Showing papers on "Sign (semiotics) published in 1994"

Signs: An Introduction to Semiotics

Abstract: The interpretive science of semiotics offers powerful analytical tools for the application of many disciplines to the study of perception. Semiotics is the study of signs, and as such, is of relevance to a wide spectrum of scholars and professionals, including social scientists, psychologists, artists, graphic designers, and students of literature. Semiosis - the production and interpretation of linguistic and visual signs - is innate to human beings of all societies. From the simplest of hand gestures to the most complex diagrams and charts, the sign is key to the communication of ideas. Thomas A. Sebeok examines, in an engaging, readable style, how the sign mediates between bodily experience and abstract thought. This updated second edition of Signs combines some of Sebeok's most important essays with a new general introduction, introductory passages at the outset of each chapter, a glossary, and brief biographies of the major semioticians. From an overview of the discipline to a more detailed exploration of sign categories, the author powerfully demonstrates the co-dependency of verbal and non-verbal communication. Aimed primarily at undergraduate and graduate students, this engaging book also has plenty to offer any general reader who is interested in exploring and analyzing the complex sign systems we so often take for granted.

Signs in Society: Studies in Semiotic Anthropology

Abstract: Acknowledgments Introduction Part I Foundations of Peircean Semiotics 1 Peirce Divested for Nonintimates Sign, Object, and Interpretant Symbols and Legisigns Language and Logic The Trichotomies Scientific Knowledge and Cultural Belief 2 PeirceOs Concept of Semiotic Mediation The Fundamental Model of Semiotic Mediation Semiotic Mediation and the Correlates of the Sign Thirdness as Mediation Sign as Medium of Communication Part II Signs in Ethnographic Context 3 Transactional Symbolism in Belauan Mortuary Rites Responses to Death Initial Funeral Transactions Burial Practices Final Transactions Conclusion 4 The Political Function of Reported Speech Authoritative Speech Ethnographic Context NgiraklangOs Speech to the Council Metapragmatic Elements in the Speech Textual Pragmatics Part III Comparative Perspectives on Complex Semiotic Processes 5 Tropical Semiotics Levels of Semiosis Collectivizing and Differentiating Sybolization Convention and Innateness Obviational Exchange Tropes and Narrative Foi Cultural Semiotics 6 The Semiotic Regimentation of Social Life Social Action and Semiotic Text Content and Type in Ritual Performativity Institutional Regimentation of Touristic Experience Ideological Regimentation in Advertising Part IV Social Theory and Social Action 7 Comparison, Pragmatic, and Interpretation Models and Strategies of Comparison Comparative Philosophy of Religion as a Discipline Comparison and Interpretation as Practical Reason Directions for Future Research 8 Naturalization of Convention Arbitrariness and Motivation Naturalization in Social Theory Naturalization and Conventionalization in Social Reality Conclusion Notes References Index

Morphopragmatics: Diminutives and Intensifiers in Italian, German, and Other Languages

Abstract: The series publishes state-of-the-art work on core areas of linguistics across theoretical frameworks as well as studies that provide new insights by building bridges to neighbouring fields such as neuroscience and cognitive science. The series considers itself a forum for cutting-edge research based on solid empirical data on language in its various manifestations, including sign languages. It regards linguistic variation in its synchronic and diachronic dimensions as well as in its social contexts as important sources of insight for a better understanding of the design of linguistic systems and the ecology and evolution of language.

