Published by De Gruyter Mouton

Volume 4 Issue 2

Issue of Chinese Semiotic Studies

Contents
Journal Overview

December 1, 2010

Impressum

Page range: IX-XII

December 1, 2010

Page range: XIII-XVI

Part One. Semiotic Conference Information

December 1, 2010

Report on the Ninth Biennial Conference of the Chinese Association of Linguistic Semiotics (CALS) Held in Suzhou (Oct. 22–24 , 2010), China

Su Xiaojun, Shen Jingyu

Page range: 3-4

December 1, 2010

Information about Preparatory Committee for the 11th World Congress of Semiotics Convened in 2012, Nanjing, China

Page range: 5-6

Part Two. Papers on New Theories and Application of Semiotics

December 1, 2010

Semiotics Seen Synchronically: The View as of 2010

John Deely

Page range: 9-113

Abstract

Semiotics as a general phenomenon of intellectual culture took root in the 20th century. The earliest figure in that enrooting was Charles Peirce (1839-1914), but the foregrounded figure was rather Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913), who plotted a narrower course under the label "semiology". It was Thomas Sebeok (1920-2001) who made unmistakable the " pars pro toto" fallacy of Saussure's standpoint, and who cleared the way for the full development of a "doctrine of signs" under the broader label of "semiotics". Thus, as Susan Petrilli pointed out in her Sebeok Fellow Address of 2008, it is "we today who have lived in both the 20th and 21 st century" who "have witnessed and participated in" the original establishment of semiotics as knowledge thematically developed from the consideration of the action consequent upon the being proper to signs. This essay aims to provide a record of the 20th century founding of semiotics, through the interplay of the work of the key players in the drama that unfolded between the birth of Peirce and the death of Sebeok-such diverse thinkers as Jacques Maritain (1882-1973), Roman Jakobson ( 1896-1982), Charles Morris (1901-1979), Feruccio Rossi-Landi (1921-1985 ), Algirdas Greimas ( 1917-1992), Juri Lotman ( 1922-1993 ) , Jeff Bernard (1943-2010), along with a few survivors of the "founding era" who yet remain on the current scene of "unfolding synchronicity" - the "land of the living"-within semiotics. The essay makes clear that semiosis depends upon the being of signs as irreducibly of a triadic relational structure, as Poinsot (1589-1644) seems earliest to have demonstrated, and Peirce independently established as the "model" required fully to develop the doctrine of signs as a " science" presupposed to "science" in the modem, ideoscopic sense. Perhaps most important of all is the discovery that interdisciplinarity, wherever it occurs and to whatever extent it is possible, is a direct consequence of semiosis, and the reason why semiotics provides the only inherently interdisciplinary perspective antidotal to the specializations required for ideoscopic advances in science. How the universities, shaped by modem scientific specializations, will eventually accommodate this "semiotic singularity" remains to be seen.

December 1, 2010

Ancient Chinese Concept of fa (Law) and Its Orthographical Representations

Han-liang Chang

Page range: 114-131

Abstract

This essay serves several critical and metacritical functions in discussing the semiotic implications of the Chinese writing fa. First of all, it examines critically various conceptualizations of " image" in the current disciplines of " imagologies", and then it comments on a contemporary French legal theoretician's image/mirage of ancient Chinese civil law. After these surveys, the essay introduces a highly specialized topic in legal semiotics by tracing the development of the written sign of fa (law) in ancient China before the second century BCE. The written word was interpreted to represent a mythical animal, whose images have recurred in Chinese writing and art history. Focusing on the scriptural representations of fa, this essay analyzes the process of conceptualization of law in ancient China, and its transformations and mutations across the borders of semiotic systems, from the basic verbal and visual levels, to the higher levels of ideology and legal theory and practice.

