Showing papers on "Sign (semiotics) published in 2008"

A sociological approach to the study of linguistic landscapes

Abstract: This chapter focuses on the theoretical importance of the study of linguistic landscapes from the viewpoint of the social sciences. The notion of “linguistic landscape” (LL) refers to linguistic objects that mark the public space, i.e. inscriptions-LL items-that may refer to any written sign one finds outside private homes, from road signs to private names to names of streets, shops or schools. The study of LL focuses on analyzing these items according to the languages utilized, their relative saliency, syntactical or semantic aspects. From sociology-of-language premise, language facts that landmark the public space are to be seen as social facts the variations of which should relate to more general social phenomena. It is under this light that the sociological study of LLs is to focus on the articulation of linguistic symbols in the public space, and the forces at work in their molding.

The American Sign Language Lexicon Video Dataset

Abstract: The lack of a written representation for American sign language (ASL) makes it difficult to do something as commonplace as looking up an unknown word in a dictionary. The majority of printed dictionaries organize ASL signs (represented in drawings or pictures) based on their nearest English translation; so unless one already knows the meaning of a sign, dictionary look-up is not a simple proposition. In this paper we introduce the ASL lexicon video dataset, a large and expanding public dataset containing video sequences of thousands of distinct ASL signs, as well as annotations of those sequences, including start/end frames and class label of every sign. This dataset is being created as part of a project to develop a computer vision system that allows users to look up the meaning of an ASL sign. At the same time, the dataset can be useful for benchmarking a variety of computer vision and machine learning methods designed for learning and/or indexing a large number of visual classes, and especially approaches for analyzing gestures and human communication.

Sources of Differences in Children's Understandings of Mathematical Equality: Comparative Analysis of Teacher Guides and Student Texts in China and the United States

Abstract: This study reports findings from comparative samples of sixth-grade Chinese and U.S. students' interpretations of the equal sign. Ninety-eight percent of the Chinese sample correctly answered 4 items indicating conceptions of equality and provided conceptually accurate explanations. In contrast, only 28% of the U.S. sample performed at this level. We examine how teacher preparation materials, students' textbooks and teachers' guidebooks treat equality in each country. U.S. teacher preparation textbooks rarely interpreted the equal sign as equivalence. On the contrary, Chinese textbooks typically introduced the equal sign in a context of relationships and interpreted the sign as “balance,” “sameness,” or “equivalence” and only then embedded the sign with operations on numbers.

The Africanist Aesthetic in Global Hip-Hop: Power Moves

Abstract: Author(s): Osumare, H | Abstract: 'The Africanist Aesthetic in Global Hip Hop' explores how a vital, expressive culture, which began in a New York Black and Latino impoverished community, has become a global delineating sign of the new millennium.

Peircean semiotics meets conceptual metaphor: Iconic modes in gestural representations of grammar

Abstract: This paper approaches the gestural sign from a cognitive-semiotic perspective combining Peircean semiotics (Peirce, 1955, 1960) and conceptual metaphor theory (Gibbs, 1994; Johnson, 1987; Lakoff, 1993; Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, 1999; Muller, 2004; Sweetser, 1990). It suggests that these two theoretical strands share central assumptions regarding image-schematic structures, metaphorical projection, and habitual patterns of experience and interpretation (Danaher, 1998) and that exploring spontaneous co-speech gesture reveals additional points of cross-fertilization. In the gesture modality, embodied structures are re-externalized and visualized. The corpus for this study consists of videotaped academic discourse and gestures produced by four linguistics professors during introductory courses. Applying Peirce’s taxonomy to gestural representations of grammatical concepts and structures, I demonstrate in what ways his categories of icon, index, symbol, and especially the less widely used sub-categories of iconicity (image, diagram, metaphor) allow to capture both fine distinctions between and transient cases of sign-object relations within a metaphorically accessed domain. Forms of interaction between iconic and indexical modes are also briefly discussed.