Cool: The Signs and Meanings of Adolescence

Abstract: The image of restless, apathetic, mopish, awkward teenagers who listen to loud, screeching music when they are not on the phone, and who insist on dressing, wearing their hair, and behaving exactly like the friends they cannot seem to live without, has become a fixture of the modern social landscape. The emergence of certain behaviours (facial expressions, linguistic styles, dress codes, musical preferences, etc.) on the developmental timetable of children is a sign that they have entered a transitional period. The dramatic changes in physical appearance that occur during adolescence, and the emotional changes that accompany them, are traumatic. Teenagers naturally become inordinately concerned about their appearance and behaviour, and they believe that everyone is constantly observing them. This is why they talk all the time about how others act, behave, and appear. Language, dress, musical tastes, and other symbolic systems become the concrete means for identifying with peers. Teenagerhood is a socially constructed time-frame that channels the physiological and emotional changes that occur at puberty into patterns of symbolic behavior. These patterns are then reinforced by the media. This book represents both a synthesis of Marcel Danesi's research on the semiotics of modern adolescence, and his own interpretation of the significance and implications of our teenage culture. It constitutes a semiotic portrait of the teenager and of the factors that have led to the construction of the teenage persona and culture. Danesi makes a distinction between adolescence as psychobiological period of human growth and development and teenagerhood as a socially induced mindset that accompanies it. He focuses on the central behavioral trait of teenagerhood -- coolness; he defines it and discusses its emergence at or around puberty, and draws up an 'anatomy' of the behaviors associated with it. He discusses the language of teenagers, which he calls 'pubilect,' and concludes with observations on the etiology, evolution, and future course of teenagerhood. Cool is intended not only for semioticians, as a documentation of a specific form of social semiosis, but also for parents and educators, and for teenagers themselves.

Language contact and change in the Austronesian world

Abstract: The series publishes state-of-the-art work on core areas of linguistics across theoretical frameworks as well as studies that provide new insights by building bridges to neighbouring fields such as neuroscience and cognitive science. The series considers itself a forum for cutting-edge research based on solid empirical data on language in its various manifestations, including sign languages. It regards linguistic variation in its synchronic and diachronic dimensions as well as in its social contexts as important sources of insight for a better understanding of the design of linguistic systems and the ecology and evolution of language.

The computer as medium

Abstract: Series foreword Preface Contributors Part I. Computer-Based Signs: Introduction Peter Bogh Andersen 1. A semiotic approach to programming Peter Bogh Andersen 2. Structuralism, computation and cognition: the contribution of glossematics David Piotrowski 3. The shortest way between two points is a good idea: signs, Peirce and theorematic machines Keld Gall Jorgensen 4. Logic grammar and the triadic sign relation Per Hasle 5. Meaning and the machine: toward a semiotics of interaction Per Aage Brandt Part II. The Rhetoric of Interactive Media: Introduction Berit Holmqvist 6. Narrative computer systems: the dialectics of emotion and formalism Berit Holmqvist and Peter Bogh Andersen 7. Interactive fiction: artificial intelligence as a mode of sign production Peter Bogh Andersen and Berit Holmqvist 8. Plays, theatres and the art of acting in the eighteenth century: a formal analysis Jens Hougaard 9. The meaning of plot and narrative Jorgen Bang 10. Face to interface Berit Holmqvist 11. Drawing and programming Bjorn Laursen and Peter Bogh Andersen 12. Hypermedia communication and academic discourse: some speculations on a future genre Gunnar Liestol Part III. Computers In Context: Introduction Jens F. Jensen 13. Computer culture: the meaning of technology and the technology of meaning Jens F. Jensen 14. One person, one computer: the social construction of the personal computer Klaus Bruhn Jensen 15. Hi-tech network organizations as self-referential systems Lars Qvortrup Comment: disturbing communication Peter Bogh Andersen 16. Dialogues in networks Elsebeth Korsgaard Sorensen 17. Historical trends in computer and information technology Jens Christensen Comment: the history of computer-based signs Peter Bogh Andersen 18. A historical perspective on work practices and technology Randi Markussen 19. Hypertext: from modern utopia to post-modern dystopia? Bjorn Sorenssen Index.

The Myth of Original Intentionality

Abstract: Publisher Summary According to Searle, the brains are capable of causing mental phenomena with intentional or semantic content. Sometimes Searle calls the effect wrought by these causal powers original intentionality and sometimes he calls it intrinsic intentionality. This chapter discusses how strange, how ultimately preposterous, Searle's imagined causal powers of the brain are, and it explores the myth of original intentionality. The chapter discusses the first task by presenting a comparison of Searle's claim about the causal powers of the brain and a similar and much more defensible claim. According to Searle, however, only the mental phenomena exhibit original intentionality. The intentionality of an encyclopedia or a road sign or a photograph of the Eiffel Tower is only derived or secondary intentionality. This is certainly an intuitive and appealing first move toward a general theory of intentionality. A sentence considered by itself as a string of ink marks or a sequence of acoustic vibrations has no intrinsic meaning or aboutness. It has a structure, or syntax, but in so far as it acquires meaning or semantics, this is an endowment from its users.

