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Sign (semiotics)

About: Sign (semiotics) is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 4080 publications have been published within this topic receiving 70333 citations. The topic is also known as: semiotic sign.


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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In the case of Bakhtin, interpretation is at the same time an attempt to come to grips with challenges posed by recent literary theory to certain axiomatic critical assumptions about intentionality, textuality, and the human subject.
Abstract: Critical Inquiry's Forum on Mikhail Bakhtin [Critical Inquiry 10 (December 1983): 225-319] is the latest contribution to the spectacular effort of interpretation and assimilation that is being applied to the work of this recently recovered critic. In such a situation, analysis proceeds with one eye on the work in question and the other on current debates in the field; in the case of Bakhtin, interpretation is at the same time an attempt to come to grips with challenges posed by recent literary theory to certain axiomatic critical assumptions about intentionality, textuality, and the human subject. But the matter is also complicated by the fact that we are dealing here with a critic who was active in the USSR. This brings into play additional ideological pressures, generated by the cold war, which bear on the scholarly assimilation of his work. The debate on Bakhtin is made yet more difficult by the nature of his writing: immensely varied stylistically and topically but also-and more importantly, I believe-writing which strives for solutions it cannot quite articulate. It moves between alternative and contradictory formulations in a single essay and thus produces a set of concepts whose explanatory importance is matched by an unnerving tendency to slide from one formulation to the next with disturbing ease. Such ambiguities are not the sign of an open and sceptical mind, but neither are they mere inconsistencies which can be safely ignored. These internal contradictions dictate that argument over concepts like "dialogism" and "heteroglossia" cannot be settled by a definitive decision as to what they 'really' mean; instead, we must discuss how to manage these complexities and contra-

15 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Feb 2014-Society
TL;DR: This article introduced some of the basic concepts that can be used in applied semiotic analysis and discussed the work of some prominent semioticians, such as Ferdinande de Saussure, Charles Sander Peirce, Umberto Eco, and Roland Barthes.
Abstract: This essay introduces some of the basic concepts that can be used in applied semiotic analysis and discusses the work of some prominent semioticians, such as Ferdinande de Saussure, Charles Sander Peirce, Umberto Eco, and Roland Barthes. Barthes’ book Mythologies is identified as a seminal text in applied semiotic analysis. Marshall McLuhan’s book The Mechanical Bride is discussed as being semiotic in nature, though he doesn’t use the term. The utility of semiotics utility in studying teeth, facial expression and other aspects of people watching and communication is also dealt with.

15 citations

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

15 citations

Dissertation
01 Jan 2014
TL;DR: In this paper, a dialectical interaction of Qutb's taswīr (artistic expression) and Saussure's linguistic sign for linguistic semiotic analysis of the sign of water in the Holy Qur'a is presented.
Abstract: Thesis Title: Sign of Water in the Holy Qur’ān: A Semiotic Study with DeSaussure and Sayyid Qutb’s Strategic Frames of Reference The existing translations and commentaries with their traditional styles could not effectively communicate the universal meaning and message of the Holy Qur’ān. The main thrust of the research in hand is the exploration of Qutb’s claim that taswīr (artistic representation) is the preferred method of the Holy Qur’ān, which unfolds its abstract meaning concretely through visual and sensuous pictures and makes comprehension of the text easy and reflective for the receptor. The present study is a dialectical interaction of Qutb’s taswīr (artistic expression) and Saussure’s linguistic sign for linguistic semiotic analysis of the sign of water in the Holy Qur’ān. The blending of the two is a novel area of research and very significant to develop better communication and comprehension of the Qur’ānic Message which mark a radical departure from traditional legalistic, grammatical and historical styles of exegesis. So far this crucial and challenging task has not been given due consideration. The study in hand is a humble attempt to develop an interaction among linguistics, semiotics, the Qur’ānic translation and commentary, particularly focusing on: (i) marking lexical and syntactic choices using Nida's semantic categories for an in-depth linguistic semiotic analysis of the sign of water in the Holy Qur’ān, (ii) exploring contextual implications of the text through 'Tafsīr Ibn-i-Kathīr', (iii) highlighting lexical and syntactic categories reflecting different images in the sign of water in the Holy Qur’ān, (iv) comments and explanation on translation of the sign of water, employing Nida's 'Theory and Practice of Translation'; as well as on commentary to highlight Qutb's concept of taswīr (artistic expression), (v) semiotic manifestations of the sign of water in the Holy Qur’ān with certain comments on Saussure's linguistic sign. It may, however, be noted that interpreting and understanding meaning of the universal Message in its entirety is beyond human intellect and ability. Furthermore, a structured interview and a questionnaire have been developed by the researcher to collect the data and cross examine the conclusion drawn through the analysis of the sign of water in the Holy Qur’ān. The researcher also suggested further studies on linguistic semiotic analysis of various unexplored manifestations of the sign of water in the Holy Qur’ān.

15 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
Connie De Vos1
TL;DR: This discussion is relevant to the formation of prospective sign corpora that aim to portray the various sociolinguistic landscapes in which sign languages, whether rural or urban, emerge and evolve.
Abstract: This article addresses some of the theoretical questions, ethical considerations, and methodological decisions that guided the creation of the Kata Kolok corpus as well as the Kata Kolok child signing corpus. This discussion is relevant to the formation of prospective sign corpora that aim to portray the various sociolinguistic landscapes in which sign languages, whether rural or urban, emerge and evolve.

15 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
20222
2021178
2020196
2019188
2018186
2017177