Transposições de significados no vídeo-dicionário online vidtionary.com

Abstract

Due to the evolution of digital technology, online dictionary representations gained new ways of composing meaning, using imbrication in various ways, besides to verbal, to define words. It is from this integration of modes that multimodality is based, a phenomenon widely seen in communication today. On this basis, this research proposes to study an online video dictionary and the multimodal aspects used in the construction of its entries. The relevance of this research is justified because we are in a digital and multimodal era in which dictionary applications are also following these transformations in their ways of representing and communicating meanings and also because there is a reduced number of investigations in the field of digital lexicography and multimodality, mainly of lexicographical works found in the online environment. The central problem is the interest in knowing how the online dictionary can extend its definitions beyond the written verbal form, integrating other semiotic means in the composition of its meanings, such as dynamic pictorial elements, audio, hyperlinks, videos, as well as the association of different modes. In view of this, these questions are asked: What are the forms of meaning used in the representation of multimodal entries in an online dictionary? and How do the various forms of meaning contribute to conveying meaning in a multimodal dictionary? From this, the general objective is to elucidate the forms of representation in the definitions of multimodal entries in the online video dictionary of the English language vidtionary.com for the construction of meaning. As specific objectives, we propose: a) Identifying the forms of meaning present in the entries; b) Describing the representation of forms present in multimodal entries based on the reference function; c) Summarising how the forms of meaning are integrated to signify multimodal entries. Therefore, this descriptive qualitative study is based on the theorists such as GNL (1996), Kress (2003), Rojo and Moura (2019) and Sirazova (2020) on multiliteracies studies and multimodality. Schryver (2003), Lew (2011), Lew and Schryver (2014) and Dash (2017), on the concept and typology of electronic dictionary and multimodality in entries. And Cope and Kalantzis (2020) on the theory of Transposition Grammar. The corpus consists of nine entries taken from the video dictionary vidtionary.com which is installed at the following electronic address: http://www.vidtionary.com/. The identification and classification of forms of meaning within the reference function and its processes are chosen as categories of analysis in order to know what is being communicated from the representations according to the transposition grammar of Cope and Kalantzis (2020). It is assumed that the semiotic forms that constitute the multimodal entries offer greater meaning to the definitions through their way of communicating and 'recommunicating' meaning.