No 4 (2024)
ARTICLES
Heuristic potential of family visualization in sociocultural research
Abstract
The author focuses on the methodological problem of combining different approaches to study a phenomenon within the framework of sociocultural research, which involves a simultaneous consideration from the position of society and culture. The study is based on the works of N. Bohr, L. Frank, Yu. M. Lotman, L. S. Vygotsky, and others, and on the principle of complementarity. An expressive drawing representing one of the varieties of projective research methods is chosen as the main tool. The use of graphical representations on the topic allows, in the author’s opinion, removing restrictions for the study of hidden unreflexed information or something the respondent is not ready to disclose under the pressure of cultural traditions. The demonstration of the heuristic potential of the proposed set of methods, including projective drawing, Schwartz’s methodology for studying value-based orientations, Sobchik’s individual typological questionnaire, and a sociological questionnaire, is based on the example of studying the family. This set of methods is one of the best examples of the multidimensionality and ambiguity of perception of the phenomenon from the perspective of a sociocultural approach. It can be used at different levels: social, collective, and individual. In the study, several objectives were set: to analyze the relationship between the characteristics of the family, its perception by the individual, and value-based attitudes formed on this basis that determine behavior strategies; to substantiate the value of employing the projective method in the framework of sociocultural research using the example of family visualization. In the empirical part, a secondary analysis of the data of a sociocultural study conducted in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) was performed. The sample consisted of 1,459 people aged 18–25, young students. Among the selected parameters for groupings were the following: the number of children in the respondent’s parent family (large families and families with 1–2 children); the type of emotional intimacy in the family. The results of the study revealed that the use of projective drawing in sociocultural research contributes to the formation of a representative sample, which provides the opportunity to obtain valid data when building groupings. A comparison of drawings of family representations made by descendants of large families and those where 1–2 children were raised did not show significant differences in the perception of the image of the family by young people. There was also no correlation between the number of children in the image and the real families of the respondents. The semantic analysis of the components of the family image most often used in diagnostics allowed concluding that, in the drawings of grown-up children, the elements reflecting the emotional contact in the family between its members are more informative, on the basis of which three groups with a close, distant, and selective type of emotional connection are distinguished. From the third group, respondents who depicted a family with a “parent-centered” type of relationship were considered in more detail. The comparison of the results of their responses to Schwartz’s questionnaire on value-based orientations showed that they are closer in type to the modern incarnation of the patriarchal family. The main result of the study was the substantiation of the heuristic potential of family visualization in conducting sociocultural research, as well as the application of a set of sociological and psychological techniques, including the projective method, to identify the relationship between attitudes, value-based orientations, behavioral principles with relationships built in the parental family.
ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2024;(4):9-32
9-32
Student project communities big data analysis in working with knowledge systems: Cognitive visualization
Abstract
The results of a study are characterized -- cognitive visualizations of big data based on the materials of digital footprints of student project communities’ activities on the creation of knowledge in education . The presentation of these results in combination with the subject of the study – the specified footprints – is the basis for the relevance of the paradigm of visual semiotics to the tasks of this project. The development of the interdisciplinary Science of Team Science field of knowledge is based on the developments and research of project teams as creators of new knowledge. Such studies use methods of network analysis of big data of project team members as cognitive activity footprints. Agents of new knowledge (conductors of new ideas) and knowledge attractors – meaning-forming units of information developed by followers of the agent of new knowledge – are identified. Experiments on studying the agency of new knowledge were conducted on the platforms of Wiki libraries, in studies of scientific citation of new knowledge on the publication platforms eLIBRARY, Scopus, Web of Science, but the question of studying student project teams jointly developing new technological products on the platform of university technological entrepreneurship – Univertechpred – has not been raised. The need for such a study is due to the fact that didactic forms of work with students’ project-based knowledge are institutionalized through federal projects of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education: “startup as a diploma”, “platform of university technological entrepreneurship”. However, the nature of student project teams’ activities on creating new knowledge and technological products has not been explored. The study used SNA (Social Network Analysis) methods, through which the density, intensity, and spatial coordination of social connections in the network (on the digital platform the student project team works) are analyzed. The aim of the study is to examine the cognitive mechanisms of student project communities’ activity in working with knowledge systems. In the study, as the main source of big data for analyzing the activities of student project teams to