Published by De Gruyter Mouton

Volume 2018 Issue 224 -

Issue of Semiotica

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Contents
Journal Overview

Publicly Available September 2, 2018

Frontmatter

Page range: i-viii

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July 20, 2018

Transmedia branding: Brands, narrative worlds, and the mcwhopper peace agreement

A. Carlos Scolari

Page range: 1-17

Abstract

In recent years there has been much discussion about the links between brands and storytelling. This article briefly describes transmedia storytelling, reflects on some exemplary works to understand its cultural dynamics, and then focuses on one particular aspect: the development of transmedia strategies in branding. This article delves into that area where branding melts and recombines with storytelling, keeping an eye on transmedia worlds throughout. After presenting a semio-narratological analytical model the article applies the categories to Burger King’s successful and internationally recognized McWhopper campaign (Campaign, Brief. 2015. Y&R’s Burger King “McWhopper” campaign: How a big idea from little New Zealand went global (interview to Tom Paine). Campaign Brief December 31. http://www.campaignbrief.com/ (accessed 16 October 2016)). The analysis spans from the construction of McWhopper’s storytelling to the positioning of competitors in this particular transmedia narrative world. The article concludes with a series of reflections and recommendations for applying semio-narratologic categories to transmedia branding analysis and design.

July 24, 2018

Translating iconicities of classical Chinese poetry

Guangxu Zhao, Luise von Flotow

Page range: 19-44

Abstract

In the history of translating classical Chinese poetry, there are two kinds of translators. The first kind translate classical Chinese poetry “by way of intellectual, directional devices” (Yip, Wai-lim. 1969. Ezra Pound’s Cathay . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press: 16). What these translators are concerned with most is the coherence of their translations. They give little attention to the ideogrammic nature of Chinese characters. I call them traditional translators. These translators include those in the history of translating classical Chinese poetry from its beginning to the first decade of the twentieth century, although there are still some who translate classical Chinese poetry in this way later. The second kind of translator is highly interested in the images created by ideogrammic Chinese characters and tries to convey them in target language. We call them modernist translators. These translators are represented by some American modernist poets such as Ezra Pound, Amy Lowell, Florence Ayscough, etc. From the point of view of iconicity, modernist translators’ contribution lies in their concern with the iconic characteristics of Chinese characters. But they did not give enough attention to syntactical iconicity and textual iconicity in classical Chinese poetry.

July 28, 2018

Lexical trends in Facebook and Twitter texts of selected Nigerian Pentecostal churches: A stylistic inquiry

Lily Chimuanya, Christopher Awonuga, Innocent Chiluwa

Page range: 45-83

Abstract

The influx of religious activities and religious discourse on the Internet has made it pertinent to examine the fundamental roles of language in the expression, presentation, understanding, and advancement of any set of religious beliefs and practices. One main aspect of online religious activities that continues to arrest the attention of scholars is the uniqueness of language used by religious practitioners. For instance, new linguistic strategies and devices have emerged as a result of bending language to suit trends on a new medium. The emergence of the Information Communication Technology (ICT) in the twenty-first century has also resulted in the manifestation of computer-mediated communication, with its attendant pervasive new forms of language and practices. Nigerian Pentecostal churches have used the Internet, especially the social media such as Facebook and Twitter, in propagating their doctrines. This study identifies emerging lexical trends in the way six Nigerian Pentecostal churches use language in extending their practices on the new media and submits that such innovations are leading up to the birth of a new cyber-variety of Nigerian English.

July 26, 2018

Approach to the new videographies analysis: Case study of immigrant representations in the Social Innovation Laboratory videos (SIL UBIQA)

Matilde Obradors, Irene Da Rocha, Ana Fernández-Aballí

Page range: 85-110

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a methodology of analysis for new videographies based on an analytical grid. We base our epistemological starting point on various critical cultural study authors, a semiotic analysis, and a critical discourse analysis. We apply the grid to a case study composed of a series of videos titled Identibuzz: Hybrid identities , which was created within UBIQA, a Basque social innovation laboratory. In order to fully grasp the results of the analysis, we briefly outline some data referring to transnational migrations in Spain as well as the representation of immigrants in Spanish mainstream media. We then compare the representations of immigrants in the videos to that in mainstream media to analyze the dissection between new videographies and more traditional video genres.