Dictionary of symbols

Abstract: From early cave drawings to modern corporate logos, graphic symbols have been used to convey meanings both tangible and abstract. In this unique dictionary, Carl G. Liungman puts approximately 2,500 Western graphic symbols at your fingertips. Each entry includes the sign's history, its meanings, and the systems in which it is used. Symbols are cross-referenced to other signs with the same meanings and to structurally similar signs with different meanings. Locating an entry is as easy as looking up a word in a dictionary, due to a system that classifies each sign on the basis of three of its structural features. Enhancing the dictionary is a series of fascinating discussions of various aspects of ideograms. These include a discussion of signs and meanings, an overview of the historical development of signs, as well as sections on ancient American ideograms, the astrological system of symbols, the mystical pentagram, and the signs of the alchemists. Two indexes aid the reader. The Word Index specifies signs with a given name or meaning, along with subject headings. The Graphic Index displays symbols based on their structural features. Dictionary of Symbols serves both as a valuable reference on Western cultural history and as a professional tool for those working in design and the arts.

Cross modal comprehension in ZARDOZ an English to sign-language translation system

Abstract: The sign languages used by deaf communities around the world represent a linguistic challenge that natural language researchers have only recently begun to take up. Zardoz is a system which tackles the cross-modal machine-translation problem, translating speech and text into animated sign language. Native sign languages, such as ISL (Ireland), BSL (Britain) and ASL (U.S.A.) have evolved in deaf communities as natural methods of gestural communication. These languages differ from English, not only in modality, but in grammatical structure, exploiting the dimensions of space as well as time. This paper presents an architectural overview of Zardoz, and describes the methods employed to analyse the verbal input and generate the corresponding signed output.

HISTORY OF THE SELF: From Primates to Present

Abstract: The article begins with a semiotic theory of how human selves emerged from the primates. It then follows the history of the self from classical Greece, throught the Christian MiddleAges, to early industrialization (as seen by Durkheim) and later industrialization (as seen by Weber). The story is largely an implicit struggle beten self and society for what might be called the steering pouer, or "cybernetic control," of life. I will begin with the problem of defining the self. Then, with a definition in hand, I will look at key moments in its history. These will begin with (1) the emergence of the self in the primates and continue to (2) classical Greece, (3) the Christian Middle Ages, (4) early industrialization (as seen by Durkheim), and (5) later industrialization (as seen by Weber). I have selected these moments not because they are the greatest or most important, but simply because they seem rich in theoretical possibilities. The story itself is largely an implicit struggle between self and society for what might be called the steering power or "cybernetic control" of life. I will be trying to see whether the definition works, that is, explains things reasonably well, in each of the temporal vignettes. I combine the pragmatists, George Herbert Mead and Charles Sanders Peirce, on the definition of the self. Mead defined the self as that which can be an object to itself (1934:136), making it the only thing in experience that is both subject and object. This was his notion of reflexivity, although the term can also be used in many other ways. For Mead it includes an I, a me, and a backlooping or flexing relationship between them. Peirce's idea of the self was different from, although compatible with, Mead's. His self was a sign or word (Hoopes 1991:83-84). To understand this, it must be remembered that Peirce used the word "sign" in two senses: for the overall sermiotic

