Showing papers on "Sign (semiotics) published in 1983"
TL;DR: In this paper, Nichols draws from a variety of approaches, including Marxism, psycholanalysis, communication theory, semiotics, structuralism, and psychology of perception, and shows how and why we make emotional investments in sign sytsems with an ideological context.
Abstract: To what degree, Nichols asks, does ideology inform images in films, advertising, and other media? Does the cinema or any other sign system liberate or manipulate us? How can we as spectators know when the media are subtly perpetuating a specific set of values? To address these issues, the author draws from a variety of approaches Marxism, psycholanalysis, communication theory, semiotics, structuralism, the psychology of perception. Working with two interrelated theories ideology and image-systems, and ideology and principles of textual criticism Nichols shows how and why we make emotional investments in sign sytsems with an ideological context."
152 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1983
TL;DR: In this paper, a comparison and homologation of these two orientations is carried out from the angle of the impact of pragmaticism on both semiotic orientations, and intentionality, action, conventionality, interlocution are integrated in both orientations.
Abstract: Looking at the ‘semiotic landscape’ – the panorama of constituted semiotics – two traditions seem to have developed separately and without interpenetration. Anglo-Saxon semioticians consider the Peircean framework to provide the adequate conceptual apparatus, whereas so-called ‘Continental’ semioticians refer to the sign theory in Saussure and in its interpretation by Hjelmslev (for instance, the Ecole semiotique de Paris ). Evaluating each other’s projects, methods, and results could lead to a balanced view. The purpose of this monograph is to get the best out of the adequate insights from both sides, and to make suggestions how the semioticians from the Peircean or Saussuro-Hjelmslevian school can be removed from their isolationist positions. A comparison and homologation of these two orientations will be carried out from the angle of the impact of pragmaticism on both semiotic orientations. How intentionality, action, conventionality, interlocution are integrated in both orientations will be given particular emphasis.
35 citations
Book•
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01 Jan 1983
TL;DR: Significance is always manifold, and intensifies its sense as well as its meaning, by expressing its importance, its appeal to us, its moment for us, emotional force, its ideal value, its moral aspect, its universal or at least social range as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: In "What is Meaning" (1903) the author elaborates on the fundamental tenets of her theory of sign, to which she gave the overall term ‘significs’. One of the main obstacles to an adequate theory of meaning, in Lady Welby’s opinion, is the unfounded assumption of fixed sign meaning. "There is, strictly speaking, no such thing as the Sense of a word, but only the sense in which it is used – the circumstances, state of mind, reference, ‘universe of discourse’ belonging to it. The Meaning of a word is the intent which it is desired to convey – the intention of the user. The Significance is always manifold, and intensifies its sense as well as its meaning, by expressing its importance, its appeal to us, its moment for us, its emotional force, its ideal value, its moral aspect, its universal or at least social range." This facsimile of the 1903 edition of "What is Meaning" is accompanied by an essay on "Significs as a Fundamental Science" by Achim Eschbach, and "A Concise History of Significs" by G. Mannoury.
34 citations
TL;DR: This article examined whether deaf students' written English reflects their teachers' use of English sign markers in simultaneous communication and found that deaf students did not recognize the signed-and-spoken communication as English and learn to speak, sign, and write English.
Abstract: Recent researchers have investigated the nature of the simultaneous communication used by teachers of the deaf and by deaf children. One assumption behind the use of signed codes for English (i.e. Manual English) is that deaf students will recognize the signed-and-spoken communication as English and learn to speak, sign, and write English. This paper examines whether deaf students’ written English reflects their teachers’ use of English sign markers in simultaneous communication. The study required seven high school deaf students to write stories that had been presented to them in simultaneous communication. The students’ output and the teachers’ input were not identical but differed in ways consistent with principles familiar from studies of imitation in children and from semantic memory research.
