Campus repertoires: interrogating semiotic assemblages, economy, and creativity

Abstract: Framed within the broader theoretical context of social semiotics, we attempt to show how university students communicate using a variety of unique means, in particular social contexts. We privilege Pennycook and Otsuji’s semiotic assemblages, Jimaima and Simungala’s semiotic creativity, and the notion of semiotic economy as critical ingredients that conspire to give rise to the unique and complex coinages and innovations constituting students’ repertoires. We argue that, born out of creativity, the students’ repertoires are semiotically and economically charged discourses that generate extended narratives such that more is realized with less. We show that this reality undoubtedly constitutes a multi-semiotic meaning-making endeavor that enacts and sustains students’ imagined and lived experiences in real sociocultural, historical, and political spaces in the multilingual landscapes of university campuses.

Object Details

• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource
• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Campus repertoires: interrogating semiotic assemblages, economy, and creativity ; volume:2024 ; number:256 ; year:2024 ; pages:137-152 ; extent:16 ; Semiotica ; 2024, Heft 256 (2024), 137-152 (gesamt 16)

Contributors, Places and Time

• Creator: Simungala, Gabriel ; Ndalama-Mtawali, Deborah

Further information

• DOI: 10.1515/sem-2020-0066
• URN: urn:nbn:de:101:1-2024021213023897827319
• Rights: Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 15.08.2025, 7:27 AM CEST