Peirce's Transformation of Kant

Abstract: Although C. S. Peirce is generally regarded as the founder of American pragmatism, the fragmentary and incomplete character of many of his texts makes it hard to glimpse any systematic or coherent philosophy of pragmatism in them. One might respond to this state of affairs by interpreting Peirce in the light of the views of other pragmatists, in particular, of William James. While this interpretive strategy certainly gives one a handle on at least aspects of Peirce's philosophy, it has one decided disadvantage: it leads one to portray Peirce as simply the first in a line of thought which extends more or less continuously through James, Mead, and Dewey to Quine and even Richard Rorty. It is thus fated to obscure such discontinuities of philosophical intention and doctrine as might exist between Peirce and the later pragmatists. We have good reason to suspect the existence of such discontinuities. Late in his life Peirce himself felt that other writers who had begun calling themselves pragmatists had so misunderstood what he meant by the term that his own philosophy was in danger of being confused with theirs; in consequence, he renamed his doctrine "pragmaticism" in order to emphasize its difference from the doctrines of other so-called pragmatists.(1) This fact is a clear indication that we need another strategy of interpretation, one which will reveal a more systematic and coherent side to Peirce's philosophy, in the light of which the difference upon which Peirce himself insisted will become more clearly visible and intelligible. In this paper, I seek to identify just such an alternative strategy and then to sketch with its help an alternative picture of Peirce. Specifically, I seek to show how one might interpret Peirce's philosophy as possessing a decidedly Kantian character or architectonic in virtue of which there must be a fundamental discontinuity between his thought and that of James and those later writers who see themselves as belonging to the one tradition of American pragmatism initiated by Peirce. I will do this by adopting and elaborating the interpretation of Peirce articulated by the contemporary German philosopher Karl-Otto Apel in his book, Charles S. Peirce: From Pragmatism to Pragmaticism.(2) My claim will not be that the Apel-inspired picture of Peirce which I wish to sketch here is the only possible one; the frequent difficulty and incompleteness of Peirce's texts presumably make it futile to hope for a single definitive interpretation of him. Nonetheless, I do believe, first, that such a view of Peirce finds support in at least some, if not all, of his texts; and second, that it portrays him as an interesting and original thinker who is attempting to overcome the traditional concept of theoretical knowledge as episteme(3) while not rejecting, as is currently fashionable, the very idea of theory as knowledge of how things really are. Much of what I say comes from Apel, and where that is the case, I have indicated it. At the same time, Apel's interpretation is itself rather scanty and even obscure; in order to overcome these difficulties, I have engaged in more than a little creative reconstruction of my own. In particular, the account I give in section III of what Peirce means by semiosis is not to be found in Apel, although many things he says suggest aspects of it. Nor does Apel ever explicitly describe Peirce's central problem in the way I do in section IV, namely, as the problem of showing how theoretical inquiry is possible once one has made that break with the traditional concept of theory as episteme which Apel calls Peirce's semiotic transformation of the theory of knowledge. The views expressed in sections VI and VII should not be attributed to Apel. This is particularly true of the claim I make in section VII, namely, that a consensus theory of truth, whether Peirce's or anyone else's, is best understood not as offering an alternative to the traditional correspondence theory, but rather as making this latter criterially relevant. …

Living Doubt Essays Concerning the Epistemology of Charles Sanders Peirce

Abstract: Preface. Abbreviations. Introduction G. Debrock. Part I: Knowledge, Truth and the Pragmatic Principle. The Products of Pragmatism L. Hickman. Realism and Antifoundationalism T.M. Olshewsky. Foundations, Circularity, and Transcendental Arguments H. Palmer. Some Aspects of Peirce's Theory of Knowledge Qiwei Chen. Determinate Meaning and Analytic Truth B. Aune. Peirce's Arguments for his Pragmaticistic Maxim Yunqiu Wu. Evolutionary Epistemology and Pragmatism L.F. Werth. The Antinomy of the Liar and the Concept of 'True Proposition' in Peirce's Semeiotic F. Rivetti-Barbo. The Concept of Relation in Peirce R.F. Leo. Pragmatics and Semiotics: the Peircean Version of Ontology and Epistemology K. Lorenz. Peirce's Epistemology as a Generalized Theory of Language A. Kremer-Marietti. Part II: Peirce and the Epistemological Tradition. Peircean vs. Aristotelian Conception of Truth R. Wojcicki. Reason, Will and Belief: Insights from Duns Scotus and C.S. Peirce G.E. Whitney. Peirce and Descartes H. Buczynska-Garewicz. Peirce and Bolzano T.G. Winner. Peirce and Wittgenstein's On Certainty A.E. Johanson. Peirce, Lakatos and Truth Lan Zheng. Logical Intention and Comparative Principles of Empirical Logic E.M. Barth. Peirce's Puzzle and Putnam's Progress: Why Should I be Reasonable? R.W. Sleeper. Peirce and Davidson: Man is his Language K. Ito. Part III: Knowledge, Language and Semeiotic. Peirce's Semeiotic Naturalism Tianji Jiang. Perception, Conception and Linguistic Reproduction of Events and Time: the Category of Verbal Aspect in the Light of C.S. Peirce's Theory ofSigns N.B. Thelin. A Survey of the Use and Usefulness of Peirce in Linguistics, in France in particular J. Rethore. Color as Abstraction J.F. Vericat. Index.

