Showing papers on "Sign (semiotics) published in 2010"

Brand Consumption and Narrative of the Self

Abstract: This study investigates how consumers use brands to construct their self. Focusing on the consumer’s experience of brands, the study interprets consumer narratives on how brand consumption contributes to the construction of the self. The findings demonstrate that consumers use brands in different ways: symbolic, iconic, and indexical. Apart from the symbolism of brands used to construct the self, consumers also use brands that resemble something in an iconic manner. Additionally, consumers use brands that have a factual connection to something in an indexical way to construct the self. Given these findings, this paper therefore contributes to both theory and practice. Theoretically, the findings support semiotic theory and the relationships between the object, the sign, and the interpretant. More practically, this work shows that recognition of the experiential meaning of brands informs marketers and brand managers on how to effectively market brands. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Consumers make choices every minute of every day and consumer researchers seek to understand these decisions. However, beyond rational decision making, people use sign and symbol embeds in everyday life as a social tool to communicate the self. Recognizing brand consumption as a phenomenon worthy of investigation, this study aims to identify and describe how consumers use brands to construct their self. Taking a narrative approach and focusing on the consumer’s experience, this

Cross-modal iconicity: A cognitive semiotic approach to sound symbolism

Abstract: It is being increasingly recognized that the Saussurean dictum of "the arbitrariness of the linguistic sign" is in conflict with the pervasiveness of the phenomenon commonly known as "sound symbolism". After first presenting a historical overview of the debate, however, we conclude that both positions have been exaggerated, and that an adequate explanation of sound symbolism is still lacking. How can there, for example, be (perceived) similarity between expressions and contents across different sensory modalities? We offer an answer, based on the Peircian notion of iconic ground, and G. Sonesson's distinction between primary and secondary iconicity. Furthermore, we describe an experimental study, in a paradigm first pioneered by W. Kohler, and recently popularized by V. Ramachandran, in which we varied vowels and consonants in fictive word-forms, and conclude that both types of sounds play a role in perceiving an iconic ground between the word-forms and visual figures. The combination of historical conceptual analysis, semiotic explication and psychological experimentation presented in this article is characteristic of the emerging paradigm of cognitive semiotics.

Iconicity and metaphor: Constraints on metaphorical extension of iconic forms

Abstract: Some conceptual metaphors common in spoken languages are infelicitous in sign languages. The explanation suggested in this article is that the iconicity of these signs clashes with the shifts in meaning that take place in these metaphorical extensions. Both iconicity and metaphors are built on mappings of two domains: form and meaning in iconicity, source domain and target domain in metaphors. Iconic signs that undergo metaphoric extension are therefore subject to both mappings (Taub 2001). When the two mappings do not preserve the same structural correspondence, the metaphorical extension is blocked. This restriction is formulated as the double-mapping constraint , which requires multiple mappings to be structure-preserving. The effects of this constraint go beyond explaining possible and impossible metaphors in sign languages. Because of the central role of metaphors in various linguistic processes, constraints on their occurrence may affect other linguistic structures and processes that are built on these metaphors in both sign and spoken languages.

Essential Readings in Biosemiotics: Anthology and Commentary

Abstract: Synthesizing the findings from a wide range of disciplines from biology and anthropology to philosophy and linguistics the emerging field of Biosemiotics explores the highly complex phenomenon of sign processing in living systems. Seeking to advance a naturalistic understanding of the evolution and development of sign-dependent life processes, contemporary biosemiotic theory offers important new conceptual tools for the scientific understanding of mind and meaning, for the development of artificial intelligence, and for the ongoing research into the rich diversity of non-verbal human, animal and biological communication processes. Donald Favareaus Essential Readings in Biosemiotics has been designed as a single-source overview of the major works informing this new interdiscipline, and provides scholarly historical and analytical commentary on each of the texts presented. The first of its kind, this book constitutes a valuable resource to both bioscientists and to semioticians interested in this emerging new discipline, and can function as a primary textbook for students in biosemiotics, as well. Moreover, because of its inherently interdisciplinary nature and its focus on the big questions of cognition, meaning and evolutionary biology, this volume should be of interest to anyone working in the fields of cognitive science, theoretical biology, philosophy of mind, evolutionary psychology, communication studies or the history and philosophy of science.

