Showing papers on "Sign (semiotics) published in 2013"

Patterned iconicity in sign language lexicons

Abstract: Iconicity is an acknowledged property of both gesture and sign language. In contrast to the familiar definition of iconicity as a correspondence between individual forms and their referents, we explore iconicity as a shared property among groups of signs, in what we call patterned iconicity. In this paper, we focus on iconic strategies used by hearing silent gesturers and by signers of three unrelated sign languages in an elicitation task featuring pictures of hand-held manufactured tools. As in previous gesture literature, we find that silent gesturers largely prefer a handling strategy, though some use an instrument strategy, in which the handshape represents the shape of the tool. There are additional differences in use of handling and instrument strategies for hand-held tools across the different sign languages, suggesting typological differences in iconic patterning. Iconic patterning in each of the three sign languages demonstrates how gestural iconic resources are organized in the grammars of sign languages.

The quality and qualities of information

Abstract: The paper discusses and analyzes the notion of information quality in terms of a pragmatic philosophy of language. It is argued that the notion of information quality is of great importance, and needs to be situated better within a sound philosophy of information to help frame information quality in a broader conceptual light. It is found that much research on information quality conceptualizes information quality as either an inherent property of the information itself, or as an individual mental construct of the users. The notion of information quality is often not situated within a philosophy of information. This paper outlines a conceptual framework in which information is regarded as a semiotic sign, and extends that notion with Paul Grice's pragmatic philosophy of language to provide a conversational notion of information quality that is contextual and tied to the notion of meaning.

On spirit writing: materialities of language and the religious work of transduction

Abstract: This is a speculative essay in comparative possibilities. It looks at some widely separated religious contexts in which a power-laden relationship across ontological difference – for instance, between living humans and a world of gods or spirits – is mediated by operations on the materiality of the written sign. These operations typically result in either materializing something immaterial or dematerializing something material. But they may also involve other activities that take advantage of specific physical properties of the written word such as being persistent, transportable, perishable, alienable, and so forth. Once divine words are rendered into script, they possess a distinctively material quality and form. They appear on some physical medium, and so are both durable and potentially destructible. Anything that can happen to another artefact can happen to them. The practices I dub ‘spirit writing’ subject the written word to radical transformation, taking advantage of its very materiality in order to dematerialize it, even if only in order to be rematerialized in yet some other form (such as a person's body). Many such practices seek to generate or control religious powers by means of transduction across semiotic modalities, material activities that help render experience-transcending forces realistic or at least readily imaginable.

On international legal method

Abstract: International Authority and the Responsibility to Protect seeks to show that the emergence of the responsibility to protect concept and its embrace by a very diverse range of actors is one sign of a significant shift in the representation of authority in the modern world. More specifically, the book argues that the responsibility to protect concept offers a framework for rationalising and con- solidating practices of international executive rule, many of which were de- veloped by Dag Hammarskjold, the second Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN), in the early years of decolonisation. Since the late 1950s, the UN and other international actors have developed and systematised a body of practices aimed at 'the maintenance of order' and 'the protection of life' in the decolonised world, 1 including fact-finding, peacekeeping, the management of refugee camps, civilian administration, strategic forms of technical assistance and early warning mechanisms. My aim was to explore the ways in which those practices of governing and that form of authority had been represented. The book is also a wager that there is something to be gained—theoretic- ally, politically and empirically—by developing a primarily juridical (rather than historical, philosophical, economic or sociological) method as a basis for exploring such contemporary international developments. Juridical think- ing frames the problems that the book raises, shapes the archival choices made throughout its research and the construction of its narrative, structures its argument and provides its conceptual underpinnings. Of course, this begs the question of just what 'juridical thinking' is, where we might look for it, and to which historical figures and authors we might properly make reference in order to develop a legal analysis that is also critical, idiomatically recognisable and politically useful. I return to these questions below.

Introduction to Peircean Visual Semiotics

Abstract: 1. Introduction 2. Signs and Things 3. How Shall a Sign be Called? 4. Peirce 5. Modes of representation 6. Medium Matters 7. The Mute Poem 8. Rhetoric of the Image 9. Conclusion Bibliography Index

Fan work: Labor, worth, and participation in fandom's gift economy

Abstract: Fandom's gift economy should be understood as involving a wide variety of gifts, a complex system of reciprocation, and the use of gifts as a sign of their reception.