August 2, 2018

A report on the reports of the stanford literary lab: A reason why the digital humanities may find it difficult to change literary history

Daniel Candel

Page range: 111-134

Abstract

The present article studies eight of the twelve reports of the Stanford Literary Lab (SLL) to understand why the revolutionary practices of the lab, and by extension of the digital humanities, have not yet changed literary history, as the lab itself admits. The article examines the reports with two related cultural-semantic tools, each of which is introduced via the Pixar movie Brave . First, the interpretations of the reports are placed within a basic semantic grid organized into four quadrants by a nature-society axis and a past-present axis, which shows that the interpretations are invariably situated in the present-society quadrant. This analysis, while necessary, merely proves that SLL operates within a certain cultural climate. The real test lies in ascertaining whether this cultural climate affects the interpretation of novel data. To do so, the article looks for the reaction of SLL to novel data in two reports. The reports are shown to domesticate novelty by explaining it through standard alethic/deontic patterns, even though the data are novel precisely because the patterns largely fail to explain them. The article closes by asking whether such patterns limit or enable thinking and what this means for the digital humanities.

July 31, 2018

Lotman’s semiotic theory of culture or Laclau’s political ontology?

Janar Mihkelsaar

Page range: 135-163

Abstract

The present article concentrates on the main discrepancies that should arise in the discussion between Lotman’s semiotics of culture and Laclau’s discursive theory of hegemony. Some significant – but still abstract – commonalities conceal fundamental disagreements which I would group around four topics. Firstly, Lotman’s semiotic method is at odds with Laclau’s ontological way of thinking. Secondly, although both Lotman and Laclau subscribe to the openness of signification, it is impossible to incorporate their accounts of this openness without loose ends. In order to substantiate this claim, I examine Lotman’s concept of “boundary” and Laclau’s concept of the “limit.” Thirdly, we should avoid reading too much into Lotman and Laclau’s agreement on the similar – but still formal – model of a self-signification. And finally, Laclau’s valorization of social antagonism is in conflict with Lotman’s appraisal of dialogue. Confronted with these discrepancies, we are enforced to decide whether to endorse Lotman’s cultural semiotics or Laclau’s political ontology.

July 27, 2018

Peirce’s resonances on Deleuze’s concept of sign: Triadic relations, habit and relation as semiotic features

Helio Rebello Cardoso Jr

Page range: 165-189

Abstract

This article inspects Peirce’s resonances on Deleuze’s semiotic. Whereas most of the literature agrees that Deleuze adapts Peirce’s semiotic to serve his Bergsonian-based theory of sign, this article claims that the relationship of Deleuze with Peirce’s writings is more foliated than it may appear at first. The development of this hypothesis invites to trace back Deleuze’s works before his very acquaintance with Peirce in the 1980s. Therefore, one of Peirce’s classical issues – the role that relations and habits play for the triadic conception of sign – is considered with Deleuze’s early studies, in which he developed this same issue as to approach Hume (habit and relation, 1953) and Proust (triadic sign, 1964). This background echoes years later in Deleuze’s incursion to Peirce’s semiotic in the 1980s ninety-two classes and two books on cinema. In fact, Deleuze’s own triadic conception of sign and his acknowledged pragmatist inclination prove to be closer to Peirce’s pragmatism than the scholarly literature tends to think or argue. The aim of this article is not, however, to build an overwhelming philosophical identity between Deleuze and Peirce, it sets up instead a steadier basis from where to understand their differences. Deleuze’s ignored five-year long lectures on cinema shows to be exegetically revealing with respect to his debts towards Peirce.

July 26, 2018

Iconically modeling a demolition process in the photobook Palast Der Republik

Letícia Alves Vitral, João Queiroz

Page range: 191-209

Abstract

Palast der Republik , by the photographer Christoph Rokitta, is an independent photobook published in 2013 in Berlin. In the photobook different semiotic resources are coupled in order to iconically model the demolition of the homonymous building in Berlin. In opposition to the trivial notion of icon as sign that stands for its object in a relation of similarity, we analyze the photobook as an icon whose main feature is the possibility of discovering information about its object through its manipulation. This specific feature is called operational criterion for iconicity , and it stresses the inherent quality of icons of revealing information available through their manipulation and observation. Our aim is to describe and analyze the relations between semiotic resources in this photobook by exploring the operational criterion of iconicity, and models as epistemic artifacts. We are interested in how couplings between semiotic resources in the photobook can iconically model a spatio-temporal process.

July 19, 2018

Rethinking Milton Singer’s semiotic anthropology: A reconnaissance

Robert Boroch

Page range: 211-222

Abstract

The article discusses the possibility of using the cognitive tools of semiotics (theory of signs) for theoretical considerations of social structures from the anthropological perspective. In the literature on the subject, this approach is defined as semiotic anthropology, a term coined by Milton Singer. The article emphasizes the possibilities, untapped within Singer’s work, of further epistemological research within the scope of the “cultural theory of signs” and reduction of the paradigms of research on culture from philosophical and philological as well as anthropological and ethnographic paradigms to a semiotic paradigm, enabling the analysis of meanings of cultural messages (as broadly understood), from architecture and painting and even eating habits (e.g., cooking) to systems of values and literature. In this sense, semiotic anthropology represents the position of “mild holism” and becomes a tool supporting the exploration of culture.