The Link Between Form and Meaning in British Sign Language: Effects of Iconicity for Phonological Decisions

Abstract: Signed languages exploit the visual/gestural modality to create iconic expression across a wide range of basic conceptual structures in which the phonetic resources of the language are built up into an analogue of a mental image (Taub, 2001). Previously, we demonstrated a processing advantage when iconic properties of signs were made salient in a corresponding picture during a picture and sign matching task (Thompson, Vinson, & Vigliocco, 2009). The current study investigates the extent of iconicity effects with a phonological decision task (does the sign involve straight or curved fingers?) in which the meaning of the sign is irrelevant. The results show that iconicity is a significant predictor of response latencies and accuracy, with more iconic signs leading to slower responses and more errors. We conclude that meaning is activated automatically for highly iconic properties of a sign, and this leads to interference in making form-based decisions. Thus, the current study extends previous work by demonstrating that iconicity effects permeate the entire language system, arising automatically even when access to meaning is not needed.

Effects of Iconicity and Semantic Relatedness on Lexical Access in American Sign Language

Abstract: Iconicity is a property that pervades the lexicon of many sign languages, including American Sign Language (ASL). Iconic signs exhibit a motivated, nonarbitrary mapping between the form of the sign and its meaning. We investigated whether iconicity enhances semantic priming effects for ASL and whether iconic signs are recognized more quickly than noniconic signs are (controlling for strength of iconicity, semantic relatedness, familiarity, and imageability). Twenty deaf signers made lexical decisions to the 2nd item of a prime–target pair. Iconic target signs were preceded by prime signs that were (a) iconic and semantically related, (b) noniconic and semantically related, or (c) semantically unrelated. In addition, a set of noniconic target signs was preceded by semantically unrelated primes. Significant facilitation was observed for target signs when they were preceded by semantically related primes. However, iconicity did not increase the priming effect (e.g., the target sign PIANO was primed equally by the iconic sign GUITAR and the noniconic sign MUSIC). In addition, iconic signs were not recognized faster or more accurately than were noniconic signs. These results confirm the existence of semantic priming for sign language and suggest that iconicity does not play a robust role in online lexical processing.

A semiotic model of destination representations applied to cultural and heritage tourism marketing.

Abstract: The article argues that semiotic analysis can be applied advantageously in tourism studies. C. S. Peirce’s representation triad is applied to destination representations by conceptualizing destinations, related activities, or entities as objects; photographs or textual descriptions as signs; and potential tourists’ comprehension of the sign as interpretants. Three formal analyses of selected photographs used by convention and visitor bureaus (VISIT FLORIDA, Destination Halifax and VisitDenmark) illustrate how the sign–object relationship is always characterized by a combination of iconic, indexical, and symbolic qualities, each of which destination marketers should consider in choosing representations because of the influence those qualities exert on reception. It is argued that the semiotic model can help marketers make informed decisions about the relevance and probable impact of the iconicity, indexicality, or symbolism of a representation, and that the semiotic model helps avoid conceiving of...

Précis of doing without concepts.

Abstract: Although cognitive scientists have learned a lot about concepts, their findings have yet to be organized in a coherent theoretical framework. In addition, after twenty years of controversy, there is little sign that philosophers and psychologists are converging toward an agreement about the very nature of concepts. Doing without Concepts (Machery 2009) attempts to remedy this state of affairs. In this article, I review the main points and arguments developed at greater length in Doing without Concepts.

Meaning and function in the theory of consumer choice: dual selves in evolving networks

Abstract: Building on the philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce, recent advances in biosemiotics have resulted into a concise framework for the analysis of signs in living systems. This paper explores the potential for economics and shows how biosemiotics can integrate two different research agendas, each of which are also connected with biological theories, namely neuroeconomics and the theory of networks. I introduce the triadic conceptual framework established by Peirce which distinguishes between object, sign and interpretant and the corresponding causal forces in evolving hierarchical systems. This framework is used to systematize recent results of neuroeconomics in the form of the dual selves approach, following early contributions of James Coleman, partitioning the individual into the acting self and the object self. This distinction implies that there is a fundamental information asymmetry between the two selves. Against this background, the semeiotic process is an information generating and processing dynamics, which is driven by the internal selection of classificatory schemes of actions chosen and the population level dynamics of sign selection, with mimetic behavior as a driver. This can be further analyzed by means of the theory of signal selection. A central insight is that the internal information gap between acting self and object self implies a systematic role of sign processing in social networks for any kind of consumer choice. I exemplify my approach with empirical references to food consumption as a most universal and simple form of consumer choice.