Models as icons: modeling models in the semiotic framework of Peirce’s theory of signs

Abstract: In this paper, we try to shed light on the ontological puzzle pertaining to models and to contribute to a better understanding of what models are Our suggestion is that models should be regarded as a specific kind of signs according to the sign theory put forward by Charles S Peirce, and, more precisely, as icons, ie as signs which are characterized by a similarity relation between sign (model) and object (original) We argue for this (1) by analyzing from a semiotic point of view the representational relation which is characteristic of models We then corroborate our hypothesis (2) by discussing the conceptual differences between icons, ie models, and indexical and symbolic signs and (3) by putting forward a general classification of all icons into three functional subclasses (images, diagrams, and metaphors) Subsequently, we (4) integratively refine our results by resorting to two influential and, as can be shown, complementary philosophy of science approaches to models This yields the following result: models are determined by a semiotic structure in which a subject intentionally uses an object, ie the model, as a sign for another object, ie the original, in the context of a chosen theory or language in order to attain a specific end by instituting a representational relation in which the syntactic structure of the model, ie its attributes and relations, represents by way of a mapping the properties of the original, which hence are regarded as similar in a relevant manner

Visual intonation in two sign languages

Abstract: In a detailed comparison of the intonational systems of two unrelated languages, Israeli Sign Language and American Sign Language, we show certain similarities as well as differences in the distribution of several articulations of different parts of the face and motions of the head. Differences between the two languages are explained on the basis of pragmatic notions related to information structure, such as accessibility and contingency, providing novel evidence that the system is inherently intonational, and only indirectly related to syntax. The study also identifies specific ways in which the physical modality in which language is expressed influences intonational structure.

The point of agreement: Changing how we think about sign language, gesture, and agreement

Abstract: This paper reconsiders arguments suggesting that sign language analyses must proceed differently to take into account their gestural, iconic origins. Lillo-Martin & Meier (2011) argue that agreement is ‘person marking’, shown by directionality. Liddell (2003, 2011) argues that directional verbs move between locations associated with referents; given an infinite number of points, the forms of these verbs are unlistable, and therefore just gestural indicating; he claims that this makes sign languages different from spoken languages, a position that I will argue against. In their response, Lillo-Martin & Meier then agree that real-world referent locations are not part of grammar, so language must interface closely with the gestural system. In contrast, Quer (2011) argues that Liddell’s reasoning is flawed. I will present evidence to agree with Quer and argue that the linguistic discussion was prematurely derailed by noting the recent alternate analysis offered by Gokgoz (2013). There may well be a role for visual iconicity in relation to sign language structure, as demonstrated by Schlenker (2013a,b), but unless we pursue linguistic analysis further, we will never get a clear understanding of what that role is.

How ‘sign meaning develops’: Strategic mediation in learning to teach

Abstract: A fundamental goal of any L2 teacher education program is to move novice teachers toward greater levels of professional expertise, both in terms of what they know and what they can do with what the...

Semiotizing a product into a brand

Abstract: A product is simply something that is material or substance of some kind. In order to be transformed into a brand with its own code of meanings and system of rhetorical allusions, it needs to be semiotized. And the marketing and advertising industries have become semioticians in this sense, semiotizing a product by assigning it a name, a visual sign (logo), a system of language forms (slogan, taglines, etc.), and then textualizing the brand by creating appropriate ads and commercials for it. This paper will show how this network of semiotizing events coheres into an overall macrotext to produce the brand as a sign system.

Semiotic and spatial scope : Towards a materialist semiotics

Abstract: We wish in this chapter to join a project that, in our view, ties together much of Gunther Kress’ work, and can also be found, among others, in the “Geosemiotics” developed by Scollon and Scollon (2003). This project is the construction of a materialist theory of signs: a study of signs that sees signs not as primarily mental and abstract phenomena reflected in “real” moments of enactment, but as material forces subject to and reflective of conditions of production and patterns of distribution, and as constructive of social reality, as real social agents having real effects in social life. Kress (2010b) consistently calls this a social semiotics, but it is good to remember that methodologically, this social semiotics is a materialist approach to signs. Such a materialism reacts, of course, against the Saussurean paradigm, in which the sign was defined as “une entite psychique” with two faces: the signifier and the signified (Saussure, 1960, p. 99). The study of signs-semiotics-could so become a study of abstract signs; retrieving their meaning could become a matter of digging into their deeper structures of meaning systems; and semiotics could become a highly formal enterprise (Eco, 1979).

