A Communication Study of the Slow Food Movement

MULTIMODAL PEIRCEAN SEMIOTICS OF SUSTAINABILITY:

A COMMUNICATION STUDY OF THE SLOW FOOD MOVEMENT

HANNAH KIMBERLY OBAR GRINDULO

FACULTY OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES

OPEN UNIVERSITY SEPTEMBER 2021

Multimodal Peircean Semiotics of Sustainability: A Communication Study of the Slow Food Movement

UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES OPEN UNIVERSITY

DOCTOR OF COMMUNICATION PROGRAM

Hannah Klmberly Obar Grindulo

Multimodal Peircean Semiotics of Sustainabillty:

A Communication Study of the Slow Food Movement

Dissertation Adviser:

JEAN A. SALUDADEZ, PhD

Faculty of Information and Communication Studies

14 September 2021

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Multimodal Peircean Semiotics of Sustainability: A Communication Study of the Slow Food Movement I li

ABSTRACT

GRINDULO, HANNAH KIMBERLY O. University of the Philippines Open University.

(September 14, 2021, Multimodal Peircean Semiotics of Sustainability: A Communication Study of the Slow Food Movement)

Adviser: Dr. Jean A. Saludadez

This study is an attempt to understand food as a communication phenomenon from the lens of the Semiotic Tradition (SI) of Communication Theory (CI). This study

highiighted the relationship between food and sustainability, and why the study of food as a communication phenomenon is theoretically important. This research pursuit posed the question: How does a semiotic study contribute to the understanding of Slow Food as a communication phenomenon? Anchored on the général principles of Peircean Semiotics, Grounded Theory and multimodality, this study argued that Slow Food (SF) is an important sign System produced by the merging of conversational domains of food and sustainability-a characterization of inter-domain communication as essential in the emergent theory of Semiotic Convergence, and which serves to

enrich our current semantic system (system of meanings). The converging sign

Systems surfaced the significant impact of food (primarily in consumption and production) to sustainability. Semiotic analysis of multimodal resources such as transcribed speech from selected publicly available SF video content, and textual and Visual data in SF digital documents, were instrumental to the conception of Semiotic Convergence. Results of the study showed that signifiers used by the Slow Food community pertain to interconnected issues on the food system, heaith, environment,

and economy; Slow food signs (representamen/signifier) and their corresponding features (signifying elements/sign-vehicle) represent the meaning (interprétant) of Slow Food using the "good, clean, and fair" philosophy; and associating sustainability to the "good, clean, fair" philosophy (représentation of meaning/interpretant) defines

the communicative practices of the Slow Food community.

Keywords: food communication, semiotics, slow food, sustainability

Multimodal Peircean Semiotics of Sustainability: A Communication Study of the Slow Food Movement | xlii