Semiotic Consequences
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Dialogism and Biosemiotics
Dialogism and biosemiotics AUGUSTO PONZIO The notions of ‘modeling’ and ‘interrelation’ play a pivotal role in Sebeok’s biosemiotics. In dialogue with Thomas A. Sebeok’s doctrine of signs, we propose to inquire into the action of modeling and interrelation in biosemiosis over the planet Earth, developing the concept of interrelation in terms of ‘dialogism’. Indeed, in the light of Sebeok’s biosemiotics we believe that the concept of dialogism may be extended beyond the sphere of anthroposemiosis and applied to all communication processes, which may be described as being grounded not only in the concept of modeling, but also in that of dialogism. And remembering that the concept of dialogue is fundamental in Charles S. Peirce’s thought system, we also propose that the approach we are formulating be viewed as an attempt at developing the Peircean matrix of biosemiotics. Modeling systems theory and global semiotics ‘Modeling’ and ‘interrelation’ among species-specific semioses over the entire planet Earth are two issues that Thomas A. Sebeok’s puts at the center of his ‘doctrine of signs’ — the expression he prefers to ‘science of signs’ or ‘theory of signs’. The present paper focuses on these two topics developing them in the light of our own personal perspective. The term ‘dialogism’ in the present paper designates a development with respect to the condition of interrelation in global semiosis, as described by Sebeok. In our opinion modeling and dialogism are the basis of all communication processes. Another pivotal topic in Sebeok’s ‘doctrine of signs’ is his belief that humans alone are capable of ‘semiotics’, that is, of consciousness, of what we may designate as ‘metasemiosis’, the capacity to suspend the immediacy of semiosic activity and deliberate. -
Accomplishing Identity in Participant-Denoting Discourse Stanton Wortham University of Pennsylvania, [email protected]
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by ScholarlyCommons@Penn University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons GSE Publications Graduate School of Education January 2003 Accomplishing Identity in Participant-Denoting Discourse Stanton Wortham University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://repository.upenn.edu/gse_pubs Recommended Citation Wortham, S. (2003). Accomplishing Identity in Participant-Denoting Discourse. Retrieved from http://repository.upenn.edu/ gse_pubs/50 Published as Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, Volume 13, Issue 2, 2003, pages 189-210. © 2003 by the Regents of the University of California/ American Anthropological Association. Copying and permissions notice: Authorization to copy this content beyond fair use (as specified in Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law) for internal or personal use, or the internal or personal use of specific clients, is granted by the Regents of the University of California/on behalf of the American Anthropological Association for libraries and other users, provided that they are registered with and pay the specified fee via Rightslink® on Caliber (http://caliber.ucpress.net/)/AnthroSource (http://www.anthrosource.net) or directly with the Copyright Clearance Center, (http://www.copyright.com ). This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. http://repository.upenn.edu/gse_pubs/50 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Accomplishing Identity in Participant-Denoting Discourse Abstract Individuals become socially identified when categories of identity are used repeatedly to characterize them. Speech that denotes participants and involves parallelism between descriptions of participants and the events that they enact in the event of speaking can be a powerful mechanism for accomplishing consistent social identification. -
Umberto Eco on the Biosemiotics of Giorgio Prodi
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Journals from University of Tartu 352 Kalevi Kull Sign Systems Studies 46(2/3), 2018, 352–364 Umberto Eco on the biosemiotics of Giorgio Prodi Kalevi Kull Department of Semiotics University of Tartu Jakobi 2, Tartu 51005, Estonia e-mail: [email protected] Abstract. The article provides a commentary on Umberto Eco’s text “Giorgio Prodi and the lower threshold of semiotics”. An annotated list of Prodi’s English-language publications on semiotics is included. Keywords: history of biosemiotics; lower semiotic threshold; medical semiotics Biology is pure natural semiotics. Prodi 1986b: 122 Is it by law or by nature that the image of Mickey Mouse reminds us of a mouse? Eco 1999: 339 “When I discovered the research of Giorgio Prodi on biosemiotics I was the person to publish his book that maybe I was not in total agreement with, but I found it was absolutely important to speak about those things”, Umberto Eco said during our conversation in Milan in 2012. Indeed, two books by Prodi – Orizzonti della genetica (Prodi 1979; series Espresso Strumenti) and La storia naturale della logica (Prodi 1982; series Studi Bompiani: Il campo semiotico) – appeared in series edited by Eco. Giorgio Prodi was a biologist whom Eco highly valued, an expert and an encyclopedia for him in the fields of biology and medicine, a scholar whose work in biosemiotics Eco took very seriously. Eco spoke about this in a talk from 1988 (Eco 2018), saying that he had been suspicious of semiotic approaches to cells until he met Prodi in 1974. -