Recent developments in sign language recognition systems

Abstract: Automated translation systems for sign languages are important in a world that is showing a continuously increasing interest in removing barriers faced by physically challenged individuals in communicating and contributing to the society and the workforce. These systems can greatly facilitate the communication between the vocal and the nonvocal communities. For the hearing-impaired, such systems can serve as the equivalent of speech-recognition systems used by speaking people to interact with machines in a more natural way. Few research projects tried to develop a translation system from and to visual sign language. Very few of these attempts were on Arabic sign language. None of them succeeded to develop a reliable industrial product. This review explores these trials and proposes clear recommendations to convert the lab research to a real product useful to the community.

The Self as a Sign, the World, and the Other: Living Semiotics

Abstract: Ostentation of the Subject is a practice that is asserting itself ever more in today's world. Consequently, criticism by philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, and anthropologists has been to little effect, considering that they are not immune to such practices themselves. The question of subjectivity concerns the close and the distant, the self and the other, the other from self and the other of self. It is thus connected to the question of the sign. It calls for a semiotic approach because the self is itself a sign; its very own relation with itself is a relation among signs. This book commits to developing a critique of subjectivity in terms of the "material" that the self is made of, that is, the material of signs. Susan Petrilli highlights the scholarship of Charles Peirce, Mikhail Bakhtin, Roland Barthes, Mary Boole, Jacques Derrida, Michael Foucault, Emmanuel Levinas, Claude Levi-Strauss, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Charles Morris, Thomas Sebeok, Thomas Szasz, and Victoria Welby. Included are American and European theories and theorists, evidencing the relationships interconnecting American, Italian, French, and German scholarship. Petrilli covers topics from identity issues that are part of semiotic views, to the corporeal self as well as responsibility, reason, and freedom. Her book should be read by philosophers, semioticians, and other social scientists.

Vive la différence: Sign language and spoken language in language evolution

Abstract: Michael Arbib's book proposes a scenario of language evolution that begins with pantomime, progresses to proto-sign, and then develops together with proto-speech in an “expanding spiral” to create a language-ready brain. The richness of detail in Arbib's hypothesis makes serious appraisal of each of its aspects possible. Here I describe findings about established and emerging sign languages that bear specifically upon the interaction between sign and speech proposed in the Mirror System Hypothesis. While supporting the central role that Arbib attributes to gestural/visual communication in understanding language and its evolution, I point out some kinks in the spiral that potentially disrupt its smooth expansion. One is the fact that each modality relies on an entirely different motor system. Another is the type of relation that holds between the articulators and grammatical structure, which is radically different in each system as well. A third kink disrupts the proposed continuity between holistic pantomime (gestural holophrases) and signs. Given such differences, instead of a scenario in which speech grew out of sign, it seems more likely that the two modalities complemented each other symbiotically throughout evolution as they do today. If so, then the modern ability to spontaneously create sign languages reveals the extraordinary richness and plasticity of human cognition, and not an evolutionary stepping stone to speech.

On the Metaphorical Connectivity of Cultural Sign Systems

Abstract: Theories of culture based on signs and systems are found across the interdisciplinary spectrum. There seems to be a growing consensus across disciplines that the forms of culture (linguistic, material, aesthetic, ritualistic, etc.) are connected to each other in some way. With the advent of conceptual metaphor theory, this article claims that the cognitive mechanism (metaphor) connecting the forms can be found in this theoretical framework. It also puts forward the notion of metaform as a nonverbal counterpart to a conceptual metaphor. In this way, it is possible to link signs and systems to each other into a network of distributed meanings that constitute a culture.

Culture, Technology, Cultural Techniques – Moving Beyond Text1:

Abstract: Originally published in 2003, this article presents one of the first attempts to provide a systematic summary of the new concept of cultural technique. It is, in essence, an extended checklist aimed at overcoming the textualist bias of traditional cultural theory by highlighting what is elided by this bias. On the one hand, to speak of cultural techniques redirects our attention to material and physical practices that all too often assume the shape of inconspicuous quotidian practices resistant to accustomed investigations of meaning. On the other hand, cultural techniques also comprise sign systems such as musical notation or arithmetical formulas located outside the domain of the hegemony of alphabetical literacy. The rise of the latter in particular is indebted to the impact of the digital – both as a domain of technology and a source of theoretical reorientation. Together, these aspects require a paradigmatic change that challenges and supersedes the traditional ‘discursivism’ of cultural theory.