July 28, 2018

Representing indigenous lifeways and beliefs in U.S.-Mexico border indigenous activist discourse

Christina Leza

Page range: 223-248

Abstract

Despite challenges for U.S.-Mexico border Indigenous activists in their efforts to counter dominant discourses about both border policy and Native rights, Indigenous activists assert their rights as they advocate for public policies and actions that affirm and protect these rights. This article explores some of the discursive strategies used by Indigenous activists to index Indigenous identities and lifeways and to counter mainstream conceptualizations of Native identity and Indigenous rights on the U.S.-Mexico border. Through such semiotic strategies, Indigenous border activists create indigenized and legitimized political spaces for the assertion of their beliefs. Indigenous border activists achieve this through metasemiotic constructs that draw from stereotypes about Native people and their use of language as well as through the active mobilization of schemas for conceptualizing both Native American experiences and the U.S.-Mexico border.

July 24, 2018

Legislative exploration of domestic violence in the People’s Republic of China: A sociosemiotic perspective

Le Cheng, Xin Wang

Page range: 249-268

Abstract

Battles against domestic violence in the People’s Republic of China (hereafter P. R. C.) have been carried out since 1995. In this study, legislative progression of laws related to domestic violence is first examined and clarified; second, findings from the legislative review are investigated on the basis of civil and criminal cases; third, the interaction among social and traditional norms, legislation, and judicial outcomes is explored and interpreted from a sociosemiotic perspective. It is found in this study that: 1) legislation and judicial practices of domestic violence in the P. R. C. are closely intertwined with social and traditional norms; 2) there is a gap between judicial practices dealing with domestic violence and the legislation; 3) the Anti-Domestic Violence Law offers a notch for state powers to embrace the familial relationship and to safeguard a victim.

Open Access December 9, 2016

A medium-centered model of communication

Lars Elleström

Page range: 269-293

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Abstract

The aim of this article is to form a new communication model, which is centered on the intermediate stage of communication, here called medium. The model is intended to be irreducible, to highlight the essential communication entities and their interrelations, and potentially to cover all conceivable kinds of communication of meaning. It is designed to clearly account for both verbal and nonverbal meaning, the different roles played by minds and bodies in communication, and the relation between presemiotic and semiotic media features. As a result, the model also pinpoints fundamental obstacles for communication located in media products themselves, and demonstrates how Shannon’s model of transmission of computable data can be incorporated in a model of human communication of meaning.

July 19, 2018

“Language” and “discourse”: Two perspectives on linguistic philosophy

Yongxiang Wang

Page range: 295-312

Abstract

With the establishment of modern linguistics and the linguistic turn of western philosophy, various linguistic theories have been advanced and have given different interpretations to language and discourse . Different schools of thought have witnessed a direct collision of ideas and a deep academic dialogue between the theory of translinguistics advanced by the great master of dialogism, Bakhtin, and the outlook on language of the father of modern linguistics, Saussure.

July 26, 2018

Lotman, Leibniz, and the semiospheric monad: Lost pages from the archives

Pietro Restaneo

Page range: 313-336

Abstract

Throughout his life, Jurij Lotman lived at the crossroad between different worlds, ages, and cultures. The many authors, cultures, and ideas that shaped his thought and influenced his theories are scattered at either side of countless geographical, political, and cultural borders, beginning with the one that separates “Russian culture” from “European culture,” porous and ambiguous as any boundary. The task of reconstructing how Lotman’s ideas came to being, how they shifted their meaning as their context shifted, is more and more a crucial task not only for the historian. Many Lotmanian concepts, first and foremost that of semiosphere, are acquiring major relevance not only for semiotics itself and its branches, such as the rising political semiotics, but also for many neighboring disciplines, such as cultural studies and political sciences. Therefore, gaining a better understanding of the meaning of Lotman’s ideas could be of value also for the applied semiotician or the political analyst. The present paper is the result of research started in the Lotman Archives in Tallin, Estonia. Through an analysis of archival material, it aims at reconstructing the origins and meaning of the most political tropes of Lotman’s theories, especially what I will call his theory of the political subject. In the first part, I will argue that, in order to understand this political aspect of Lotman, it is necessary to take into consideration the intellectual debates inside which the author started his intellectual journey in 1930s–1940s Soviet Russia, and how he sought answers to those debates in the works of G. W. Leibniz. In the final part of the paper, I will try to show how this reconstruction of Lotman’s history could contribute to the contemporary debate in semiotics and other connected disciplines.

Review Article

July 27, 2018

Embodied X Figures and Forms of Thought

Christine Grausso

Page range: 337-346

About this journal

Open Access

As part of De Gruyter‘s Subscribe to Open program, we plan to transform Semiotica to Gold Open Access in 2024. For details on S2O, please see here.

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.