Semiosphere As a Model of Human Cognition
494 Aleksei Semenenko Sign Systems Studies 44(4), 2016, 494–510 Homo polyglottus: Semiosphere as a model of human cognition Aleksei Semenenko Department of Slavic and Baltic Languages Stockholm University 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] Abstract. Th e semiosphere is arguably the most infl uential concept developed by Juri Lotman, which has been reinterpreted in a variety of ways. Th is paper returns to Lotman’s original “anthropocentric” understanding of semiosphere as a collective intellect/consciousness and revisits the main arguments of Lotman’s discussion of human vs. nonhuman semiosis in order to position it in the modern context of cognitive semiotics and the question of human uniqueness in particular. In contrast to the majority of works that focus on symbolic consciousness and multimodal communication as specifi cally human traits, Lotman accentuates polyglottism and dialogicity as the unique features of human culture. Formulated in this manner, the concept of semiosphere is used as a conceptual framework for the study of human cognition as well as human cognitive evolution. Keywords: semiosphere; cognition; polyglottism; dialogue; multimodality; Juri Lotman Th e concept of semiosphere is arguably the most infl uential concept developed by the semiotician and literary scholar Juri Lotman (1922–1993), a leader of the Tartu- Moscow School of Semiotics and a founder of semiotics of culture. In a way, it was the pinnacle of Lotman’s lifelong study of culture as an intrinsic component of human individual -
The Semiotics of Tourism Own Provincial Expectations
From: Framing The Sign: Criticism and Its Institutions © University of Oklahoma Press, 1990 The Semiotics of Tourism own provincial expectations. The French chanteuse singing English with a French accent seems more charmingly French JONATHAN CULLER than one who simply sings in French.1 Tourism is a practice of considerable cultural and economic There are perhaps interesting reasons why this should be so, importance and, unlike a good many manifestations of but Boorstin does not stop to inquire. ‘Tourist “attractions” offer contemporary culture, is well known in some guise to every an elaborately contrived indirect experience, an artificial product literary or cultural critic. Some may claim ignorance of to be consumed in the very places where the real thing is free as television or rock music or fashion, but all have been tourists and air’. What could be more foolish than a tourist paying through have observed tourists. Yet despite the pervasiveness of tourism the nose for an artificial substitute when the real thing, all around and its centrality to our conception of the contemporary world him, is as free as the air? (for most of us, the world is more imperiously an array of places This discussion is not untypical of what passes for cultural one might visit than it is a configuration of political or economic criticism: complaints about the tawdriness or artificiality of forces), tourism has been neglected by students of culture. modern culture which do not attempt to account for the curious Unlike the cinema, popular romance, or even video, tourism has facts they rail against and offer little explanation of the cultural scarcely figured in the theoretical discussions and debates about mechanisms that might be responsible for them. -
Thomas A. Sebeok and Biology: Building Biosemiotics
Cybernetics And Human Knowing. Vol. 10, no. 1, pp. xx-xx Thomas A. Sebeok and biology: Building biosemiotics Kalevi Kull1 Abstract: The paper attempts to review the impact of Thomas A. Sebeok (1920–2001) on biosemiotics, or semiotic biology, including both his work as a theoretician in the field and his activity in organising, publishing, and communicating. The major points of his work in the field of biosemiotics concern the establishing of zoosemiotics, interpretation and development of Jakob v. Uexküll’s and Heini Hediger’s ideas, typological and comparative study of semiotic phenomena in living organisms, evolution of semiosis, the coincidence of semiosphere and biosphere, research on the history of biosemiotics. Keywords: semiotic biology, zoosemiotics, endosemiotics, biosemiotic paradigm, semiosphere, biocommunication, theoretical biology “Culture,” so-called, is implanted in nature; the environment, or Umwelt, is a model generated by the organism. Semiosis links them. T. A. Sebeok (2001c, p. vii) When an organic body is dead, it does not carry images any more. This is a general feature that distinguishes complex forms of life from non-life. The images of the organism and of its images, however, can be carried then by other, living bodies. The images are singular categories, which means that they are individual in principle. The identity of organic images cannot be of mathematical type, because it is based on the recognition of similar forms and not on the sameness. The organic identity is, therefore, again categorical, i.e., singular. Thus, in order to understand the nature of images, we need to know what life is, we need biology — a biology that can deal with phenomena of representation, recognition, categorisation, communication, and meaning. -