The exbodied mind: Cognitive-semiotic principles as motivating forces in gesture

Abstract: Building on the premises of the embodied mind (e.g. Gibbs 2006; Johnson 1987), this talk presents an approach to manual gestures and full-body enactments that centers on how cognitive-semiotic principles – such as iconicity, indexicality, metaphor and metonymy – seem to drive the expression (i.e. ‘exbodiment) of ideas, inclinations, emotions, etc. in multimodal performance acts. The focus will be on how semiotic modes (Jakobson 1956; Peirce 1960) as well as related conceptual schemata may structure and thus lend some systematicity to spontaneous communicative bodily movements integrated with speech. Of central interest are the ways in which image schemas and other cognitively entrenched patterns of experience – arisen from visual perception, navigation through space, tactile exploration and other practices of bodily interaction with the material and social world – may be said to not only underpin gestural sign formation and the use of gesture space, but also guide, at least to some degree, gesture interpretation.

An Avatar Based Approach for Automatically Interpreting a Sign Language Notation

Abstract: For deaf and hard hearing people, learning any spoken language is not a natural or automatic process, it is rather a long and intensive task. As a matter of fact, the important differences between signed and oral languages significantly affect the ability of these individuals to develop their literacy skills and thus their knowledge and potential. To address that issue, a number of systems for representing SLs in written form have been proposed. Most have become widely used among academics for linguistic research, while a few others have begun to be used as educational tools in some countries. Typically, these notations may inadvertently create confusion for novice readers because of their static nature and the special symbols that they use, so, displaying its contents in the form of video or animation of humanlike character would be beneficial to their users. In this context, we present in this paper a new approach for automatically interpreting a sign language notation using avatar technology. Sign Writing will be the focus of our work because it depicts the more suitable method that could satisfy the deaf needs than other notations and which is being taught formally in some schools.

Fixing the meaning of marriage: political symbolism and citizen identity in the same-sex marriage debate

Abstract: This article explores the ways in which politicians use same-sex marriage as a sign that both conveys a wide range of meanings to the electorate and implicates the construction of particular citizen identities. Politicians' views discussed range from those of Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard to George W. Bush and Barack Obama. By analysing the ways in which heteronormative signs are contested, the article questions whether measures such as same-sex marriage are as unambiguously normalizing as critics like Butler suggest. For, despite some normalizing aspects, same-sex marriage can also challenge the way in which heteronormative citizen identities have been constructed. That is precisely why some conservative (and not so conservative) politicians see it as a threat while others see same-sex marriage as an important sign of progress. Meanwhile, what had been intended as a reassuring sign for the religious right contributed to Australian Labor losing votes on the left.

Death and Texts: Finitude before Form

Abstract: This article examines the various limits of knowledge in Chaucer's Pardoner's Tale as a critique of finitude in object-oriented philosophy and speculative realism. The phrase "death shall be dead" is the form of the receding limits that emerge when finitude is revoked, the lack of content that is a sign of a finitude still to come. The materialisms of the Tale assert a limit that does not arrive because they begin with the inexhaustible limitations of form.

Traffic Sign Comprehension: a Review of Influential Factors and Future Directions for Research

Abstract: Traffic signs are effective only when users clearly understand their meaning. This paper reviews recent studies concerning traffic sign comprehension and finds that unsatisfactory comprehension is a common problem for drivers in many countries. The influence of user characteristics and sign cognitive features on understanding levels are summarized and discussed. While the positive relation between comprehension level and educational background is confirmed by various researchers, conclusions about effects of other factors are not unanimous. Finally, possible future traffic sign comprehension research topics and directions for future research are proposed to fill the present knowledge gap.

