Semiotic Interpretation Research Articles

“What makes a reasoning sound” is the proof of its truth: A reconstruction of Peirce’s semiotics as epistemic logic, and why he did not complete his realistic revolution

AbstractCharles S. Peirce attempted to develop his semiotic theory of cognitive signs interpretation, which are originated in our basic perceptual operations that quasi-prove the truth of perceptual judgment representing reality. The essential problem was to explain how, by a cognitive interpretation of the sequence of perceptual signs, we can represent external physical reality and reflectively represent our cognitive mind’s operations of signs. With his phaneroscopy introspection, Peirce shows how, without going outside our cognitions, we can represent external reality. Hence Peirce can avoid the Berkeleyian, Humean, and Kantian phenomenologies, as well as the modern analytic philosophy and hermeneutic phenomenology. Peirce showed that with the trio of semiotic interpretation – abductive logic of discovery of hypotheses, deductive logic of necessary inference, and inductive logic of evaluation – we can reach a complete proof of the true representation of reality. This semiotic logic of reasoning is the epistemic logic representing human confrontation in reality, with which we can achieve knowledge and conduct our behavior. However, Peirce did not complete his realistic revolution to eliminate previously accepted nominalistic and idealistic epistemologies of formal logic and pure mathematics. Here, I inquire why Peirce did not complete his historical realist epistemological revolution and following that inquiry I attempt to reconstruct it.

Psychedelic Popular Music: A History through Musical Topic Theory by William Echard

Reviewed by: Psychedelic Popular Music: A History through Musical Topic Theory by William Echard Don Traut Psychedelic Popular Music: A History through Musical Topic Theory. By William Echard. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2017. 291 p. ISBN 9780253025661 (hardback), $85; ISBN 9780253026453 (paperback), $35; ISBN 9780253026590 (e-book), $34.99.] Music examples, appendices, bibliography, index. Almost any fan of rock music has at least some general sense of psychedelia and the role it played in rock's history. A product of 1960s hippie culture, psychedelia and its music conjures up an array of images: drugs, distortion, Timothy Leary, San Francisco, and many others. All of these elements played a role in establishing a body of music widely referred to as psychedelia, with such iconic songs as the Beatles' "A Day in the Life," Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit," and almost anything by Jimi Hendrix. It is somewhat less likely that rock fans would be aware of the many evolutions and the lasting influences of this style. A book-length study devoted to this important cog in rock's history is a logical step, one taken by William Echard in Psychedelic Popular Music: A History through Musical Topic Theory. For those new to psychedelic music, topic theory, or both, Echard provides lucid definitions. In framing his definition of psychedelic music, he explains the important role of listeners, who establish the music's "intent" to enhance the psychedelic "experience," which, over time, forms the psychedelic "style" (p. 4). (For other definitions of psyche-delia, see John Covach, What's That Sound?: An Introduction to Rock and Its History [New York: W. W. Norton, 2006] and Walter Everett, The Foundations of Rock: From "Blue Suede Shoes" to "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009].) He also includes a concise definition of topic theory: "a topic is a highly conventional musical figure that signifies a broad cultural concept" (p. 1). For example, a twangy guitar might evoke a Western topic, or a theremin might evoke a space topic. His work here is grounded in the seminal writing of Leonard Ratner, whose development of topics for classical concert music continues in the work of Robert Hatten, V. Kofi Agawu, and others (Leonard G. Ratner, Classic Music: Expression, Form and Style [New York: Schirmer Books, 1980]; V. Kofi Agawu, Playing with Signs: A Semiotic Interpretation of Classic Music [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991]; and Robert Hatten, Interpreting Musical Gestures, Topics, and Tropes: Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert [Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004]). The core of the book divides into five chapters framed by an introduction and an epilogue. Three appendices cite all the songs discussed (appendix A) and provide lists of the "San Francisco Poster Sample" (appendix B) and detailed notes on transcriptions (appendix C). An impressive list of references—including a range of writings on semiotics, popular music, and psychedelia—precedes a helpful and thorough index. In chapter 2, Echard begins his chronological account with the Yardbirds, because later artists adopted all of their topics and style traits. The band's three trailblazing guitarists, who all came of age at a time when new technology was transforming the timbral palette for guitar and other instruments, were the primary reasons for this influence. Indeed, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, and Jeff Beck were all members of the Yardbirds in the early [End Page 275] 1960s, when several new guitar effects came along, including fuzz/distortion, reverb/echo, and tremolo/vibrato. Echard addresses these by showing what they signified. In a section on the "twang guitar continuum" (pp. 33–35), he aligns spaghetti Westerns, spy movies, and surf movies as all related by a particular sound. Then, the "fuzz guitar continuum" (pp. 35–37) does the same, connecting Indian topics with those of "Orientalism" and others (pp. 55–64). Ultimately, we see how these effects evolved from tools used by psychedelic bands to depict desired topics to central signifiers of the psychedelic topic itself. Discussion of the Beatles' role in psychedelia is logically divided into two parts: (1) everything leading up to the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and (2) the album itself. In part 1, Echard focuses on how the Beatles "participated in major...