December 1, 2010

The Study of Linguistic Culturology in Terms of Semiotics

Wang Mingyu

Page range: 132-152

Abstract

In terms of semiotics, all human cultural phenomena and intellectual activities are expressed by signs to present different human achievements and the significance of human existence; they are all symbolized activities. The linguistic cultural study has a long history and is well achieved, but for the in-depth research there are more fields to cultivate. The study of linguistic culturology in terms of semiotics could result in some productive attempts: the study of the text of signs providing the research basis, the focus lying in the variations of signs information, and the secondary modeling system of signs making the research sphere; the dialogic relationship of signs building up the structure, and the dynamic equilibrium of semiosphere constructing the measurement. Above all, in terms of semiotics, the study of linguistic culturology must lead to new developments and discoveries.

December 1, 2010

Social Semiotics as Appliable Semiotics

Zhang Delu

Page range: 153-184

Abstract

Along with the development of semiotic theories by Saussure and Peirce, there emerged another branch of semiotics, social semiotics, in the last few decades. In a way, it is a natural development of general semiotics, and is complementary with it. In contrast to general semiotics, it focuses on parole and the application of the semiotic theories to other fields. In the present article, it shows its features different from the Saussurian and Peircian semiotics,traces its path of development and proposes six characteristics which characterize it as appliable semiotics; social in nature, practical in orientation, resource for meaning-making, cross-discipline, variable and changeable, and multimodal. As appliable semiotics, social semiotics works with the following four aspects; resources for social interactions, liability to change along with the change of contexts, following certain semiotic principles, and performing two major functions; representational and interactional. The result of the application of social semiotics is multimodal discourses, whose areas of research include the following four aspects; discourse and social practice, genre, style and modality. Multimodal discourses are coherent in terms of the following four aspects; rhythm, composition, information-linking and dialogue. Finally, a relative comprehensive theoretical framework of social semiotics as appliable semiotics is designed and presented.

December 1, 2010

Self-constructive Ability of Individual Cognitive Semantic Network

Li Baojia

Page range: 185-196

Abstract

The essence of language is the vivid and dramatic behavior with which human beings express their own feelings, and linguistic system is a semantic network established on the basis of categorization of entities of cognitive symbols and categorical relevance. Individuals have the ability to construct semantic network on the basis of cognitive experiences and linguistic environment. During the process of children' s acquiring their mother tongue, on the one hand, the image of the event to be expressed, with the development of cognitive ability, is separated from the scene, i. e., " particalization of images" or "iexicaiization of expressions"; on the other hand, through the link between the images, the expressive model has been gradually formed on the basis of semantic twisting mechanism, i. e . , "structuralization of images" or "syntacization of expressions". The information to be expressed either by adults or by children in the linguistic communication is complete, and the complementarity between the situational symbol and linguistic symbol is inverse ratio. The nonverbal "cognitive syntactic structure" is prior to the linguistic symbols' " cognitive syntactic structure". In discourse acts, the arrangement of syntactic categories is mainly based on the pragmatic strategies used in specific contexts.

December 1, 2010

On Qualified Use and Application of Knowledge

Ladislav Tondl

Page range: 197-212

Abstract

The actual "information society" is also connected with a deluge of irrelevant communications. This situation produced new interdisciplinary topics in the sphere of science and research, mainly the area of data and knowledge reduction, the selection of relevant data and knowledge which forms an important part of the domain usually denoted as " knowledge management".

December 1, 2010

Rethinking Literary Genre Theory: From a Chinese Perspective

Li Yuping

Page range: 213-222

Abstract

Literary genre theory is one of the basic issues in the fields of literary theory and semiotic studies. This paper investigates literary genre theory through analyzing many data of ancient Chinese literary criticism, and provides a critical insight of literary genre. Literary genre essentially refers to the textual kind of literary production and consumption in a conventionalized communicative setting in order to express the original understanding of reality. In Chinese literary theory, "Ti" (体) roughly corresponds with literary genre. In the context of "unity of man with Heaven and Earth" ( 天人合一) , social function and personality are the main criteria of literary classification in ancient China. The original concept of literary genre was tied very tightly to the performances and events on specific social occasions in both the West and the East. The perspective of dynamic semiotics tends to highlight fluidity and open-endedness of the relation between texts and genres.