20 citations
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TL;DR: The authors argue that Kripke misuses the translation principle to leave us uncertain whether a native French speaker believes that London is pretty or not, and give a rational answer to the question, "What does Pierre believe?"
Abstract: Kripke derives his puzzle from these principles. Applied in a story about a native French speaker, Pierre, who learns English by the direct method, the principles leave us uncertain whether Pierre believes that London is pretty or that London is not pretty. Kripke concludes that belief contexts seem to be paradoxical and consequently that at the present time there is little justification '. . . for the use of alleged failure of substitutivity in belief contexts to draw any significant conclusion about proper names.' (p. 270). In this paper I argue that Kripke misuses the translation principle. But let us first review quickly how Kripke's puzzle arises. As a result of what he has heard in French, Pierre is inclined to assert, 'Londres est jolie'. But after learning English in a shabby part of London, and failing to realize that 'Londres' and 'London' refer to the same place, Pierre asserts, 'London is not pretty'. By the disquotation and translation principles applied to French, Pierre should have inconsistent beliefs. Yet Kripke holds that we cannot accept this conclusion, nor give a rational answer to the question, 'What does Pierre believe?' Suppose now that Pierre takes a break from his study of English and spends a short time in Paris. He decides to return to London on a train via the new channel tunnel, which has only just been completed, and which he has never used before. He boards the train in Paris, and in a remarkably short time he is travelling through the English countryside. The sophisticated train (very fast) soon stops at a station where Pierre sees a sign with the label 'Londres', put there for the benefit of the French visitors. Pierre says,
14 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors define a complex text consisting of various linguistic and non-linguistic signs, and apply the same paradigms and criteria of analysis to all manifestations of a culture, regardless of their constitutional (medial) differences.
Abstract: _C ULTURAL SYSTEMS are manifested in specific forms of expression, such as literature, for example, painting, dress, architecture, music, eating habits, and so on. The totality of such expressions is, by our definition, a complex text consisting of various linguistic and nonlinguistic signs.' This definition makes it possible to apply the same paradigms and criteria of analysis to all manifestations of a culture, regardless of their constitutional (medial) differences. That is to say, it creates the preconditions for taking a look at culture as a total phenomenon. For according to the constitution of the signs, there exist cultural subtexts that diverge from one another. Such subtexts can be made up of a single sign type or of several of them. An example of the former is the portrait, and of the latter, say, a theatrical production. Cultural subtexts thus possess a differing complexity. They are subject, moreover, to the normative pressure of certain fundamental principles, which every cultural system formulates differently for itself. Certain social instances are entrusted with the upholding of these principles. For this purpose they appeal to a politico-cultural center (such as monarchy, or a democratic constitution) which is normally not further inquired into but presupposed as self-evident. All of the products of a cultural system ultimately proceed from such a center and, from the standpoint of the interpreter, must also be referred to it.
13 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1983
TL;DR: A collection of more than a hundred book reviews written by Flannery O'Connor for two Catholic diocesan newspapers in Georgia has been published in this article, with the same personality so vividly apparent in her fiction and her lectures.
Abstract: During the 1950s and early 1960s Flannery O'Connor wrote more than a hundred book reviews for two Catholic diocesan newspapers in Georgia. This full collection of these reviews nearly doubles the number that have appeared in print elsewhere and represents a significant body of primary materials from the O'Connor canon. We find in the reviews the same personality so vividly apparent in her fiction and her lectures the unique voice of the artist that is one clear sign of genius. Her spare precision, her humor, her extraordinary ability to permit readers to see deeply into complex and obscure truths-all are present in these reviews and letters.
