The Semiotics of Banknotes and Coins
Reading Contemporary Currency Design
Seiten
2025
Bloomsbury Academic (Verlag)
9781350451360 (ISBN)
Bloomsbury Academic (Verlag)
9781350451360 (ISBN)
Studies currency from a semiotic perspective, with a focus on how it reproduces and produces social meanings in the public sphere of the countries where it is used.
This book uses semiotics to study the design of a selection of banknotes and coins currently circulating in the American and European continents.
Its purpose is to argue how the iconography used to decorate them draws on pre-existing social discourses and meaning.
Moreover, it aims to show how currency design is an enunciative praxis and hence, an activity shaped by cultural conventions that can be approached as a specific discursive genre.
In a nutshell, the book demonstrates how, beyond their economic function, banknotes and coins serve as the material support for a visual type of cultural semiosis linked to the nation and the state. The units of any currency system can be approached as visual texts expressing contents linked with specific social discourses and ideas. Since these texts are created and regulated by the state, they convey meanings that relate to discourses about statehood and, with it, the nation.
Informed by analyses of the United States dollar, the Canadian dollar, the British pound sterling, the Swiss franc, the Brazilian real, the Uruguayan peso, the Argentinean peso and the euro, the book highlights the relevance of studying currency design in the scholarly efforts to understand the discursive construction of states and nations.
This book uses semiotics to study the design of a selection of banknotes and coins currently circulating in the American and European continents.
Its purpose is to argue how the iconography used to decorate them draws on pre-existing social discourses and meaning.
Moreover, it aims to show how currency design is an enunciative praxis and hence, an activity shaped by cultural conventions that can be approached as a specific discursive genre.
In a nutshell, the book demonstrates how, beyond their economic function, banknotes and coins serve as the material support for a visual type of cultural semiosis linked to the nation and the state. The units of any currency system can be approached as visual texts expressing contents linked with specific social discourses and ideas. Since these texts are created and regulated by the state, they convey meanings that relate to discourses about statehood and, with it, the nation.
Informed by analyses of the United States dollar, the Canadian dollar, the British pound sterling, the Swiss franc, the Brazilian real, the Uruguayan peso, the Argentinean peso and the euro, the book highlights the relevance of studying currency design in the scholarly efforts to understand the discursive construction of states and nations.
Sebastián Moreno Barreneche is Associate Professor of Culture and Society at the Department of International Studies of the Faculty of Management and Social Sciences of Universidad ORT Uruguay, and an active researcher of Uruguay’s National Researchers System (SNI).
List of Figures
Preface
Acknowledgments
1. The Social Relevance of Currency, Or Why Studying Currency Design
2. Introducing Semiotics
3. Studying Currency Design using Semiotics
4. U.S. Dollar
5. Canadian Dollar
6. British Pound Sterling
7. Swiss Franc
8. Brazilian Real
9. Uruguayan Peso
10. Argentine Peso
11. The Euro
Conclusions
Notes
References
Index
| Erscheinungsdatum | 14.11.2025 |
|---|---|
| Reihe/Serie | Bloomsbury Advances in Semiotics |
| Zusatzinfo | 55 bw illus |
| Verlagsort | London |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 158 x 236 mm |
| Gewicht | 580 g |
| Themenwelt | Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Erkenntnistheorie / Wissenschaftstheorie |
| Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Sprachwissenschaft | |
| Sozialwissenschaften | |
| Wirtschaft ► Betriebswirtschaft / Management ► Finanzierung | |
| ISBN-13 | 9781350451360 / 9781350451360 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
| Informationen gemäß Produktsicherheitsverordnung (GPSR) | |
| Haben Sie eine Frage zum Produkt? |
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