Sign bilingualism : language development, interaction, and maintenance in sign language contact situations

Abstract: In this chapter, we adopt a cross-disciplinary perspective on sign bilingualism and explore the dynamics of its development and maintenance in the light of the insights provided in the contributions to this volume and current assumptions in the field of contact linguistics. We offer a critical appraisal of the research-policy-practice axis that determines sign bilingualism in diverse social contexts and argue in favour of a realistic ecolinguistic model of language planning. Following an integrated view of sign bilingualism, we discuss the complex inter-relation of external ecological and internal psycholinguistic factors that determine language acquisition and use in bilingual signers. As the sophisticated interaction of two languages of different modality not only shows that sign bilinguals skilfully exploit their linguistic resources much like other bilinguals, but also that cross-modal language mixing represents an essential part of adult and child bilingual signers’ repertoires, we raise the question of whether the didactic conceptions that are put into practice in deaf education are doing justice to the dynamics of sign bilingualism. In our discussion of the dimensions of variation in sign bilingual education, we suggest that the diverse and often conflicting objectives in the education of deaf students relate to the system of values in a given society. We also draw attention to continuing shortcomings of the bilingual programmes implemented that strike us in their potential negative effects concerning the eventual outcomes. While emphasising the progress that has been made in the field, we conclude by drawing attention to those issues that deserve further examination in future follow-up studies.

Edith Wharton and the Conversations of Literary Modernism

Abstract: Troubling the Subjective: The Problem of Impressionism in The Reef 'Any Change May Mean Something:' Summer, Sexuality, and Single Women 'Unmediated Bonding Between Men:' The Accumulation of Men in the Short Stories 'A Sign of Pain's Triumph:' War, Art, and Civilization 'The Readjustment of Personal Relations:' Marriage, Modernism, and the Alienated Self Antimodernism and Looking Pretty: Wharton's Artistic Practice

Intelligent Thai text - Thai sign translation for language learning

Abstract: We present the Intelligent Thai text - Thai sign translation for language learning (IT^3STL). IT^3STL is able to translate Thai text into Thai sign language simply and conveniently anytime, anywhere. Thai sign language is the language of the deaf in Thailand. In the translation process, the distinction between Thai text and Thai sign language in both grammar and vocabulary are concerned in each processing step to ensure the accuracy of translation. IT^3STL was designed not only to be an automatic interpreter but also to be a language tutor assistant. It provides meaning of each word and describes the structure formation and word order of the translated sentence. With IT^3STL, the deaf and hearing-impaired are able to enhance their communication ability and to improve their knowledge and learning skills. Moreover IT^3STL has increased motivation and opportunity for them to access multimedia and e-learning. In our initial experiment, IT^3STL was implemented to translate sentences/phrases which were collected from different sources including textbooks, cartoons, bedtime story, newspapers and the public labels. IT^3STL was tested and evaluated in terms of the translation accuracy and user satisfaction. The evaluation results show that the translation accuracy and sign representation are acceptable, and it satisfies the users' needs.

Sign bilingualism: language development, interaction, and maintenance in sign language contact situations

Abstract: In this chapter, we adopt a cross-disciplinary perspective on sign bilingualism and explore the dynamics of its development and maintenance in the light of the insights provided in the contributions to this volume and current assumptions in the field of contact linguistics. We offer a critical appraisal of the research-policy-practice axis that determines sign bilingualism in diverse social contexts and argue in favour of a realistic ecolinguistic model of language planning. Following an integrated view of sign bilingualism, we discuss the complex inter-relation of external ecological and internal psycholinguistic factors that determine language acquisition and use in bilingual signers. As the sophisticated interaction of two languages of different modality not only shows that sign bilinguals skilfully exploit their linguistic resources much like other bilinguals, but also that cross-modal language mixing represents an essential part of adult and child bilingual signers' repertoires, we raise the question of whether the didactic conceptions that are put into practice in deaf education are doing justice to the dynamics of sign bilingualism. In our discussion of the dimensions of variation in sign bilingual education, we suggest that the diverse and often conflicting objectives in the education of deaf students relate to the system of values in a given society. We also draw attention to continuing shortcomings of the bilingual programmes implemented that strike us in their potential negative effects concerning the eventual outcomes. While emphasising the progress that has been made in the field, we conclude by drawing attention to those issues that deserve further examination in future follow-up studies.

