Published by De Gruyter Mouton

Volume 2016 Issue 213 -

Issue of Semiotica

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Contents
Journal Overview

Publicly Available November 4, 2016

Frontmatter

Page range: i-ix

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Publicly Available November 1, 2016

A meta-theoretical approach to the history and theory of semiotics

Alexandros Ph. Lagopoulos

Page range: 1-42

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Abstract

The object of this paper is the domain of semiotic theories, from “traditional” semiotics to poststructuralism and postmodernism, excluding “semiotizing” approaches such as phenomenology or cultural studies. Thus, it is metatheoretical. It is based on two matrices. The first maps semiotic theories on the basis of the continuity or discontinuity between them. The second displays the logical categories of the relationship between semiotics and Marxism, which has historically been an important influence on the field. The paper presents the views of the main authors of the domain in terms of these two matrices. Some of the conclusions are: (a) the irreconcilability between Saussurean and Peircean semiotics; (b) the greater historical development of the former in comparison to the latter; (c) the different orientation between Central and Eastern European semiotics on the one hand and French semiotics on the other; (d) the strong influence of Saussure and Levi-Straussian structuralism on poststructuralism; (e) the increase of the influence of Marxism from structuralism to poststructuralism; and (f) the transformation from poststructuralism to North American postmodernism. The paper closes with some thoughts about the present status of the main semiotic currents and a proposal for a fertile future orientation for semiotics.

Publicly Available October 6, 2016

La possibilité d’une étude sémiotique des transhumanités: Une lecture d’un film La Créature céleste, bouddha robot coréen

Soojin Lee

Page range: 43-61

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Abstract

Résumé Dans cet article nous présentons une réflexion sémiotique sur la représentation de l’humain et du non-humain dans des discours de techno-fiction reflétant l’humanité transitoire en relation avec le progrès technoscientifique. Les signifiants dénotatifs dans le contexte narratif nous conduisent à observer et à analyser les signifiés connotatifs. C’est dans cet esprit que nous examinerons des scènes tirées du film de science-fiction coréen La Créature céleste portant sur l’existence de l’humain, et son rapport ontologique avec la technologie. Ce film unique en son genre traitant à la fois de la machine et de la spiritualité dans la tradition du bouddhisme s’appuie sur les principes fondamentaux du Mahayana (Grand Véhicule) comme la vacuité, l’éveil et la nature-de-bouddha et propose, avec un bouddha robot et un homme-machine, une représentation bien particulière de l’humanité en transition. Ce film contient diverses propositions vis-à-vis d’un phénomène mystérieux et problématique, produit par une technologie future. Nous proposons d’analyser les différentes significations telles que le dualisme du corps et de l’esprit, un fantasme permettant surmonter la limite physique par le recours à la technologie, une inscription corporelle de l’esprit et l’interaction dans l’environnement technoscientifique. Il est possible d’appliquer cette interprétation aux autres discours de techno-fiction et proposer une lecture et une écriture qui peuvent nous guider dans notre réflexion sur l’avenir, sans peur ni enthousiasme, mais selon la notion de vacuité. Cet article est basé sur des communications délivrées à l’occasion de deux colloques internationaux organisés dans le cadre d’une collaboration entre deux équipes de chercheurs coréens et français, projet soutenu par le LABEX ARTS-H2H au titre du programme, Investissements d’avenir .