December 1, 2010

Cassirer’s Cultural Semiotics in Operation

Geok Hu, Florence, Yap

Page range: 223-231

Abstract

In my paper, I will attempt to reiterate Cassirer's three stages of the development of the symbolic form, namely, mimetic, analogical, and symbolic, in the Peircean triad, which presents the emergent characteristic of the sign in the metamorphosis of the myth. This is to give a more specific representation of the transformation of the mythical object in the texts. Although there is no evidence of succession of Peircean semeiotics by Cassirer, the Peircean general law of sign can better explicate the metamorphic quality of Cassirer's theory of myth. Finally, I will explain how the specific "original object", plays an important and central role in the construction of the mythical worldview.

December 1, 2010

Epistemological Awareness in Semiotic Teaching: A Study of German and English Translations of Ferdinand de Saussure’s Sign-Concept from the French Cours de linguistique générale

Zdzislaw Wąsik

Page range: 232-244

Abstract

The aim of this paper is, in general, to put forward the idea of epistemological equivalence to be achieved in translational practice, and its focus of interest concentrates, in particular, around the question of how the translations of sign-related terms selected from the students" and editors" lectures Cours de linguistique gän4rale( CLG) of Ferdinand de Saussure(1857-1913) reflect the epistemological, i. e. , ontological and gnoseological, awareness of their translators. The object of our analysis will constitute Saussure's model of the sign as a twofold entity consisting of inseparable sides that evoke each other in the mind of its user. Comparing selected quotations from the French original of CLG with their two distinct translations into English against the background of an earlier German translation, we will try to evaluate various connotations of analyzed terms while pondering how they may exert an impact upon the recipients of educational discourse in semiotics. In concluding remarks, the demand for an ecumenical translation is postulated where the knowledge of scholarly traditions and the epistemological connotations of disciplinary-specific terms constitute the central aim translator's schooling. Hence, the critical approaches to the translational practice, with special reference to its interpretative consequences, which have place in academic teaching, appear to be indispensable.

December 1, 2010

An Analysis of the Transitivity System in Courtroom Discourse

Shi Guang

Page range: 245-257

Abstract

This paper analyzes the transitivity system in the audio recording transcripts of eight court trials, employing relevant theory in Systemic Functional Linguistics. It is found that: ( 1 ) the following four types of process clauses appear frequently in the courtroom discourse: material, verbal, relational and mental, of which the number of material process clauses is the biggest. Behavioural and existential process clauses appear much less frequently than the above four types; (2) The frequencies of different types of process have a positive correlation with their functions in the court trials; ( 3 ) The choice of different process types and participants reflects the institutional role, stances and purposes of the speakers.

December 1, 2010

Remarks for a Semiotics of the Veil

Massimo Leone

Page range: 258-278

Abstract

From birth to death, the human body is constantly veiled and unveiled, clothed and unclothed, wrapped and unwrapped. Nothing of this process is " natural". Through this process, a natural body belonging to the human species is transformed into a cultural body belonging to a human civilization. Each object that is on the body modifies its meaning, for it is impossible for the human body not to communicate. Even nudity, like silence in verbal language, is hardly deprived of any meaning. In order to understand the meaning of the body and its signs, one must distinguish between signification and communication, and between intentional and non-intentional communication. Bodily communication always entails the encounter between two or more interpretative hypotheses, which can completely match or mismatch. Since globalization, misunderstandings concerning the meaning of the body and its signs are more and more frequent as a correct interpretation of the intention and the content of bodily communication strictly depends on the cultural background of those who are involved in it. One of the most misunderstood bodily signs of our epoque is the veil of observant Islamic women. The paper initiates a reflection on the semiotics of the veil by proposing a phenomenological grid of its possible meanings.