The employee in the sign of love

Abstract: In this article we explore the language of passion, which has evolved to be a significant element in the descriptions of late modern job life. Niklas Luhman’s theory of social communication systems frames the analysis. It allows us to make a clear distinction between semantics and systems and enables us to track the empirical developments in semantics and reflect upon their communicative consequences. The article is divided into three parts. Part one is a semantic analysis of the past 25 years of human resource management (HRM) discourse in the Danish public sector, where we note the development from a bureaucratic description of the work relation towards a passionate one. Part two employs Luhmann’s theory of symbolically generalized media in order to systematize the development of semantics. Step by step, we examine whether the characteristics of communication in the code of love can be recognized in actual HRM semantics and, if so, in which form. The third part of the article explores the reasons why pu...

Limiting the Iconic: From the metatheoretical foundations to the creative possibilities of iconicity in language

Abstract: Iconicity has become a popular notion in contemporary linguistic research. This book is the first to present a synthesis of the vast amount of scholarship on linguistic iconicity which has been produced in the previous decades, ranging from iconicity in phonology and morpho-syntax to the role of iconicity in language change. An extensive analysis is provided of some basic but nonetheless fundamental questions relating to iconicity in language, including: what is a linguistic sign and how are linguistic signs different from signs in general? What is an iconic sign and how may iconicity be involved in language? How does iconicity pertain to the relation between language and cognition? This book offers a new and comprehensive theoretical framework for iconicity in language. It is argued that the linguistic sign is fundamentally arbitrary, but that iconicity may be involved on a secondary level, adding extra meaning to an utterance.

"Hands off our language!" : deaf sign language teachers' perspectives on sign language standardisation

Abstract: In light of the absence of codified standard varieties of British Sign Language (BSL) and German Sign Language (Deutsche Gebclrdensprache, DGS), there have been repeated calls for the standardisation of both languages primarily from outside the deaf communities. The development of standard varieties has been suggested to facilitate political recognition and the establishment of linguistic norms which could enable sign language users to gain equal access to education, administration and commerce. Although frequently labelled as sociolinguistic enquiry, much research in standardisation and language planning displays a certain preference for investigating the linguistic aspects of language. Explicit discussion of social-theoretical perspectives is scarce. In order to address this imbalance, this study focuses on the social aspect of the subject matter by investigating the concept of sign language standardisation from the perspective of deaf sign language teachers. Taking a comparative approach, research findings are based on 17 in-depth interviews conducted in Germany and the UK which were analysed drawing on grounded theory. Participants in both countries conceptualised sign language standardisation predominantly as externally imposed language change pertaining to the eradication of regional dialects. Given that in contrast to hearing learners of sign languages, participants did not regard regional variation as a problem but as a highly valued feature of BSL and DGS, sign language standardisation was seen as a threat to sign languages. Moreover, the subject matter was also perceived as embodying hearing people's hegemony by bringing to the fore traditional power imbalances between deaf people and hearing stake holders in the political and educational realms. This study is the first to explore and examine perceptions of and attitudes towards sign language standardisation in the UK and Germany. It thereby contributes to knowledge in respect to sign language sociolinguistics, as well as standardisation and language planning in the wider field. Moreover, taking an explicitly sociolinguistic approach and in drawing on social research methodology, this study offers an atypical perspective on the issue of language standardisation in general.

Ecologocentrism: Unworking Animals

Abstract: . . . with a glance toward those who, in a society from which I do not exclude myself, turn their eyes away when faced by the as yet unnamable which is proclaiming itself and which can do so, as is necessary whenever a birth is in the offing, only under the species of the nonspecies, in the formless, mute, infant, and terrifying form of monstrosity. — Jacques Derrida, “Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences” (293) Whoever is the wisest among you is also just a conflict and a cross between plant and ghost. — Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra (6)

Memes versus signs: on the use of meaning concepts about nature and culture

Abstract: In recent years, the so-called 'meme' concept, originally introduced by Richard Dawkins and modelled analogously after the phenomenon of gene, has aroused much discussion. There have also been attempts to develop a systematic discipline of 'memetics' upon this notion, and suggestions that this opens up unforeseen possibilities for studying human culture in a new way, as compatible with biological evolution. This article argues that these attempts are misguided. The meme is a new word but not a new concept, it is only a new version of the traditional semiotic concept of sign. More pointedly, the meme is not merely an old idea in new clothing, it is in all important respects an inferior alternative to the semiotic sign. The consequence of this is that the suggested memetics would leave open the cleavage between the study of nature and culture that semiotics traditionally has attempted to close.