Translation As the Doctrine of Inter-Genre and Trans-Genre
Document generated on 10/01/2021 6:17 p.m. TTR Traduction, terminologie, re?daction Translation as the Doctrine of Inter-genre and Trans-genre Communication: A Semioethic Perspective La traduction comme doctrine de la communication entre les genres et transgenre. Une perspective sémioéthique Susan Petrilli Traductions et représentations : Parcours dans l’espace hispanique II Article abstract Translations and Representations: Exploring the Hispanic World II The proposal of ‘translation semioethics’ with its focus on inter-genre and Volume 18, Number 1, 1er semestre 2005 trans-genre communication, that is, communication among singularities, arises in the context of global semiotics developed in the direction of semioethics. URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/014374ar Translation semioethics contributes to underlining the need for the humanism DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/014374ar of alterity by contrast with the humanism of identity. See table of contents Publisher(s) Association canadienne de traductologie ISSN 0835-8443 (print) 1708-2188 (digital) Explore this journal Cite this article Petrilli, S. (2005). Translation as the Doctrine of Inter-genre and Trans-genre Communication: A Semioethic Perspective. TTR, 18(1), 221–250. https://doi.org/10.7202/014374ar Tous droits réservés © TTR: traduction, terminologie, rédaction, 2007 This document is protected by copyright law. Use of the services of Érudit (including reproduction) is subject to its terms and conditions, which can be viewed online. https://apropos.erudit.org/en/users/policy-on-use/ This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit. Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. -
Narrations of Ambiguity: Contemporary
NARRATIONS OF AMBIGUITY: CONTEMPORARY CHALLENGES TO TRADITIONAL NARRATIVE THEORY by MATTHEW TODD WOMBLE Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Arlington in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT ARLINGTON May 2015 Copyright © by Matthew Todd Womble 2015 All Rights Reserved ii Acknowledgements I want to acknowledge the invaluable help and guidance I received from my supervising committee. I am indebted to my chair, Dr. Jim Warren, for multiple reasons, not the least of which is his willingness three years ago to work with a literature student like me. His guidance during my year of comprehensive exams steered me to the topics I take up in this dissertation, and our ongoing conversations have continually helped frame my analyses. I am similarly thankful of Drs. Tim Morris and Ken Roemer for their astute feedback and seemingly never-ending breadth of knowledge. Without their time and effort, this dissertation would be lacking in terms of scope, depth, and diversity of texts. On a personal level, I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to have worked with each of these three professors and to have had the chance to “pick their brains” over the last two years. They are each experts in their own respective fields, and my own scholarship undoubtedly benefits from their expertise and their guidance. I would also like to say thanks to Half Price Books (Flagship Location, Northwest Highway, Dallas), whose large reading room served as the setting for much of the writing below; to the Avett Brothers, Local Natives, and Tennis, whose music served as the soundtrack to my daily writing; and to Diet Coke, without which none of this could have been accomplished. -
From Post-Structuralism to Systems Theory
CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by Purdue E-Pubs CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture ISSN 1481-4374 Purdue University Press ©Purdue University Volume 2 (2000) Issue 2 Article 1 On Literariness: From Post-Structuralism to Systems Theory Marko Juvan University of Ljubljana Follow this and additional works at: https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb Part of the Comparative Literature Commons, and the Critical and Cultural Studies Commons Dedicated to the dissemination of scholarly and professional information, Purdue University Press selects, develops, and distributes quality resources in several key subject areas for which its parent university is famous, including business, technology, health, veterinary medicine, and other selected disciplines in the humanities and sciences. CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, the peer-reviewed, full-text, and open-access learned journal in the humanities and social sciences, publishes new scholarship following tenets of the discipline of comparative literature and the field of cultural studies designated as "comparative cultural studies." Publications in the journal are indexed in the Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (Chadwyck-Healey), the Arts and Humanities Citation Index (Thomson Reuters ISI), the Humanities Index (Wilson), Humanities International Complete (EBSCO), the International Bibliography of the Modern Language Association of America, and Scopus (Elsevier). The journal is affiliated with the Purdue University Press monograph series of Books in Comparative Cultural Studies. Contact: <[email protected]> Recommended Citation Juvan, Marko. "On Literariness: From Post-Structuralism to Systems Theory." CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 2.2 (2000): <https://doi.org/10.7771/1481-4374.1068> This text has been double-blind peer reviewed by 2+1 experts in the field. -
