DOCSLIB.ORG

Messages, Signs, and Meanings: a Basic Textbook in Semiotics and Communication (Studies in Linguistic and Cultural Anthropology)

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Messages, Signs, and Meanings: a Basic Textbook in Semiotics and Communication (Studies in Linguistic and Cultural Anthropology) Messages, Signs, and Meanings A Basic Textbook in Semiotics and Communication 3rdedition Volume 1 in the series Studies in Linguistic and Cultural Anthropology Series Editor: Marcel Danesi, University of Toronto Canadian Scholars’ Press Inc. Toronto Disclaimer: Some images and text in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. Messages, Signs, and Meanings: A Basic Textbook in Semiotics and Communication Theory, 3rdEdition by Marcel Danesi First published in 2004 by Canadian Scholars’ Press Inc. 180 Bloor Street West, Suite 801 Toronto, Ontario M5S 2V6 www.cspi.org Copyright 0 2004 Marcel Danesi and Canadian Scholars’ Press Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be photocopied, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or otherwise, without the written permission of Canadian Scholars’ Press Inc., except for brief passages quoted for review purposes. In the case of photocopying, a licence may be obtained from Access Copyright: One Yonge Street, Suite 1900, Toronto, Ontario, M5E 1E5, (416) 868-1620, fax (416) 868- 1621, toll-free 1-800-893-5777, www.accesscopyright.ca. Every reasonable effort has been made to identify copyright holders. CSPI would be pleased to have any errors or omissions brought to its attention. CSPl gratefully acknowledges financial support for our publishing activities from the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP). National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Danesi, Marcel, 1946- Messages and meanings : an introduction to semiotics /by Marcel Danesi - [3rd ed.] (Studies in linguistic and cultural anthropology) Previously titled: Messages and meanings : sign, thought and culture. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-55 130-250-0 (pbk.) 1. Semiotics. I. Title. 11. Series. P99.D26 2004 302.2 C2003-907010-7 Cover design by Hothouse Canada Page design and layout by Brad Homing 04 05 06 07 08 5 4 3 2 1 Printed and bound in Canada by AGMV Marquis Imprimeur Inc. All royalties from the sale of this book will be donated to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Communication I and my public understand each other very well: it does not hear what I say, and I don’t say what it wants to hear. Karl Kraus (1874-1 936) PRELIMINARY REMARKS Why do animals communicate with each other? Is it just for survival? Are there any other reasons? How does communication unfold? These are questions that fall under the rubric of cornmunication theory, and as such have traditionally fallen outside the purview of semiotics proper. However, since communication involves the exchange of signs, messages, and meanings, it is nonetheless of obvious interest to semioticians. This was certainly the opinion of the late Thomas A. Sebeok (1 920-2001), one of this century’s leading semioticians and linguists, who was instrumental in expanding the perimeter of semiotics proper to include the study of communication among all species. Known as the bioserniotic movement, Sebeok has shown that in studying cross-species communication, we end up getting a better idea of what makes human communication unique. Research has, in fact, shown how remarkably rich and varied animal communication systems are. Scientists have recorded and identified, for instance, birdcalls for courting, mating, hunger, food bearing, territoriality, warning, and distress, and elaborate vocal signals that whales and dolphins deploy to communicate over long distances underwater. Biosemiotics aims to investigate such patterns, seelung to understand how animals are endowed by their nature with the capacity to use specific types of signals and signs for survival (zoosemiosis),and thus how human semiosis (anthroposemiosis) is both linked to, and different from, animal semiosis. The objective of this new - 275 - 276 MESSAGES, SIGNS, AND MEANINGS branch of semiotics is to distil1 common elements of semiosis from its manifestations across species, integrating them into a taxonomy of notions, principles, and procedures for understanding the phenomenon of communication in its globality. The goal of this final chapter is to take a schematic overview of communication theory, touching briefly on what it entails in semiotic terms. WHAT IS COMMUNICATION? Communication is, simply, the exchange of information. It is to be distinguished from representation, which is the depiction of something (Y)in some specific way (X) to create a message (X = Y). Communication is the delivery, broadcasting, or transmission of the message (X = Y)in some way-through the air, by means of touch, visually, and so on and so forth. At a purely biological level, a message can be received successfully (i.e., recognized as a message) by another species only if it possesses the same hnd of sensory modality used to transmit it (as will be discussed below). Of these, the tactile modality is the one that seems to cut across human and many animal sensory systems. There is no doubt in my mind that a household cat and a human enter into a rudimentary form of tactile communication on a daily basis. Sharing the same living space, and being codependent on each other for affective exchanges, they do indeed transmit their feeling-states to each other by sending out body signals and especially by touchng each other. However, even withm the confines of this versatile communicative mode, there is no way for humans to be sure that cats have the ability to understand a broader range of tactile feeling-states implied by words such as “embrace,” “guide,” “hold,” “tickle,” etc. Clearly, interspecies communication is realizable, but only in a restricted sense. It can occur in some modalities, partially or totally, according to species. If the sensory systems of the two species are vastly different, however, then virtually no message transmission is possible. Messages can also be transmitted