Semiotics of cultural history

The interpretation of cultural history in the context of cultural semiotics, especially interpretation of semiotics of cultural history as a semiotics of culture, and semiotics of culture as a semiotics of cultural history, gives us, first, a deeper understanding of the analysability of cultural history and, at the same time, of the importance of history and different aspects of temporality for the semiotics of culture. Second, the history of the semiotics of culture, especially the semiotics of culture of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics, is an organic part of cultural history, while the self-presentation of the school via establishing explicit and implicit contacts with the heritage of Russian theory (the Formalist School, the Bakhtin circle, Vygotskij, Eisenstein etc) was already a semiotic activity and an object of the semiotics of cultural history. Third, the main research object of semiotics of culture is the hierarchy of the sign systems of culture and the existent as well as historical correlations between these sign systems. Such conceptualization of the research object of semiotics of culture turns the latter into a semiotics of cultural history. Emphasizing the semiotic aspect of cultural history can support the development of semiotics of culture in two ways. First, semiotics of culture has the potential of conducting more in-depth research of texts as mediators between the audience and the cultural tradition. Second, semiotics of culture as a semiotics of cultural history can be methodologically used for establishing a new (chronotopical) theory of culture.

A quantum-based semiotic model for textual semantics

PurposeThe paper aims to provide a semiotic interpretation of the role played by entanglement in quantum-based models aimed to information retrieval and suggests possible improvements. Actual models are capable of retrieving documents relevant to a query composed of a keyword and its acceptation expressed by a given context. The paper also considers some analogies between this technique and quantum-based approaches in other disciplines to discuss the consequence of this quantum turn, as epistemology and philosophy of language are concerned.Design/methodology/approachWe use quantum geometry to design a formal model for textual semiotics. In particular, the authors refer to Greimas’s work on semantics and information theory, to Eco’s writings on semantic memory and to Lotman’s work on a cybernetic notion of culture.FindingsQuantum approaches imply a particular point of view on meaning. Meaning is not a real, positive quality of a given word. It is a net of relations constructed in the text, whose value is progressively determined during the reading process. Furthermore, reading is not a neutral operation: to read is to determine meaning. If it is said that, from a general semiotic point of view, meaning is stored in quantum semantic memories and is read/written by semantic machines, then the operation of “reading/writing” is analogous to the operation of measuring in quantum theory: in other terms, meaning is a value, and this implies an instance (not necessarily human) according to which values are valuable.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors are not proposing a complete quantum semantics. At the present, quantum information retrieval can detect the presence of semantic relations. The authors suggest a way to characterize them, leaving open the problem on how to formalize the document as a vector in four-state semantic space.Practical implicationsA quantum turn shows deep semiotic implications on the approach to language, which shows an immanent semantic organization not reducible to syntax and morphology. This organization is probabilistic and indeterministic and explains to what extent text fixes the meaning of its lexical units.Social implicationsIn the authors’ perspective, signification is not the exclusivity of a human subject. Criticizing Turing test, the great semiotic and cybernetic scholar Jurij Lotman wrote that if we identify “intelligent” and “human”, we raise the failings of an actual form of intelligence to the rank of an essential characteristic. On this line, meaning is considered as a feature of social, artificial and biological systems.Originality/valueThe adoption of quantum formalism seems in line with cybernetic framework, involving a probabilistic, non-cartesian point of view on meaning aimed to critically discuss the human–machine relation. Furthermore, Quantum theory (QT) implies a phenomenological point of view on the conditions of possibility of meaning.

