Marcel Danesi (born 1946) is Professor ofSemiotics andLinguistic Anthropology at theUniversity of Toronto.[1] He is known for his work inlanguage,communications andsemiotics and is Director of the program in semiotics andcommunication theory. He has also held positions atRutgers University (1972),University of Rome "La Sapienza" (1988), theCatholic University of Milan (1990) and theUniversity of Lugano.
He is theeditor-in-chief ofSemiotica, the official journal of theInternational Association for Semiotic Studies, and is a past-president of theSemiotic Society of America. Danesi regularly contributes to global discussions on semiotics and human behaviors with appearances including a discussion on kissing onThe Deep Cover Show with Damien Dynan[2] and the origins of puzzles inBest Health magazine.[3]
Danesi is the author of several books and his work has been featured in a range of mainstream publications such asThe New York Times,The Guardian[4] andThe Globe and Mail.[5]
His 2016 book,The Semiotics of Emoji, traces the use of emoji back to its anthropological and sociological roots. Reviewing the book in the journalSemiotica (of which Danesi himself has been editor-in-chief since 2004), Omonpee W. Petcoff wrote, "The author purposefully and masterfully presents semiotics principles and pedagogy in non-technical terms. The outcome is a text that, while rich in semiotics fundamentals and terminology, is also inviting, engaging, and, accordingly, accessible to diverse readers."[6] In 2017,The Semiotics of Emoji was one of four books shortlisted for the annualBritish Association for Applied Linguistics Book Prize.[7]
However, the book was found to be "riddled with elementary errors" and "shoddy citation practices" according to Internet linguistGretchen McCulloch's review in theCanadian Journal of Linguistics.[8] The details of her analysis are publicly available in theTwitter thread review she posted on her account in August 2018, on which the journal review was based.[9]
Selected publications:
