In discussing social semiotics as a theory, he makes the following claims:
- “as a first requirement, multimodal texts/message need a theory which deals adequately with the processes of integration/composition of the various modes in these texts: both in production/making, and in consumption/reading…[A]n adequate theory for contemporary multi-modal textual forms needs to be formulated so as to permit both the description of the specific characteristics of a particular mode, and of its more general semiotic properties which allow it to be related plausibly to other semiotic modes” (83)
- “A second issue is that contemporary, and in particular mainstream, theories of semiosis are theories of use rather than of remaking and transformation. That is, individuals are seen as users, more or less competently, of an existing stable, static system of elements and rules…In this way the remaking on the one hand reflects individual interest, and on the other, due to the social history and the present social location of the individual also reflects broad socio-cultural trends. Semiotic change is thus shaped and guided by the characteristics of broad social factors, which are individual inflected and shaped” (83-4). He calls with remaking “design”.