through technology, i.e., through some artifact or invention. Early societies developed simple tools for transmitting messages, such as drums, fire and smoke signals, and lantern beacons, so that they could be seen or heard over short distances. Messages were also attached to the legs of carrier pigeons trained to navigate their way to a destination and back home. In later societies, so-called “semaphore” systems of flags or flashmg lights, for example, were employed to send messages over relatively short but difficult-to-cross distances, such as from hilltop to hilltop, or from one ship to another at sea. COMMUNICATION 277 Marshal1 McLuhan ( 1964) claimed that the type of technology developed to record and transmit messages determines how people process and remember them. Any major change in how information is represented and transmitted brings about a concomitant paradigm shift in cultural systems. Ancient cuneiform writing, impressed indelibly into clay tablets, allowed the Sumerians to develop a great civilization; papyrus and hieroglyphcs transformed Egyptian society into an advanced culture; the alphabet spurred the ancient Greeks on to extraordinary advances in science, technology, and the arts; the alphabet also made it possible for the Romans to develop an effective system of government; the printing press facilitated the dissemination of knowledge broadly and widely, paving the way for the European Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation, and the Enlightenment; radio, movies, and television brought about the rise of a global pop culture in the twentieth century; and the Internet and the World Wide Web ushered in McLuhan’s “global village” as the twentieth century came to a close. The term information invariably comes up in any discussion of communication, and thus requires some commentary. Information can be defined simply as data that can be received by humans or machines. In the modern theory of information, it is considered as something mathematically probabilistic-a ringing alarm signal carries more information than one that is silent, because the latter is the “expected state” of the alarm system and the former its “alerting state.” The man who developed the mathematical aspects of information theory was the American telecommunications engineer Claude Shannon (19 16-200 1). He showed, essentially, that the information contained in a signal is inversely proportional to its probability. The more probable a signal, the less information “load” it carries with it; the less likely, the more. Shannon devised his mathematical model in order to improve the efficiency of telecommunication systems. It essentially depicts information transfer between two humans as a unidirectional process dependent on probability factors, i.e., on the degree to which a message is to be expected or not in a given situation. It is called the bull’s-eye model because a sender is defined as someone or something aiming a message at a receiver as if he, she, 01- it were in a bull’s-eye target range: 27 8 MESSAGES, SIGNS, AND MEANJNGS Shannon also introduced several key terms into the general study of communication: channel, noise, redundancy, and feedback: Channel is the physical system carrying the transmitted signal. Vocally produced sound waves, for instance, can be transmitted through air or through an electronic channel (e.g., radio). The term noise refers to some interfering element (physical or psychological) in the channel that distorts or partially effaces a message. In radio and telephone transmissions, noise is equivalent to electronic static; in vocal speech transmissions, it can vary from any interfering exterior sound (physical noise) to the speaker’s lapses of memory (psychological noise). Noise is why communication systems have redundancy features built into them. These allow for a message to be decoded even if noise is present. For instance, in verbal communication the high predictability of certain words in many utterances (“Roses are red, violets are.. .”) and the patterned repetition of elements (“Yes, yes, I’ll do it; yes, I will”) are redundant features of language that greatly increase the likelihood that a verbal message will get decoded successfully.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Survey of Semiotics Textbooks and Primers in the World
    A hundred introductionsSign to semiotics, Systems Studies for a million 43(2/3), students 2015, 281–346 281 A hundred introductions to semiotics, for a million students: Survey of semiotics textbooks and primers in the world Kalevi Kull, Olga Bogdanova, Remo Gramigna, Ott Heinapuu, Eva Lepik, Kati Lindström, Riin Magnus, Rauno Thomas Moss, Maarja Ojamaa, Tanel Pern, Priit Põhjala, Katre Pärn, Kristi Raudmäe, Tiit Remm, Silvi Salupere, Ene-Reet Soovik, Renata Sõukand, Morten Tønnessen, Katre Väli Department of Semiotics University of Tartu Jakobi 2, 51014 Tartu, Estonia1 Kalevi Kull et al. Abstract. In order to estimate the current situation of teaching materials available in the fi eld of semiotics, we are providing a comparative overview and a worldwide bibliography of introductions and textbooks on general semiotics published within last 50 years, i.e. since the beginning of institutionalization of semiotics. In this category, we have found over 130 original books in 22 languages. Together with the translations of more than 20 of these titles, our bibliography includes publications in 32 languages. Comparing the authors, their theoretical backgrounds and the general frames of the discipline of semiotics in diff erent decades since the 1960s makes it possible to describe a number of predominant tendencies. In the extensive bibliography thus compiled we also include separate lists for existing lexicons and readers of semiotics as additional material not covered in the main discussion. Th e publication frequency of new titles is growing, with a certain depression having occurred in the 1980s. A leading role of French, Russian and Italian works is demonstrated. Keywords: history of semiotics, semiotics of education, literature on semiotics, teaching of semiotics 1 Correspondence should be sent to [email protected].