Publicly Available October 6, 2016

Non-anthropogenic mind and complexes of cultural codes

Sergey Kulikov

Page range: 63-73

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Abstract

The object of research is to clarify the connections between non-anthropogenic mind and culture as sign systems. Investigation of such an object discloses the perspectives on construction of the generalized model of mind and can help to build the bridge between traditional and digital humanities. The subject of traditional humanities is natural human activity; the subject of digital humanities is computer-based forms of activity and communication. Finding signs created not only by human but also by natural circumstances helps to define the sign system that unites the natural (non-anthropogenic) and artificial kinds of mind. Methodology of research includes the principles of semiotics previously developed by Charles Peirce and Ferdinand de Saussure and expanded by Yuri Lotman and Boris Uspensky. Semiotic interpretation of mind as the object of culture allows the building of a generalized model of mind as one of textual constructions, presenting the history of mankind as the replacement of natural events by secondary models. The author concludes that the revealing of a generalized model of mind opens new opportunities for the construction of the intelligent activity strictly interpreted as special sign systems. Semiotic studies interpret culture as a rationality making machine, and activity of mind is caused by the work of such a machine. Because of that, if traditional meaning sign systems were estimated as human-made kinds of complex of primary signs, then modern statements help to see the absence of an irresistible limit to interpret such complex as a nature-made but non-anthropogenic phenomenon.

Publicly Available September 17, 2016

Vygotsky, Bakhtin, Lotman: Towards a theory of communication in the horizon of the other

Laura Gherlone

Page range: 75-90

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Abstract

Shortly before his death, Yuri Lotman (1922–1993), by now blind, dictated some considerations on the concept of ‘alien,’ ‘stranger’ (chuzhdoe): a concept that de facto weaves all of his thirty-year reflections on the relationship between language, meaning, and culture and that, until the end, appears as the mark of a speculative orientation focused on the ethics of otherness. A profound influence on Lotman’s thinking in this direction was exercised by two leading figures of the Russian intellectual tradition: the psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1896–1934) and the philosopher, critic, and literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin (1895–1975). It is no wonder the Tartu-Moscow Semiotic School dedicated to them volumes IV (1969) and VI (1973), respectively, of the Trudy po znakovym sistemam, the review on sign systems launched in 1964 by the Department of Russian Literature of the University of Tartu. The horizon of otherness, and the consequent emphasis on the relational nature of man, fill in fact as much of Vygotsky’s theoretical reflection on the human mind as does Bakhtin’s on literary creation (slovesnost’). This article intends to explore the concept of “dialog” as thematized in Vygotsky’s and Bakhtin’s studies, theoretical roots of the Lotmanian idea of communication as a dialogical semiotic act.

Publicly Available October 4, 2016

Les deux barricades: Complexité sémiotique et objectivation des faits de style dans un extrait des Misérables

Ilias Yocaris

Page range: 91-122

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Abstract

Résumé Notre étude porte sur les descriptions parallèles de la barricade Saint-Antoine et de la barricade du faubourg du Temple dans Les Misérables (V, 1, 1). On peut soutenir que ces deux descriptions sont des mises en abyme: en effet, Victor Hugo semble les utiliser pour pointer les excès qui guettent respectivement le romantisme et le classicisme, tout en assumant sa volonté d’en finir avec l’esthétique classique. Il émerge de la sorte tout un dispositif allégorique, dont la description détaillée permet de mettre en évidence trois paramètres: (a) l’impact sémiotique du travail de stylisation, qui complexifie la langue ordinaire et permet d’accroître considérablement son potentiel investigateur; (b) la dimension holistique des textes stylisés, qui donnent à voir des synergies parfois très poussées entre des niveaux organisationnels et des constituants différents; (c) la présence d’interactions texte/lecteur impossibles à éliminer, qui rendent problématique toute tentative d’objectiver intégralement les faits de style et les agencements discursifs observables dans le texte hugolien.

Publicly Available October 15, 2016

The structural properties of the anagram in poetry

Giampaolo Sasso

Page range: 123-164

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Abstract

This article illustrates the main theoretical and practical problem of the study of the anagram in poetry, the still unknown entity of the anagrammatic combination, which requires specific software in order to perform a structural analysis of the text. This difficulty explains the failure of Saussure’s original hypotheses and the gradual decline, following the rediscovery of his work, of the interest of researchers in this subject. However, some poems (by Blake, Moore, Mallarmé, Valéry, Apollinaire, and Leopardi) illustrate the enormous potential of the anagram for the structural analysis of poetic texts: the study of formal structure, of semantic-thematic nuclei and of metaphor, together with the main criteria for examining, with some simplification, the anagrammatic combination. An explanation is also offered for anagrammatic and grammatical-syntactic cooperation, involving the current theory of the lemma. At the time of the generation of a poetic text, the anagram acts as an associative intermediary between the combinatory matrix of the signifieds and the combinatory matrix of the signifiers, producing a lexical selection that gives anagrammatic coherence to the text. This associative intermediary enables us to understand the particular recursive function of semiosis in poetry that is given a distinct unity by the anagram.

