Skip to content
Licensed Unlicensed Requires Authentication Published by De Gruyter Mouton January 6, 2017

Semiotics of ideocriticism: Four strategies of modeling

  • Ibrahim Taha EMAIL logo
From the journal Semiotica

Abstract

The primary aim of the present paper is to examine the interrelations between definite ideologies and literature, more precisely the ways established ideologies are modeled in literature. The article therefore tries to examine two interwoven systems of signs: ideology as a semiotic system per se and the ideology within the literature; each has its own logical semiotics. For instance, on one side the ideology of feminism, or ecology, has two strategies of modeling: destructive (the actual) and constructive (the idealized), and like every ideology it has to map the independent borders of each strategy. On the other hand literature makes every effort to blur the bold distinctive borders of these strategies by means of artistic tools. That is, literature remodels the model of ideology. One mission of the reader is to try to reconstruct each model and see the interaction between them. Without doubt, the two models affect each other in a way that influences the final representation. Semiotics has not concerned itself with feminist values per se, but with the way they act semiotically.

References

Andrews, Edna. 2003. Conversations with Lotman: Cultural semiotics in language, literature, and cognition. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.10.3138/9781442673458Search in Google Scholar

Booth, Wayne C. 1989. A narrative choices subject to ethical criticism? In James Phelan (ed.), Reading narrative: Form, ethics, ideology, 57–78. Columbus: Ohio State University.Search in Google Scholar

Browning, Larry & G. H. Morris. 2012. Stories of life in the workplace: An open architecture for organizational narratology. New York & London: Routledge.10.4324/9780203147634Search in Google Scholar

Buell, Lawrence. 1995. The environmental imagination: Thoreau, nature writing, and the formation of American culture. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.10.4159/9780674262423Search in Google Scholar

Danesi, Marcel. 1993. Vico, metaphor, and the origin of language. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Danesi, Marcel & Paul Perron. 1999. Analyzing cultures: An introduction and handbook. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Deely, John. 1994. The human use of signs, or: Elements of anthroposemiotics. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Search in Google Scholar

Eagleton, Terry. 1976. Criticism and ideology: A study in Marxist literary theory. London: NLB.Search in Google Scholar

Ferns, Chris. 1999. Narrating utopia. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.10.5949/liverpool/9780853235941.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Hillis Miller, J. 1989. Is there an ethics of reading? In James Phelan (ed.), Reading narrative: Form, ethics, ideology, 79–101. Columbus: Ohio State University.Search in Google Scholar

Iser, Wolfgang. 1978. The act of reading: A theory of aesthetic responses. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.10.56021/9780801821011Search in Google Scholar

Iser, Wolfgang. 1989. Prospecting: From reader response to literary anthropology. Baltimore & London: Johns Hopkins University Press.10.56021/9780801837920Search in Google Scholar

Kavanagh, James. 1995. Ideology. In Frank Lentricchia & Thomas McLaughlin (eds.), Critical terms for literary study, 2nd edn., 306–320. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press.Search in Google Scholar

Keen, Suzanne. 2007. Empathy and the novel. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195175769.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Kirshner, David & James Whitson. 1997. Editors’ introduction. In David Kirshner & James Whitson (eds.), Situated cognition: Social, semiotic, and psychological perspectives, 1–16. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.10.4324/9781003064121-1Search in Google Scholar

Kress, Gunther. 1985. Ideological structures in discourse. In Teun A. van Dijk (ed.), Handbook of discourse analysis, 27–42. London: Academic Press.Search in Google Scholar

Kristeva, Julia. 1980. Desire in language: A semiotic approach to literature and art. New York: Columbia University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Kull, Kalevi. 2014. Zoosemiotics is the study of animal forms of knowing. Semiotica 198(1/4). 47–60.10.1515/sem-2013-0101Search in Google Scholar

Lamarque, Peter. 2009. The philosophy of literature. Oxford: Blackwell.Search in Google Scholar

Leys, Ruth. 2011. The turn to affect: A critique. Critical Inquiry 37(3). 434–472.10.1086/659353Search in Google Scholar

Lotman, Juri. 1977a. Problems in the typology of texts. In Daniel P. Lucid (ed.), Soviet semiotics, 119–124. Baltimore & London: Johns Hopkins University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Lotman, Juri. 1977b. The structure of narrative text. In Daniel P. Lucid (ed.), Soviet semiotics, 193–197. Baltimore & London: Johns Hopkins University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Love, Harold. 2002. Attributing authorship: An introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511483165Search in Google Scholar

Malrieu, Jean Pierre. 1999. Evaluative semantics: Cognition, language, and ideology. London: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar

Maran, Timo. 2014a. Biosemiotic criticism. In G. Garrard (ed.), Oxford handbook of ecocriticism, 260–275. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199742929.013.008Search in Google Scholar

Maran, Timo. 2014b. Biosemiotic criticism: Modelling the environment in literature. Green Letters 18(3). 297–311.10.1080/14688417.2014.901898Search in Google Scholar

Merrell, Floyd. 2004. Abduction is never alone. Semiotica 138(1/4). 245–275.10.1515/semi.2004.010Search in Google Scholar

Mitchell, W. J. T. 1995. Representation. In Frank Lentricchia & Thomas McLaughlin (eds.), Critical terms for literary study, 2nd edn., 11–22. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Search in Google Scholar

Nöth, Winfried. 2004. Semiotics of ideology. Semiotica 148(1/4). 11–21.10.1515/semi.2004.002Search in Google Scholar

Petrilli, Susan. 2003. Semioethics, subjectivity, and communication: For the humanism of otherness. Semiotica 148(1/4). 69–91.10.1515/semi.2004.020Search in Google Scholar

Petrilli, Susan & Augusto Ponzio. 2005. Semiotics unbounded: Interpretive routes through the open network of signs. Toronto: Toronto University Press.10.3138/9781442657113Search in Google Scholar

Petrilli, Susan & Augusto Ponzio. 2007. Semiotics today: From global semiotics to semioethics, a dialogic response. Signs 1. 29–127.Search in Google Scholar

Phelan, James. 1989. Reading narrative: Form, ethics, ideology. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Ponzio, Augusto. 1990. Man as a sign: Essays on the philosophy of language, S. Petrilli (trans. & ed.). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110874426Search in Google Scholar

Ponzio, Augusto. 1993. Signs, dialogue, and ideology, Susan Petrilli (trans. & ed.). Amsterdam: Benjamins.10.1075/ct.11Search in Google Scholar

Ponzio, Augusto. 2004. Modeling, communication, and dialogism. American Journal of Semiotics 20(1–4). 157–178.10.5840/ajs2004201/42Search in Google Scholar

Posner, Roland. 1987. Charles Morris and the behavioral foundations of semiotics. In M. Krampen, K. Oehler, R. Posner, T. A. Sebeok & T. von Uexküll (eds.), Classics of semiotics, 23–58. New York: Plenum Press.10.1007/978-1-4757-9700-8_2Search in Google Scholar

Rose, Mark. 1993. Authors and owners: The invention of copyright. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Said, Edward. 1989. Representing the colonized: Anthropology’s interlocutors. Critical Inquiry 15. 205–225.10.1086/448481Search in Google Scholar

Said, Edward. 1991. The world, the text, and the critic. New York: Vintage.Search in Google Scholar

Searle, John. 2004. Mind: A brief introduction. New York: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Sebeok, Thomas. 1986. I think I am a verb: More contributions to the doctrine of signs. New York: Plenum Press.10.1007/978-1-4899-3490-1Search in Google Scholar

Sebeok, Thomas. 1991. A sign is just a sign. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Sebeok, Thomas & Marcel Danesi. 2000. The forms of meaning: Modelling systems theory and semiotic analysis. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110816143Search in Google Scholar

Snyder, C. R., Shane Lopez & Jennifer Teramoto Pedrotti. 2011. Positive psychology: The scientific and practical explorations of human strengths. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Search in Google Scholar

Stern, J. P. 1992. The heart of Europe: Essays on literature and ideology. Oxford: Blackwell.Search in Google Scholar

Taha, Ibrahim. 2015. Heroizability: An anthroposemiotic theory of literary characters. Berlin: De Gruyter.10.1515/9781501502651Search in Google Scholar

Tarasti, Eero. 2004. Ideologies manifesting axiologies. Semiotica 148(1/4). 23–46.10.1515/semi.2004.009Search in Google Scholar

Vehkavaara, Tommi. 2007. From the logic of science to the logic of the living: The relevance of Charles Peirce to biosemiotics. In Marcello Barbieri (ed.), Introduction to biosemiotics: The new biological synthesis, 257–282. Dortrecht: Springer.10.1007/1-4020-4814-9_11Search in Google Scholar

Vermeule, Blakey. 2010. Why do we care about literary characters? Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.10.1353/book.3505Search in Google Scholar

Violi, Patrizia. 2003. Embodiment at the crossroads between cognition and semiosis. Recherches en Communication 19. 199–217.10.14428/rec.v19i19.48493Search in Google Scholar

Zunshine, Lisa. 2006. Why we read fiction: Theory of mind and the novel. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2017-1-6
Published in Print: 2017-3-1

©2017 by De Gruyter Mouton

Downloaded on 19.3.2024 from https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/sem-2015-0105/html
Scroll to top button