A semiotically oriented cognitive model of knowledge representation

Abstract: This thesis introduces a model for knowledge representation as a sign recognition process, on the basis of an analysis of the properties of cognitive activity. By offering a logical account of this model, the existence of a `naive' logic underlying human information processing is revealed, which in turn opens the way towards a Peircean semiotic characterization of the cognitive model. `Naive' logic is a procedure generating relations between collections of qualia, in the sense of agreement, possibility, and (relative) difference. It is suggested that those relations have common meaning aspects shared with Boolean relations on two variables. The close relationship between the process model of cognitive activity on the one hand, and the Peircean signs on the other enables the cognitive model to be interpreted as a meaningful process, and the Peircean classification of signs as a process, generating meaning aspects or parameters of (meaningful) interpretation. In conformity with the fundamental nature of cognitive activity, it is suggested that the process model of cognitive activity may be uniformly applied for modeling different knowledge domains. This hypothesis is tested for the domain of `naive' logical, syntactic, semantic syntactic, reasoning and mathematical symbols. Each of these models consists in a specification of a recognition process (parser) and a definition of combinatory properties of primary entities (lexicon). An advantage of the proposed theory is that adjustments of the model of a domain, for example, in order to cope with new phenomena, may only require an adjustment of the lexicon, not the parser, which can be invariantly used. An advantage of uniform knowledge representation is that it may reduce the hard problem of merging complex signs obtained in different domains to the more simple task of structural coordination. Such a representation is used in this thesis for the definition of a technique for text summarization.

On Mediation and Material Agency in the Peircean Semeiotic

Abstract: This chapter seeks to advance our understanding of material agency through an interpretive framework fashioned from the semeiotic ideology of Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914). In doing so, it attempts to move beyond a rote recital of Peirce’s sign types and their lineaments and toward a larger reading of his philosophical outputs, examining potential points of contact between material agency and Peirce’s thinking on semeiotic functioning. Owing to the contours of a creative mind steeped in mathematics and logic, his is a canon marked by heroic theorising, labyrinthine reasoning and runaway terminology. As such, uncharitable interpretations of Peirce’s writing often evoke words such as ‘impenetrable’ or ‘torturous,’ but it is nevertheless a literature that commands our attention, chiefly because of its non-anthropocentric, anti-Cartesian emphasis on semeiotic mediation. In the Peircean framework, semeiosis is neither bound up in language nor contingent on human consciousness, but rather exists as a relative and relational property tethered to particular experiential settings. Where the human subject is implicated, perception, cognition and belief were understood by Peirce to be engendered by a sensory experience of signs. The phenomenological underpinnings of these themes are explored throughout this chapter and illustrated with reference to a case study involving precontact Aboriginal pottery from southwestern Ontario, Canada.

Educação física e cultura corporal de movimento: uma perspectiva fenomenológica e semiótica

Abstract: This theoretical essay supports the hypothesis that the Semiotics of C. S. Peirce might indicate the limits of Physical Education culturalist approach, and point challenges that may be met by Physical Education Theory (Pedagogic). Aiming this purpose, after showing contributions and limits of M. Merleau-Ponty phenomenology, the present essay evinces some peirceana semiotics conceptual basis (sign, semiosis and experience), and concludes suggesting a phenomenological-semiotics perspective to the Physical Education which, through considering students and teachers as signs and interpreting relations producers, may present alternatives to the “culturalist answer”.