Publicly Available September 9, 2016

Rethinking the Peircean trichotomy of icon, index, and symbol

Ersu Ding

Page range: 165-175

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Abstract

Classification of signs into various kinds is a vital enterprise in semiotic research. As early as over a century ago, the American semiotician Charles Sanders Peirce laid down a solid foundation for this work by proposing his famous trichotomy of signs. Later scholars have been mostly applying Peirce’s theory to their own semiotic studies rather than challenging the inadequacies that exist therein, thus giving rise to a great number of confusions or even contradictions. The present article modifies Peirce’s theory from the perspective of sign emergence and evolution and emphasizes the importance of understanding sign transformations.

Publicly Available September 16, 2016

Toward an embodied account of double-voiced discourse: The critical role of imagery and affect in Bakhtin’s dialogic imagination

Karen A. Krasny

Page range: 177-196

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Abstract

Drawing from Paivio’s (1986, Mental representations: A dual coding approach . New York: Oxford University Press, 1991, Images in mind: The evolution of a theory . New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 2007, Mind and its evolution: A dual coding theoretical approach . Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum) dual-coding theory, I argue that an understanding of the structure and function of mental imagery and affect can lead to an embodied and more comprehensive account of the addressivity that characterizes Bakhtin’s double-voiced discourse. A dialogic exchange between characters in Orhan Pamuk’s (2004, Snow . New York: Vintage) Snow provides a literary example of an intersubjective encounter to demonstrate that crafting consciousness in the novel and sustaining Bakhtin’s double-voiced discourse relies on the cognitive capacity to access both verbal and non-verbal imagery. I position Bakhtinian dialogism within a historical overview of the nature of mind and mental imagery in western philosophy to elucidate the tenuous relation between Bakhtin’s dialogic existence and the principles of empiricism as expressed in Dewey (1987 [1934], Art as experience. In Jo Ann Boydston (ed.), The later works of John Dewey, 1925–1953, vol. 10 . Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1980 [1916], Democracy and education. In Jo Ann Boydston (ed.), The middle works of John Dewey, 1899–1924, vol. 9 . Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press) and Mead (1934, Mind, self, and society . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964, The objective reality of perspectives. In A. Reck (ed.) Selected writings , 312–314. Chicago: University of Chicago Press). With reference to Damasio’s (1999, The feeling of what happens: Body and emotion in the making of consciousness . New York: Harcourt) neurobiological account of consciousness, Langer’s (1957, Philosophy in a new key: A study in the symbolism of reason, rite, and art . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press) evolutionary account of language, and Thompson’s (2007, Mind in life: Biology, phenomenology and the sciences of mind . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press) phenomenological account of empathy, I outline how Bakhtin’s dialogism differs from embodied theories of mind and consciousness in several fundamental ways to preclude a full appreciation of the other’s empathetic experience of oneself in authoring a socially shared existence.

Publicly Available October 6, 2016

The rhetoric of love and self-narrativesin the cinema image: A Peircean approach

Yunhee Lee, Jongseok Soh

Page range: 197-211

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Abstract

This paper aims to examine processes of self-interpretation by virtue of a psychological tool of love as communication medium. Within the Peircean semiotic perspective, the concept of love is seen as feeling-ideas, action, and a law in three stages, which are accompanied by those of the self, corresponding to the innovative, the critical, and the expressive. Based on the presupposition of the relation between love and the self, self-controlled action, i. e. so-called interpreting activity, reveals that love is a driving force for evolution of the self which is connected to other as social organism. The three stages of love are embodied in sensible hearts, intimate relationships with others, and a sense of community for sensible judgement. These processes of interpreting activity allow one to connect each stage of the self as self-narrative comprising sensitivity to phenomenon as a first-person perspective, actual intimate connection with other, and a general feeling towards community. We will demonstrate these points by discussing the relevant images from the film The Great Beauty (2013).

