Introducing the diagrammatic semiotic mode
This work addresses the need for a reliable and general classification system for diagrams in the diagrams research community, though it appears incremental as it builds on existing semiotic principles.
The paper tackles the problem of classifying diverse diagrams by proposing a diagrammatic semiotic mode based on multimodal semiotic principles, resulting in a framework that supports empirical analysis of diagrammatic representations across different types and functionalities.
As the use and diversity of diagrams across many disciplines grows, there is an increasing interest in the diagrams research community concerning how such diversity might be documented and explained. In this article, we argue that one way of achieving increased reliability, coverage, and utility for a general classification of diagrams is to draw on recently developed semiotic principles developed within the field of multimodality. To this end, we sketch out the internal details of what may tentatively be termed the diagrammatic semiotic mode. This provides a natural account of how diagrammatic representations may integrate natural language, various forms of graphics, diagrammatic elements such as arrows, lines and other expressive resources into coherent organisations, while still respecting the crucial diagrammatic contributions of visual organisation. We illustrate the proposed approach using two recent diagram corpora and show how a multimodal approach supports the empirical analysis of diagrammatic representations, especially in identifying diagrammatic constituents and describing their interrelations in a manner that may be generalised across diagram types and be used to characterise distinct kinds of functionality.