From mimicry to mime by way of mimesis: Reflections on a general theory of iconicity

Abstract: Practically all theories of iconicity are denunciations of its subject matter (for example, those of Goodman, Bierman and the early Eco). My own theory of iconicity was developed in order to save a particular kind of iconicity, pictoriality, from such criticism. In this interest, I distinguished pure iconicity, iconic ground, and iconic sign, on one hand, and primary and secondary iconic signs, on the other hand. Since then, however, several things have happened. The conceptual tools that I created to explain pictoriality have been shown by others to be relevant to linguistic iconicity. On the other hand, semioticians with points of departure different from mine have identified mimicry as it is commonly found in the animal world as a species of iconicity. In the evolutionary semiotics of Deacon, iconicity is referred to in such a general way that it seems to be emptied of all content, while in the variety invented by Donald the term mimesis is used for a particular phase in the evolution of iconic meaning. The aim of this article is to consider to what extent the extension of iconicity theory to new domains will necessitate the development of new models.

Sign Languages: Transmission of sign languages in Northern Europe

Abstract: This chapter presents case studies of sign language transmission in European countries in which the majority of inhabitants all speak a Germanic-based language. Owing to space constraints, we are focusing in this chapter on Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands as examples of the past and current practices of language transmission in this part of Europe, but by no means should this overview be interpreted as being inclusive of other countries of the region.

Semiosis and the elusive final interpretant of understanding

Abstract: While the conceptual history of the sign, as recounted by John Deely in Four ages of understanding, is immensely enlightening, history is never enough. If, before Augustine, it had occurred to no one that such diverse phenomena as are covered by this term had something in common, and if, in the time of Aquinas, Fonseca, and Poinsot, different usages of the term were in competition, the reason is not simply intellectual confusion, but rather that meaning is of many kinds. In this essay, I have shifted the terrain from socio-history to phylogeny and ontogeny, suggesting that, in the child, as well as in the human species, perception is the primary type of meaning, whereas true signs are acquired much later, followed by signs systems and organism-independent artifacts. The whole point of having a semiotic theory, it is argued, is to be able to account for the differences, and not only the similarities, of different kinds of meaning.

Africa in Theory: A Conversation Between Jean Comaroff and Achille Mbembe

Abstract: Achille Mbembe I would like to start with an anecdote. I first met Jean Comaroff not literally, but through her thought provoking, generous, and hospitable Body of Power, Spirit of Resistance during the winter of 1987. I was then on a Ford Foundation grant, spending a year at the University of Madison-Wisconsin- my first ever trip to the United States. I was writing a book on "political religion"- in this case Christianity-published in Paris a year later under the title Afriques indociles. Christianisme, pouvoir et Etat en societe postcoloniale (Paris, Karthala, 1988)- like the rest of my work in French, a book hardly known in the Anglo-Saxon world. I went to Memorial Library that night not knowing that the book existed and never having heard of Jean Comaroff. I stumbled over the book accidentally while trudging through the shelves. I took it home and spent almost the entire night reading it. Since then, Body of Power has not only remained with me; it has pursued me, and it is easy to find its echoes in the deepest recesses of On the Postcolony. Body of Power is a detailed, vivid, and richly textured historiography of everyday life in a remote and not so remote corner of South Africa under apartheid-from the minutiae of dress, spatial organization, bodily gestures to productive techniques, rites of initiation, and cult practices. It is a powerful example of how we should think and write about human agency; what analytical strategies we should deploy in order to describe and interpret specific forms of social life in particular settings. Situated beyond the strictures of positivist epistemology and objectivist ontology, it is also an account of what is life for and what is most at stake, especially for people living in what Jean calls "the shadow of the modern world system"-people who are forced to undo and remake their lives under conditions of precariousness and uncertainty. That this amazing book, a combination of thick ethnography, interpretive history, and symbolic analysis, helped to set the stage for the critical debates on the forms and methods of social inquiry that dominated the mid-1980s to mid-1990s has not been sufficiently recognized for various reasons. Unfortunately, the most compelling reason is that the immediate and most apparent object of Body of Power is the study of life forms in this place called Africa. As a name and as a sign, Africa has always occupied a paradoxical position in modern formations of knowledge. On the one hand, it has been largely assumed that "things African" are residual entities, the study of which does not contribute anything to the knowledge of the world or of the human condition in general. Rapid surveys, off-the-cuff remarks, and anecdotes with sensational value suffice. On the other hand, it has always been implicitly acknowledged that in the field of social sciences and the humanities, there is no better laboratory than Africa to gauge the limits of our epistemological imagination or to pose questions about how we know what we know and what that knowledge is grounded upon; how to draw on multiple models of time so as to avoid one-way causal models; how to open a space for broader comparative undertakings; and how to account for the multiplicity of the pathways and trajectories of change. In fact, there is no better terrain than Africa for a scholarship keen to describe novelty, originality, and complexity. Those of us who live and work in Africa know first hand that the ways in which societies compose and invent themselves in the present-what we could call the creativity of practice- is always ahead of the knowledge we can ever produce about them. Therefore, to think or to theorize from Africa implies an acute awareness of the existence of this rift-even a full embrace of this rift which is at the same time a risk, and the understanding that "the social" is less a matter of order and contract than a matter of composition and experiment; that what ultimately binds societies might be some kind of artifice they have come to believe in; the realization that societies' capacity to continually produce something new and singular, as yet unthought, which is yet to be accommodated within established conceptual systems and languages-this is indeed the condition of possibility of social theorizing as such. …

