Published since January 1, 1969

Semiotica

Journal of the International Association for Semiotic Studies / Revue de l'Association Internationale de Sémiotique

ISSN: 1613-3692

Editors-in-chief: Stephanie Walsh Matthews, Massimo Leone, Jamin R. Pelkey

Impact Factor: 0.392

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 2020

"Exploring the politics of visibility: Technology, digital representation, and the mediated workings of power" Creech, Brian, 236/237, 365–381.

The judges commented: „The article’s impact is significant because the author provides a "theoretical schema" for describing a "politics of visibility" in the first part of the twenty-first century. It addresses the impact of the new media employed by tech-savvy political activists in creative and inventive ways. These innovations thus make such movements ubiquitous, comprehensible, and visible The "politics of visibility" provides what the author calls "an assemblage of technology, practice, and systems that grant intelligible meaning to events, issues, and phenomena" (p. 377). More specifically, the author provides a theoretical model that is replicable. The author produces a clear theoretical model for the use of recent technology to disperse very widely visual messages that are immediately comprehensible to a large audience."

Your Benefits

Your benefits:

inclusive scope focusing on all branches of semiotic studies
multidisciplinary approach to semiotics
comprehensive overview of current literature in semiotics
prestigious publication of the International Association for Semiotic Studies
international and renowned editorial board
bilingual publication: English and French

History

Semiotica was founded in 1969.

Other publications in the field
Journals:
Chinese Semiotic Studies
Cognitive Semiotics

Book series:
Semiotics, Communication and Cognition [SCC]

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Volume 2021 Issue 242

September 2021

Accessible September 9, 2021

Frontmatter

Page range: i-viii

Download PDF

Research Articles

July 28, 2021

Derrida’s “chimerical experimental exercise”: an ecolinguistic dream of a more biocentric language

Keith Moser

Page range: 1-16

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to probe the implications of Derrida’s linguistic theories in his late philosophy. Adopting an interdisciplinary and deconstructive approach to critical discourse analysis that erodes the foundation of anthropocentric binary thought paradigms, this exploration of Derrida’s ecolinguistic dream of a more biocentric language (re-)problematizes three specific cognitive structures that represent an unsustainable form of dichotomous thinking. The philosopher illustrates that the concept of “human” and “animal,” the “genesis myth,” and the Cartesian notion of the Bête machine are deadly delusions that must be replaced with a more biocentric outlook on life.

August 10, 2021

The plastic of clothing and the construction of visual communication and interaction: a semiotic examination of the eighteenth-century French dress

Marilia Jardim

Page range: 17-37

Abstract

The article presents an account of the visual relations created by garments through their plastic formants, examining the role played by form, material, and composition in creating body hierarchies that produce prescribed behaviors between different subjects. The work dissects the concept of thematic role from Greimasian theory, investigating the manners in which an eighteenth-century wedding dress presents the chaining of programs governing materials, garments, and the body in the production of narrative interactions between subjects. The work utilizes a combination of Greimas’ method with the Visual Semiotics continued by Floch and Oliveira, as well as Hammad’s Semiotics of Space which permit the exam of optical relations created in the body through its clothing – relations that can be read as manifesting values that are both historically and socially determined, or in the act of apprehension of an object. The eighteenth century provides a type of “original” case, whose results are pertinent to a broader study of the relations between body and dress: the work concludes with the understanding that Fashion changes through the transit of values and roles invested in the body and dress – a set of changes closely linked to the construction of social roles.

August 11, 2021

A zoosemiotic approach to the transactional model of communication

Mirko Cerrone, Nelly Mäekivi

Page range: 39-62

Abstract

The analysis of social communication in other-than-human animals poses several theoretical challenges due to the complexity of individual and extra-individual variables. Some previous studies have found a valuable solution in Uexküll’s work by expanding and adapting its usage for the study of communication in a heurtistic manner. An Umwelt analysis provides a theoretical toolbox, which allows researchers to take an emic perspective on the lives and phenomenal world of other animals. However, Umwelt and its elaborations do not allow for a clear distinction between acts of perception and communication and seem to ignore factors that escape the specific communication contexts under analysis. Thus, moving away from the existing linear and cyclical approaches to communication, we propose a complementary approach to the study of social communication by combining Barnlund’s transactional model of communication with Umwelt theory and the functional circle more specifically. Our elaborated model conceives social communication as the process of creating meaning through the interaction of two (or more) subjects and emphasizes the role of species-specific and individual features in its creation. Our goal is to re-evaluate the research on social communication of other-than-human animals by advocating for the theoretical and empirical potential of Umwelt, especially pertaining to animals with complex Umwelten. Our model offers a valuable solution to the analysis of intraspecies communication that accounts for the role of private and public cues as well as the subjects’ specific behaviors, messages, and context in the creation of meaning.

