Semiotic Base Research Articles

To the description of semiotic theory in the tradition of Chinese Linguistics

The Russian scholars often associate semiotics with such names as Ferdinand De Saussure, Charles Morris, Roland Barthes, who wrote a wide variety of works and significantly contributed to the formation of semiotics. Therefore, the Russian science has sound understanding of semiotics in Europe. In Asian regions, namely in China, semiotics is also one of the most popular trends. This article gives special attention to the formation and development of semiotics in the modern Chinese academic environment for the purpose of revealing and clarifying the key periods of study of semiotic theory, trends and directions of semiotic research, as well as the main works written by the Chinese authors from the perspective of semiotics. The author's special contribution into this research consists in introduction to the Russian linguistic paradigm of the process of formation of semiotics as an independent scientific direction within the Chinese academic environment. Description is provided to the three key periods of development and advancement of semiotic theories in China. The main trends and directions of research in the modern academic environment are explored. The article features the works of the prominent Chinese linguists – Yaping Huang and Hua Meng, who implemented  the semiotic ideas into the study of ideographic writing. The article also examines the work of the renowned Chinese scholar Qian Guanlian, who studied the pragmalinguistic aspects from the perspective of semiotics, which allowed comprising a semiotic base of the communication theory and pragmatics, and thus made a significant contribution to further research of these trends.

Conceptual Blending Revisited: A Case of Paraphrased Literary Text in Contemporary Advertising

ABSTRACT One of the successful tools used in creative contemporary advertising is the intentional modification of texts taken from popular literature (Gajewska 2011, also Bralczyk 2004). This paper offers a conceptual blending analysis of an advertisement for Ranigast ®, a medicine used in the treatment of dyspepsia, which relies on a paraphrased fragment of The Sick Kitten , a famous Polish poem for children written by Stanislaw Jachowicz. The linguistic analysis of the proposed advertisement will be carried out in the light of conceptual blending theory, in particular with the aid of Line Brandt and Per Aage Brandt’s model of conceptual integration (Brandt and Brandt 2005) Assuming that each advertisement is, to some extent, an interplay between the speaker and the hearer, a particular emphasis is going to be laid upon the complexity of the so-called Semiotic Base Space which serves as a “prerequisite for meaning construction” in the analyzed ad (Brandt and Brandt 2005: 225). For further elaboration of the Semiotic Base Space , which I consider of vital importance for an analyzed instance, Ronald Langacker’s notion of Current Discourse Space (Langacker 1999, 2001) as well as Esther Pascual’s notions of the Verbal Space and Here-and-Now Space (Pascual 2009) will also be taken into account.

Meaning Production, Modelling Mental Architecture and Blending

In this article, the models of mental spaces and blending proposed by Turner & Fauconnier are revisited in a cognitive-semiotic framework, which anchors all space networks in semiotic base spaces of mental and communicative activity. This move (sometimes termed the Aarhus model) makes it possible to establish a connection to a phenomenologically based modelling of mental architecture for apperception and action planning, and thus to regain a certain scientific realism. Five cases of blending are briefly reviewed: counterfactual conditionality, XYZ, metaphor, hypothesis, and agency.

Special Issue on Language-Based Human Intelligence and Personalization

At the annual conference of the Japan Society for Artificial Intelligence (JSAI), a special survival session called "Challenge for Realizing Early Profits (CREP)" is organized to support and promote excellent ideas in new AI technologies expected to be realized and contributed to society within five years. Every year at the session, researchers propose their ideas and compete in being evaluated by conference participants. The Everyday Language Computing (ELC) project, started in 2000 at the Brain Science Institute, RIKEN, and ended in 2005, participated in the CREP program in 2001 to have their project evaluated by third parties and held an organized session every year in which those interested in language-based intelligence and personalization participate. They competed with other candidates, survived the session, and achieved the session's final goal to survive for five years. Papers in this special issue selected for presentation at the session include the following: The first article, "Everyday-Language Computing Project Overview," by Ichiro Kobayashi et al., gives an overview and the basic technologies of the ELC Project. The second to sixth papers are related to the ELC Project. The second article, "Computational Models of Language Within Context and Context-Sensitive Language Understanding," by Noriko Ito et al., proposes a new database, called the "semiotic base," that compiles linguistic resources with contextual information and an algorithm for achieving natural language understanding with the semiotic base. The third article, "Systemic-Functional Context-Sensitive Text Generation in the Framework of Everyday Language Computing," by Yusuke Takahashi et al., proposes an algorithm to generate texts with the semiotic base. The fourth article, "Natural Language-Mediated Software Agentification," by Michiaki Iwazume et al., proposes a method for agentifying and verbalizing existing software applications, together with a scheme for operating/running them. The fifth article, "Smart Help for Novice Users Based on Application Software Manuals," by Shino Iwashita et al., proposes a new framework for reusing electronic software manuals equipped with application software to provide tailor-made operation instructions to users. The sixth article, "Programming in Everyday Language: A Case for Email Management," by Toru Sugimoto et al., making a computer program written in natural language. Rhetorical structure analysis is used to translate the natural language command structure into the program structure. The seventh article, "Application of Paraphrasing to Programming with Linguistic Expressions," by Nozomu Kaneko et al., proposes a method for translating natural language commands into a computer program through a natural language paraphrasing mechanism. The eighth article, "A Human Interface Based on Linguistic Metaphor and Intention Reasoning," by Koichi Yamada et al., proposes a new human interface paradigm called Push Like Talking (PLT), which enables people to operate machines as they talk. The ninth article, "Automatic Metadata Annotation Based on User Preference Evaluation Patterns," by Mari Saito proposes effective automatic metadata annotation for content recommendations matched to user preference. The tenth article, "Dynamic Sense Representation Using Conceptual Fuzzy Sets," by Hiroshi Sekiya et al., proposes a method to represent word senses, which vary dynamically depending on context, using conceptual fuzzy sets. The eleventh article, "Common Sense from the Web? Naturalness of Everyday Knowledge Retrieved from WWW," by Rafal Rzepka et al., is a challenging work to acquire common-sense knowledge from information on the Web. The twelfth article, "Semantic Representation for Understanding Meaning Based on Correspondence Between Meanings," by Akira Takagi et al., proposes a new semantic representation to deal with Japanese language in natural language processing. I thank the reviewers and contributors for their time and effort in making this special issue possible, and I wish to thank the JACIII editorial board, especially Professors Kaoru Hirota and Toshio Fukuda, the Editors-in-Chief, for inviting me to serve as Guest Editor of this Journal. Thanks also go to Kazuki Ohmori and Kenta Uchino of Fuji Technology Press for their sincere support.