8 citations
TL;DR: In Goethe's Faust, the protagonist appears as a quest hero in search of a revelatory sign, whether verbal or pictorial, that will release him from the world of mediating representations as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Recent studies in the early history of semiotics allow us to trace an open concern with the problem of language in Goethe's Faust. The protagonist appears as a quest hero in search of a revelatory sign, whether verbal or pictorial, that will release him from the world of mediating representations. The folly of the quest is consistently satirized from the viewpoint of Romantic aesthetics and its theory of the symbol. For the Romantics, the aesthetic symbol is a sign that paradoxically effects a revelation by affirming its own semiotic nature. But in elevating semiotic phenomena to the status of epiphanies, Goethean symbolism in Faust confronts the same impasses that beset the hero as he seeks to escape the rule of signs. The recurring quandaries arise when the Romantic text responds to the initial challenge of semiotics by attempting to reconcile semiotics and theology.
8 citations
4 citations
TL;DR: Among the several semiotics and semiologies existing nowdays, there are two that must be distinguished: that of saussurean origin and that of peircean origin this article.
Abstract: Among the several semiotics and semiologies existing nowdays, there are two that must be distinguished: that of saussurean origin and that of peircean origin. The first finds its mode of proceeding and the general features of sign in the science of linguistics. The other belongs to the critical philosophic tradition. For the intelligence that can learn with the experience, the temporal and historic dimension is essential.The peircean sign supposes the relations of an irreversible time. To the present production of sign should be related the poetic function, which is essential to life of all intelligence. The scientific hypothesis, the social revolutions in their originary moment and the artistic production make new signs, draw new objects and open sets of possibilities for the conduct in the future.
4 citations
TL;DR: Theatre places us right at the heart of what is religious-political, in negativity, in nihilisme as Nietzsche would say, therefore in the question of power.
Abstract: Theatre places us right at the heart of what is religious-political: in the heart of absence, in negativity, in nihilisme as Nietzsche would say, therefore in the question of power. A theory of theatrical signs, a practice of theatrical signs (dramatic text, mise en scene, interpretation, architecture) are based on accepting the nihilisme inherent in a re-presentation. Not only accepting it: reinforcing it. For the sign, Peirce used to say, is something which stands to somebody for something. To Hide, to Show: that is theatricality. But the modernity of our fin-de-siecle is due to this: there is nothing to be replaced, no lieutenancy is legitimate, or else all are; the replacing therefore the meaning is itself only a substitute for displacement. . . . Is theatricality thus condemned? Jean-Francois Lyotard, "The Tooth, The Palm"
TL;DR: In this sense cultural performances, myths, rituals, gestures, and all culturally coded and organized behavior may become, at some level, stories about the individual self or about the group self and provide, in addition to referential and other kinds of information, also self-commentary or metainformation as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Much has been written, in a broad philosophical, psychological, and cultural sense, about the reflexivity or self-referential quality of signs whereby the self is distinguished from the other, since the individual sees himself as both self and other. Indeed such insights are embedded in Greek philosophy as well as in myths. Such an inherent dualism, which, according to Peirce, is engendered by the human penchant to observe paradox, surprise, and contradiction, leads to the view of the self as a semiotic, sociocultural construct that gives meaning to experience, making communication possible. If we understand the self in this cultural and semiotic way, then self-identity and group or cultural identity are isomorphic constructs. Each construct assumes self-awareness because of differences based on oppositions between self/other and my group/other group. In this sense cultural performances, myths, rituals, gestures, or, in a broad sense, all culturally coded and organized behavior may become, at some level, stories about the individual self or about the group self and provide, in addition to referential and other kinds of information, also self-commentary or metainformation. By commenting on the self, such culturally coded activities or texts (cf. pp. 269-270 below) implicitly alter the individual's and the group's self-awareness, providing individual and cultural self-identity and self-evaluation. It is my position that culture texts are frequently highly polysemic. Thus we are not limited to a Durkheimian position that sociocultural ritualized actions are important primarily for their illumination of forces of society. Rather, such texts provide other kinds of fundamental information, including comments on the sign nature of the self and the group.
TL;DR: This present essay would like to offer another case study in which the problem of the reception of an idea, here Nietzsche as pathogen, functions not merely in the world of books, but in the total reality of a period of history.