Multimodality and Social Semiosis : Communication, Meaning-Making, and Learning in the Work of Gunther Kress

Abstract: Foreword Geoff Whitty Introduction Margit Boeck, and Norbert Pachler Part I: Two personal views 1. Kress on Kress: Using a Method to Read a Life Bob Hodge 2. On Transformation: Reflections on the Work of, and Working with, Gunther Kress Mary Kalantzis and Bill Cope Part II: Semiotics and Meaning-Making 3. Semiotic and Spatial Scope: Towards a Materialistic Semiotics Jan Blommaert 4. Proactive Design Theories of Sign Use: Reflections on Gunther Kress James Paul Gee 5. Making Meaning in Japanese: Orthographic Principles and Semiotic Meaning Potential Sean McGovern 6. Colour Schemes Theo van Leeuwen 7. On the Problematics of Visual Imagery jan jagodzinski 8. Mediated Frameworks for Participation Sonia Livingstone and Peter Lunt 9. The Search for Multimodality. Mimesis, Performativity, and Ritual Christoph Wulf 10. On Magical Language: Multimodality and the Power to Change Things Stephen Muecke 11. Multimodality and New Literacy Studies: Exploring Complimentarity Brian Street Part III: Shaping Knowledge: Agency in Learning and Design 12. Gunther Kress and Politics Ken Jones13. Transformation and Sign-Making: The Principles of Sketching in Designs for Learning Staffan Selander 14. Bildungssprache - A Case of Multiliteracies and Multimodalities Ingrid Gogolin 15. Kressian Moments in South African Classrooms: Multimodality, Representation, and Learning Denise Newfield 16. Voice as Design: Exploring Academic Voice in Multimodal Texts in Higher Education Arlene Archer 17. After Writing: Rethinking the Paths to Composition Jennifer Rowsell & Kate Pahl 18. Semiotic Work in the Apparently Mundane: Completing a Structured Worksheet Diane Mavers 19. Visual Communication in a Physics Course Jon Ogborn 20. From Error to Multimodal Semiosis: Reading Student Writing Differently Mary Scott 21. Encounters and (Missed) Opportunities - Rethinking Media and Communication Studies from a Multimodal Perspective Brigitte Hipfl Part IV: Knowing and Learning Beyond the Walls of the Traditional Education 22. Composition and Appropriation in a Culture Characterised by Provisionality Ben Bachmair and Norbert Pachler 23. Towards a Social and Ethical View of Semiosis: Examples from the Museum Eva Insulander and Fredrik Lindstrand 24. Multimodality and Digital Environments: An Illustrative Example of the Museum Visitor Experience Carey Jewitt 25. Making Meaning in the Operating Theatre Roger Kneebone 26. Learning, Design and Performance: Towards a Semiotic-Ethnographic Account of Surgical Simulation Jeff Bezemer

Creativity: Self-Referential Mistaking, Not Negating

Abstract: In C. S. Peirce, as well as in the work of many biosemioticians, the semiotic object is sometimes described as a physical “object” with material properties and sometimes described as an “ideal object” or mental representation. I argue that to the extent that we can avoid these types of characterizations we will have a more scientific definition of sign use and will be able to better integrate the various fields that interact with biosemiotics. In an effort to end Cartesian dualism in semiotics, which has been the main obstacle to a scientific biosemiotics, I present an argument that the “semiotic object” is always ultimately the objective of self-affirmation (of habits, physical or mental) and/or self-preservation. Therefore, I propose a new model for the sign triad: response-sign-objective. With this new model it is clear, as I will show, that self-mistaking (not self-negation as others have proposed) makes learning, creativity and purposeful action possible via signs. I define an “interpretation” as a response to something as if it were a sign, but whose semiotic objective does not, in fact, exist. If the response-as-interpretation turns out to be beneficial for the system after all, there is biopoiesis. When the response is not “interpretive,” but self-confirming in the usual way, there is biosemiosis. While the conditions conducive to fruitful misinterpretation (e.g., accidental similarity of non-signs to signs and/or contiguity of non-signs to self-sustaining processes) might be artificially enhanced, according to this theory, the outcomes would be, by nature, more or less uncontrollable and unpredictable. Nevertheless, biosemiotics could be instrumental in the manipulation and/or artificial creation of purposeful systems insofar as it can describe a formula for the conditions under which new objectives and novel purposeful behavior may emerge, however unpredictably.

Kongo Graphic Writing and Other Narratives of the Sign

Abstract: This comprehensive book traces the history and development of visual traditions in the Kongo religions of Africa and Cuba (where it is known as Palo Monte)

How Do Emotions Signify? Social Relations and Psychological Functions in the Dramatic Constitution of Subjects

Abstract: In this article, we discuss contributions from contemporary authors toward understanding a complex topic: human emotions. We comment on these authors' ideas and describe their ways of talking about emotions in relation to language, consciousness, meaning, and psychological instruments. After considering the distinct contributions of these authors, we inquire how Vygotsky's ideas deepen our understanding of human emotions and we argue the need for further exploration into the interrelations between emotions and signification. In his search to explain how social relations become internalized psychological functions, Vygotsky utilized the notions of sign and semiotic mediation to highlight the role of verbal language and meaning in making specific forms of communication and generalization possible, such as planning and self-regulation. Vygotsky claimed that human emotions develop, but he did not explicitly state how this happens. Assuming that emotions are also affected by sign production and (trans)formed b...