Student perspectives on equation: The transition from school to university

Abstract: It has been recognised that many student perspectives on equations and their use of the equals sign have not mirrored those that mathematicians would like to see in tertiary students. This paper tracks transition of understanding of the equals sign by comparing secondary school students’ thinking with that of first year university students. We analyse the understanding displayed in terms of properties of the constituent parts of equations, identifying a number of incomplete or pseudoconceptions that are sometimes influenced by representational aspects of the properties, and other times by apparent over-generalisation of a property. A start is made on constructing a framework for understanding of the mathematical equation object that could assist in the transition from school to tertiary mathematics study. Background Ubiquitous mathematical concepts such as equation, where understanding forms a crucial part of the mathematical experience from early school years right through to tertiary study, need to form part of any discussion of the transition from school to university. While to the experienced mathematical eye equations appear as a single object they are often seen by students to consist of a number of separate entities. Each of these parts, and indeed the gestalt they comprise, may, according to Laborde (2002), be viewed from several perspectives including a surface or perceptual one, and a mathematical one, from which the mathematical properties of the entity or object are understood. In this paper we seek to examine the role of the mathematical properties that constitute the concept of equation, by reference to the embodied, symbolic and formal worlds of thinking (Tall, 2004, 2007). This involves a consideration of arithmetic numbers, symbolic literals, operators, the ‘=’ symbol itself, and the formal equivalence relation, and how each may contribute to understanding of equation for students at different stages of mathematical development. Hence, our hypothesis is that understanding the mathematical equation object requires the formation and integration of individual properties from a number of areas, and that the crucial binding agent for such understanding of the constituent parts is language, although this aspect is not explicitly addressed here. There is no doubt that many students struggle to attach meaning to many of the symbols used in mathematics. Mason (1987) suggests that a semiotic problem, concerning the relationship between the sign and the signified, or the symbol and the symbolised, is at the root of this. For equation, the use of the sign ‘=’ to signify ‘is equal to’ dates back to when Robert Recorde in the Whetstone of Witte (1557) first used ‘=====’ (see Figure 1 for the original and a translation into modern English). Prior to this time mathematicians laboriously wrote out the words ‘…is equal to…’, which was sometimes abbreviated to ae (or oe), from the Latin for equal—aequalis (Lacey, 2004). Further, the process of attaching appropriate meaning to mathematical symbols may be subverted by teaching that is heavily weighted in favour of

The problem of the essential icon

Abstract: Charles Peirce made a well-known dis tinction between icons, indices and symbols. These are three kinds of signification-spe cifically, three kinds of relationship between a sign and its object. I use the term 'signi fication' instead of terms more familiar in analytic philosophy of language such as 'representation' or 'reference' in an attempt to loosen an apparent near-exclusive hold of the spoken and written word on many phi losophers' thinking about meaning, which is relevant to our topic. The icon/index/symbol distinction has already been much investi gated by Peirce scholars,1 but a brief summary will be helpful. Icons signify objects by resembling them.2 For example, a map of Australia signifies the continent of Australia by being of the same shape (however roughly). One of Peirce's definitions of the icon states that its parts should be related in the same way that the objects represented by those parts are them selves related.3 One might call this form of resemblance "structural resemblance," and the perspicuous representation of relations via structural resemblance is one of the icon's greatest strengths. There are obvious links here to the early Wittgenstein's "Pic ture Theory of Meaning," with the caveat that one may distinguish between structural and properly pictorial resemblance insofar as there are structural mappings which are not good pictures. As Peirce notes, "Many diagrams resemble their objects not at all in looks; it is only in respect to the relations of their parts that their likeness consists."4 The famous London Tube Map does not exactly represent the paths of its train-lines-it has been regularized, and is a more effective icon for that. On the other hand every pictorial resemblance is a structural resemblance, so structural is a generalization of pictorial re semblance. Of course the Tractatus is gnomic enough about meaning to leave it open that structural rather than pictorial resemblance is what Wittgenstein meant too. Is all iconic resemblance structural re semblance? This claim is too strong; there might also be "simple icons." For instance, a particular color might be used to signify a girl who is wearing a dress of that color, or whose personality arguably possesses some shared qualities (for example 'sunniness,' or 'intensity'). Such cases, as well as structural resemblance, are covered by what is arguably Peirce's most general definition of iconicity, which will be used here: "An icon is a sign fit to be used as such because it possesses the quality signified."5

An awful mark: symbolic violence and urban renewal in reform-era China

Abstract: This article investigates the relationship between forms of public writing and power, physical violence and symbolic violence in the context of urban spatial transformation in China. Specifically, it examines the widespread phenomenon in China of painting a big character (chai, meaning ‘to demolish’) on the walls of old buildings that are designated to be demolished. Even though this sign carries a definite semantic meaning, its power is more significantly derived from the form and context of its presentation, and it acts upon, rather than simply communicates to, its intended audience. Inspired by John Austin's concept of speech acts, the author calls this and other similar forms of powerful writing ‘text acts’. He argues that the chai phenomenon exemplifies the ways in which authorities resort to forms of powerful writing to effect desired perceptions, to interpellate certain kinds of subjects and to exact accommodating behaviour from these subjects in reform‐era China. His case study focuses on the dest...