Systemic-Functional Context-Sensitive Text Generation in the Framework of Everyday Language Computing

The present text generator using resources based on Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). Resources are compiled in a database called the Semiotic Base, which deals with language in context. In contrast to previous SFL-based text generation systems, our comprehensive proposal contains the Context Base, which deals with context surrounding text, and covers all strata, from context to expression. Its text generation process maximizes the use of the Semiotic Base resources, i.e., system networks dealing with linguistic features. Our text generation system is resource-driven, draws heavily on information provided by the Semiotic Base, and minimizes information input.

Everyday-Language Computing Project Overview

This paper explains an overview of everyday language computing (ELC) promoted by the Laboratory for Language-Based Intelligent Systems, Brain Science Institute, RIKEN from 2000 to 2005. The objective of ELC was to develop a language-based intelligent system. To do this, we constructed a computational model of language in context, called the Semiotic Base, and developed computational algorithms for text understanding and generation, which are basic information processing in the ELC framework. Based on these resources and algorithms, we constructed a computing environment in which language is used as an information medium to process information. To demonstrate its feasibility, we developed language-based applications such as a language-based wordprocessor, language-based programming, and “smart” help. We explain the basic principles of ELC, outline of its basic technologies, and discuss applications developed based on the ELC framework.

Computational Models of Language Within Context and Context-Sensitive Language Understanding

We propose two computational models - one of a language within context based on systemic functional linguistic theory and one of context-sensitive language understanding. The model of a language within context called the Semiotic Base characterizes contextual, semantic, lexicogrammatical, and graphological aspects of input texts. The understanding process is divided into shallow and deep analyses. Shallow analysis consists of morphological and dependency analyses and word concept and case relation assignment, mainly by existing natural language processing tools and machine-readable dictionaries. Results are used to detect the contextual configuration of input text in contextual analysis. This is followed by deep analyses of lexicogrammar, semantics, and concepts, conducted by referencing a subset of resources related to the detected context. Our proposed models have been implemented in Java and verified by integrating them into such applications as dialog-based question-and-answer (Q&A).

PTSD: A situated look at the semiotic process and role of individual umwelts in human existence/function

Abstract When someone is trying to teach us mathematics, he will not begin by assuring us that he knows that a + b = b + a. —Wittgenstein (1969) Wittgenstein reminds us that the avenue toward belief isn’t through logic alone. We do not know those things that we have only reasoning to support. We feel sure of those things which by experience, and belief have come to exist within us, with an ‘absence of doubt.’ To consider the impact of knowing on behavior, it could be said that we act, from what we know. The purpose of this paper is to consider how we come to know on a multi-model level, as exemplified by both a semiotic theory base and a situated example of how the notion of an individual Umwelt can house particular ‘knowledge’ and act upon it. PTSD, or Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, is a diagnosis, which can be given when individuals suffer negative and long lasting effects that stem from traumatic experience.

Everyday Language Computing-Toward Language-based Computational Environment.

The a Everyday language computing (ELC) is a new computational paradigm that all people, from small children to aged persons, can access and use computing systems with his/her own everyday language. As a way to realize ELC, we proposed a framework of language-based operating system (LOS), and we are now working intensively to develop the fundamental part of it. In this paper, we report our status of research on LOS. One of the main components of LOS is the semiotic base, which is a database of linguistic knowledge based on Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory. We explain the architecture of the semiotic base and corpus experiments conducted to determine the contents of it. A client's secretary agent is a user interface of LOS which realizes everyday language communication between a user and the system. We explain a client model that realizes personalized communication and the plan module that manages the structure of dialogue. In LOS, all kinds of information processing are done through everyday language. Language protocol is a computer protocol based on everyday language, and language-based application is a kind of agent software that provides services through language. We explain the characteristics of language protocol, the structure of language-based application programming interface (LAPI), and text interpretation process of language-based applications. Finally, we discuss prospects of this project and mention future work that remains to be done. We argue that by processing meaning of language rather than processing numbers, we attempt to provide a more human-like computer system and an intelligent computational environment to all people.

An Investigation into the Contextual Stratum of the Semiotic Base

An Investigation into the Contextual Stratum of the Semiotic Base