    [Show full text]
  • THE PHENOMENON of ABSURDITY in COMIC a Semiotic-Pragmatic Analysis of Tahilalats Comic
    THE PHENOMENON OF ABSURDITY IN COMIC A Semiotic-Pragmatic Analysis of Tahilalats Comic Name: Muh. Zakky Al Masykuri Affiliation: Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia Abstract Code: ABS-ICOLLITE-20183 Introduction & Literature Review • Comics as a medium of communication to express attitudes, opinions or ideas. Comics have an extraordinary ability to adapt themselves used for various purposes (McCloud, 1993). • Tahilalats comic has the power to convey information in a popular manner, but it seems absurd to the readers. • Tahilalats comic have many signs which confused the readers, thus encouraging readers to think hard in finding the meaning conveyed. • The absurdity phenomenon portrayed in the Tahilalats comic is related to the philosophical concept of absurdity presented by Camus. • French absurde from Classical Latin absurdus, not to be heard of from ab-, intensive + surdus, dull, deaf, insensible [1]. • Absurd is the state or condition in which human beings exist in an irrational and meaningless universe and in which human life has no ultimate meaning [2]. • Absurd refers to the conflict between humans and their world (Camus, 1999). • Comics is sequential images, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer (McCloud, 1993). 1 YourDictionary. (n.d.). Absurd. In YourDictionary. Retrieved August 21, 2020, from https://www.yourdictionary.com/absurd 2 Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Absurd. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved August 21, 2020, from https://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/absurd • Everything in human life is seen as a sign and every sign has a meaning (Hoed, 2014). • Semiotics is defined as the study of objects, events, and all cultures as signs (Wahjuwibowo, 2020).
    [Show full text]
  • Messages, Signs, and Meanings: a Basic Textbook in Semiotics and Communication (Studies in Linguistic and Cultural Anthropology)
    Messages, Signs, and Meanings A Basic Textbook in Semiotics and Communication 3rdedition Volume 1 in the series Studies in Linguistic and Cultural Anthropology Series Editor: Marcel Danesi, University of Toronto Canadian Scholars’ Press Inc. Toronto Disclaimer: Some images and text in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. Messages, Signs, and Meanings: A Basic Textbook in Semiotics and Communication Theory, 3rdEdition by Marcel Danesi First published in 2004 by Canadian Scholars’ Press Inc. 180 Bloor Street West, Suite 801 Toronto, Ontario M5S 2V6 www.cspi.org Copyright 0 2004 Marcel Danesi and Canadian Scholars’ Press Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be photocopied, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or otherwise, without the written permission of Canadian Scholars’ Press Inc., except for brief passages quoted for review purposes. In the case of photocopying, a licence may be obtained from Access Copyright: One Yonge Street, Suite 1900, Toronto, Ontario, M5E 1E5, (416) 868-1620, fax (416) 868- 1621, toll-free 1-800-893-5777, www.accesscopyright.ca. Every reasonable effort has been made to identify copyright holders. CSPI would be pleased to have any errors or omissions brought to its attention. CSPl gratefully acknowledges financial support for our publishing activities from the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP). National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Danesi, Marcel, 1946- Messages and meanings : an introduction to semiotics /by Marcel Danesi - [3rd ed.] (Studies in linguistic and cultural anthropology) Previously titled: Messages and meanings : sign, thought and culture.