create new knowledge and new technologies, footprints of digital searches by students for patent analogues (on the platforms of Rospatent, the Moscow Innovation Cluster) were used to develop projects presented on the platform of university technological entrepreneurship. Also, based on big data methods, digital footprints of the authors-creators of the electronic program code for the functioning of the developed student projects were studied. The study was conducted on the GitHub platform, which has the ability to store the project repository and all its changes. The big data method was also used to study digital footprints of authors of educational courses in the network repositories of the open digital educational platform SkillSpace – the network cognitive activity of youth teams to create educational online courses on the open platform was studied. All of the above digital platforms have interactive services for organizing activities to create new knowledge, a technological product of a student project team. The study revealed that the clustering indicator of big data in the form of digital footprints of student project communities characterizes the degree of interaction between the interdisciplinary neighbors of the considered agent of new knowledge. For the development of digital educational environments (DEE) of universities, the results of the study indicate the need to integrate digital services for organizing student teamwork for specific educational, research and project tasks into universities’ DEE. The study of the practices of student project communities with various knowledge systems ((a) research knowledge in the form of articles on Wiki platforms; (b) knowledge about intellectual products in the form of patent archives on WIPO platforms; (c) knowledge of AI (artificial intelligence) codes in the form of Program-Code in source code editor applications) revealed the specifics of the practices of student project communities with knowledge of various types. Based on the results of the study, it can be concluded that big data technologies have a significant potential in the study of project teams creating new knowledge on digital platforms. The results of the study are theoretically significant for the development of scientific fields – information anthropology, pedagogical semiotics, cybernetics of digital educational environments, cognitive science. The practical significance of the study is related to the applicability of the identified characteristics of the activities of student project teams (startup developers) in educational practice.
ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2024;(4):33-53
33-53
To show politeness: Multimodal text in the Chinese blogosphere
Abstract
The article explores Chinese blogs with historical and cultural content on the Douyin platform. The relevance of the study is related to the role of online communications in the life of a modern person, on the one hand, and the lack of works devoted to the methods of representing politeness in the Chinese blogosphere, on the other. Our analysis focuses on the multimodal text of video blogs, which demonstrate traditional artistic, labor, and everyday practices related to China’s cultural heritage and reflect national and cultural identity. The aim of this article is to show how traditional Chinese understanding of politeness is realized in online communications through the multimodal text of video blogs. The methodological basis of the study is formed by the methods of semiotic and content analysis. The authors consider politeness in Chinese culture in synchronic (intersubjective communication) and diachronic (attitude to the historical past) aspects. A polite attitude towards cultural heritage is manifested through: (1) adherence to the principle of modesty (self-humiliation) in the blogger’s self-presentation; (2) presentation of traditional cultural practice as a sign-symbolic object suitable (relevant in the conditions of digital culture) for demonstrative observance of ethical norms and rituals. The principle of modesty in the blogger’s self-presentation is manifested in three metaphorical images, which we have designated as “instrument”, “learner”, “part of the whole”. To express each of these images, a system of linguistic, iconic, and indexical signs is used. These signs are created through various cinematographic elements such as plot, camera angles, details, staging, editing, audio, color, etc. As for labor actions, in the form of video blogs, they take on a symbolic rather than practical nature. They serve a similar purpose to a ritual, allowing individuals to connect with historical memory and national heritage. The novelty of the study is the identification of three types of content that reconstruct tradition as an object of veneration (this is their similarity), but differ in the artistic level of the audiovisual language. The high artistic level of the first type of content contributes to the mythologization of cultural heritage. This allows us to consider this content as a means of maintaining and strengthening national identity. The video text from blogs of the second type is not so diverse in the means of artistic expression; in this regard, the markers of politeness are less pronounced in it. The videos from blogs of the third type lack special artistic tools and techniques, which indicates the authors’ focus on the practice itself and determines their pseudo-documentary style. Thus, the video content of blogs can be considered as a polycode text, transmitting examples of politeness in a special way: “inside” the process of reconstructing cultural practice and in relation to it as a representation of national tradition and identity. “Intrapolycode” demonstration of politeness is manifested in the fact that video bloggers strive to act politely, i.e., to be modest and observe rituals, which is confirmed by a complex of verbal (author’s text) and non-verbal (setting, objects in the frame, movements and their rhythm, image of the high sky, etc.) elements included in the video text. “Extrapolycode” politeness is revealed in the process of reconstruction itself as a manifestation of a delicate and respectful attitude towards the history and culture of China.
ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2024;(4):54-83
54-83
Building a visual model of a formalized language for learning education
Abstract
In this article, the authors put forward the scientific problem of the possibility of developing a visual model of a unified formalized language of professional communication of modern education researchers as a complex self-developing object of multidisciplinary scientific views. The multilateral analysis of the existing theoretical context of modern education has shown that researchers conceptualize it within the framework of their scientific disciplines, on the basis of established disciplinary theoretical constructs. The latter circumstance has led to the fact that a variety of heterogeneous theoretical interpretations of modern education has been formed in the scientific space. This fact testifies in favor of the fact that the scientific space is significantly enriched with new disciplinary knowledge about modern education. However, the problem of the possibility of building a unified language system for the study of modern education that incorporates universal characteristics inherent in various scientific disciplines still remains unsolved. The authors argue that a single formalized language, namely its visual model, of comprehension of modern education can raise the professional communication of its researchers to a higher quality level. The latter is achieved through the formalization and objectivization of theoretical and methodological foundations of modern education comprehension. The processes of formalization and objectivization provide unified understanding and knowledge exchange, increasing the unambiguity of interpretation of concepts between different disciplines and using unified methods and formats of data description. In order to construct a model of formalized language for studying education and its semantics, the authors carried out a detailed analysis of a significant array of disciplinary sign systems available in the scientific space, with the subsequent identification of universal constructs inherent in all scientific disciplines. Then the alphabet and syntax of the formalized language were built, the relations between its elements were determined, and the semantic network was constructed. Hermeneutic and semantic methods serve as the theoretical and methodological justification of the present work. The article formulates the heuristic potential of the proposed model of a unified formalized language, as well as a number of key conditions for its effective application by education researchers.
ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2024;(4):84-99
84-99
Development of visualizations and the phenomenon-based learning method: Experience of integration in teaching physics
Abstract
The article presents the results obtained at the intersection of three research tasks: the development of visualizations for teaching physics in schools; the implementation of the Phenomenon-Based Learning (PhBL) method under various educational systems; and the construction of a creative educational environment for the training of future physics teachers. The relatively coincidental convergence of the authors’ research interests ensures the originality of the results obtained. The relevance of visual semiotics for solving these tasks is defined not so much by the development of the visualizations themselves, but by one of the PhBL key principles —contextuality—and by constructivism as its conceptual foundation, which opens the way for the application of “semiotic diagnostics” to assess the limits of the PhBL method itself. The article details the circumstances and tools involved in developing three visualizations: (1) light refraction; (2) the interaction of forces; and (3) the solar system model. The effectiveness of the visualizations is assessed in correspondence with the PhBL method and the students’ understanding of physical phenomena, such as light refraction, object motion, Newton’s laws, and planetary movements. This integration has allowed for an expanded context in students’ understanding of physical phenomena by combining the idealizations inherent in physics, the abstractions of the corresponding mathematical tools, and the interpretation of everyday situations. The study was conducted in four schools, where a total of 96 tenth-grade students participated in tasks based on visual representations of physical phenomena. The effectiveness of these methods was assessed through an organized observation of the students’ learning activities. The results of the study showed that 85% of the students reported a significant improvement in their understanding of complex physical phenomena due to the developed visualizations. The study is limited by the relatively small sample size and its focus on schools within a specific region, adhering to a particular educational system. Nevertheless, the findings from this pilot study indicate the effectiveness of the integration of visualizations and the PhBL method. The significance of the results lies in demonstrating the potential of visual semiotics for integrating teaching methods.
ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2024;(4):100-118
100-118
Problems of representation of science in a museum, or About the destiny of the concept “boundary object”
Abstract
The question this article discusses relates to the existence of concepts that would be both philosophical and scientific. The answer to it is fundamental to the justification of the conceptual language of the philosophy of science, as well as contemporary Science and Technology Studies (STS). The article assumes the possibility of the existence of such concepts and aims to explicate their destiny. In the introduction, the authors describe characteristics of such concepts. Firstly, concepts should represent the state of affairs and solve a problem; that is, the state of affairs must be viewed as problematic. Secondly, they must not only represent the problem but also be included in its solution and interact with the state of affairs. Thirdly, the representation of the problem as the content of such a concept should allow for the expansion on additional areas and assume revising, transformation, supplementation with new meanings. In the main part, the authors consider the concept “boundary object” as such a hybrid concept. The formation of this concept is associated with the STS project, and the content is the problem of visual representation of science in the museum. The explication of the destiny of this concept includes, firstly, defining its place in the problem field of STS with an emphasis on the intertwining of its philosophical and scientific nature, and, secondly, turning to a new problematic field for applying the concept – the Dmitri Mendeleev Museum and Archives at St Petersburg University. On this basis, the authors reveal the characteristics of the philosophical and scientific destiny of this concept considering the problems of public communication of science and history of science with its presentism and antiquarianism approaches. In the conclusion, the authors emphasize the prospects of the boundary object concept. The authors dedicate the publication to the 300th anniversary of the founding of St Petersburg University and the 190th anniversary of Dmitri Mendeleev.
ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2024;(4):119-142
119-142
ESSAY
Visual features of text in books by Pavel Ulitin
Abstract
The Russian writer Pavel Ulitin (1918–1986) is renowned for his distinctive literary style, which seamlessly blends telegraphic writing, stream of consciousness, and visual-graphic elements. Ulitin adopted an innovative approach to bookmaking, crafting his own bindings and enhancing his texts with margin notes, strikethroughs, and quotations. This meticulous attention to visual presentation is a defining characteristic of his artistic vision. This article examines the use of visual elements in Ulitin’s writings, focusing particularly on Makarov Combs the Back of His Head (2004) and Hopeless Journey (2006). In our analysis, we refer to the visual-graphic features of Ulitin’s texts as metagraphemes. These elements organize the information space in a non-linear fashion, capturing the reader’s attention and creating a complex system of semiotic signs. They exhibit a notable degree of anthropocentrism, conveying a sense of a dynamic creative process and enhancing the author’s presence through a richer expression of individual speech traits. The layout of the text on the page, margin notes, variations in line spacing and margins, and the strategic use of abbreviations, strikethroughs, and capital letters to emphasize specific words and phrases all influence the reader’s interpretation. Furthermore, these elements affect the narrative structure, incorporating parcellated constructions and reduced wording or text compression, which influence the intonation and pace of reading. Ulitin knew three foreign languages; therefore, another significant aspect of his works is the use of precise and altered quotations in foreign languages, as well as the incorporation of various languages. Among them, one can find references to works of English and American literature, such as Huxley’s dystopia, and the novels of Maugham and Wells. This serves as a graphic sign that disrupts the reader’s automatic processing of the text, necessitating active decoding and altering the overall page layout. The prevalence of intertextual references in both Russian and foreign languages intensifies this effect, adding layers of subtext and serving as a crucial aspect of the author’s text-creation strategy. These visual and graphic elements are present in both books, although notable differences exist. For instance, Makarov Combs the Back of His Head often features pages that resemble drafts from rough notebooks, characterized by strikethroughs, margin notes, variations in line spacing, and abbreviations. While intertextual references are common throughout Ulitin’s works, they are particularly abundant in Hopeless Journey, which includes more fragments resembling diary entries, visually represented through dates, authorial abbreviations, and references to real dialogues, events, and situations from the author’s life. The diverse range of visual and graphic elements in Pavel Ulitin’s texts is a hallmark of his style. Consequently, these features are essential not only for shaping the visual presentation of the text but also for influencing the reader’s perception and interpretation. His works demand unique engagement from the reader, creating a broad space for interpreting the author’s intentions as a creative endeavor and transforming the reader into a co-creator of meaning in the text.
ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2024;(4):166-184
166-184
OPEN LECTURE
On the subject and method of formal logic
Abstract
This lecture examines the widespread definition of formal logic as the science of forms and laws of thinking. The content of this definition is often misinterpreted, since thinking is understood as a psychological process, and forms and laws are understood as the normative basis for the application of subjective cognitive abilities. Logic, however, is not interesting in the subjective psychological process but is interesting in the objective characteristics of thinking as such. These characteristics are peculiar not only to members of the human species, but also to any process, such as artificial intelligence, which can be likened to thinking. In this respect, logic considers not thinking as subjective process, it considers the objective result of thinking, and knowledge in the broadest sense is such a result. Logic is interested in thinking insofar as thinking is objectified in knowledge. Any knowledge includes content (and content is understood as a set of heterogeneous information that distinguishes one knowledge from another) and form, which is the same for all knowledge. Form gives the content a systematic unity. The source of the content of knowledge is experience understood in the broadest sense, and the source of the forms of knowledge representation is the thinking process. We can say that thinking gives systematic unity to the content received from experience. Forms of knowledge representation through the method of formalization can be separated from the content and investigated in themselves. These forms are the objective side of thinking. They are the subject of formal logic and are independent from subjective peculiarities of thought processes. If we use a computer metaphor, we can say that logical forms express an objective computational procedure that allows us to derive other knowledge from existing knowledge. Such algorithmic procedures have their own normative base that is a set of laws of logic. The laws of logic are contentless and formal rather than factual (i.e., related to experience). By virtue of its formality the normative basis of logic is applicable to any knowledge irrespective to difference of contents. That is why logic is universal. We can say that logic prescribes how thinking should relate to itself. A normative framework of this kind establishes general rules for the distribution of truth values and general rules for logical inference.
ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2024;(4):143-165
143-165