The SignSpeak Project - Bridging the Gap Between Signers and Speakers

Abstract: The SignSpeak project will be the first step to approach sign language recognition and translation at a scientific level already reached in similar research fields such as automatic speech recognition or statistical machine translation of spoken languages Deaf communities revolve around sign languages as they are their natural means of communication Although deaf, hard of hearing and hearing signers can communicate without problems amongst themselves, there is a serious challenge for the deaf community in trying to integrate into educational, social and work environments The overall goal of SignSpeak is to develop a new vision-based technology for recognizing and translating continuous sign language to text New knowledge about the nature of sign language structure from the perspective of machine recognition of continuous sign language will allow a subsequent breakthrough in the development of a new vision-based technology for continuous sign language recognition and translation Existing and new publicly available corpora will be used to evaluate the research progress throughout the whole project

One, two, three: A practical brand anatomy

Abstract: The purpose of this article is to integrate the multiple facets of the concept of the brand in a simple and intelligible theoretical model. The article begins with the juridical definition, which considers that the brand is a sign. Subsequently, semiotics, the ‘science of signs’, is used as a basis for a model that considers the different components of the sign and the relationships among them. The triadic sign concept developed by Peirce, one of the great founders of semiotics, allows us to define three main dimensions of the brand: the identity sign itself; the marketing object to which the sign refers; and the market response to the sign. With this model in mind, the brand researcher can better focus his research and comprehend the potential implications of his findings on the field as a whole. Teachers of branding may obtain a clear framework to integrate the different subjects that branding involves, ranging from linguistics and design to market research and finance evaluation. Finally, managers can avoid the all-so-common reductionist visions of brand practice, the so-called ‘branding myopias’.

Sign languages and compounding

Abstract: Compounding is one of the few sequential word formation processes found across sign languages. We explore familiar properties of compounds in established sign languages like American Sign Language, as well as a modality-specific type of simultaneous compounding, in which each hand contributes a separate morpheme. Sign languages also offer the opportunity to observe the way in which compounds first arise in a language, since as a group they are quite young, and some sign languages have emerged very recently. Our study of compounds in a language that came into being only about 75 years ago (Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language) provides insight into the way in which compounds arise and acquire structure. We find in our data a relationship between conventionalization and grammaticalization of compounds: as particular forms become conventionalized in the community, both morphological and phonological structures begin to emerge.

A biosemiotic approach to the question of meaning

Abstract: . A sign is something that refers to something else. Signs, whether of natural or cultural origin, act by provoking a receptive system, human or nonhuman, to form an interpretant (a movement or a brain activity) that somehow relates the system to this “something else.” Semiotics sees meaning as connected to the formation of interpretants. In a biosemiotic understanding living systems are basically engaged in semiotic interactions, that is, interpretative processes, and organic evolution exhibits an inherent tendency toward an increase in semiotic freedom. Mammals generally are equipped with more semiotic freedom than are their reptilian ancestor species, and fishes are more semiotically sophisticated than are invertebrates. The evolutionary trend toward the production of life forms with an increasing interpretative capacity or semiotic freedom implies that the production of meaning has become an essential survival parameter in later stages of evolution.

