childhood Artefacts that Introduce Us to the World

Professor Theo van Leeuwen, Staffan Selander (Autoren)

Buch | Hardcover

236 Seiten

2024
Bloomsbury Academic (Verlag)
978-1-350-32489-3 (ISBN)

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Drawing on extensive research over more than two decades, this book focuses on toys and games as resources for play. It analyses their functionalities as well as their symbolic meaning potentials, exemplifying how they are used in different contexts, such as home and preschool, and how these uses are regulated by parental, pedagogic and marketing discourses.

Building on the work of semioticians such as Barthes, Baudrillard and Krampen, as well as on the social semiotics of Halliday, Hodge, Kress, and others, the book introduces a framework for the multimodal semiotic analysis of physical objects, and the ways in which they are digitally translated into words, images and sounds. It also introduces a multimodal framework with a focus on designs for and in learning. It then applies these frameworks to a range of toys and games for young children including teddy bears, dolls, construction toys, war toys and digital games. Throughout it shows how the toy and games industry contributes to changing the nature of childhood and the way children learn about the world.

Accessibly written, the book will not only be relevant to students and scholars of multimodality and semiotics, but also to early childhood educators and parents of young children.

Theo van Leeuwen is Professor of Language and Communication at the University of Southern Denmark, Denmark. Staffan Selander is Professor Emeritus in Education/Didactic Science at the Department of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University, Sweden.

List of Figures
Foreword
1. A Social Semiotic Approach to Toys as Resources for Learning
2. Baby Toys: The Alphabet of Objects
3. Teddy Bears: Affect in the Private and the Public Sphere
4. Small Worlds: The Imaginary Power of Miniatures
5. Barbie: Feminist Icon or Fashion Doll?
6. Building Toys: Elements of Construction and their Meaning
7. War Toys: Masculinity and the Politics of Warfare
8. Digitizing Children’s Stories: The Pedagogization of Enchantment
9. The Rules of Games and the Rules of Social Life
10. Conclusion: The Semiosphere of Toys and Games
Appendix: A Guide to the Semiotic Analysis of Objects
References
Index

Erscheinungsdatum	29.10.2024
Reihe/Serie	Bloomsbury Advances in Semiotics
Zusatzinfo	3 bw illus
Verlagsort	London
Sprache	englisch
Maße	156 x 234 mm
Themenwelt	Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Freizeit / Hobby
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Erkenntnistheorie / Wissenschaftstheorie
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Sprachwissenschaft
	Sozialwissenschaften
ISBN-10	1-350-32489-2 / 1350324892
ISBN-13	978-1-350-32489-3 / 9781350324893
Zustand	Neuware