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The advertising semiotic code as a tool for interpreting the regional worldview // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2025. Issue 3 (45). P. 67-93

The cognitive function of non-verbal and verbal semiotic codes contained in the structure of text signs is considered. The property of texts – signs of complex structural and semantic organization – to act as a means of interpreting fragments of a regional picture of the world is defined as their cognitive resource. This resource is realized through cognitive semiotic codes – stable quanta of knowledge present in the collective picture of the world of representatives of the regional community and contained in the form of conceptual information in text signs. The code system of meanings that forms the picture of the world, including the axiological component of the latter, includes a set of signs, symbols, images and principles of interpretation that allow carriers of a regional linguaculture to perceive, structure and convey their ideas about the world, values, meanings and norms. This code serves as a basis for the formation and interpretation of cultural meanings, forms the image of the world in people's minds and influences the process of perception and communication within a given regional community. In the context of the semiotic approach, the cognitive code helps to understand how people interpret reality and how these interpretations are reflected in various cultural spheres of interaction and textual activity of native speakers. The aim of the article is to identify axiological dominant meanings structuring a fragment of the regional picture of the world, which is objectified in regional advertising texts, based on units of the cognitive semiotic code. The material includes creolized texts of regional outdoor commercial advertising, functioning in the space of the city of Tomsk. The key research methods are semiotic and conceptual types of analysis, supplemented by a number of other general scientific and special (used in pedagogical and linguistic sciences) methods. In the course of the research, the fragment of the regional picture of the world represented in the content of advertising texts was analyzed. In the analysis of conceptual meanings, special attention was paid to the consideration of the axiological components of the meaning reflecting the features of the cultural code of Tomsk. With the support of cognitive semiotic codes, both non-verbal (locally marked images, for example, representing regional architectural monuments, the fauna of the region) and verbal (a group of single-root lexemes with a common component Tom-, the thematic group of words "Tomsk", etc.), the image of Tomsk in the collective consciousness of residents and guests of the region is created by a combination of the following features: Tomsk is a city with a rich cultural and historical heritage, a large modern student center, a land of taiga wealth, in the architecture of which stylistic features of different times are intricately combined. The analysis of the author's introspection is supported experimentally. The results of the activity of young representatives of Tomsk linguaculture in the format of a focus group with the involvement of elements of pedagogical tools of case study and project technology demonstrated the effectiveness of using semiotic analysis in interpreting the content of Tomsk advertising samples. The significance of the resource of cognitive semiotic codes as a tool for analyzing the regional picture of the world within the framework of communicative practices in the advertising sphere was confirmed.

Keywords: cognitive semiotic code, creolized text, advertising communication, advertising text as sign, regional city, regional worldview, cultural code of regional city