Semiotics of Narration in Film and Prose Fiction: Case Studies of "Scarecrow and "My Friend Ivan Lapshin

Abstract: This interesting study of film adaptation focuses on two pairs of works, each consisting of a Russian novella and a Russian film: V. K. Zheleznikov's Scarecrow (1981) and R. A. Bykov's Scarecrow (1983); and Ju. P. German's Lapshin and A. Ju. German's My Friend Ivan Lapshin (1985). The author examines the transformation of the narrator's discourse in the adaptation process and discusses the meaning conveyed by signs and sign systems unique to the filmic text and its medium, including lighting, foregrounding and backgrounding, and the soundtrack. In his analysis, the author demonstrates how filmmakers use sign systems unique to film to add and/or alter meanings conveyed in the literary texts on which their films were based.

Language and the origin of semiosis

Abstract: Language is the type of semiosis which has been most closely examined and which has served as a model for considering other forms of semiosis. Semiotics has been based, certainly in the case of language, very much on the proposition of Saussure that the sign is arbitrary - a questionable idea (Holdcroft 1991) - and that the sign is conventional or social. If this fundamental idea of semiotics, and linguistics, is discarded, what does this do for semiotics, the 'science' of signs ? This paper seeks to trace out the implications for semiotics of a very different account from Saussure's of the origin, development and functioning of language, leaving it open whether one should conclude, in the light of this, that language does not constitute a paradigm or model for a general science of semiotics (and is not a typical or useful example of a semiotic system) or that language should be treated as the paradigm but a totally changed paradigm, so that the new view of language will require a restructuring of semiotics and lead to a much more biological and indeed neurological approach to the science of signs.

The Understandability of Legal Documents: Are they Adequate?

Abstract: Citizens are frequently asked to make commitments by signing contracts and legal documents that frequently contain phraseology and jargon (sometimes called legalese) that highly-educated citizens often do not understand. In recent years, human factors professionals have become intimately concerned with the design of product-related documentation and safety communications (e.g., warnings), and through research have offered ways to improve these materials. However, there is apparently no human factors research on the design and evaluation of legal contracts and other similar documents. The purpose of the present research was to begin to assess some of the factors related to people's reading and understanding of legal documents. Study 1 examined the types of legal documents that people sign, how often they sign them, how carefully they read them, and whether they understand them. Ninety-two individuals were asked to complete a survey addressing these issues. While it was reported that the contracts were read...

Missing Peace in Toni Morrison's 'Sula' and 'Beloved.' (Female Afro-American Fiction Writer)

Abstract: From her earliest fictional work The Bluest Eye (1970) to her latest, Jazz (1992), Toni Morrison cultivates an aesthetic of ambiguity. Placing Morrison in a "postmodernist" context, Robert Grant, for instance, describes both the "labor" of interpreting Sula and the richness evoked by its narrative "gaps." Clearly, Morrison's emphasis on absences and indeterminate meanings casts an interpretational bone in the direction of readers and critics who, as urged by Grant, transform "absence into presence." However, I would argue that the more productive endeavor may be to read the ambiguities of Morrison's texts not as aporia to be "filled . . . by the reader" (Grant 94) but as signifiers of an unattainable desire for stable definitions and identities. This essay, accordingly, explores the relationship between the slippage of words and the informing voids (desires) of Morrison's novels by examining two of her most critically recognized works, Sula (1973) and Beloved (1987). Though all of Morrison's novels play upon the variability of language, Sula especially throws into disequilibrium that exemplar dichotomy, good and evil, and by extension all Manichean systems which undergird traditional linguistic and ethical orders. By bringing to light the relativity of meaning, Sula broaches the subject not only of semantic integrity (how we can convey what we mean) but also of epistemological integrity (how can we know anything since there is no objective perspective and no objective essence or truth to know). While the aforementioned questions bristle under each of Morrison's texts, in Sula, Morrison offers to her readers a main character who telescopes that scandal of epistemology. How can we understand or know Sula, who is not only egoless or without a self (and hence undeterminable) but who also is unable to know anything herself? By contrast, Beloved, set almost a century earlier (c. 1852-1873), deals less with the metaphysical premises of good and evil to focus instead upon the institution of slavery and its overwhelming perversion of meaning. Inspired by a newspaper clipping from the 1850s (Davis 151), Beloved reconstructs the nuances of a black woman's killing of her infant daughter in response to the Fugitive Slave Act. Symbolic and discursive substitutions become emblematic in this latter narrative, where a ghost stands in for the lost living, where memory only approximates event, and where gestures and words struggle to fill the gaps of unvoiced longings. In Beloved, Morrison again highlights the variability of meaning and identity, yet in this case she links approximations of meaning to the historical condition of being enslaved. Taking the cue from Eva's suggestion that there are no such things as innocent words or gestures - "'How you gone not mean something by it'" (Sula 68) - I engage in close readings of Morrison's texts with an eye toward the overdeter-mined nature of each sign. In addition, by looking at two of her works in conjunction, I hope to shed light on the different levels of language manipulation occurring in each book as well as conjecture the possible implications of these differences. How do the words of 1987 supplement, qualify, or reinforce their 1973 predecessors? Sula begins with two gestures: a dedication and an epigraph. In the dedication, Morrison reconfigures a traditional signifier of loss and elegiac retrieval, to one of desire: "It is sheer good fortune to miss somebody long before they leave you. This book is for Ford and Slade, whom I miss although they have not left me." Instead of invoking the dead, Morrison places "Ford and Slade" into a "missed" situation, rewriting their future absence into the present and applying associations of loss and profound appreciation (usually reserved for the dead) to persons not yet defined by this absence. In effect, Morrison conveys a heightened sense of the variability of Ford and Slade, their probable mortality, their easy slippage into alter identities. …

