International Collaboration: Faculty of Humanities, Udayana University and Monash University, Australia Hold Semiotics and Multimodality Workshop

• Posted by: Admin
• Rabu, 3 Juni 2026
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Denpasar, June 3, 2026 - The Bachelor of English Literature (BoEL) Study Program, Faculty of Humanities, Udayana University, in collaboration with Monash University Australia, organized a workshop entitled the "Monash/Udayana Semiotics and Multimodality Workshop," held from June 3-4, 2026. The workshop was fully funded by Monash University, Australia via the Academy of Korean Studies Laboratory Grant. Conducted in the Dr. Ir. Soekarno Meeting Room on the 4th Floor of the Poerbatjaraka Building, Faculty of Humanities, Udayana University, and in a hybrid format via Zoom, the workshop brought together linguists from Indonesia and Australia to unpack how humans create and interpret messages. It highlighted how language, cultural habits, and chosen communication channels intertwine to construct meaning. The workshop was also attended by the Dean of Faculty of Humanities, Udayana University, the Coordinator and lecturers of the BoEL Study Program, as well as Doctoral students in Linguistics.

Commencing the event, Assoc. Prof. Lucien Brown, representing the Australian team, expressed his gratitude for the hospitality and professional readiness of Faculty of Humanities, Udayana University. He expressed hope that the workshop, which featured a team from diverse international backgrounds, would pave the way for strengthening inter-institutional collaboration in the future.

Meanwhile, Prof. I Nyoman Aryawibawa, S.S., M.A., Ph.D., as the Dean of Faculty of Humanities, Udayana University, warmly welcomed the linguistics experts from Australia and officially opened the event. He underlined the importance of understanding communication holistically, not merely through verbal language but through various complementary modes (multimodal), and emphasized that the workshop is a tangible manifestation of the faculty's commitment to building and developing the academic capacity of students and lecturers within the Faculty.

The keynote speakers for this workshop were Assoc. Prof. Lucien Brown and Dr. Daniel Pieper from Monash University, Dr. Eldin Milak from Curtin University, and Dr. Jessica Kruk from The University of Western Australia. During the main panel session, the core of the discussion focused directly on the expansion of South Korean language and pop culture across the Asia-Pacific through the lens of transnational semiotics.

Assoc. Prof. Lucien Brown highlighted the shift in meaning (resemiotization) of the word "Oppa." He dissected how the term, which originally denoted kinship, has now been commodified into a standard of idealized masculinity, and is even frequently intertwined with practices of exploitation and online romance scams outside Korea. Aligning with these findings, Dr. Jessica Kruk explored the finger heart gesture, which is prevalent in Indonesian mass media. The recontextualization of this gesture proves that the finger heart has evolved from a mere pop culture trend into a symbol of modern identity for transnational youth.

The discussion continued with a focus on linguistic structures and orthography, presented by Dr. Daniel Pieper. Through a case study on the application of the Han'gŭl script to the language of the Cia-Cia tribe in Southeast Sulawesi, he unpacked the complexities between Korean linguistic nationalism and its adaptation by communities outside the country's territorial borders. Complementing this exploration of global "Koreanness," Dr. Eldin Milak concluded the main session by dissecting the phenomenon of prefixation, highlighting how the use of prefixes such as "K-" (as in K-Pop or K-Drama) and "Han-" dictates the formation of new meanings in global society.

Following the presentations from the keynote speakers, the workshop proceeded with a presentation session highlighting the application of semiotics from traditional physical spaces to digital landscapes. The exploration of eastern Indonesian locality was presented by Polce Aryanto Bessie, who analyzed the cognitive meaning of billboards in Kupang City, alongside research by Agnes Odiyanti Manek regarding "malak noni" as a semiotic representation of animal ownership and the cultural identity of the Dawan ethnic group. Shifting to the digital realm, Rabiatul Adawiah presented a multimodal analysis of the studio layout of the YouTube podcast "LOGIN," which visually constructs authority in interfaith dialogue, while the study by Matthew Skidmore and Levi Dubridge deconstructed the affective construction of Korean-Australian cultural identity through visual narratives on Instagram. Completing this diverse discourse, Marc Yeo presented the polemics of Jawi-scripted signboards in Malaysia through the lens of ethnic identity politics and religiosity.

Entering the second day, 4^th June 2026, the workshop shifted its focus to strengthening the participants' research skills through two interactive practical sessions. In the first session entitled "Linguistic Landscapes," guided by Dr. Jessica Kruk and Dr. Eldin Milak, participants were equipped with methodological frameworks to analyze how meaning is produced through visual texts in public spaces. This theory was immediately applied in group discussions, where participants were challenged to guess the country of origin of a café purely by analyzing spatial semiotic elements, such as paint colors and object arrangements within it.

This reinforcement of research skills continued in the session on "Pragmatic and Social meanings of gesture and multimodality" with Assoc. Prof. Lucien Brown and Dr. Daniel Pieper. In this session, which trained the ability to identify and code bodily visual practices, participants were invited to dissect the layered meanings behind various interaction clips, ranging from the tactics of hand movements in presidential debates to emphasize crucial points, to the analysis of body gestures in Korean dramas that implicitly demonstrate superiority and relationship disparities among the characters.

The organization of this workshop is expected to be a solid stepping stone in cementing Faculty of Humanities, Udayana University's international collaborations. Moving forward, it is hoped that the research skills acquired by the participants can be actualized into critical, innovative linguistic research works that are relevant to contemporary challenges.