Semiotics & Culture Speaker Series: Semiotic Modeling and Language Education

Join us at this new speaker series hosted by Professors Hongbing Yu and Dana Osborne. This year's theme is "Meaning-making across language, culture, and media". The three-part speaker series is presented with the kind support of the Faculty of Arts Events and Outreach Fund.

Drawing on Thomas A. Sebeok’s modeling systems theory, this talk examines how meaning-making in language education emerges through semiotic modeling rather than the transmission of fixed linguistic standards. It challenges text-driven paradigms that treat textbooks as static repositories of knowledge, instead conceptualizing them as representational models that mediate cultural, social, and experiential meaning. Focusing on English language textbooks, the talk explores how semiotic modeling enables the regeneration of meaning across multiple cultural and interpretive levels. From this perspective, learning becomes a process of exploration, interpretation, and growth rather than mere acquisition. The analysis argues that textbooks can construct diverse orders of cultural signification that foster learners’ flexibility, social responsibility, and capacity for meaning negotiation. The talk concludes by advocating a modeling-based curriculum that frames language education as a collaborative semiotic process involving learners, educators, and cultural contexts.