Prelinguistic sign mixity and flexibility in interaction

Abstract: Based upon a reflection on the social origins of human psychological functions the authors propose an analysis of the transmission-appropriation of object uses by the 7 to 13 month old child through interaction with the adult termed baby-object-adult triadic interaction. The analysis is based on Peirce’s semiotics. Semiotic processes involved in the interaction are analysed with categories of icons, indexes and symbols. The authors show the great variety and flexibility of the signs used by the adult but also by the prelinguistic child. They also evidence different types of sign mixity. Peirce described a sign mixity which implies that the uses of signs is never pure but that a given sign may comprise elements of other signs and thus may belong to different sign classes. Here a second type of mixity is demonstrated which can be specified by the simultaneous occurence of sign configurations or estellas belonging to different semiotic repertoires. These may be implemented by the child or the adult or by both within the interaction.

Dhangu Djorra'wuy Dhäwu: A Brief History of Writing in Aboriginal Language

Abstract: Since leaving ‘the bush’ I have been continually surprised at the ignorance that still exists about Aboriginal people and their languages. When people chat to me, and it is revealed that I used to work in Aboriginal schools in the Northern Territory, they say things like “Do you speak Aboriginal then?… Maybe you could make a sign for us saying ‘Welcome to our Kindergarten’ in Aboriginal?” I then have to explain that there are many, many different Aboriginal languages, not just one, and to say or write such things in any one of these languages requires a lot more than a mere literal translation. When I began doing research on the topic of writing in Aboriginal languages. I was again surprised at the sorts of comments people made to me. Comments like “How can you do research on writing in Aboriginal languages: I thought the Aborigines didn't even have an alphabet!”

Phonological theories meet sign language: two theories of the two hands

Abstract: We explore two models of the nonpreference hand in sign language phonology. These models are fully developed by the authors elsewhere. Here, we compare and contrast the models, paying special attention to the relationship between the models and the theories behind them. In the process, we address questions of broad theoretical interest: (I) Does the existence of two anatomically similar articulators in sign languages require a phonological model that is fundamentally different from models of spoken language? (2) In what ways does the particular phonological theory adopted shape the investigation and its results? The model of Sandler (1989, 1994a) is motivated by theories of Feature Geometry (e.g., Clements 1985), while that of van der Hulst (1993, to appear) is motivated by principles of Dependency Phonology. These theories are not. mutually exclusive, but each approaches the issue of phonological structure from a somewhat different perspective. We. show that each model of the nonpreference hand has certain advantages over the other in account-ing for the sign language data, and that the two models have independent theoretical and empirical consequences as well. In each model, the presence of two similar articulators, leads to structural differences between signed and spoken languages, but in neither case do these differences violate general principles of phonological structure. That is, each phoonological theory can accommodate the facts in a principled way. We find that each model serves to explain somewhat different properties of the aspects of sign language phonology examined. The particular phenomena that we analyze do not conclusively select one phonological theory over the other, but we do not see this as a shortcoming of the investigation. On the contrary, our results indicate that adopting different theories for sound reasons can expand our understanding of phonological phenomena, while at the same time shedding light on the scope and explanatory power of the theories.