    [Show full text]
  • Semiotics of Food
    Semiotica 2016; 211: 19–26 Simona Stano* Introduction: Semiotics of food DOI 10.1515/sem-2016-0095 From an anthropological point of view, food is certainly a primary need: our organism needs to be nourished in order to survive, grow, move, and develop. Nonetheless, this need is highly structured, and it involves substances, prac- tices, habits, and techniques of preparation and consumption that are part of a system of differences in signification (Barthes 1997 [1961]). Let us consider, for example, the definition of what is edible and what is not. In Cambodia, Vietnam, and many Asian countries people eat larvae, locusts, and other insects. In Peru it is usual to cook hamster and llama’s meat. In Africa and Australia it is not uncommon to eat snakes. By contrast, these same habits would probably seem odd, or at least unfamiliar, to European or North American inhabitants. Human beings eat, first of all, to survive. But in the social sphere, food assumes meanings that transcend its basic function and affect perceptions of edibility (Danesi 2004). Every culture selects, within a wide range of products with nutritional capacity, a more or less large quantity destined to become, for such a culture, “food.” And even though cultural materialism has explained these processes through functionalist and materialis- tic theories conceiving them in terms of beneficial adaptions (Harris 1985; Sahlins 1976), most scholars claim that the transformation of natural nutrients into food cannot be reduced to simple utilitarian rationality or availability logics (cf. Fischler 1980, 1990). In fact, this process is part of a classification system (Douglas 1972), so it should be rather referred to a different type of rationality, which is strictly related to symbolic representations.
    [Show full text]
  • Opposition Theory and the Interconnectedness of Language, Culture, and Cognition
    Sign Systems Studies 37(1/2), 2009 Opposition theory and the interconnectedness of language, culture, and cognition Marcel Danesi Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto 19 Russell Street, Toronto, ON, M5S 2S2, Canada e-mail: [email protected] Abstract. The theory of opposition has always been viewed as the founding prin- ciple of structuralism within contemporary linguistics and semiotics. As an analy- tical technique, it has remained a staple within these disciplines, where it conti- nues to be used as a means for identifying meaningful cues in the physical form of signs. However, as a theory of conceptual structure it was largely abandoned under the weight of post-structuralism starting in the 1960s — the exception to this counter trend being the work of the Tartu School of semiotics. This essay revisits opposition theory not only as a viable theory for understanding conceptual structure, but also as a powerful technique for establishing the interconnectedness of language, culture, and cognition. Introduction The founding principle of structuralism in semiotics, linguistics, psychology, and anthropology is the theory of opposition. The philo- sophical blueprint of this principle can be traced back to the concept of dualism in the ancient world (Hjelmslev 1939, 1959; Benveniste 1946). It was implicit in Saussure’s (1916) own principle of différence. In the 1930s the Prague School linguists (Trubetzkoy 1936, 1939; Jakobson 1939) and several Gestalt psychologists (especially Ogden 1932) gave the principle its scientific articulation and, in the sub- sequent decades of the 1940s and 1950s, it was used to carry out exten- sive analyses of languages and to establish universal patterns in 12 Marcel Danesi linguistic structure.
    [Show full text]
  • Charles Sanders Peirce - Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia 9/2/10 4:55 PM
    Charles Sanders Peirce - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 9/2/10 4:55 PM Charles Sanders Peirce From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Charles Sanders Peirce (pronounced /ˈpɜrs/ purse[1]) Charles Sanders Peirce (September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist, born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Peirce was educated as a chemist and employed as a scientist for 30 years. It is largely his contributions to logic, mathematics, philosophy, and semiotics (and his founding of pragmatism) that are appreciated today. In 1934, the philosopher Paul Weiss called Peirce "the most original and versatile of American philosophers and America's greatest logician".[2] An innovator in many fields (including philosophy of science, epistemology, metaphysics, mathematics, statistics, research methodology, and the design of experiments in astronomy, geophysics, and psychology) Peirce considered himself a logician first and foremost. He made major contributions to logic, but logic for him encompassed much of that which is now called epistemology and philosophy of science. He saw logic as the Charles Sanders Peirce formal branch of semiotics, of which he is a founder. As early as 1886 he saw that logical operations could be carried out by Born September 10, 1839 electrical switching circuits, an idea used decades later to Cambridge, Massachusetts produce digital computers.[3] Died April 19, 1914 (aged 74) Milford, Pennsylvania Contents Nationality American 1 Life Fields Logic, Mathematics, 1.1 United States Coast Survey Statistics, Philosophy, 1.2 Johns Hopkins University Metrology, Chemistry 1.3 Poverty Religious Episcopal but 2 Reception 3 Works stance unconventional 4 Mathematics 4.1 Mathematics of logic C.