Publicly Available September 9, 2016

Nature and culture in visual communication: Japanese variations on Ludus Naturae

Massimo Leone

Page range: 213-245

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Abstract

The neurophysiology of vision and cognition shapes the way in which human beings visually “read” the environment. A biological instinct, probably selected as adaptive through evolution, pushes them to recognize coherent shapes in chaotic visual patterns and to impute the creation of these shapes to an anthropomorphic agency. In the west as in the east, in Italy as in Japan, human beings have identified faces, bodies, and landscapes in the bizarre chromatic, eidetic, and topologic configurations of stones, clouds, and other natural elements, as though invisible painters and sculptors had depicted the former in the latter. However, culture-specific visual ideologies immediately and deeply mold such cross-cultural instinct of pattern recognition and agency attribution. Giants and mythical monsters are seen in clouds in the west as in the east; both the Italian seventeenth-century naturalist and the Japanese seventeenth-century painter identify figures of animals and plants in stones. And yet, the ways in which they articulate the semantics of this visual recognition, identify its icons, determine its agency, and categorize it in relation to an ontological framework diverge profoundly, according to such exquisitely paths of differentiation that only the study of culture, together with that of nature, can account for.

Publicly Available August 13, 2016

Semiotics and education, semioethic perspectives

Susan Petrilli

Page range: 247-279

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Abstract

“Semioethics” is a neologism coined in the early 1980s to highlight the relation between signs and values, identity and otherness. It keeps account of Victoria Welby’s concept of “significs” and of Sebeok’s “global semiotics” with its critique of glottocentric and anthropocentric tendencies. Together both sources, significs and global semiotics, provide the context for contributions from semioethics to education. Semioethics recovers the ancient vocation of semiotics, originally “semeiotics,” for life and its wellbeing. It elicits the importance of applying an interdisciplinary approach and a “detotalizing method” in education by contrast to the totalizing approaches of grand narratives. The human being is endowed with a “primary modeling device,” also called “language,” and with it “syntactics.” Semioethics considers the role of these special characteristics that specify the human being as a human being, a “semiotic animal,” and addresses the human propensity for creativity, critique, and responsibility for health over the globe, both in terms of physical-organic materiality, the body, and of semiotic materiality, signs and values. These characteristics can be developed and enhanced through a specifically “linguistic education” with a particular emphasis on otherness, dialogue, and listening. Practicing semioethics becomes more pressing in the face of the relational dynamics between the historical-social and biological spheres, between culture and nature, between semiosphere and biosphere, and between semiotics, biosemiotics, and education.

Publicly Available October 6, 2016

Towards a teleo-semiotic theory of individuation

Rufus Duits

Page range: 281-305

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Abstract

This article attempts to develop a sketch or working model of a semiotic theory of individuation from a formalization of basic teleological structures. After caveats and provisional definitions, a formal apparatus is introduced that schematizes teleological structures by way of mathematical category theory. This is then combined with a commutation test for formal systems. Once the formal construction is sufficient, the extent to which the model can account for the operation by which objects, modes, kinds, and attributes become individuated from the “pure multiplicity” of indeterminate being is analyzed. Subsequently, the model is applied to a series of well-known problems in metaphysics and ontology – persistence, change, vagueness, coincidence, mereology, and universals – in order to demonstrate its effectiveness. The metaphysical picture that results from this application is positioned between the conventional extremes of realism and anti-realism: a semiotic anti-/realism. Empirical evidence is then also marshalled in support of the model by way of invocation and analysis of recent research into the development of the perceptual capacities of infants.

