75640 - Socio-Semiotic Analysis of Fashion

Learning outcomes

The goal of this course unit is to supply students with the ability to apply the tools of semiotics to the field of fashion. Such goal will be attained by using advanced theoretic instruments to analyze texts with particular focus on consumption behavior.

Course contents

Introduction to the course unit
Course goals and structure. How to follow the classes: requirements and suggestions. Using the Moodle platform. The textbook. Short self-introductions.

Kawamura's "Doing Research in Fashion and Dress": presentation of the text book.
Introduction.
Target of the book. Subject of the book.
History of fashion/dress studies (read).
Terminology.
Making fashion/dress studies a legitimate academic discipline (read).
Outline of the book.

Ch. 1. Theory and practice
Theory and practice: difference.
What is social scientific research?
What is a theory?
The use and placement of theory in qualitative research.
Understanding the meaning of a fashion theory.
Two major theoretical perspectives: macro and micro.
Theory and methods.
Qualitative and quantitative methods.

Ch. 2. Research Process
Objectivity and empiricism.
The scientific inquiry.
Scientific reasoning and common sense; the inferences.
Research process.
Evaluating internet sources.
Ethical issues.

Ch. 3. Ethnography
A definition.
A brief history of ethnography.
Sociological ethnography VS anthropological ethnography.
Preparing for ethnography.
The researcher as an insider VS outsider.
The difficulty of objectivity.
Observation / participant observation / listening / taking notes.
The role of an informant / research collaborator.
Making an analysis of ethnographical data.
Hodkinson's ethnographical study of goth subculture in the UK.
Hamilton's ethnographical study of the Thai Karen dress.

Ch. 4. Survey methods
What is a survey method?
Questionnaires.
Preparing statistical tables and figures.
Interviews (structured and semi-structured).
Muggleton's interview study on youth subculture.
Crane's focus group study on fashion magazine readers.
Kawamura study on three case studies of Japanese designers in Paris.

Ch. 5. Semiotics / Semiology
Saussure's theory of signs.
Barthes's contribution to fashion / dress studies.
Interpretive Semiotics; Charles S. Peirce; Umberto Eco.
The notions of text and narrative.
The process of textualisation.
Lehmann's semiotic study on Alfred Hitchcock's movie.
Lurie's study on analogy between language and clothes.
Barnard's focus on semiotics in social interaction.
Conducting semiotic analysis of visual materials.
Semiotics and poststructuralism.

Ch. 6. Object-based research
Definition.
Events and objects as texts.
The historical development of object-based research.
Studies using object-based research.
O-B research and material culture studies.
Making O-B research interdisciplinary.
O-B research and oral history.
Breward, Conekin, and Cox’s study on everyday clothes in the UK 1940-1980.
Turney’s study on floral flocks in the UK.
O-B research and written archival documents / literary sources.

7. Other methodologies
Archival records and historical research.
Oral history / oral narrative.
Written documents / literary sources.
Ethnomethodology.
Secondary analysis.
Cross-national researcher.
Visual and audio materials.
Triangulation (quantitative and qualitative together).
The integration of quantitative and qualitative methods.

Research Workshop: presentation.

Introduction: the Method and the Tools. First session: field work.

Second session: field work.

Third session: field work.

Data Analysis.

General discussion and conclusion of the research.

The results will be uploaded on the platform. The deadline will be set with regard to the time required to conduct the research and to write it down.

Readings/Bibliography

Doing Research in Fashion and Dress. An introduction to Qualitative Methods, Bloomsbury, London, New Delhi, New York, Sydney, 2013 (2011 Berg)

Further material will be available on the e-learning platform.

Teaching methods

The course includes lectures and a workshop, and both class and online discussions. Teaching is organised according to the learning by doing and community of learners approach: the workshop planned in the second part allows the students to perform a simplified sociosemiotic field research and the class is organised as a community of learners.

The platform will be used as a shared environment to discuss the lessons and the individual research proposals and outcomes. Furthermore, the platform allows not attending students to remotely follow the others’ work, and to take part in it in real time or, if they choose to take the exam later, to have all the collected field data to use and add to, and the final reports to read and compare.

Assessment methods

Assessment will be based on two tests.

The middle course test is aimed at verifying the acquisition by the student of the basic theoretical tools to conduct socio-semiotic research. The points to be awarded are 15/30.

The second test consists in performing a simple socio-semiotic research and submitting the results.

Students will turn in a written paper presenting the results of the research, that will be graded. Research steps will be discussed in class and on the e-learning platform. Not attending students will discuss, present and turn in the project on the e-learning platform. They must contact the teacher to decide the topic of their work.

The points to be awarded are 16/30.

The final grade is the sum of the two partial grades.
31/30 points correspond to 30 cum laude.

The research will apply the socio-semiotic methods presented in classes and in the textbook.

Subscription to the platform is required to follow the course and to be admitted to the exam, both for attending and non-attending students.

Please ask the teacher for the password to enter the reserved pages during classes or at his address giampaolo.proni@unibo.it

Teaching tools

Portable and desktop PCs, video projector, WiFi access point, internet connection, e-learning platform, smartphones.

Office hours

See the website of Giampaolo Proni