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2025-2026 / LROM0151-1

Visual semiotics

Duration

30h Th

Number of credits

 Bachelor in history of art and archaeology : general5 crédits 
 Master in ancient and modern languages and literatures, research focus5 crédits 
 Master in modern languages and literatures : Germanics, research focus5 crédits 
 Master in French and Romance languages and literatures : general, research focus5 crédits 
 Master in linguistics, research focus5 crédits 
 Master in modern languages and literatures : general, reasearch focus5 crédits 
 Master in ancient and modern languages and literatures, teaching focus (Réinscription uniquement, pas de nouvelle inscription)5 crédits 
 Master in French and Romance languages and literatures : general, teaching focus (Réinscription uniquement, pas de nouvelle inscription)5 crédits 
 Master in ancient and modern languages and literatures, professional focus in editing and publishing5 crédits 
 Master in French and Romance languages, general, professional focus in the analysis and creation of critical knowledge5 crédits 
 Master in French and Romance languages, general, professional focus in publishing and book trade5 crédits 
 Master in French and Romance languages and literatures : general, professional focus in French as a foreign language5 crédits 
 Master in ancient and modern languages and literatures5 crédits 
 Master in French and Romance languages and literatures : general (60 ECTS)5 crédits 
 Master of education, Section 4: French5 crédits 

Lecturer

Maria Giulia Dondero

Language(s) of instruction

French language

Organisation and examination

Teaching in the first semester, review in January

Schedule

Schedule online

Units courses prerequisite and corequisite

Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program

Learning unit contents

  • Theories of Semiotics of the Image: Structural and post-structural semiotics of the Paris School (Algirdas Julien Greimas, Jean-Marie Floch, Jacques Fontanille, Maria Giulia Dondero).
  • Methodologies for the Analysis of Visual grammar in Painting, Photography, Digital Image. Plastic categories for the analysis of the image topology, form, colour, texture. Rhetoric categories: mereology (relation between the whole and the parts). Discursive categories: enunciation and uttered enunciation.
  • Relations between the enunciation and the meta-visual. 
  • Autography and Allography by N. Goodman: the problem of substrate and marks inscriptions in Painting, Photography and Digital Images
  • Analysis of image status: artistic, advertising, documentary and scientific.
  • Visual Genres: The Portrait and the Still Life
  • Generative Artificial Intelligence (Midjourneu, DALL-E, Stable Diffusion): Multimodal translation

Learning outcomes of the learning unit

  • Initiating students into theoretical and methodological issues of visual semiotics.
  • Giving students the tools to analyse and interpret visual languages in different fields of use (artistic, scientific, advertising).
  • Analyzing Generative AI productions and their mediatic specificity in contrast with the mediatic specificities of other media: texture in painting, blurring in photography, etc.

Prerequisite knowledge and skills

None

Planned learning activities and teaching methods

Mode of delivery (face to face, distance learning, hybrid learning)

Face-to-face course


Further information:

Duration and period: 30 hours teaching in the 1st term.

Location and times of teaching: Philo 2, Mondays from 4pm to 7pm. 

Course materials and recommended or required readings

Platform(s) used for course materials:
- MyULiège


Further information:

Required readings:

Maria Giulia Dondero, Les Langages de l'image. De la peinture aux Big Visual Data, Paris, Editions Hermann, 2020. 

On Enunciation in Visual Language
Hamid Reza Shairi & Jacques Fontanille,  « Approche sémiotique du regard photographique : deux empreintes de l'Iran contemporain », Actes sémiotiques, 73-74-75, 2001, URL : http://www.unilim.fr/pages_perso/jacques.fontanille/articles_pdf/visuel/semiotiqueregarddanslesphotosorientales.pdf, 2001.


On the plastic-figurative analysis of image:
Algirdas Julien Greimas, "Sémiotique figurative et sémiotique plastique", Actes sémiotiques, Documents, VI, 60, 1984. https://www.unilim.fr/actes-semiotiques/5507&file=1

Exam(s) in session

Any session

- In-person

written exam


Additional information:

Assessment consists of a written exam. The exam includes seven open questions and the analysis of a visual discourse (photographic, pictorial). The focus is on the understanding and application of theories and methodologies. Corrected copies can be consulted by students in the lecturer's office.

Work placement(s)

Organisational remarks and main changes to the course

Some authors of articles will be invited to give presentations.

Contacts

Professor
Maria Giulia Dondero, Department for Roman Languages and Literature
3-5 Place Cockerill, 4000 Liège, tel. 04.366.5946.

Secretariat: Tel. 04 366 56 50

Association of one or more MOOCs