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.

Brand response analysis: a Peircean semiotic approach

Abstract: The purpose of this article is to organise and simplify the concept of brand response. It is a development of the authors' semiotic approach to the concept of brand, which uses a triadic model based on the Peircean levels of analysis of the sign. The original model distinguishes three levels: identity, object and response. This article briefly describes the first two levels and goes into more depth with regard to brand response. From the theoretical point of view, the authors' approach inverts the survey method used to ascertain positioning, image and value of the brand. Firstly, brand response is associations occurring in the minds of the reporting agent. Associations create awareness, and not the other way round, which is the concept underlying the current theory of brand equity. From the point of view of practice, it is the authors' belief that the main contribution made by the triadic semiotic model applied to brand response is that of the importance of “firstness”, i.e. the most immediate response po...

The Flavors of Modernity: Food and the Novel

Abstract: From Rabelais's celebration of wine to Proust's madeleine and Virginia Woolf's boeuf en daube in To the Lighthouse, food has figured prominently in world literature. But perhaps nowhere has it played such a vital role as in the Italian novel. In a book flowing with descriptions of recipes, ingredients, fragrances, country gardens, kitchens, dinner etiquette, and even hunger, Gian- Paolo Biasin examines food images in the modern Italian novel so as to unravel their function and meaning. As a sign for cultural values and social and economic relationships, food becomes a key to appreciating the textual richness of works such as Lampedusa's The Leopard, Manzoni's The Betrothed, Primo Levi's Survival in Auschwitz, and Calvino's Under the Jaguar Sun.The importance of the culinary sign in fiction, argues Biasin, is that it embodies the oral relationship between food and language while creating a sense of materiality. Food contributes powerfully to the reality of a text by making a fictional setting seem credible and coherent: a Lombard peasant eats polenta in The Betrothed, whereas a Sicilian prince offers a monumental macaroni timbale at a dinner in The Leopard. Similarly, Biasin shows how food is used by writers to connote the psychological traits of a character, to construct a story by making the protagonists meet during a meal, and even to call attention to the fictionality of the story with a metanarrative description. Drawing from anthropology, psychoanalysis, sociology, science, and philosophy, the author gives special attention to the metaphoric and symbolic meanings of food. Throughout he blends material culture with observations on thematics and narrativity to enlighten the readerwho enjoys the pleasures of the text as much as those of the palate.

Methodological and Theoretical Issues in the Adaptation of Sign Language Tests: An Example from the Adaptation of a Test to German Sign Language.

Abstract: Despite the current need for reliable and valid test instruments in different countries in order to monitor the sign language acquisition of deaf children, very few tests are commercially available that offer strong evidence for their psychometric properties. This mirrors the current state of affairs for many sign languages, where very little research is available. No previous empirical study has focused explicitly on the linguistic, methodological, and theoretical issues involved in the process of adapting a test from a source sign language to a target sign language. Problems during the adaptation process can arise from linguistic differences between the source and the target language and differences in the source and the target cultures. Both are important aspects that need to be considered in the adaptation of a sign language test from a source to a target language. This study proposes a model for sign language test adaptation, based on the adaptation of the British Sign Language Receptive Skills Test ...

Encoding/Decoding as Translation

Abstract: This article asks what would happen if media scholars developed a theory of translation that responded to the specific concerns of their field. It responds by revisiting a foundational text—Stuart Hall’s “Encoding/Decoding”—to see what insights it provides into translation. It proposes three axioms: (1) To use a sign is to transform it; (2) to transform a sign is to translate it; and (3) communication is translation. These axioms cast translation in a new light: It is a transformative substitution, where translators are not necessarily people who seek to reexpress something in a new language, but everyone who speaks. This article concludes by identifying an ethics incipient in “Encoding/Decoding,” a politics of invention articulated against a utopian horizon, but grounded in everyday interactions.