Marxist and non-Marxist Aspects of the Cultural-Historical Psychology of L. S. Vygotsky

Abstract: It was not only Marxism which influenced Vygotsky. He was a child of the Silver Age of Russian culture and philosophy and the influence of this should not be underestimated. Some traits in Vygotsky’s theory, traditionally considered as Marxist – such as the concept of the social origins of mind or sign as psychological tool have deeper and wider roots in works of Shpet, Blonsky, Sorokin and Meierhold. As for Marxism as such, it must be mentioned that during all three periods of his creative evolution Vygotsky had different approaches to what was true Marxist psychology and how it should be built. These are items this paper is focused on.

What's So Important About Music Education?

Abstract: 1. Music as an Academic Subject in the Public Schools of the United States: An Inherent Cultural Tension 2. "Culture," "Worldview," and Pragmatism: The Philosophy and Semiotic of Charles Sanders Peirce 3. A Pragmatic Conception of Musical Practices: "Music" as a Sign of Worldview 4. Conceptions of Music in the United States 5. A Brief Historical Survey of Concepts of Music in Music Education in the United States 6. Community, Autonomy, and Music Education in the Postmodern United States: Summary and Recommendations

Deaf People, Modernity, and a Contentious Effort to Unify Arab Sign Languages.

Abstract: This dissertation examines a project to unify sign languages across twenty-two Arab countries. Proponents of the project, mainly pan-Arab governmental bodies with the support of members of the staff at the Al Jazeera satellite network, have framed the project as a human rights effort to advance the welfare of deaf Arab people. They have urged its institutionalization in schools for deaf children and have promoted it as the official language of deaf Arab people. The project is controversial and has a number of shortcomings. First, from a lexicostatistical analysis of five natural sign languages found in the region: Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, and Palestine, the author finds that they are unlikely to be descendants of a common ancestor. As such, attempting to unify them would be unsound by scholarly linguistics standards. Second, there are cultural, political, and social objections to the project that have been raised by deaf Arab people who are resistant to the unification effort. They say they cannot understand the unified sign language nor can they find a purpose or utility in the language, which they believe threatens to diminish and eventually obliterate their natural sign languages. This dissertation reviews arguments held by those supporting and opposing the project. Both sides claim a vision of modernity in which progress is perceived as a continuation of a past that is consistent with their present practices and beliefs. For proponents supporting the unification project, progress is tied to pan-Arab nationalism and the unifying Arabic language. Those opposing the project define progress as gaining more autonomy through official recognition of their natural sign languages and by transforming disparaging concepts of deafness. The unified sign language project may fail in achieving its goal of wide acceptance by deaf Arab people throughout the Arab region. Its potential demise can be attributed to its architects' lack of understanding of the deep complexity of human languages, including sign languages, as well as a lack of appreciation for informal, local practices and knowledge that are required for the project's success

Policy and practice in sign bilingual education: development, challenges and directions

Abstract: A sign bilingual approach to the education of deaf children was first introduced in the UK in 1990. This paper reviews the growth of sign bilingual education in the UK and documents significant milestones in the development of sign bilingual policy and practice since the 1980s. This overview demonstrates how key issues in sign bilingual education have evolved and how priorities have changed over time and enables comparisons with contexts beyond the UK to be drawn. Current issues in sign bilingual education are analysed within our twenty-first century educational context in which both the advancing technology and medical understanding are providing new opportunities for deaf pupils and changing their learning and communication needs. Particular themes addressed include research into early literacy and also the role of sign language for deaf children with cochlear implants. From this analysis, new directions for sign bilingual education are suggested in terms of learning and teaching and a future research agenda.

Semiotics of Programming

Abstract: This book provides a semiotic analysis of computer programs along three axes: models of signs, kinds of signs, and systems of signs. Because computer programs are well defined and rigid, applying semiotic theories to them will help to reorganize the semiotic theories themselves. Moreover, semiotic discussion of programming theory can provide possible explanations for why programming has developed as it has and how computation is fundamentally related to human semiosis. The goal of this book is to consider the question of what computers can and cannot do, by analyzing how computer sign systems compare to those of humans. A key concept throughout is reflexivity - the capability of a system or function to reinterpret what it has produced by itself. Sign systems are reflexive by nature, and humans know how to make the most of this characteristic but have not yet fully implemented it into computer systems. Therefore, the limitations of current computers can be ascribed to insufficient reflexivity.