Publicly Available September 16, 2016

Dialogue, responsibility and literary writing: Mikhail Bakhtin and his Circle

Susan Petrilli

Page range: 307-343

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Abstract

Mikhail Bakhtin cannot be discussed without discussing his friends and collaborators forming the Bakhtin Circle. The name Bakhtin itself announces a polyphony of different voices and viewpoints, internally to Bakhtin’s own voice and externally, all evidencing the word’s capacity for dialogism and otherness, the possibility of cohabitation and interference among different voices in the same word, the propensity for participative listening, ultimately the inevitability of responsiveness/responsibility toward the other, that is, the other’s singularity. The name “Bakhtin” or, better, the expression “Bakhtin Circle,” offers a concrete perspective for a world constructed in terms of multiplicity, diversity, and hospitality toward the other. This essay presents some characteristic aspects of Bakhtinian philosophy, keeping account of the writings collected in the 2014 bilingual volume Opere 1919–1930 , presented by the renowned Italian Bakhtin scholar Augusto Ponzio.

Publicly Available October 29, 2016

Becoming a commercial semiotician

Chris Arning

Page range: 345-363

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Abstract

In this paper, the author sets out a brief account of how you become a semiotician, breaking it down in terms of motivations and competences. This is a paper written from the personal experience of the author. It is not meant to be prescriptive or to offer any sort of orthodoxy. The catalyst for the paper was frustration with the dearth of writing on this topic. The paper argues that the process of becoming is not just about acquiring knowledge or cognitive ability but also involves personal values and self-identity. It also seeks to dethrone the place of theory as predominant, arguing that interpretive practice relies as much upon a repertoire of aptitudes and techniques of reading and other soft skills. Theory acquisition in itself is simply not enough. In terms of its structure, the paper starts with a definition of what commercial semiotics is, continues with a section defining its scope, validity, and applications. The meat of the paper is devoted to laying out the different aptitudes and techniques mentioned above. The final section discusses the semiotic enterprise as a quest for knowledge and argues that there is no single trajectory in becoming a commercial semiotics practitioner. The paper argues that it is an odyssey of constant learning. It includes some comments on the institutionalization of the field. The hope is that this paper will give insight to interested parties into the craft of commercial semiotics.

Publicly Available September 9, 2016

Cross-political pan-commercialism in the postmodern age and proposed readjustment of semiotic practices

Youzheng Li

Page range: 365-396

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Abstract

The present-day academic orientation of the semiotic movement is basically determined by professional institutions based on a global pan-commercialism across different political systems. This universal institutionalized scholarly tendency produces a utilitarian-motivated, pragmatist-determined attitude towards studies as well as to a set of profit-searching procedures. With a purpose to revive the classical ethos for scientific truth this paper redefines general semiotics as an interdisciplinary-directed functional organizer rather than as some fundamental philosophical doctrines. Being segregated from the mainstream of applied semiotic practices performed in different disciplines and cultural aspects the redefined general semiotics (GS model) will be directed to the higher academic-strategic problems about organizing the functionally unified development of human sciences in confrontation with the current intellectual-materialist domination originating from the commercial-technological trend towards globalization over spiritual freedom.

Publicly Available September 14, 2016

Meaning-making across disparate realities: A new cognitive model for the personality-integrating response to fairy tales

Elizabeth Bolton

Page range: 397-418

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Abstract

This paper reviews the extant literature on ways readers make meaning from fairy tales, and proposes a new cognitive model for the response to the traditional fairy tale. Much of the available research on literary responses to fairy tales comes from within the boundaries of psychoanalysis (Bettelheim 1975. The uses of enchantment: The meaning and importance of fairy tales . New York: Vintage; Dieckmann 1986. Twice-told tales: The psychological use of fairy tales . Wilmette: Chiron; Miller 1984. Thou shalt not be aware: Society’s betrayal of the child . New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux), as well as folklore studies and anthropology (Zipes 1983. Fairy tales and the art of subversion: The classical genre for children and the process of civilization . New York: Wildman Press; Zipes 2006. Why fairy tales stick: The evolution and relevance of a genre . New York: Routledge; Zipes 2012. The irresistible fairy tale: The cultural and social history of a genre . Princeton: Princeton University Press.). Although these fields do not often overlap, the therapeutic potential of fairy tales and relatively recent popularization of practices such as bibliotherapy (Jack and Ronan 2008. Bibliotherapy: Practice and research. School Psychology International 29(2). 161–182) have provided a fertile ground for linking the two disciplines. I propose a cognitive model for the emotionally integrating response to the fairy tale by first introducing Rosenblatt’s (1978. The reader, the text, the poem . Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press) transactional theory of making meaning from literature, and then in light of this theory, reviewing the psychoanalytic and anthropological evidence for fairy tales’ unique effect on readers. Previous theories explaining the emotional benefits of reading fairy tales have failed to consider characteristics of the genre which are unique to it, and which give fairy tales a hierarchically higher status than other genres due to the distance between the reality they depict, and the current reality of the reader. Transactional theory indicates that this higher status may play a crucial role in the genre’s ability to support healthy emotional development, as readers who establish close personal connections with the hierarchically valorized genre actually become active participants in a reading experience which provides them with comforting, indisputable affirmation of the uprightness of their own moral principles.