Reconstruction of an indigenous community‘s belief in dragon; Research on prehistoric Batu Naga Site in Kuningan, West Java

Archaeological remains can be used as data to reconstruct the culture of the past. At the top of Mount Tilu, Kuningan, stands a menhir decorated with reliefs. The indigenous community which once cared for this site has long vanished. This paper is the result of a research applying archaeological method and semiotic interpretation to reconstruct the life of this long-dead indigenous community. The reliefs on the menhir tell of the beliefs of this ancient which venerated the dragon. They considered this creature as the beginning of life on the earth. This dragon is different from its counterparts known in other parts of the world.

Narration and the experience of history

Abstract For a long time, history has been conceived as a textual fact, whether as positive knowledge of the past, reported in chronicles and original sources, or through acknowledgment of its textual basis, assumed as historiography, as narrative history. In either case, the text appears as the source and goal of knowledge, and has assumed the nature of an immutable monument, an invariable object of reference and information. These texts are limited to constituting a regulatory storehouse of knowledge, a mere object of appropriation. In contrast, we can consider history not just as knowledge enclosed in textual containers, but as experience inscribed in peoples´ memory. This is what Mexican historian Edmundo O’Gorman suggests with his proposal to consider history as readers formulating their own versions of the past. Through these proposals, semiotics is in a position to describe the role of texts in the production of a vicarious experience of history through the act of reading. This paper provides examples taken from accounts of the Spanish Conquest of Mexico and proposes a semiotic interpretation of the experience of history.

Dieudonné ! Une Analyse Des Commentaires Dans Les Plus Grands Quotidiens De Qualité En Allemagne Et Au Luxembourg : Indicateurs Pour L’opinion Publique Dans Les Deux Pays, Réflexion Sur Le Choix De La Langue

Two commentaries from the leading German and Luxembourg daily quality newspapers are examined in regard to the same event, the controversy about the French right-wing satirist Dieudonné. It can be shown that his positions are rejected by the newspaper comments in both countries, to a significant extent. The semiotic interpretation shows, however, that in Germany the rejection is obviously accepted by a large majority, whilst there seem to exist some differently thinking minorities, whereas such minority positions seem to be non-existent in Luxembourg.

A Semiotic Interpretation of the Innate Releasing Mechanism Concept and Other Ethological Triadic Relations

This paper tries to link Ethology to Biosemiotics by analysing the similarities between some triadic relationships like biosemiotics’ Object—Representamen—Interpretant and the one established in Ethology between Sign-stimuli— Innate Releasing Mechanism—Modal Action Pattern, or the one potentially established in communication networks comprising Sender—Receiver—Eavesdropper. I argue here that a collaborative relationship is supported by the fact that the observational method used by Ethology is based on the triadic relationship Sender—Receiver—Eavesdropper (Interpreter). This method, by introducing the human observer at the Interpreter/Eavesdropper place, is not only applicable to the direct study of animal communication, but also to the interpretation of all other animal behaviour by assuming that behaviour is a sign/signal system on its own, for us to interpret and decode.

The semiotic interpretation of legal subjects in China’s new criminal procedure law

AbstractSemiotically, it is worth discussing some legal terminology that expresses the legal subjects in the criminal procedure law drawn up in 2012. In China’s new criminal procedure law, it can been seen that different legal concepts are adopted to refer to the same legal subject, while different legal subjects are referred to by the same legal concept. In Article 106 of the new criminal procedure law, “participants in the proceedings” means the parties, legal representatives, agents ad litem, defenders, witnesses, expert witnesses, and interpreters. However, all kinds of criminal lawsuit participants appearing in the new criminal procedure law are far beyond the scope of “participants in the proceedings” defined in Article 106. While Article 3, Article 4, and Article 290 of the new criminal procedure law are all about subjects in the criminal procedure law, nevertheless, why is Article 290 arranged as the last article? With the help of the Peircean semiotic methodology and Greimas’ semiotic theory fused with legal materiality, some semiotic interpretations of legal terms are very necessary. Background metalanguage, consensus metalanguage, and context-oriented metalanguage are the foundation for analyzing the problems mentioned previously. In addition, legal language autonomy and unipolarity, the relationship of legal text and real legal meaning, and the transition from law in the text to the law in action provides several strong perspectives to make them clear. Drawing upon semiotic methodology fused with legal materiality, this paper will explore legislative techniques and methodology, especially logical deduction by reasoning between lawmakers and judges, including legal interpretation, legal reasoning, and interest measure. It will be beneficial to establish the authority of China’s new criminal procedure law and have it smoothly implemented in China.

