• SUVANNABHUMI
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.91-129
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• 2023

This paper reports the findings of a multimodal study conducted on 10 travel blog posts about Vietnam by seven British professional travel bloggers. The study takes a sociolinguistic view to tourism by seeing travel blogs as a source for linguistic and other semiotic materials while considering language as situated practice for the social construction of fundamental categories such as "human," "society," and "nation." It borrows concepts from Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistics for interpersonal metafunction to develop an analytical framework to study how the co-occurrence of text and still images in these travel blog posts formulated the portrayal of Vietnam as a tourism destination and indicated the main sociolinguistic features of the blogs. The analysis of appreciation values and interactive qualities encoded in evaluative adjectives and still images show that Vietnam is generally portrayed as a country of identity and diversity. It provides tourists with positive experiences in terms of places of interest, food and local lifestyles and is cost-competitive. Strangerhood and authenticity are two outstanding sociolinguistic features exhibited in these travel blog posts. The findings of this study also underline the co-contribution of the linguistic sign, in this case evaluative adjectives, and the visual sign, in this case still images, as interpersonal meaning-making resources. To portray Vietnam, still images served as integral elements to evidence the credibility of verbal narrations. To unveil sociolinguistic characteristics of travel blogs, still images supported the linguistic realizations of authenticity and strangerhood on the posts, and in some case delivered an even stronger message than words. Not only does the study present a source of feedback from international travelers to tourism practice in Vietnam, but it also provides insights into multimodal analysis of tourism discourse which remains an under-researched area in Vietnam.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.685-698
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• 1996

Southern Louisiana has one of the largest Vitnamese refrgee neighborhoods after the mid-1970s. It is impressive that one of their adaptive strategies comes from their religious lives which are centered on either Catholicism or Buddhism. The Buddhism community, especially, exhibits an exotic symbolic system of value and attitude, and thus contributes to cultural diversity in the adopted country. The landscape of the Buddhist temple is a visible symbol to them that the host socirty accepts their maintenance of their own cultural identity and that they are also an integral part of American society. Their making-place and being-in-place procedures, although their culture is being transformed in the original shape, put an emphasis on interaction with the host xociety. These procedures have been facilitated by consolidating their identity as a minority group as well as by interacting with the host society. The on-going influx of foreign immigrant groups seems not to drive them to assimilate into the melting-pot society, but to contribute to contribute to the increase in the cultural diversity of the United States.

• The KIPS Transactions:PartB
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• v.11B no.3
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• pp.267-274
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• 2004

In this paper, the interesting moving objects tracking algorithm using color information on Multi-Video camera is proposed Moving objects are detected by using difference image method and integral projection method to background image and objects image only with hue area, after converting RGB color coordination of image which is input from multi-video camera into HSI color coordination. Hue information of the detected moving area are normalized by 24 steps from 0$^{\circ}$ to 360$^{\circ}$ It is used for the feature parameters of the moving objects that three normalization levels with the highest distribution and distance among three normalization levels after obtaining a hue distribution chart of the normalized moving objects. Moving objects identity among four cameras is distinguished with distribution of three normalization levels and distance among three normalization levels, and then the moving objects are tracked and surveilled. To examine propriety of the proposed method, four cameras are set up indoor difference places, humans are targeted for moving objects. As surveillance results of the interesting human, hue distribution chart variation of the detected Interesting human at each camera in under 10%, and it is confirmed that the interesting human is tracked and surveilled by using feature parameters at four cameras, automatically.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.52
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• pp.277-312
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• 2018

First-order cybernetics during the 1940s and 1950s aimed for control of an observed system, while second-order cybernetics during the mid-1970s aspired to address the mechanism of an observing system. The former pursues an objective, subjectless, approach to a system, whereas the latter prefers a subjective, personal approach to a system. Second-order observation must be noted since a human observer is a living system that has its unique cognition. Maturana and Varela place the autopoiesis of this biological system at the core of second-order cybernetics. They contend that an autpoietic system maintains, transforms and produces itself. Technoscientific recreation of biological autopoiesis opens up to a new step in cybernetics: what I describe as third-order cybernetics. The formation of technoscientific autopoiesis overlaps with the Fourth Industrial Revolution or what Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee call the Second Machine Age. It leads to a radical shift from human centrism to posthumanity whereby humanity is mechanized, and machinery is biologized. In two versions of the novel Demon Seed, American novelist Dean Koontz explores the significance of technoscientific autopoiesis. The 1973 version dramatizes two kinds of observers: the technophobic human observer and the technology-friendly machine observer Proteus. As the story concludes, the former dominates the latter with the result that an anthropocentric position still works. The 1997 version, however, reveals the victory of the techno-friendly narrator Proteus over the anthropocentric narrator. Losing his narrational position, the technophobic human narrator of the story disappears. In the 1997 version, Proteus becomes the subject of desire in luring divorcee Susan. He longs to flaunt his male egomaniac. His achievement of male identity is a sign of technological autopoiesis characteristic of third-order cybernetics. To display self-producing capabilities integral to the autonomy of machinery, Koontz's novel demonstrates that Proteus manipulates Susan's egg to produce a human-machine mixture. Koontz's demon child, problematically enough, implicates the future of eugenics in an era of technological autopoiesis. Proteus creates a crossbreed of humanity and machinery to engineer a perfect body and mind. He fixes incurable or intractable diseases through genetic modifications. Proteus transfers a vast amount of digital information to his offspring's brain, which enables the demon child to achieve state-of-the-art intelligence. His technological editing of human genes and consciousness leads to digital standardization through unanimous spread of the best qualities of humanity. He gathers distinguished human genes and mental status much like collecting luxury brands. Accordingly, Proteus's child-making project ultimately moves towards technologically-controlled eugenics. Pointedly, it disturbs the classical ideal of liberal humanism celebrating a human being as the master of his or her nature.