Part Three. Special Column for the Study of Peircean Semiotics and the Philosophy of Inquiry

December 1, 2010

An Introduction to Peircean Semiotics and the Philosophy of Inquiry (Reprinted)

Charts Pearson

Page range: 281-288

December 1, 2010

Life and Temporality: The Place of Biosemiotics within Peirce’s General Semiotics

Eliseo Fernández

Page range: 289-300

Abstract

I would like to present some new perspectives on the reciprocal foundational links which are discemable between Peirce's general semiotics on the one hand and anthroposemiotic and biosemiotic inquiry on the other. To this end I offer an examination of the peculiar place occupied by temporal relations within the relational framework of Peirce's semiotics. I support these considerations by drawing on previous work about a relational world-view presently emerging as a unifying perspective within diverse fields of inquiry (biology, quantum physics, philosophy of inquiry, and mathematics), which I have previously characterized as a "relational tum". A common, positive feature of these developments is the recognition of the relational nature of physical reality. This portends an implicit repudiation of the traditional nominalistic bias of the physical sciences and removes an important obstacle to the acceptance of semiotic ideas. However these new approaches have, up to now, failed to consider any relations other than dyadic relations or their dyadic combinations. I argue for the need to supplement the Peircean elucidation of semiosis in terms of triadic relations with other equally unique relational features, which I characterize as " radical temporality" and selfreference. A brief sketch of the different roles played by relations of temporality in organisms in general ( biosemiotics) as opposed to organisms immersed in a historically constituted culture of symbols and artifacts (anthroposemiotics) serves to disclose the relations of mutual epistemic dependence that underlie these disciplines.

December 1, 2010

Do Graphic Designers Ever Construct an Argument?

Steven Skaggs

Page range: 301-308

Abstract

When the ten classes of signs postulated by the founder of scientific semiotics, American Philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce, are applied to the world of visual communication, a question arises about the class he labels "Argument". Can a graphic designer construct, in the arrangement of his visual materials, a complete argument? This is the question pursued in this paper. After translating Peirce's classes into language familiar to the design industry, and looking at the requirements of Argument as a discrete class of signs, I suggest that designers always produce assertions, but rarely, perhaps never, do they construct a complete argument

About this journal

Objective

Chinese Semiotic Studies (CSS) is a peer-reviewed academic journal sponsored by the International Institute of Semiotic Studies of Nanjing Normal University and the Chinese Semiotic Research Center of the Chinese Association of Linguistic Semiotics.

As the only international semiotics journal in China appearing in English, CSS is a unique outlet for Chinese scholars to be heard in global academia, affording an expanded and constructive dialogue between Chinese and non-Chinese semioticians on China-related subject matters and beyond.

Each issue contains three thematic sections: (i) Chinese Cultural Signs and Sign Theories, (ii) Western Cultural Signs and Sign Theories and (iii) Interactions between Chinese and Western semiotics.

Topics

Chinese semiotics
Linguistic studies
Area studies
Asian studies

Article formats
Original Research Articles, Review Articles, and Book Reviews.

Volume 4 Issue 2

Issue of Chinese Semiotic Studies

Titelei

Impressum

Contents

Report on the Ninth Biennial Conference of the Chinese Association of Linguistic Semiotics (CALS) Held in Suzhou (Oct. 22–24 , 2010), China

Information about Preparatory Committee for the 11th World Congress of Semiotics Convened in 2012, Nanjing, China

Semiotics Seen Synchronically: The View as of 2010

Abstract

Ancient Chinese Concept of fa (Law) and Its Orthographical Representations

Abstract

The Study of Linguistic Culturology in Terms of Semiotics

Abstract

Social Semiotics as Appliable Semiotics

Abstract

Self-constructive Ability of Individual Cognitive Semantic Network

Abstract

On Qualified Use and Application of Knowledge

Abstract

Rethinking Literary Genre Theory: From a Chinese Perspective

Abstract

Cassirer’s Cultural Semiotics in Operation

Abstract

Epistemological Awareness in Semiotic Teaching: A Study of German and English Translations of Ferdinand de Saussure’s Sign-Concept from the French Cours de linguistique générale

Abstract

An Analysis of the Transitivity System in Courtroom Discourse

Abstract

Remarks for a Semiotics of the Veil

Abstract

An Introduction to Peircean Semiotics and the Philosophy of Inquiry (Reprinted)

Life and Temporality: The Place of Biosemiotics within Peirce’s General Semiotics

Abstract

Do Graphic Designers Ever Construct an Argument?

Abstract