Journal ArticleDOI
Sign, symbol, and metalanguage: against the integration of semiotics and symbolic interactionism
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TLDR
The distinction between natural and arbitrary representation in Peirce's semiosis that is the most fruitful link with Mead's symbolic interactionism is not adequately reflected by MacCannell's argument at the level of terminology as discussed by the authors.Abstract:
Dean MacCannell's proposal for a “rapprochement” between symbolic interaction-ism and semiotics, in which the “generality” of symbolic interactionism's conception the sign is “raised” to that of semiotics, is examined. By turning exclusively to Saussurian semiotics, MacCannell does not adequately reflect the distinction between “natural” and “arbitrary” representation in Peirce's semiosis that is the most fruitful link with Mead's symbolic interactionism. Consequently, MacCannell's argument at the level of terminology is flawed. Rather than merging, the perspectives might benefit from a radical rethinking of representation. This would involve preserving the distinction between the “natural” and “arbitrary,” while at the same time recognizing that in mass society “arbitrary” representation has become a kind of “second-order” (Barthes) indexical metalanguage of membership within which symbolic interaction may occur. As Baudrillard claims, “commutation of signs” has replaced “interaction of symbols,” yet strains against an unfulfilled symbolic demand. Efforts should be directed at generating a theory of representation capable of addressing the tension that produces this symbolic demand.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Mechanisms and Meaning Structures
TL;DR: This paper propose a model of cultural mechanisms based on the premises of structuralist cultural sociology and symbolic interactionism, and illustrate and develop the model through an analysis of the Great Stink of London in 1858, a sewerage crisis that triggered significant institutional transformations.
Journal ArticleDOI
On semiotics and symbolic interactionism
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the political economy of the sign suggested by Baudrillard and Barthes and discussed the implications of this analysis for the symbolic interactionist theory of the object and language.
Journal ArticleDOI
Erving Goffman’s sociology as a semiotics of postmodern culture
TL;DR: In this paper, a semiotician's work is defined as "a new way of reading and writing semiotic texts that moves old words around in new ways so that the warrantability of his scientific program can be evident and justified to others".
Journal ArticleDOI
Cultural analysis through semiotics: Len Norris' cartoons on official bilingualism*
TL;DR: In this article, Greimas' and Angenot's semiotic approaches serve to elicit and situate Norris' elaborate model of language skills, and his message about the symbolic replacement of both French and English by federal bilingualese.
Book ChapterDOI
Kultur, Kommunikation und die Medien
TL;DR: Theorien rechtfertigen sich, insoweit sie sich uberhaupt um die Realitat kummern, durch die Anwendung spezifischer Methoden, mit deren Hilfe Wirklichkeit einerseits erhoben, andererseits gefiltert wird, auf die Ergebnisse dieses Prozesses bezieht sich dann die Theorie.
References
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Book
Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Hartshorne,Paul Weiss +1 more
TL;DR: The authors published an eight-volume collection of Peirce's writings on general philosophy, logic, pragmatism, metaphysics, experimental science, scientific method and philosophy of mind, as well as reviews and correspondence.
Book
Natural symbols; explorations in cosmology
TL;DR: Natural Symbols as mentioned in this paper examines the ways in which any one culture makes its selections from body symbolism and examines the varieties of ritual and symbolic expression and the patterns of social ritual in which they are embodied.