A descriptive model of signs for Sign Language processing

Abstract: Formal approaches to representing the signs of Sign Languages are traditionally parametric and this work shows that they are inappropriate for use in computer science. The main reasons are: the parameters used are neither all necessary nor do they form a sufficient set; parameters take on fixed values whereas signs are dynamic in nature and values change through time; parametric descriptions do not account for the signs' adaptability to context, hence are not reusable, which brings them to disregard the power in concision of sign languages. We propose a model called Zebedee, which describes signs in a sequence of timing units, each of which specifies a set of necessary and sufficient constraints to apply to a skeleton. The signing space is regarded as a Euclidean geometric space where any auxiliary geometric object may be built. Dependencies between elements of the descriptions or indeed on context are not only possible but also made relevant, and are based on articulatory, semantic and cognitive issues. We then give two complementary processes for evaluation: in computer science with the implementation of Zebedee in a signing avatar animation platform and an information display system for train stations, and in linguistics with a data base and new possibilities of queries that linguists may want to test. As prospects, we discuss different computational fields in which Zebedee should be useful, and several present linguistic problems for which it holds pieces of solutions.

Hjelmslev's semiotic model of language : An exegesis

Abstract: This paper offers a detailed exploration of four types of differentiations on which Hjelmslev's semiotic model of language, developed in his Prolegomena to a Theory of Language (1963/1943), is built: content-expression; form-substance-purport; system-process and paradigm-syntagm. Each of these distinctions is explored in turn, and in this exploration it becomes clear how Hjelmslev defines his most important distinctions, viz. content-expression and form-substance-purport, which form the corner stones of his stratified model of language, on different levels of abstraction. It is only by carefully considering his most abstract level of description, that the interaction between the different dimensions, and the nature of the 'sign', which is explained by Hjelmslev as lying at the centre of cross-cutting dimensions of differentiations, can be fully understood. The specific nature of Hjelmslev's theory is further fleshed out by relating his distinctions to de Saussure's theory of language; and by further contextualizing his model, historiographically, in the framework of (1) the earlier study of the phonic

The Gestural Theory of Language Origins.

Abstract: THE IDEA THAT iconic visible gesture had something to do with the origin of language, particularly speech, is a frequent element in speculation about this phenomenon and appears early in its history. For example, Socrates hypothesizes about the origins of Greek words in Plato's satirical dialogue, Cmtylus. Socrates' speculation includes a possible role for sound-based iconicity, as well as for the kinds of visual gestures that deaf people employ. Plato's use of satire to broach this topic also points to the fine line between the sublime and the ridiculous, which has continued to be a hallmark of this sort of speculation. In this article I present recent evidence that supports the idea that language first arose as visible gesture. This evidence is culled from several lines of research, including studies on the neurological underpinnings of gesture (e.g., mirror neurons; gestural communication among African apes; the cognitive basis of signed languages; and the emergence of new signed languages). Two common themes running through gestural theories of the origin of language are that iconic visible gesture is more natural than speech as a communication device and that it solves the problem of accounting for the origin of completely arbitrary signs. How did English speakers (actually Latin speakers and perhaps even speakers of earlier Indo-European languages) come to agree on "rose" as the name of a flower that would smell just as sweet if it were known by another name? As mention of the word's Latin lineage suggests, we can to some extent trace the histories of individual words, but where did the first spoken words come from, and how did these apparently completely arbitrary symbols come to be associated with their referents? Perhaps at some stage in the evolution of language signs were simply iconic and pantomimic illustrations of the things they referred to. One could then imagine a stage during which incidental sounds, especially those that were also iconic or onomatopoeic, came to be associated in a gestural complex with the visible sign and its referent. Subsequent to this, the visible sign could either wither away or come to be used as a visual adjunct to the now predominant spoken word. Other elements have also entered the basic argument from findings that have accumulated in paleoanthropology, primatology, neurology, and linguistics, including the following: the apparently late appearance of a fully modern vocal tract and the early appearance of fully modern upper extremities, the seemingly greater facility for languagelike behavior by apes in the gestural as opposed to the vocal medium, the discovery of gesturally responsive mirror neurons in the Broca's area homologue in monkeys, the working out of the linguistic structures of signed languages of deaf people, and, especially in this regard, Stokoe's notion of semantic phonology (Armstrong, Stokoe, and Wilcox 1995). This article introduces these elements of an evolving theory and places them in historical context. The history of this recorded speculation has been treated exhaustively by Hewes (1973, 1976, 1996), and it is not my purpose to review it in detail-interested readers may review these works by Hewes and my own discussions (Armstrong 1999; Armstrong and Wilcox 2002). Instead, this article assesses the current scientific status ot the various aspects of the theory that visible gesture was the earliest manifestation of the human capacity for language and that speech evolved subsequently from an original visible/gestural communication system. Our real historical journey begins with the speculations of the French Enlightenment philosophes of the latter half of the eighteenth century, such as Condillac, Diderot, and Rousseau. Some of these writers were aware of the work of teachers of deaf children, such as Pereire, and there appears to have been dialogue between the philosophes and the Abbe de l'Epee, who opened the first school for deaf youth in France in the late eighteenth century, as the theories of deaf education and the origin of language evolved in tandem (Lang2OO3; Rosenfeld 2001). …