Publicly Available September 24, 2016

The rise and fall of metaphor: A study in meaning and meaninglessness

Nathan Black Rupp

Page range: 419-433

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Abstract

I propose the specific words used by a community define that community, yet at the same time the community is defined by those words. This ever-changing lexicon of communal metaphor is the storehouse of all the meanings and their usages used by a given group. By looking at the metaphors that permeate any communal language, we see that all language is metaphoric. With the use of Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Conceptual Blending Theory, I investigate how new meanings enter our lexicon and become social meaning. This investigation also provides a closer understanding of “literal” meanings. We come to see they are just stale metaphors or neglected blendings devoid of potency. The process by which meanings are created illuminates how they become “literal.” Thus, showing us the danger that accompanies us in the modern, literal age.

Publicly Available September 14, 2016

Anthroposemiotics of literature: The cultural nature

Ibrahim Taha

Page range: 435-455

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Abstract

Semiotics is not merely about knowledge but primarily about knowing. Representation is about knowledge while literature as a semiotic medium is about modeling. Modeling is not a technique used by writers to represent the world but a target meant to show the way the writer models the world so that the reader responds accordingly and offers her/his own model. Knowing as semiosis is produced from such a kind of comparison between the two models. Meaning itself, knowledge, does not interest semioticians, whose concern is rather with the way it is produced. Literature teaches us how to learn more about our nature. Literature trains our natural faculties of modeling. All possible fragments of knowledge we may get from a literary text and the cognitive and emotional responses they provoke are only parts of a whole. They are associated with the mega-meaning of literature. In literature, knowing stands for mega-meaning, whereby it becomes an anthroposemiotic concept. In this paper, I hope to contribute to the new wave of interest in the natural linkage between anthroposemiotics and literary study through three major possible epistemologies tightening the linkage between both fields: evolutionary epistemology, emotional and cognitive activities, and cultural, including social and historical, conventions. All of these three levels conduct some kind of communication and naturally work together in harmony.

Publicly Available October 6, 2016

McLuhan’s war: Cartoons and decapitations

Peter W. Nesselroth

Page range: 457-472

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Abstract

This essay analyzes certain recent news events like the “Charlie Hebdo” massacres and the recurring decapitations of prisoners and hostages by ISIS and other groups. It updates Jakobson’s standard model of communication to account for the different “factors” at play in our present reality and it calls for an “applied McLuhan” approach to processing the images that succeed each other on our various contemporary screen types. One of McLuhan’s prophecies was that the return of oral culture through new communications media would have catastrophic consequences for humanity. Judging by current events, he was right on.

Publicly Available September 16, 2016

Leadership as zero-institution

Tuomas Kuronen, Aki-Mauri Huhtinen

Page range: 473-491

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Abstract

In this essay, we study the emergence and institutionalization of political leadership. Our empirical case is the presidential leadership of the former Cold War era President of Finland, Urho Kekkonen. Towards the end of his tenure as the president, which lasted for 25 years, his leadership became a “zero-institution,” in the same sense as articulated by Claude Lévi-Strauss. Kekkonen became an iconic figure in the society, whose status as the leader was never seriously challenged during his tenure. His private fishing ritual among his fishing “tribe” provided central content for his leadership mythology as an “able fisherman,” which he and his allies used for the purposes of furthering his political objectives. Along the emergence of his uncontested status in the society, the country’s “official line” in foreign policy became to be known as “Finnlandisierung” outside Finland; a culture in which a weak state yields to the demands of a stronger neighbor without direct military intervention. In light of this, we also discuss the potential of zero-institutions and similar “traumas” in association with the (ab)use of power in organizations and a culture of (self-)censorship.