The semiotics of contemporary advertising messages: Decoding visuals

Abstract: Within the discourse analysis, semiotics identifies how signs are used to represent something. In the discourse of advertising it can be a wish, a need, a desire or a worry to be solved, for instance. In this sense, the paper deals with the switch from denotative to connotative meanings of contemporary ads. The approach is based on the assumption that communication is achieved via decoding and encoding messages. The connotative meaning represents the overall message about the meaning of the product which the ad is creating by the use of the image (e.g. the photographed model). The ad functions by showing us a sign with easily readable mythic meaning (e.g. the photographed model is a sign for feminine beauty) as well as by placing this sign next to another, potentially ambiguous, sign (e.g. the name of the perfume) (Barthes 1972).

Women as Subject and Object of the Gaze in Tragedy

Abstract: The project of this article, and of this volume as a whole, must be situated in contemporary interest in the related topics of the 'gaze,' the body, and performance. (1) Gaze theory is indebted to Lacanian psychoanalytic theory, which postulates the infant's gaze in the 'mirror stage' as formative of its subjectivity: the infant looking at himself in the mirror is jubilant in his misrecognition of the wholeness of the image as a sign of his own physical integration, but soon experiences alienation (Lacan 1977). (2) Thus, following existentialism and Sartre in particular, Lacan recognizes that there is another gaze or look outside that of the subject's own (Lacan 1981, 67-78, 84; Sartre 1956, 252-66). That external gaze is also significant in Foucault's notions of discipline and spectacle exemplified by the Panopticon of Jeremy Bentham, where the inmates are visible at all times, but the guards are invisible: "visibility is a trap" (Foucault 1977, 200-7). These concerns are also of central interest to feminists who, since the time of Mary Wollstonecraft, have engaged with the problem of women as objects of the male gaze. (3) As is often pointed out, John Berger (1972, 47) made the important claim that woman in culture is "to be looked at": Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves. The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object--and most particularly an object of vision: a sight. Lacan (1981, 75) says something similar in his work on the gaze: "At the very level of the phenomenal experience of contemplation, this all-seeing aspect is to be found in the satisfaction of a woman who knows that she is being looked at, on condition that one does not show her that one knows that she knows. (4) Going further, Laura Mulvey argued that in mainstream cinema woman is the passive object for the active male gaze; furthermore, she claimed (esp. 1989b, 19-26) that that structure of viewing is fundamental to male power. Her work has been challenged and developed by others, in particular by those arguing that there are other spectatorial positions for women in the audience. (5) In a subsequent collection of her essays, Mulvey modified some of her early statements by putting them in the context of particular moments in feminist politics (1989a, vii; 1989c; see the excellent summary in Stewart 1997, 13-9). (6) These hypotheses about the masculinity of the filmic gaze, and its role in objectifying women, raise important questions for my consideration of the gaze in tragedy. We clearly cannot simply apply modern theories to antiquity, especially a theory of cinema to ancient theater, where, for one thing, many points of view replace single lens of the camera. Moreover, the visual regimes of antiquity and codes of gendered behavior were different from our own. Boys and men were the objects of the gaze, and the primary sign of respectable women's relationship to the gaze in antiquity was their modesty or aidos; that in turn was related, at least in ideology, to their relegation to the private sphere, not to be looked at, and to their stereotypically downcast eyes when in public. (7) A womans failure to lower her eyes might even be taken as a sign of prostitution (Cairns 2005a, 134); hetairai and pornai were in part defined by the fact that they were available to be admired in the case of the former, and possessed in the case of the latter. In a comic fragment from Philemon's Brothers, the prostitutes "stand there naked, lest you be deceived: look everything over ... The door's open. [Price] one obol; jump right in" (fr. 3 K-A; translation by Kurke 1999, 197). Other comic writers similarly give the impression that women for sale stand about naked, or in transparent garb, and can be bought cheaply (Euboulus, Pannychis, fr. …