August 11, 2021

Complexes, rule-following, and language games: Wittgenstein’s philosophical method and its relevance to semiotics

Sergio Torres-Martínez

Page range: 63-100

Abstract

This paper forges links between early analytic philosophy and the posits of semiotics. I show that there are some striking and potentially quite important, but perhaps unrecognized, connections between three key concepts in Wittgenstein’s middle and later philosophy, namely, complex (Philosophical Grammar) , rule-following (Philosophical Investigations) , and language games (Philosophical Investigations) . This reveals the existence of a conceptual continuity between Wittgenstein’s “early” and “later” philosophy that can be applied to the analysis of the iterability of representation in computer-generated images. Methodologically, this paper clarifies to at least some degree, the nature, progress and promise of an approach to doing philosophy and semiotics from a modally modest perspectiv e that sees in the intellectual products of humanities, and not in unreflective empiricism, the future of scientific development. This hybrid, non-reductionist approach shows, among other things, that semiotic processes are encoded by specific types of complexes in computer-generated images that display iterability in time and space.

August 11, 2021

The distribution of handshapes in the established lexicon of Israeli Sign Language (ISL)

Orit Fuks

Page range: 101-122

Abstract

Our study focuses on the perception of the iconicity of handshapes – one of the formational parameters of the sign in signed language. Seventy Hebrew speakers were asked to match handshapes to Hebrew translations of 45 signs (that varied in degree of iconicity), which are specified for one of the handshapes in Israeli Sign Language (ISL). The results show that participants reliably match handshapes to corresponding sign translations for highly iconic signs, but are less accurate for less iconic signs. This demonstrates that there is a notable degree of iconicity in the lexicon of ISL, which is recognizable even to non-signers. The ability of non-signers to detect handshape to form is explained by the fact that word meanings are understood by both deaf and hearing peoples via the mental elaboration of simple iconic sources in which handshape meanings are grounded. The results suggest that while language external iconic mapping could ease the learning of direct iconic forms, it has a more limited capacity to help hearing non-signers learn indirect and opaque forms. The full semiotic distribution of handshapes in the lexicon and their use in language remain difficult for hearing non-signers to understand and depends on more specific language and cultural knowledge.

August 16, 2021

On the blankness of blank-signs

Jun Wang

Page range: 123-139

Abstract

As one indispensable part of signs, blank-sign, also called zero sign or the void of sign, has not been given enough or due attention in semiotics. What is worse is that researchers have not reached agreement on some basic issues in blank-signs, such as the nature of the absence of the signifier, the criteria for identifying blank-signs, the scope of the blank-sign research, etc. These questions are of vital importance for more comprehensive exploration of the blank-sign issue. After analyzing three types of blank-signs, the paper concludes that: (1) In blank-signs, both signifier and signified must be present. The so-called “absent signifier” actually means the absence of the representation of the signifier, and the “absent signified” suggests some unspecified meanings; (2) Being a blank-sign is a matter of degree, with the typical blank-signs having a closed borderline, and the atypical ones a partial borderline; (3) Neighboring substantial context and general context (intentions of the sign-maker) are crucial for determining the status of a blank-sign.

August 13, 2021

Systematizing evil in literature: twelve models for the analysis of narrative fiction

Daniel Candel

Page range: 141-168

Abstract

While there are interesting connections between literature and evil, there is as of yet no systematic collection of models of evil to study literature. This is problematic, since literature is among other things an evaluative discourse and the most basic evaluative category is the polarity of good versus evil. In addition, evil shows important affinities with basic narratological principles. To initiate a discussion of models of evil for the analysis of literature, this article organizes a dozen models of evil into four groups. The first consists of a core model which coincides with basic narratological elements in character analysis and narrative tension. The second group contains two pre-modern models of evil, defilement and moral-natural evil. The third group takes its cue from personality theory and proposes the five-factor model of personality and an enriched “dark triad,” and, to balance description against narration, a model which categorizes kinds of murder. The last group organizes six models around the thematic opposition between nature and society, an opposition which forms the backbone of Western philosophy and narrative. To test their validity, the models are applied to a series of literary examples/characters, above all Grendel (Beowulf), Browning’s “My Last Duchess,” and Carol Oates’ short story “Heat.”

August 13, 2021

The use of semiotic resources in traffic policing: an exploration of genre structure and exchanges in traffic accident handling in China

Qijing Wu, Zhenhua Wang

Page range: 169-202

Abstract

In China, the increasing traffic pressure has created traffic policing problems such as the heavy workloads of traffic police, as well as more conflicts between traffic police and road users. The treatment of traffic policing as a semiotic practice provides both a new perspective in and a helpful approach to dealing with these problems, yet few studies have investigated how semiotic resources are used in traffic policing interactions. This article examines the supportive role of semiotic resources in traffic policing, and draws upon genre and exchanges involved as an illustration. The data include three audio recordings of traffic accident handling cases in Shanghai, China. Through qualitative analysis of the data from the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistics, this article identifies the genre stages (both obligatory and optional stages) in traffic accident handling and their logico-semantic relations, and situates the typical exchanges and moves used by traffic police in different stages. It also discusses the usefulness of semiotic resources for traffic policing and the implications of these resources in tackling the existing problems of traffic policing in China.