Information and Semiosis in Living Systems: A Semiotic Approach

Abstract: During the 1950s and 1960s, genetics and cell and molecular biology have been swamped by terms borrowed from information theory This ‘information talk’ still pervades these fields, including widely used terms such as ‘genetic code’, ‘messenger RNA’, ‘transcription’, ‘translation’, ‘transduction’, ‘genetic information’, ‘chemical signals’, ‘cell signaling’ etc But, as the concept of information and its plethora of associated notions were introduced in biology, so did several problems with which the tradition of biology was unprepared to cope Instead of deepening the discussion about the problems involved in information talk, the trend in the biological sciences was one of treating ‘information’ as merely sequence information in DNA or proteins Nevertheless, a number of researchers consider information talk as inadequate and ‘just metaphorical’, thus expressing a skepticism about the use of the term ‘information’ and its derivatives in biology as a natural science We disagree with this position, claiming instead that the notion of information and other related ideas grasp some fundamental features of biological systems and processes that might be otherwise neglected Therefore, our problem is not to get rid of information talk, but rather to clarify it by using a proper theoretical framework We intend to show that the use of semiotic concepts and theories to interpret information talk can significantly contribute to the construction of a precise and coherent account of information in biology For this purpose, we introduce here a model of information as semiosis, grounded on Peircean semiotics Peirce’s formal science of signs provides an analytic framework in which information can be modeled as a pragmatic triadic dependent process that irreducibly connects signs, objects, and interpretants (effects on interpreters) According to the model developed in this paper, information is treated as semiosis, ie, the communication of a form or habit from an object to an interpretant through a sign, so as to constrain (in general) the interpretant as a sign or (in biological systems) the interpreter’s behavior We employ this treatment of information for building an account of genes as signs and genetic information as semiosis

Limitations on simultaneity in sign language

Abstract: Sign languages have two primary articulation tracts: the two hands. They also have secondary articulation tracts that can be partitioned: the nonmanuals. Thus multiple propositions can be conveyed simultaneously. We have attested at most four simultaneously articulated independent propositions in sign languages, and suggest that this limit follows at least partly from limitations on visual short-term memory to cope with the information received. It appears further that the simultaneous propositions must be connected, often sharing arguments or verbs, an account of which concerns matters of production and of cognitive load. A brief look at simultaneity in spoken language suggests that similar if not identical limitations apply.

Anthropomorphism in Sign Languages: A Look at Poetry and Storytelling with a Focus on British Sign Language

Abstract: The work presented here considers some linguistic methods used in sign anthropomorphism. We find a cline of signed anthropomorphism that depends on a number of factors, including the skills and intention of the signer, the animacy of the entities represented, the form of their bodies, and the form of vocabulary signs referring to those entities. We consider four main factors that allow signers to anthropomorphize the whole range of entities (from animate to inanimate): the linguistic base that allows such play, the ability of the nonmanuals to anthropomorphize even when the manual articulators are signing in an ordinary way, the range of possibilities for both manual and nonmanual articulators when the signer engages in (almost) complete embodiment of the nonhuman character, and how nonhumans are portrayed as communicating via sign language.

Sign Crossroads in Global Perspective: Semioethics and Responsibility

Abstract: Language is the species-specific human version of the animal system of communication. In contrast to non-human animals, language enables humans to invent a plurality of possible worlds; reflect upon signs; be responsible for our actions; gain conscious awareness of our inevitable mutual involvement in the network of life on this planet; and be responsibly involved in the destiny of the planet. The author looks at semiotics, the study of signs, symbols, and communication as developing sequentially rather than successively, more synchronically than diachronically. She discusses the contemporary phenomenon that people in today's society have witnessed and participated in, as part of the development of semiotics. Although there is a long history preceding semiotics, in a sense the field is, as a phenomenon, more 'of our time' than of any time past. Its leading figures, whom Petrilli examines, belong to the twentieth and twenty-first century. Semiotics is associated with a capacity for listening. This capacity is also the condition for reconnecting to and recovering the ancient vocation of semiotics as that branch of medical science relating to the interpretation of signs or symptoms. The pragmatic aspect of global semiotics studies the impact of language or signs on those who use them, and looks for consequences in actual practice. In this respect, Petrilli theorizes that the task for semiotics in the era of globalization is nothing less than to take responsibility for life in its totality.

