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.

The Semiosic Evolution of Education.

Abstract: The recent development of biosemiotics has revealed the achievement of knowledge and the development of science to be the results of the semiosis of all life forms, including those commonly regarded as cultural constructs. Education is thus a semiosic structure to which evolution itself has adapted, while learning is the semiotic phenomenon that determines the renewal of life itself. Historically, it was a semiotic paradigm that determined the emergence of institutions such as universities and that underpinned the development of liberal education. The present article considers the history of education in terms of sign emergence and evolution, regarding education as currently being conceived and practised as a stage in the general evolutionary action of signs. This approach differs from the prevailing modern approaches to education, which are mostly applied psychology and sociology.

Peirce's evolutionary pragmatic idealism

Abstract: In this paper I synthesize a unified system out of Peirce's life work, and name it “Peirce's Evolutionary Pragmatic Idealism”. Peirce developed this philosophy in four stages: (I) His 1868–69 theory that cognition is a continuous and infinite social semiotic process, in which Man is a sign. (II) His Popular Science Monthly pragmatism and frequency theory of probabilistic induction. (III) His 1891–93 cosmic evolutionism of Tychism, Synechism, and Agapism. (IV) Pragmaticism: The doctrine of real potentialities (“would-be's”), and Peirce's pragmatic program for developing concrete reasonableness.

Lists as Social Grid: Ratings and Rankings in Everyday Life

Abstract: It is argued that the inundation of lists in our everyday lives has become part of the social grid, which tells us who and what we are and how we relate to the world. Using Baudrillard's three mutations of the sign, this paper examines the relationship between lists (rankings and ratings) and social life. This updated grid, which is increasingly defined by market capitalism, makes for not only a greater commodified self but a simulated self based on the external statistical world.

Welcome to the Jungle of the Real: Simulation, Commoditization, and Survivor

Abstract: Commodities are ubiquitous in contemporary society As many have written-Karl Marx most prominently among early thinkers on the subject-these objects of material and/or symbolic value are often socially constructed and central to everyday life, be they perceived as needs or wants Attaching additional meaning to commodities through history (an heirloom), nostalgia (vintage clothing), image (Michael Jordan-endorsed sneakers), branding (A shirt with the word "GAP" stitched in the collar), or other means can inflate their value, often artificially (Peterson) Indeed today, even television shows are not immune to being commoditized This article will examine how the reality television program Survivor has undergone commoditization since its debut in May 2000 and is now approaching what Jean Baudrillard called simulacra-a copy without an original, endlessly reproducible images that reference nothing The article will first describe Survivor and the "reality TV" genre, then demonstrate why the show is not "real," but rather a contrived construction It will then describe how Survivor is used intertextually in parody, fan fiction, and among various seasons of the series, as well as detail the program's development as a commodity through both official and unofficial, viewer-driven means Finally, the article will question where Survivor stands among Baudrillard's four stages leading to simulacra Theoretical Context This article will rely on several theoretical concepts from cultural studies, cultural anthropology, and critical theory; this section provides a brief overview of some of them First, there is the idea of commodities and commoditization Arjun Appadurai defines the former provisionally as simply "objects of economic value" determined through an "exchange of sacrifices" (3), be it trading money for a toothbrush, bartering a barrel of oranges for a bushel of peppers, or sending your star shortshop to a rival baseball team in exchange for that team's catcher and a player to be named later Indeed, these days even people can be commodities As such, commodities take on countless forms, and one of these is the commodity sign Here "sign" refers to semiotics, or the science of signs, a field deriving from the lectures of Ferdinand de Saussure A sign consists of a signifier and the signified it conjures In a famous example, the signifier "t-r-e-e" evokes the signified, an image of what we call a tree (Chandler) The signifier and signified "form an indissociable unity, like two sides of the same piece of paper" (McNeill) This is the sign (the word "tree") Among others, C S Peirce further developed Saussure's concepts Some signs, such as "tree," are arbitrary or symbolic, according to Peirce-but there are two other types as well First, indexical signs refer to a relationship of contiguity, or "pointing," such as causal or part-to-whole They also can be based on point of view (Peterson) One use of indexical signs is in intertextuality, or how one text cites and refers to another (Goldman and Papson, "Sign Wars" 68) second, iconic signs are the most primordial and refer by resemblance, such as a painting featuring a red stop sign The red does not arbitrarily represent the red of a real stop sign; rather, it is the same red as the actual sign (Peterson) The aforementioned commodity signs most visibly take the form of corporate logos, such as the Nike swoosh "Our consumer-based society has reached the point where a blank shoe is meaningless That's right, meaningless-the white shoe is a blank if it is not marked by a sign In fact, the market value of these products is produced by Nike's design and marketing specialists" (Goldman and Papson, "Nike" 12) In other words, the commodity sign's value is mainly symbolic, rather than derived from actual use value Commodity signs can be iconic-for instance, the sign above a Hallmark card store resembles the sign above every other one, even though each has a different name (Leslie's Hallmark, Amy's Hallmark, etc …

On Germanic linguistics : issues and methods

Abstract: The series publishes state-of-the-art work on core areas of linguistics across theoretical frameworks as well as studies that provide new insights by building bridges to neighbouring fields such as neuroscience and cognitive science. The series considers itself a forum for cutting-edge research based on solid empirical data on language in its various manifestations, including sign languages. It regards linguistic variation in its synchronic and diachronic dimensions as well as in its social contexts as important sources of insight for a better understanding of the design of linguistic systems and the ecology and evolution of language.