Abstract: This confusion embodies much of the early reception of Nietzsche as the quintessential outsider, the madman whose insanity is infectious. This moment in the history of Nietzsche's reputation is well documented, at least within the catalogue of Nietzsche's influence on the literary world.2 Seeing a reputation only within such limited focus removes the intricate web of implications summed up by the very concept of "reputation" from the totality of the process of history. It treats the interaction of books as if this were a possibility without the instrument of man functioning in the historical process. Recently, social historians such as Eugen Weber have asked questions of texts which smack of heresy, such as, Does the structural alteration of concepts have any relationship to social and political realities?3 Or, can any text (and in this context a reputation is indeed a text) be understood as an abstraction if it is not rooted in some sense in a specific perception of the world?4 In another context, I have attempted to explode the view that any discussion of an idea can be undertaken without specific reference to the world in which it is embedded, and that structural shifts in complexes of ideas may have their roots in basic alterations (or continuities) of our perception of the world, as articulated in the sign systems' in which the idea is clothed.5 In this present essay, I would like to offer another case study in which the problem of the reception of an idea, here Nietzsche as pathogen, functions not merely in the world of books, but in the total reality of a period of history. Indeed, the very existence of such an idea in the world of daily life does more to focus the implications of
01 Jan 1983
TL;DR: Although language continues to exercise a dominant role in sociocultural processes, a variety of other sign systems (such as those of art, of social and political forms of ceremonial, of new rites imposed by the media of communication or the artificial media connected to computer technology) tends to occupy a role comparable to that of the language called natural as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Several peculiarities of a semiotic nature add themselves to the numerous contradictory characteristics of our epoch. Although language continues to exercise a dominant role in sociocultural processes, a variety of other sign systems (such as those of art, of social and political forms of ceremonial, of new rites imposed by the media of communication or the artificial media connected to computer technology) tends to occupy a role comparable to that of the language called natural. These other sign systems even limit language’s sphere of action. The credibility crisis language is going through and the imposition of these new sign systems (some strictly normative) in sociocultural practice are two phenomena which are evidently connected. The resurrection of interest in semiotics is in turn explainable in this context. Although belief in language as a means of communication has declined, the objective process of social development is characterized by an accentuated semiotization. The relationship of the human subject, as an individual and as a social being, to the object in its varied forms of existence (including the subject as object) is more and more mediated through signs. Instead of direct action on the labor object (raw material, processed material, nature), mediated action is imposed, at the beginning through tools and machines and at present through action algorithms. Education, culture, and political practice are coming through less directly; mediation takes place through signs, and practice becomes a matter of interpretation. The consequences of this process of semiotization—as a form of (wo)man’s alienation corresponding to a new stage of his/her evolution—are difficult to anticipate.
TL;DR: The growing concern with meaning within linguistics, sociology and psychology may be interpreted as a sign of emancipation from a rather puritan and poorly understood social scientific variant of "positivistic" philosophy as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The growing concern with meaning within linguistics, sociology and psychology may be interpreted as a sign of emancipation from a rather puritan and poorly understood social scientific variant of "positivistic" philosophy. Recent reentries of the term meaning on scenes of scientific and philosophical discourse, however, tend to be accompanied by explicitly held and/or tacitly endorsed monistic assumptions about our language and the world (Rommetveit 1974). Such assumptions, I have argued, are revealed in Searle's (1969) recourse to unequivocal "literal" meanings of verbal expressions in his theory of speech acts, as well as in Smedslund's (1969) redefinition of the data of scientific psychology as the "public" meanings of a person's acts. Implications of a pluralistic outlook, on the other hand, are explored in philosophical analysis of ambiguity, social-psychological studies of social representations, and interactionist personality psychology. Thus, Wright (1978) considers ambiguity the rule rather than an exception in human communication, and to agree in order to achieve intersubjectivity is hence in part to neglect differences. A central thesis in current French psychology of social representations, moreover, is that, "la realite dans laquelle nous vivons [...] peut avoir des significations multiples, existant c6te a c6St" (Moscovici 1979). ("the reality in which we live [...] can have multiple significations which exist side by side.") And meanings of situations are according to modern interactionism necessarily to some extent ideographic and engendered by persons interacting in those situations (Endler and Magnusson 1976). Human discourse takes place in and deals with a multifaceted, only fragmentarily known and only partially shared social world.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider action of parole as creative one and generalize it into social and cultural action, and the context into the social context, ideologie, social value, social norm.