Reading and Carnival: On the Semiotics of Purim

Abstract: Ritual signs in the Bible explicitly encode historical events; thus the terms 'ot (sign) and zikkaron (memorial) occur as synonyms in Exodus 13:9. Not so in the Mishnah-the foundational document of rabbinic law and thinking. Thus Tractate Megilla deals with the Scroll of Esther only as a ritual object and with the rules governing its reading as the central observance of Purim. It does not interest itself in the contents. Nevertheless, when these rules are examined, they display a curious feature, namely, a kind of calculated laxity, in striking contrast to the punctilious observance prescribed for another minor festival commemorating a deliverance from danger: the lighting of the lamps on Hanukkah. I suggest that the semiotic codes here articulate the different historical backgrounds and the different meanings of the two celebrations: with Purim, laxity corresponds to accommodation in the face of peril; with Hanukkah, punctiliousness corresponds to readiness for sacrifice, even martyrdom. But there is another, more profound meaning encoded in the Mishnaic rules. Their stress on the reading-performance of Esther does in fact reflect the contents of the scroll, notably, the many acts of reading and writing on which the story hinges. Purim thus becomes, above all, a celebration of textuality itself for not only the rabbis, but also the people, for whom the Book of Esther has an enormous appeal. Purim is ultimately less concerned with commemorating a particular event than with commemoration itself-and with its relationship to textuality.

The Track of the Triangle: Form and Meaning in the Sepik, Papua New Guinea

Abstract: THIS ARTICLE deals with the relationship between morphology and meaning in art, focusing on the triangle implemented as a preferred shape in visual art by Sepik cultures. It is an inquiry into how far the triangle conveys meaning that cannot be communicated by any other form, meaning thus determined through itself. By means of the triangle, fundamental values associated with gender, men and women, skull and vulva, killing/death/the creation of ancestors and women’s sexuality, and women as in-marrying wives, as well as the generation of life, become expressed simultaneously, depending on the orientation of the triangle. Thus, what might be called dualism is in fact complementarity contained and united in a single form. Moreover, in structuralist anthropological theory the triangle is often used as a model to visualize ternary structures and to explain the mediating process between dualisms and oppositions (Levi-Strauss 1963:143-162, 251266; Wagner 1986). I shall demonstrate that the Abelam (as well as other Sepik cultures) use the triangle as their own cultural expression rather than as a model created by outsiders, though the basic idea of the triangle or ternary structures as mediating between oppositions seems to be underlying both. Anthony Forge was among the first who argued that “Abelam painting could be regarded as a form of language operating on its own rules and communicating things that are not communicable by other methods” (1970: 288). In a later article he elaborated this topic by speaking about cultural sign systems that may or may not choose art as a medium. However, all

Interactive fiction: artificial intelligence as a mode of sign production

Abstract: Interactive media need their own idioms that exploit the characteristics of the computer based sign. The fact that the reader can physically influence the course of events in the system changes the author's role, since he no longer creates a linear text but anarrative space that the reader can use to generate stories. Although stories are not simulations of the real world, they must still contain recognizable parts where everyday constraints of time and space hold. AI-techniques can be used to implement these constraints. In fact, we suggest that AI is probably best seen as an aesthetic phenomenon.

Abstraction and Organisation in Signs and Sign Systems

Abstract: The call for participation in the Brighton Workshop on Iconic Communication was a challenge to commit to paper some more general thoughts on a topic in which my interest had been inspired, and subsequently focused, by many years research on sign language linguistics. I developed some material for a seminar presentation, and following acceptance of the abstract for the Brighton'workshop the seminar material was revised and is presented here. The theme of the presentation was, and is here, analytical in its approach to the concepts of index, icon and symbol, and ultimately doubtful of the feasibility of developing a system of icons for human communication. An additional perspective here concerns the use of icons in interfaces.