Publicly Available October 6, 2016

Consumption and climate change: Why we say one thing but do another in the face of our greatest threat

Geoffrey Beattie, Laura McGuire

Page range: 493-538

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Abstract

There is clear evidence that human beings have contributed to climate change through their patterns of consumption, and, it could be argued that, since we are part of the problem then we must be part of the solution. The apparently good news is that people report that they have very positive attitudes to environmentally-friendly products and they also consistently say that they are prepared to adapt their behavior to ameliorate the effects of climate change. However, numerous studies have found little behavior change on the part of consumers. This study investigates this critical issue experimentally. It does this by exploring whether self-reported attitudes to low carbon products, or alternatively implicit attitudes to such products (measured using an associative task and not requiring self-report), predict consumer choice of products varying on a range of dimensions including environmental consequences, in an experimental context where time for selection was also systematically varied. We found firstly, in line with previous research, that human beings have explicit and implicit attitudes that are not correlated. Secondly, in terms of brand choice, we found that consumers are particularly sensitive to both brand information and value in their selection of products, particularly under time pressure. Organic/eco brands are, however, much less favoured, especially under any time pressure, where processes that are more automatic prevail. Thirdly, color-coded carbon footprint information can influence choice even under time pressure but only for those consumers with a strong positive implicit attitude to carbon footprint. The conclusions from this research are that humans beings may well have a “divided self” when it comes to the environment and climate change, and this underlying “dissociation” in attitude (implicit versus explicit) might be critical to their behavior as consumers. This concept of the“divided self” may help us understand why relatively little has changed thus far with regard to more sustainable consumption, but might open up new lines of enquiry about how we might attempt to promote more sustainable consumption in the future.

Publicly Available September 16, 2016

Semiotics of precision and imprecision

Bujar Hoxha

Page range: 539-555

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Abstract

The fact of the multi-dimensionality of semiotics is an issue that offers more possibilities: either seen in the sense of their precise foreseeing, providing for, or discussing a scientific phenomenon, or otherwise, seen in the shape of its multiple formations, such as in the case of overcoming its rules. My aim in this paper is to make an attempt at proposing an hypothesis that may be overcoming another one, thus expressing ambiguity instead of precision, a metaphor instead a mono-semantic lexeme, or a complex instead of a simple phenomenon (thus, naming the different semiotic realities). This can be performed by representing at least some of the approaches to semiotics as a discipline: either seeing it as an expression of clearing redundancies through oppositions, through processes of representation, or through life processes. Starting from language-based semiotics, through scholars like Saussure and Jakobson, as well as through the Greimasian and Peirceian schools of semiotics, I have tried to exemplify what I have called semiotics of precision, on one hand, and what I have called a semiotics of imprecision, on the other. In the frames of such an exemplifying of these two approaches, I have tried to focus on the dichotomy between seeming and reality.

Publicly Available September 10, 2016

Interrelations of codes in human semiotic systems

Georgij Yu. Somov

Page range: 557-599

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Abstract

Codes can be viewed as mechanisms that enable relations of signs and their components, i.e., semiosis is actualized. The combinations of these relations produce new relations as new codes are building over other codes. Structures appear in the mechanisms of codes. Hence, codes can be described as transformations of structures from some material systems into others. Structures belong to different carriers, but exist in codes in their “pure” form. Building of codes over other codes fosters their regulation. There are several ways to add codes: by types of transformation of structures involved in codes; by dimensions of pragmatics, semantics, and syntactics; through “abstract universals versus precise forms” relations; and by regulation levels in the “organism – environment” relations. More complicated codes are formed based on the interrelations of codes built over. These interrelations are presented as a conceptual chart, which reflects the way typical semiotic formations emerge in mind based on the interrelations of various codes. It also presents the related sociocultural semiotic systemities: motives, needs, aspirations, moral values, purposes, language-like systemities, fundamental frames, patterns of culture, etc.