Abstract: The meaning is originally cut out of the nature by action relating to the nature. But, discourse as productive action has only proved into the unit in the necessary course of human culture, in the course of translation of codes. If we consider action of parole as creative one, it must be after the accumulated strata of codes, social and cultural context, and the reificated meaning-productive mechanism are made objective. Saussure's Semiology that has been said to be defective in semantics will take a important part in analyzing the reificated meaning-productive mechanism, if we only reinquire into Saussure's epistemologic premise and by means of generalizing action of parole into social and cultural action, and the context into the social context, ideologie, social value, social norm.
01 Jan 1983
TL;DR: The signs which man uses, the using of which implies intention, for the purpose of conveying ideas or notions to his fellow-creatures, are very various, for instance, gestures, signals, telegraphs, monuments, sculpture of all kinds, pictorial and hieroglyphic signs, the stamp on coins, seals, beacons, buoys, insignia, ejaculations, articulate sounds, or their representations, that is, phonetic characters on stones, wood, leaves, paper, etc., entire periods, or single words, such as names in a particular
Abstract: “The signs which man uses, the using of which implies intention, for the purpose of conveying ideas or notions to his fellow-creatures, are very various, for instance, gestures, signals, telegraphs, monuments, sculpture of all kinds, pictorial and hieroglyphic signs, the stamp on coins, seals, beacons, buoys, insignia, ejaculations, articulate sounds, or their representations, that is, phonetic characters on stones, wood, leaves, paper, etc., entire periods, or single words, such as names in a particular place, and whatever other signs, even the flowers in the flower language of the East, might be enumerated…These signs then are used to convey certain ideas, and interpretation, in its widest meaning, is the discovery and representation of the true meaning of any sign used to convey ideas” (Legal and Political Hermeneutics…1839: 17, 18).
01 Jan 1983
TL;DR: In this article, the authors compare various visual and textual semiotic aspects of some of the various branches of fortune-telling (card, coffee and palm reading) from the specific point of view of the ceremony, sign systems and plot building involved in the fortune-teller--client dyadic encounter.
Abstract: This paper represents part of an ongoing synchronic study of the unique function language, sign systems and ceremony play in the dyadic encounter between a fortuneteller and his client.1 We have found that fortune-telling can best be described as an interface of selected elements of persuasive and dyadic communication within the framework of visual, discourse and social semiotic systems. In this particular paper we will compare various visual and textual semiotic aspects of some of the various branches of fortune- telling (card, coffee and palm reading) from the specific point of view of the ceremony, sign systems and plot building involved in the fortune-teller--client dyadic encounter.
01 Jan 1983
TL;DR: For instance, the authors argues that a thorough understanding of any aspect of Peirce's tightly integrated thought can be attained only through an appreciation of the structure of the underlying mathematical framework on which that thought is built.
Abstract: I continue to live with the nagging conviction that a thorough understanding of any aspect of Peirce’s tightly integrated thought can be attained only through an appreciation of the structure of the underlying mathematical framework on which that thought is built. Mathematics is a subject in closest alliance with semiotics, and Peirce has been a celebrated figure in this recently emerging academic discipline. It is natural, then, to examine the mathematical character of his thought in general and its effect on the nature of his semiotical procedure in particular.