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.

Achille mbembe and the postcolony: Going beyond the text

Abstract: n recent years, across a range of theoretical disciplines, from philosophy to cultural studies, from film theory to postcolonial studies, the idea that the object of study is a "text" has gained increasing prominence. Indeed, so widespread is this discourse of the text that the assumptions woven into the use of the word are most often passed over in silence. I find this silence regarding the use of the notion of text problematic. Text in our times (that of theorizing within a poststructuralist horizon) has become the fundamental element. It is now an elementary assumption that any phenomenon-metaphysical, physical, cultural, conceptual, and so on-appears and must appear in the form of text, to be "read" and interpreted. Beyond the world of the book, it is now common to talk of "reading" films, plays, buildings, and works of art. But why should this be so? Why is it that treating any form of reference as a textual reference is unquestionably repeated and reproduced in critical discourse? What are the assumptions that underlie the notion of textuality? What is the history of this movement towards the text, and what signs are there of how this historical movement is developing? Furthermore, if we have cause to become suspicious of or even reject textuality (for whatever reason), what might take its place? My aim here is not to attempt to respond directly to all these questions. My focus is rather to examine an emerging voice within postcolonial theory, as a more channeled pathway into the critique of inscriptivism and an initial exploration of what lies beyond it. The Cameroonian theorist Achille Mbembe has gathered critical attention in recent years, in part from his contributions to the journal Public Culture, and also because of his recent book, On the Postcolony. What is significant about Mbembe's project, in terms of a critique of the textual paradigm, is that he occupies an interstitial space somewhere between poststructuralism and existential phenomenology. I will claim that Mbembe fails in his stated intentions of thinking through postcolonial Africa, and that his project is theoretically confused and devoid of productive substantial argument. Furthermore, I will argue that the ultimate failure of his book is not to recognize all the important work that has already been written on Africa that avoids the criticisms he claims to apply to all existing African theory. Nonetheless, in spite of these irresolvable blind spots, I will also argue that, because of his theoretical location, his proposed project of opening up "another form of writing" for African discourse reveals an ambivalence towards the poststructuralist discourse of the sign, and therefore points the way forward for further research beyond the textual paradigm. In the recently published collection of essays entitled On the Postcolony, Achille Mbembe's aim is to think African lived experience and forms of power beyond Western imposed reductivism. Focusing on detailed historical and cultural analyses of West Africa, and Cameroon in particular, Mbembe tries to show how new concepts and forms of writing are necessary

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’.

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...

Towards an Evolutionary Semiotics: The Emergence of New Sign-Functions in Organisms and Devices

Abstract: Signs, symbols, and signals are basic to our existence on many organizational levels, from the biological to the psychological to the social. The ‘semiosphere’, the realm of symbolically-mediated processes, envelopes and incorporates us at every turn (see papers by Hoffmeyer, Umerez, Exteberria, and Joslyn in this volume; Hoffmeyer, 1997). Symbolic nucleotide sequences lie at the root of our biological organizations, neural pulse codes subserve the coherent functional organizations in our brains that permit us to think, while the symbol sequences of our languages afford the complex communications that make human society possible. Semiotic concepts, properly developed, are critical for a deep understanding of the organization of life, the functioning of the brain, and the functional organization of the observer.

The Forbidden Signs

Abstract: While the field of semiotics has been active since it was started by Peirce, it appears like the last decade has been especially productive with a number of important new concepts being developed within the biosemiotics community. The novel concept of the Semiotic scaffold by Hoffmeyer is an important addition that offers insight into the hardware requirements for bio-semiosis. As any type of semiosis must be dependent upon Semiotic scaffolds, I recently argued that the process of semiosis has to be divided into two separate processes of sign establishment and sign interpretation, and that misalignment between the two processes result in faulty sign interpretation and over-signification. Such faulty signs were forbidden in the sign classification system of Peirce, so I defined them as forbidden signs. Here I present an analysis of the forbidden sign categories with examples from Occult semiotics. I also show that biological semiosis offers examples of forbidden signs, where the faulty interpretation of signs may lead to decimation of whole evolutionary lines of organisms. A new concept of Evolutionary memory which is applicable to both human and biological semiosis is explained as the combination of two processes; one leading to diversity generation within semiotic scaffolds followed by a second process of decimation of faulty signs during selection in specific learning environments. The analysis suggests that forbidden signs are always used as early stages in the iterative sign establishment process during semiosis.