    [Show full text]
  • 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.
    [Show full text]
  • Eating the Other. a Semiotic Approach to the Translation of the Culinary Code
    UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI TORINO (UNITO) UNIVERSITÀ DELLA SVIZZERA ITALIANA (USI) Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici (UNITO) / Faculty of Communication Sciences (USI) DOTTORATO DI RICERCA (IN CO-TUTELA) IN: Scienze del Linguaggio e della Comunicazione (UNITO) / Scienze della Comunicazione (USI) CICLO: XXVI (UNITO) TITOLO DELLA TESI: Eating the Other. A Semiotic Approach to the Translation of the Culinary Code TESI PRESENTATA DA: Simona Stano TUTORS: prof. Ugo Volli (UNITO) prof. Andrea Rocci (USI) prof. Marcel Danesi (UofT, Canada e USI, Svizzera) COORDINATORI DEL DOTTORATO: prof. Tullio Telmon (UNITO) prof. Michael Gilbert (USI) ANNI ACCADEMICI: 2011 – 2013 SETTORE SCIENTIFICO-DISCIPLINARE DI AFFERENZA: M-FIL/05 EATING THE OTHER A Semiotic Approach to the Translation of the Culinary Code A dissertation presented by Simona Stano Supervised by Prof. Ugo Volli (UNITO, Italy) Prof. Andrea Rocci (USI, Switzerland) Prof. Marcel Danesi (UofT, Canada and USI, Switzerland) Submitted to the Faculty of Communication Sciences Università della Svizzera Italiana Scuola di Dottorato in Studi Umanistici Università degli Studi di Torino (Co-tutorship of Thesis / Thèse en Co-tutelle) for the degree of Ph.D. in Communication Sciences (USI) Dottorato in Scienze del Linguaggio e della Comunicazione (UNITO) May, 2014 BOARD / MEMBRI DELLA GIURIA: Prof. Ugo Volli (UNITO, Italy) Prof. Andrea Rocci (USI, Switzerland) Prof. Marcel Danesi (UofT, Canada and USI, Switzerland) Prof. Gianfranco Marrone (UNIPA, Italy) PLACES OF THE RESEARCH / LUOGHI IN CUI SI È SVOLTA LA RICERCA: Italy (Turin) Switzerland (Lugano, Geneva, Zurich) Canada (Toronto) DEFENSE / DISCUSSIONE: Turin, May 8, 2014 / Torino, 8 maggio 2014 ABSTRACT [English] Eating the Other. A Semiotic Approach to the Translation of the Culinary Code Eating and food are often compared to language and communication: anthropologically speaking, food is undoubtedly the primary need.
    [Show full text]
  • The Interconnectedness Principle and the Semiotic Analysis of Discourse Marcel Danesi University of Toronto a Large Portion of H
    The Interconnectedness Principle and the Semiotic Analysis of Discourse Marcel Danesi University of Toronto A large portion of human intellectual and social life is based on the pro- duction, use, and exchange of relevant meanings in verbal discourse. This has endowed the human species with the ability to cope effectively with the crucial aspects of existence – knowing, behaving purposefully, planning, so- cializing, and communicating. Clearly, then, one of the primary tasks of semiotics is to identify and document how discourse unfolds and how it en- codes meanings. The purpose of this brief paper is to put forward a principle, as a target for discussion, which is proposed as a framework for studying the “meaning flow” of discourse. It has been drafted here from previous work (e.g. Danesi 1998) and is based primarily on the kinds of data that have been captured on taped conversations that I have been compiling over a seven-year period (from 1992 to 1999). The conversations caught on these tapes are typical instances of everyday social interactions. Most of the taping was done on the campus of the University of Toronto. It is certainly beyond the scope of the present brief note to provide a detailed breakdown and analysis of the data that these tapes contain. That is the objective of a future study. Here, the aim is simply to present an initial analysis of how “meaning flow” in dis- course is shaped by a syntagmatic chain of signifieds and, thus, to propose the notion that discourse unfolds primarily through a “circuitry” of connota- tive meanings through which interlocutors “navigate mentally,” or so to speak.