A semiotic interpretation of genre: Judgments as an example

Abstract: Genre has been a critical issue in discourse analysis as well as in other disciplines. Based on a literature review of the concept of genre and taking judgments as one type of genre in legal settings, the present study provides a corpus-based insight into the nature of genre. The literature review per se reveals that genre has one typical feature of a sign, that is, being subject to multiple and alternative interpretations; in other words, genre as a sign may have various interpretants. The present study unravels the actual generic structures, distinguishes different types of generic structures within the given genre, and then defines the dominant generic structure of judgments in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Mainland China. This study also examines and contrasts the generic structure potential of judgments in each jurisdiction. In addition, the variation of Mainland China's judgments over time is briefly discussed. Comparing the generic structures of judgments among the three jurisdictions, as well as the structures of judgments in Mainland China over time, the paper argues that genre also has the essential features of a sign, that is, the characteristics of temporality and spatiality.

Självskada: En etnologisk studie av mening och identitet i berättelser om skärande

Abstract: This doctoral thesis is about people who write about their self-harm on Internet message boards. The aim of the study is to understand how meaning is produced in relation to self-harm, and how this involves particular constructions of self-harmer identity. The empirical material consists of written dialogues from seven Swedish message boards, as well as interviews with their members and a selection of published texts. This body of material is analysed using a poststructuralist discourse theoretical approach. In order to outline a context for the study, the thesis traces the constitution of self-harm in Swedish public debate since the 1990s. It is suggested that several discourses interact when cutting is represented in media, literature and governmental reports. Most noticeable, a psychiatric discourse, a dystopian discourse of contemporary society, a discourse of alternative youth culture, and a discourse of vulnerable girls are drawn on here. These discourses are regarded as resources for the production of meaning and the acts of identification in message board discussions and interviews. The analysis of this material is concerned with four empirical themes: the practice of cutting; the importance of talking as cure; distinctions between authentic and inauthentic cutters; and the paradoxical and antagonistic relationship between self-harming patients and psychiatry. Issues of normality/deviance and victimhood/agency are of great importance throughout the thesis, as the informants constantly negotiate these dichotomies. The thesis demonstrates that cutting is framed on the one hand as a deliberate strategy for managing emotions and demonstrating self-control, and on the other hand as the ultimate sign of helplessness, self-hatred and lack of control. Although the informants have different reasons for cutting, their diverse accounts and approaches are linked together on the message boards through their shared identification with the position of ‘feeling bad’. The thesis further argues that cutter identity in this empirical material is defined through the construction of different constitutive outsides or ‘enemies’. On the one hand, cutters who ‘feel bad’ are posited against less ‘real’ or authentic ones. On the other hand, cutters are also posited against psychiatry and psychiatric care staff. Psychiatry is constituted in particularly contradictory ways and the informants tend to vacillate between the positions of autonomous, rebellious patient and docile victim of disease. I argue that this can be seen as ways of dealing with certain problematics inherent in the asymmetrical power relationship between patient and psychiatry, at the same time as the construction of psychiatry as an antagonist is also essential for the assertion of solidarity and mutual support on the message boards.

British Sign Name Customs

Abstract: Research presented here describes the sign names and the customs of name allocation within the British Deaf community. While some aspects of British Sign Language sign names and British Deaf naming customs differ from those in most Western societies, there are many similarities. There are also similarities with other societies outside the more familiar cultures of most English-speakers. Naming customs in the British Deaf community are shown here to vary over time, with changes in education and other key elements of the British Deaf experience influencing the choice and use of sign names. While descriptive sign names are important within the British Deaf community, arbitrary signs, and those derived from the English language are also important. Additionally BSL sign names are shown to vary among different sections of the Deaf community. In contrast to reports from America, we find that British Deaf parents in the past have rarely allocated sign names to their children—deaf or hearing—beyond finger-spelled forms of their English names. Some of these children of Deaf parents retain these fingerspelled forms throughout their lives. Others only acquire names motivated by descriptive processes on entering school or even later in life. Thus, we conclude that, unlike people in many societies, the overwhelming majority of British Deaf people appear to acquire descriptive sign names from outside their families.