The map as index of the real: Land art and the authentication of travel

Abstract: Maps can mean many things, and often their meanings change over the centuries of their existence. Maps which at first had a way-finding purpose read very differently when their directions can no longer be relied on. They become icons from the distant past. An equally pronounced variation of meaning occurs when the map enters the regime of representation: that is to say, when it is annexed to, or included in, a work of art. This article is about the special circumstances in which the map is used to reproduce, and at the same time to authenticate, the artist's journey, as in the distinctive contemporary form of expression which goes by the name of Land Art. However, I shall be arguing that this contemporary art movement is not unprecedented in the way it utilises the map. Indeed the map's role of authenticating travel can be seen as a perennial possibility, depending on the precise conditions which the cartogaphic sign is designed to fulfil. My introduction to Land Art will thus include a specific reference to the representation of a seventeenth-century map which works in this way. I shall, however, begin with a more famous seventeenth-century example which could well be used to demonstrate the many-layered possibilities of the map within representation. Jan Vermeer's Art of Painting incorporates a splendid map of the United Provinces, displayed on the back wall of an artist's studio.' The map is rendered with astonishing precision, so much so that it has become "a source for our knowledge of cartographic history".2 But it is more than that. Lit dramatically from the side, with its intricately painted folds and crinkles denoting its status as an object, the map becomes an index of Vermeer's exceptional skill in describing the infinite particularities of the visible world. Both an object of knowledge, marking real relationships and distances, and a represented object caught in the glancing light, it functions as an eloquent internal metaphor of Vermeer's art. Vermeer's work is useful for a further reason in preparing the ground for my argument, since it displays, in addition to the map, an artist in his studio confronted with a dishevelled model. This raises the obvious question of who the artist may be supposed to be. We may begin by asking if he is perhaps a surrogate for Vermeer. Does Vermeer intend us to interpret the clearly delineated figure, with his back towards us, as in some sense a representative of the act as well as the art of painting? This is an issue which the linguist Emil Benveniste helps us to analyse in a more precise way by drawing a categorical distinction between the functions of histoire and discours?' Whereas histoire conveys the past as past, with no subjective intervention, discours always implies that a subject is enunciating the message. The question therefore could be expressed in the following form. Does Vermeer intend to convey the meaning, here I am at my easel, painting? Or does he imply, this artist is part of the story that I am telling? In fact, the answer to this question is easy. Here we see a painter at the easel, painting; yet this is not, and cannot be, the painter Vermeer who has delegated his role to the artist in the picture. We know that Vermeer painted in a different way from the process in which the anachronistically dressed artist is engaging in. And yet the more we discover about Vermeer's working procedure,4 the more the question of enunciation seems to become complicated to the

Monstrosity, Illegibility, Denegation: de Man, Nichol, and the Resistance to Postmodernism

Abstract: In a theoretical age often enamoured by the “playfulness” of the sign and the pleasure of the text, Paul de Man’s last writings stand out as darkly sobering, driven as they are by an almost ascetic desire to bring thinking into proximity with what he calls, after Walter Benjamin, “reine Sprache,” pure language, or, more precisely, that which is purely language.2 From the stringent and self-cancelling perspective afforded by de Man’s late essays, the affirmatively Nietzschean rhetoric of some recent, linguistically-oriented theory—Canadian postmodernism is the example that I will explore here—registers the work of a deeply rooted aesthetic ideology that determines the play of signs primarily as the play of meaningful signs, which is to say legible signs that are happily and familiarly available to comprehension. What is familiarly known about signification is not properly known, however, for the simple reason that familiarity has as its primary effect the refusal to admit the negative possibility that “Language is not exhausted by the thought of the human” (Redfield 51). It could be argued that postmodernism’s greatest insight is into the fundamental indeterminacy of sign-systems, whether graphic, phonic, psychological, political, sexual, or economic, but that this same insight tends strongly to blind it to language’s most unsettling features, blankly in-significant and in-human as such.

Hoc est sacramentum: Painting Blasphemy

Abstract: Classical representation, at least in its development and articulation in the central texts of Port Royal, relies on a specific and aporitic conception of the linguistic sign. The sign has to be first and foremost material in order for it to make present again, to give in the actual moment and site of representation a presence to the absent object. It also must withdraw and give up its materiality once the representation has taken place for the sake and the benefit of the represented object. In other words, the sign is to be both material and immaterial, both an active carrier of the absent object and a temporary vehicle for its presentation.2 The model for this representational economy of the sign, according to La critique du discours, Le portait du roi and other texts by Louis Marin, is none other than