Publicly Available September 24, 2016

A-voiding representation: Eräugnis and inscription in Celan

Kurt Buhanan

Page range: 601-623

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Abstract

This essay deals with the poetry of Paul Celan, particularly focusing on the event of appearing of the negative as that which a-voids representation. The key term here is “Eräugnis,” a term with important resonances between Celan’s poetry and the thought of Alain Badiou, whose evental philosophy centers on the void. Another immediate point of reference is Martin Heidegger, whose thought and language permeates Celan’s work, and it is likely from Heidegger that Celan takes his impetus in thinking through the problem of representing the void. In readings of poems like “Heute und Morgen,” “Welchen der Steine du hebst,” and “Mandorla,” I argue that Celan is grappling with the appearing of the negative in its function as foundational figure for representation. Celan tropes the negative in his poetry, and this essay explores the theoretical and philosophical implications of this negative visuality.

About this journal

Objective
Semiotica is published in six annual issues, in two languages (English and French). From time to time, Special Issues, devoted to topics of particular interest, are assembled by Guest Editors. The publishers of Semiotica offer an annual prize, the Mouton d'Or, to the author of the best article each year. The article is selected by an independent international jury.

Topics
We welcome papers reporting results of research in all branches of semiotic studies.

Article formats
Research articles, in-depth reviews, guest editorials, reports

Mouton D’Or Winner 2022

"Semiotricité et corps en jeu", Parlebas, Pierre, 248, 9-35.

The judges commented: "The Committee members made this decision based on many appreciations. First, the article contains a concise theory on semiotics of movement, synthesizing decades of research of the author. It opens an exciting framework for the contribution of many other authors. The theoretical grounds of semiotircity are built on the most classical semiotic approaches and represent a genuine development. Second, the article refreshes semiotics methodology in very original way, by engaging the applied semiotics for furtive and instantaneous activities analysis. Third, the article is pretty clear and well structured, written in very comprehensible French. The theoretical frame it opens is thorough and far reaching. Fourth, the semiotic theory of movement comes in a very special moment when the whole world is football, but it covers also many other areas of applicability which reflect major trends such as the general gamification of life thanks to new media and digital technologies. It is crucial for semiotic theory to open its theoretic scope towards significant cultural trends and become more attractive for young researchers."

Les membres du comité ont pris leur décision en fondant leur appréciation sur quatre éléments principaux. Premier élément : l'article, en peu de mots, en prenant appui sur des décennies de recherche de la part de l'auteur, déploie de manière précise les termes d'une sémiotique du mouvement. Les fondements théoriques de la sémiotricité sont construits sur des approches sémiotiques bien établies et représentent un véritable développement dans le domaine. En cela, le texte ouvre un cadre passionnant pour les contributions de nombreux autres chercheurs. Deuxièmement, l'article renouvelle la sémiotique appliquée de manière très originale, l'engageant dans une approche efficace des actions instantanées et furtives; la méthodologie sémiotique en général en tire donc aussi profit. Troisième point, en plus d'être profond, avec un cadre théorique d'ampleur et de grande portée, l'article est particulièrement bien structuré et écrit dans un français très compréhensible, ce qui est un véritable gain pour sa diffusion. Enfin, quatrièmement, s'il est indéniable que le texte pourrait bénéficier d'une visibilité complémentaire due à la ferveur liée au contexte récent de la coupe du monde de football au Qatar, il couvre surtout de nombreux autres domaines d'applicabilité qui reflètent des tendances majeures telles que la gamification générale de la vie, portée par les nouveaux médias et les technologies numériques. L'on y voit une belle opportunité pour la théorie sémiotique d'ouvrir son champ à la faveur de tendances culturelles significatives; ceci est une garantie pour continuer à attirer de nouvelles générations de chercheurs.