August 9, 2021

Practical Esotericism and Tikkun Olam: two modern renditions of a medieval mystical idea

Joel West

Page range: 203-227

Abstract

In this paper I look at a specific Hebrew religious term, Tikkun Olam, to examine the manner in which it signifies differently in two specific cases. While we understand that meaning is carried in both denotation and connotation, and while a genealogy of meaning is often useful to understand the manner in which meaning has changed across time, this paper recounts the manner in which a single word may signify differently synchronically, at a single point in history.

August 6, 2021

Bühler’s organon model of communication: a semiotic analysis of advertising slogans

Sarvenaz Safavi

Page range: 229-239

Abstract

This article investigates the member units of sign systems used in contemporary Iranian advertising slogans according to the Organon Model introduced by Karl Bühler. In dealing with this subject, the writer introduces Bühler’s Organon Model and provides a short definition of the term advertising slogan . The next part of this article shows the three types of conative functions with regard to such slogans. The corpus of this study is the slogan of a hundred contemporary Iranian advertising messages used in Iranian markets which have not been studied from a semiotic perspective. The result of this research shows the tendencies of Iranian advertising messages to lean towards the descriptive type of conative function.

Book Reviews

August 9, 2021

Semiotics in visual communication: review of Doing Visual Analysis

Yueyue Liu, Le Cheng

Page range: 241-247

August 9, 2021

Review of A (bio)semiotic theory of translation: the emergence of social-cultural reality

Page range: 249-254

Ahead of Print / Just Accepted

Ahead of Print / Just Accepted

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Volume 124 (1999)

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Volume 1 (1969)

5-year Impact Factor	0.340
Cite Score	0.5
European Reference Index for the Humanities
Impact Factor	0.392
Journal Citation Indicator	0.82
SCImago Journal Rank	0.230
Source Normalized Impact per Paper	0.538

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Submission
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Your benefits of publishing with us

Rapid online publication ahead-of-print with short turnaround times
Annual prize, the Mouton d'Or, to the author of the best article each year
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Submission process

Submissions should be formatted according to the De Gruyter Mouton journal style sheet, especially regarding the proper format for citations and reference entries
Submission of your paper via our submission management tool
Peer review process (you will be guided through every step)
The editorial office will forward your manuscript for double-blind peer-review. This takes on average 3-4 months
If accepted: you have the option to publish your article open access

Additional information for manuscript formatting

Manuscripts should be no longer than 30–35 pages.
Review articles should be headed 'Review article' and given an appropriate title that is different from the title of the work(s) under review. The title should be followed by an asterisked footnote, placed at the bottom of the first page of text, containing the bibliographical details of the work(s) under review: *Ray Jackendoff, Languages of the mind: Essays on mental representation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992.
References to the work under review should be cited by page number alone (e.g., 'p. 16'). Otherwise, the references should conform to the style for articles.
Corrections. Authors are asked to check their manuscripts very carefully before submitting them in order to prevent delays at the proof stage. Especially check in-text citations against listings in the References section, to be sure dates and spelling match, and that all works cited are listed.
Proofs. Authors will receive PDF page proofs for correction which must be returned by dates determined by the publication schedule.
Author copy. Upon publication, authors will receive electronic access to their contribution. Guest editors of special issues will receive complimentary print copies of the issue.

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Editorial

Editors-in-Chief
Stéphanie Walsh Matthews
Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada

Massimo Leone
University of Turin, Turin, Italy

Jamin Pelkey
Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada

e-mail: semioticaeds@degruyter.com

Managing Editor
Paolo Ammirante
e-mail:semiotica@ryerson.ca

Editorial Committee
Myrdene Anderson
Prisca Augustyn
Paolo Balboni
Marcello Barbieri
Arthur Asa Berger
Mohamed Bernoussi
Per Aage Brandt
Thomas Broden
Patrizia Calefato
Le Cheng
Paul Cobley
Robbie B. H. Goh
Louis Hébert
André Helbo
Kalevi Kull
Dragana Martinovic
Frank Nuessel
Susan Petrilli
Roland Posner †
Eddo Rigotti
Shi-xu
Eero Tarasti
Bill Thompson
Didier Tsala Effa
Massimo Vedovelli
Hongbing Yu
Giovanna Zaganelli
Yiheng Zhao

(Deutsch)

Online ISSN: 1613-3692
Print ISSN: 0037-1998
Type: Journal
Languages: English, French
Publisher: De Gruyter Mouton
First published: January 1, 1969
Publication Frequency: 6 Issues per Year
Audience: Researchers in the field of semiotics