ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how Semiotics can be used as a framework for helping to identify wider discourses. It exemplifies how familiar and everyday signs provide a point of analysis to explore wider discourses. The campaign for gender-neutral toilets not only highlights the needs of a particular group of people but also suggests how these signs, and the discourses they represent, accumulate meaning over time and, most importantly, how these meanings are open to contestation. In terms of discourse, representation 'refers to the use of language and images to create meaning about the world around us'. Many discourse analysts - and particularly those who identify with Critical Discourse Analysis - adopt and adapt a Foucauldian approach that conceptualises power as inextricably linked with knowledge. Many discourse analysts - and particularly those who identify with Critical Discourse Analysis - adopt and adapt a Foucauldian approach that conceptualises power as inextricably linked with knowledge.