Music education in the sign of deconstruction

Abstract: In this article, the aim is to address different forms of relationship between deconstruction, as coined by Jacques Derridar and research perspec- tives on music education. Deconstruction represents a radical departure from Western ontology from Plato onward and its essentialistic notions of the meta- physics of presence. Instead, Derrida claims that signs, as well as texts, are decenteredy that is, they are continually altering meaning in relation to other signs or texts, being in constant motion. Simultaneously, signs and texts, as well as existence and experience, constitute themselves by binary oppositions, like nature/culture, content/form, original/copy, internal/external, empirical/ theoretical, and so on. Derrida argues that such differences are not inherent, but are instead socially produced and hierarchical mechanisms for providing systematic priority to one aspect of the dualism to the neglect of the other. Con- sequently, the ethical interest of music education research, from a deconstruc- tive perspective, would be to expose what is marginalized in musical schooling, upbringing, and socialization. In that case, deconstruction might also be able to rectify some of its destructive reputation. The term deconstruction is forever associated with the writings of the French- Algerian philosopher, Jacques Derrida. Its origins, however, can be traced to Hei-

Prologomena to a general theory of iconicity : considerations on language, gesture, and pictures.

Abstract: Too often the word “iconicity” is used simply as a scientifically sounding term for similarity. In order to develop a real theory of iconicity, it is not enough, but perhaps a good start, to return to Peirce. In this paper, I use the reconstruction of the notion of iconicity inspired by my work in pictorial semiotics to throw some light on iconicity in language and in gesture. I suggest that there are several possible iconic relationships within the sign, and that these relations may involve properties, proper parts, or perspectives. In particular, I criticize the idea of iconicity being a question of degrees. The article looks at parallels between Lessing’s classic distinction between the resources of language and pictures and contemporary studies of “dual coding” in thinking. It also considers the segmentation of movement in different languages and gesture systems, in particular in relation to Satellite-framed and Verb-framed languages.

The Role of Iconicity in International Sign.

