In this paper I examine the mechanisms of intersemiotic meaning construction that are at play when we combine messages created by words and images. In order to ex-emplify the semiotic space that can be created between the two sign systems, I pro-vide examples of picturebook translation; a process in which visual semiotic elements inevitably shape the transferal of verbal semiotic elements from one language to an-other. With the help of these examples, I wish to empirically illustrate how these mechanisms unfold and demonstrate the power of the visual semiotic to the reshape our interpretation of the verbal. I argue that creating a sensibility towards intersemi-otic meaning construction ought to be an integral part of the curriculum in all fields of communication, including design. Knowledge of these mechanisms provides de-signers with a tool to create powerful messages in and across semiotic modes. I con-clude my discussion by outlining insights to inform the pedagogical practice of design training.

The concept and category of immanence are, as is well known, at the center, and the matrix of European structural semiotics, starting with Hjelmslev’s work. The aim of this essay is to propose a dialogue on this topic, between semiotics, the philosophy of language, especially post-structural philosophy, in particular with Deleuze and Guattari, but also with Foucault. Deleuze, in particular, develops a concept of “radical immanence” inspired by Spinoza and the idea of expression, and sometimes compares it with the semiotic category of immanence (more epistemological and methodological than ontological). How can we adopt a critical viewpoint that is useful for semiotics itself, starting from this comparison? This essay revolves around, in fact, this attempt, which is admittedly provisional and was developed at different levels and at different moments; in dialogue with the disciplines of language, the human sciences and, more generally, with respect to the episteme from which they originated from, as described since the 1960s by Foucault.

The 14th International Architecture Exhibition (2014), titled Fundamentals and directed by Rem Koolhaas, presented a section called Monditalia: 41 architectural pro-jects concerning specific case studies but together forming a comprehensive portrait of Italy.
Urbs oblivionalis. Urban Spaces and Terrorism in Italy was the research focusing the planning reaction after terroristic attacks occurred in this country between 1961 and 1993. In this text the two authors underline the essential points of their research, still open and sadly actual.

Some reflections on last Biennale di Architettura, starting from Elena Pirazzoli & Roberto Zancan’s work, Urbs Oblivionalis. Urban Spaces and Terrorism in Italy.

Idioms represent a very interesting knotty subject – in the light of the cognitive linguistic perspective – because their meaning is not compositional. Idioms in texts and contexts, their function and the role that they assume in specific situations represent a partially still unexplored research field. The present work, in particular, analyses twenty-one different idioms used in fifteen Italian TV advertisements that have recently been broadcast, from 1997 to 2014, The article is divided into two parts. In the first one there is the description of a complex analysis model that examines the idiomatic form taking into consideration some textual and semiotic parameters. In the second one it becomes evident how TV advertisements represent a specific form of a narrative structure that uses idioms to develop a semantically and pragmatically complex discursive strategy and to reconfigure a conceptual representation of products, which Turner and Fauconnier (2001) call “blends”. Here, the analytic model intends to point out the correlation between the position and typology of idiomatic expressions in the examined TV advertisements and verify the relation between words and imagines, as well as the interface which the link between the used idioms and some others that have been created in TV ads comes from. The last objective is to identify the necessary competencies in order to understand idiomatic constructions in view of the cognitive linguistic model.

Il 21 ottobre 2011 vecchi e nuovi media annunciavano al mondo la morte di Mu’ammar Gheddafi, leader libico per oltre quarant’anni.
La presente indagine è volta a dimostrare in che modo la stampa italiana ha spiegato il vilipendio di Mu’ammar Gheddafi, manipolando nel suo discorso il topos “Piazzale Loreto”, divenuto celebre in seguito all’iconico linciaggio del Duce il 29 aprile del 1945, e sintomatico dell’atteggiamento del tradizionale medium-giornale e dei suoi potenziali lettori non solo a livello della cronaca internazionale, ma anche nei con-fronti della memoria nazionale legata alla Resistenza.

This study is to practically demonstrate the way Italian printed newspapers por-trayed in their coverage the tyrannicide of the dictator Mu’ammar Gheddafi by the Libian crowd in 2011 in the framing of the mythopoietical “Piazzale Loreto” and its long-standing symbolism, which is believed to be fully built on the reversal of the hyperrealized body of the revolutionary/charismatic leader Benito Mussolini as an ideal of manhood and manliness and as a mystical creator of social order as well.