Sebeok As a Semiotician Semiotics and Its Masters (Past and Present) Session Prof
Southeast European Center for Semiotic Studies. Sofia 2014, 16–20 September, New Bulgarian University, Montevideo 21, Sofia 1618, Bulgaria http://semio2014.org/en/home; http://semio2014.org/en/sebeok-as-a-semiotician Thursday, 16 September 2014, 14:00–19:00 h Sebeok as a semiotician Semiotics and its Masters (past and present) session prof. emeritus VILMOS VOIGT ([email protected]) Thomas A. Sebeok (Budapest 9 November 1920 – Bloomington 21 December 2001) There should be a discussion on the major topic and results of Sebeok’s semiotic activity. He started as a Finno-Ugrist linguist, and then moved to general linguistics and communication theory and non-verbal communication. Then he became an outliner and historiographer of semiotics, the founding father of “zoosemiotics”, and of a classical style “biosemiotics”. He did more than anybody else for international congresses, teaching and publication of worldwide semiotics. He was a central knot of the “semiotic web”. There are still many persons who have known and remember him. Abstracts: 1) EERO TARASTI , University of Helsinki, President of the IASS/AIS (([email protected]) The Sebeokian Vision of Semiotics. From Finno-Ugrian Studies via Zoosemiotics to Bio- and Global Semiotics 2) Hongbing Yu, Nanjing Normal Univeristy, Nanjing, China ([email protected]) The Sebeokian Synthesis of Two Seemingly Contrary Traditions—Viewed from China The prevailing dominance of Peircean studies of signs in the West, the witness of which is manifestly borne by a 1988 paper entitled “Why we prefer Peirce to Saussure” written by one of the major contemporary scholars on Peirce, T.L. Short, has been well-acknowledged in the domain Chinese semiotics. -
Jonathan Culler Discusses Cultural Studies Feb. 24
University of New Hampshire University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository Media Relations UNH Publications and Documents 2-21-2006 Jonathan Culler Discusses Cultural Studies Feb. 24 Erika Mantz Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.unh.edu/news Recommended Citation Mantz, Erika, "Jonathan Culler Discusses Cultural Studies Feb. 24" (2006). UNH Today. 1037. https://scholars.unh.edu/news/1037 This News Article is brought to you for free and open access by the UNH Publications and Documents at University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Media Relations by an authorized administrator of University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Jonathan Culler Discusses Cultural Studies Feb. 24 9/13/17, 1251 PM Jonathan Culler Discusses Cultural Studies Feb. 24 Contact: Erika Mantz 603-862-1567 UNH Media Relations Feb. 21, 2006 DURHAM, N.H. -- Jonathan Culler, chair of the English Department at Cornell University and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, will present “Doing Cultural Studies” Friday, Feb. 24, 2006, from noon-1 p.m. in Hamilton Smith 101 at the University of New Hampshire. The talk, sponsored by the English Department’s First Fridays series, is free and open to the public. Culler’s talk will consider how the term "cultural studies" has the potential to unify various strains of scholarship within a general interdisciplinary discourse on the nature of knowledge itself. In particular, it will consider the relationship between cultural studies and literary theory. Culler is Class of 1916 Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Cornell. -
From Freud to Jacques Lacan and the Textual Unconscious
CHAPTER 1 From Freud to Jacques Lacan and the Textual Unconscious [T]he unconscious is the condition for language [. .] language is the condition for the unconscious. —Jacques Lacan, “Preface byJacques Lacan,” xiii Everything can now be a text. —Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, 77 rom Freud, that which takes us toward Jacques Lacan is an embedded concept of ‘textuality.’ Necessary for analysis, textual- Fity, as an instance of a “vanishing mediator,” may simply be assumed or safely disappear in analytic praxis. Concurrent with Lacanian psychoanalytic theory, textuality emerged as a pervasive ideo- logical concept by the 1970s. Fredric Jameson defined it then as “a methodological hypothesis whereby the objects of study of the human sciences [. .] are considered to constitute so many texts that we deci- pher and interpret, as distinguished from the older views of those objects as realities or existents or substances that we in one way or another attempt to know” (“Ideology of the Text” 18). As we trace a path from Freud through such adjectival notions of the unconscious as Jung’s “collective,” Walter Benjamin’s “optical,” and Jameson’s own “political,” we realize that from the start any available unconscious is a textual one. Lacan does not use the term textual unconscious. The term, if not the concept itself, seems to have originated in the work of a French critic—Jean Bellemin-Noel—indebted to Lacan. Bellemin-Noel says he used a term—l’inconscient du texte “the unconscious of the text”—as early as 1970, in a book to be titled Vers l’inconscient du texte (“Towards the Unconscious of the Text”).