Abstract: WHEN INVESTIGATING INTERNATIONAL SIGN (IS), a communication system used by deaf people at international events, the issue of iconicity versus arbitrariness is even more central than it is in natural languages. Structurally, IS consists of a very limited, conventionalized vocabulary (Rosenstock 2004). In the past, IS has been described as a "zone of 'pure' or non-language stripped of grammar and artificial . . . rules, the only syntax being one of natural order" (Garretson 1990, 44). The frequent use of gestures, body language, and role-playing or enacting has been mentioned by interpreters or presenters who have used IS (Locker McKee and Napier 1999, gf). More formal descriptions of IS structures also report a high use of iconicity in their grammatical component (Locker McKee and Napier 2002; Rosenstock 2004). Since IS is mainly a naturally developed system with only a small vocabulary as a standardized basis, the notion of iconicity in syntactic structures is important in helping us to understand how IS conveys meaning. Research on iconicity and semiotics in spoken and natural sign languages provides a rich basis for an analysis of IS. This article shows the importance of iconicity in all IS structures, especially considering current issues in iconicity research. In this article I outline the aspects of iconicity that are relevant to the present study and discuss some of the major issues that arise from theories proposed in recent years that are applicable to IS research. Data from an international deaf convention are used for an analysis and comparison of iconic structures in English and IS. I apply models proposed by researchers to structures found in English and IS and discuss the implications for the use of IS by interpreters in international settings. Iconicity Development of the Term Charles Sanders Peirce was the first to define the term "icon" (from Greek eikon, "likeness") in reference to signs: "The likeness has no dynamical connection with the object it represents; it simply happens that its qualities resemble those of that object, and excite analogous sensations in the mind for which it is a likeness" (Houser and Kloesel 1998, 9). For many years linguists did not concern themselves with the notion of iconicity in linguistic signs. Moreover, de Saussure (1966) rejected the notion of iconicity in single signs. He claimed that even if researchers chose to include gestures or pantomime in their study of signs, the fact that human communication is based on convention is more significant than the gestures intrinsic value (66). He noted that onomatopoeia and interjections could be used to prove his principle of arbitrariness wrong but explains: Not only are they [onomatopoeic terms] limited in number, but also they are chosen somewhat arbitrarily, for they are only approximate and more or less conventional imitations of certain sounds (cf. English bow-bow and French ouaoua). In addition, once these words have been introduced into the language, they are to a certain extent subjected to the same evolution . . . that other words undergo: obvious proof that they lose something of their original character in order to assume that of the linguistic sign in general, which is arbitrary. (69) In subsequent years, various linguists have used language data to propose different perspectives on the degree of iconicity in language. In recent years, the recognition of sign languages has contributed an additional, important point of view on the established theories. In his philosophy of signs, Peirce distinguished between two main types of icons, those that consist of images and those that consist of diagrams (Peirce 1960, 158). A number of linguists have suggested that a diagrammatic iconicity in a Peircean sense applies to grammar (Bloomfield 1933; Bolinger 1968). Among others, Dolinger (1968) argues that any form in language, be it a single sign or a more complex construction, can correspond to only one meaning. …

A Tribute to Thomas A. Sebeok

Abstract: According to the approach developed by Thomas A. Sebeok (1921–2001) and his ‘global semiotics,’ semiosis and life converge. This leads to his cardinal axiom: ‘semiosis is the criterial attribute of life.’ His global approach to sign life presupposes his critique of anthropocentrism and glottocentrism. Global semiotics is open to zoosemiotics, indeed, even more broadly, biosemiotics which extends its gaze to semiosis in the whole living universe to include the realms of macro- and microorganisms. In Sebeok’s conception, the sign science is not only the study of communication in culture, but of communicative behaviour from a biosemiotic perspective.

Thinking in verse

Abstract: In his Biographia Literaria Coleridge took issue with the ideas about meter which Wordsworth had expressed in the “Preface” to the Lyrical Ballads . For Coleridge, Meter's chief function was a symbolic one. “I write in metre, because I am about to use a language different from that of prose.” Meter is a sign, which produces certain expectations about other linguistic features of the poem. If these expectations are disappointed, a kind of bathos will ensue. For Wordsworth, on the other hand, meter is not primarily a sign but, instead, is essentially connected to the fundamental organization of human knowing itself. We might characterize these accounts of meter, broadly speaking, as “symbolic” and “cognitive” respectively. For Coleridge's kind of account, the effects of meter are dependent upon recognition of a convention; for Wordsworth's kind of account, they depend upon the organization of consciousness itself. What should be noted at once is that scholarship is still not in a position to settle this argument. For one kind of approach to meter, it is a meta-communicative feature of poetic discourse. In this approach it is imaginable that we can, for example, identify “iambic” pentameter as “a hegemonic form . . . a sign which excludes and includes, sanctions and denigrates, for it discriminates the 'properly' poetic from the 'improperly' poetic, Poetry from verse.” For other kinds of approach, meter is connected to the rhythmic organization of consciousness itself. The terrain remains disputed because, despite the startling developments of twentieth-century linguistics, there is still no science of verse.