37.1177, Books: The Semiotics of Toys and Games: Van Leeuwen and Selander (2026)

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-37-1177. Mon Mar 23 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.1177, Books: The Semiotics of Toys and Games: Van Leeuwen and Selander (2026)

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Date: 20-Mar-2026
From: Lucy Trotter [lucy.trotter at bloomsbury.com]
Subject: The Semiotics of Toys and Games: Van Leeuwen and Selander (2026)


Title: The Semiotics of Toys and Games
Subtitle: The Childhood Artefacts that Introduce Us to the World
Series Title: Bloomsbury Advances in Semiotics
Publication Year: 2026

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
           http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/
Book URL:
https://www.bloomsbury.com/semiotics-of-toys-and-games-9781350324930/

Author(s): Theo Van Leeuwen & Staffan Selander

Paperback, ISBN: 9781350324930, Price: £28.99
Hardback, ISBN: 9781350324893, Price: £95.00

Abstract:

Drawing on extensive research over more than two decades, this book
focuses on toys and games as resources for play. It analyses their
functionalities as well as their symbolic meaning potentials,
exemplifying how they are used in different contexts, such as home and
preschool, and how these uses are regulated by parental, pedagogic and
marketing discourses.
Building on the work of semioticians such as Barthes, Baudrillard and
Krampen, as well as on the social semiotics of Halliday, Hodge, Kress,
and others, the book introduces a framework for the multimodal
semiotic analysis of physical objects, and the ways in which they are
digitally translated into words, images and sounds. It also introduces
a multimodal framework with a focus on designs for and in learning. It
then applies these frameworks to a range of toys and games for young
children including teddy bears, dolls, construction toys, war toys and
digital games. Throughout it shows how the toy and games industry
contributes to changing the nature of childhood and the way children
learn about the world.
Accessibly written, the book will not only be relevant to students and
scholars of multimodality and semiotics, but also to early childhood
educators and parents of young children.

Linguistic Field(s): Anthropological Linguistics
                     General Linguistics
                     Semantics
                     Sociolinguistics




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LINGUIST List: Vol-37-1177
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