    [Show full text]
  • Animal Umwelten in a Changing World
    Tartu Semiotics Library 18 Tartu Tartu Semiotics Library 18 Animal umwelten in a changing world: Zoosemiotic perspectives represents a clear and concise review of zoosemiotics, present- ing theories, models and methods, and providing interesting examples of human–animal interactions. The reader is invited to explore the umwelten of animals in a successful attempt to retrieve the relationship of people with animals: a cornerstone of the past common evolutionary processes. The twelve chapters, which cover recent developments in zoosemiotics and much more, inspire the reader to think about the human condition and about ways to recover our lost contact with the animal world. Written in a clear, concise style, this collection of articles creates a wonderful bridge between Timo Maran, Morten Tønnessen, human and animal worlds. It represents a holistic approach Kristin Armstrong Oma, rich with suggestions for how to educate people to face the dynamic relationships with nature within the conceptual Laura Kiiroja, Riin Magnus, framework of the umwelt, providing stimulus and opportuni- Nelly Mäekivi, Silver Rattasepp, ties to develop new studies in zoosemiotics. Professor Almo Farina, CHANGING WORLD A IN UMWELTEN ANIMAL Paul Thibault, Kadri Tüür University of Urbino “Carlo Bo” This important book offers the first coherent gathering of perspectives on the way animals are communicating with each ANIMAL UMWELTEN other and with us as environmental change requires increasing adaptation. Produced by a young generation of zoosemiotics scholars engaged in international research programs at Tartu, IN A CHANGING this work introduces an exciting research field linking the biological sciences with the humanities. Its key premises are that all animals participate in a dynamic web of meanings WORLD: and signs in their own distinctive styles, and all animal spe- cies have distinctive cultures.
    [Show full text]
  • Semiotics ­ Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia Semiotics from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
    11/03/2016 Semiotics ­ Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Semiotics From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Semiotics (also called semiotic studies; not to be confused with the Saussurean tradition called semiology which is a part of semiotics) is the study of meaning­making, the study of sign processes and meaningful communication.[1] This includes the study of signs and sign processes (semiosis), indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication. Semiotics is closely related to the field of linguistics, which, for its part, studies the structure and meaning of language more specifically. The semiotic tradition explores the study of signs and symbols as a significant part of communications. As different from linguistics, however, semiotics also studies non­linguistic sign systems. Semiotics is often divided into three branches: Semantics: relation between signs and the things to which they refer; their signified denotata, or meaning Syntactics: relations among or between signs in formal structures Pragmatics: relation between signs and sign­using agents or interpreters Semiotics is frequently seen as having important anthropological dimensions; for example, the late Italian novelist Umberto Eco proposed that every cultural phenomenon may be studied as communication.[2] Some semioticians focus on the logical dimensions of the science, however. They examine areas belonging also to the life sciences—such as how organisms make predictions about, and adapt to, their semiotic niche in the world (see semiosis). In general, semiotic theories take signs or sign systems as their object of study: the communication of information in living organisms is covered in biosemiotics (including zoosemiotics). Syntactics is the branch of semiotics that deals with the formal properties of signs and symbols.[3] More precisely, syntactics deals with the "rules that govern how words are combined to form phrases and sentences".
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction: an Evolutionary History of Biosemiotics
    Chapter 1 Introduction: An Evolutionary History of Biosemiotics Donald Favareau Abstract1 The present chapter is intended to provide an introductory overview to the history of biosemiotics, contextualizing that history within and against the larger currents of philosophical and scientific thinking from which it has emerged. Accordingly, to explain the origins of this most 21st century endeavour requires effectively tracing – at least to the level of a thumbnail sketch – how the “sign” con- cept appeared, was lost, and now must be painstakingly rediscovered and refined in science. In the course of recounting this history, this chapter also introduces much of the conceptual theory underlying the project of biosemiotics, and is therefore intended to serve also as a kind of primer to the readings that appear in the rest of the volume. With this purpose in mind, the chapter consists of the successive examination of: (1) the history of the sign concept in pre-modernist science, (2) the history of the sign concept in modernist science, and (3) the biosemiotic attempt to develop a more useful sign concept for contemporary science. The newcomer to biosemiotics is encouraged to read through this chapter (though lengthy and of necessity still incomplete) before proceeding to the rest of the volume. For only by doing so will the disparate selections appearing herein reveal their common unity of purpose, and only within this larger historical context can the contemporary attempt to develop a naturalistic understanding of sign relations be properly evaluated and understood. 1 Pages 1–20 of this chapter originally appeared as The Biosemiotic Turn, Part I in the journal Biosemiotics (Favareau 2008).
    [Show full text]