Beyond the self: Intersubjectivity and the social semiotic interpretation of the selfie

As an iconic image of our time, the selfie has attracted much attention in popular media and scholarly writing. The focus so far has been on the representation of the self or subjectivity. We propose a complementary perspective that foregrounds the intersubjective function of the selfie. We argue that the presence of selfhood is often an assumption. What distinguishes the selfie from other photographic genres is its ability to enact intersubjectivity – the possibility for difference of perspectives to be created and this difference to be shared between the image creator and the viewer. Based on a social semiotic analysis of selfies on Instagram, we identify four subtypes of selfie, each deploying a combination of visual resources to represent a distinct form of intersubjectivity. Our analysis suggests that the potential for empowerment is inherent in the visual structure of the selfie, and that, as a genre, it is open for recontextualisation across contexts and social media platforms.

Transdisciplinarity of Edusemiotics

AbstractEdusemiotics emerges as a fresh field of inquiry that benefits from the mutual reciprocities between design thinking and semiotic interpretation. By revealing these mutual reciprocities, edusemiotics emerges as one of the most important developments in educational philosophy, bridging the gap between the humanities and sciences that was fashioned by modernity and postmodernity. In a transmodern world, we are free and able to cross over diaphanous boundaries among diverse disciplines and transcend our assumptions about the ephemeral phenomena of reality. The transdisciplinarity of edusemiotics encourages us to integrate theoretical investigations and practical applications in both humanities and sciences, and turns our attention to the development of our capacity to integrate factual information and imaginative interpretation. Therefore, we truly become educators of adult learners.

Perceived Ontological Levels and Language Games

Abstract This paper argues against assuming that analysis, in the sense of breaking things into their constituent parts, can result in understanding of either universal truths or unequivocal local realities. “Analysis” most commonly refers to the process of looking into things to identify their constituent parts and the relations between them. To Kant, an analytic fact is self-evident. However, a phenomenon is only recognized as such at particular ontological, or perceptual, levels; when approached as a series of sub-phenomena, the question to which we are responding is not “what is this made of,” so much as “what are you reminded of when you look into this?” Therefore, analysis is a process of semiotic interpretation rather than pure logic: the response to a series of prompts in a particular context, where those responses are individual variations on sociocultural habits of response. Analysis is therefore analogical and intersubjective, and this should be recognized within educational and scholarly practices. On this account, ontological levels are better understood as perceptual levels. Analysis should therefore be preceded by explanatory sensitivity, as construals of any entity are dependent on the contexts that locate that entity. Some practical examples and implications for education are offered.

Shopping for kids’ luxury brands: young mothers’ identity quest in retail spaces

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to focus on mothers as key influencers in luxury retailing contexts. Design/methodology/approach Using a semiotic interpretation of mothers’ discourses, the authors underline the identity motivations for purchasing luxury apparel for their pre-adolescent children. Findings The paper shows that when shopping for luxury brands for their pre-adolescent children, mothers manage discrepancies between their “real” and “idealised” selves as well as the pushes and pulls of being a mother and a woman. Research limitations/implications The findings point to possible future research on this topic, particularly with regard to investigating how luxury stores and retailers can adapt so as to satisfy mothers’ identity quest. Practical implications Managers of luxury brand retail spaces looking at the future of retailing could analyse their store environment in the light of these mothers’ identity-related motivations. As well as focussing on how children look, store layout and merchandising should provide different spaces for mothers’ identity expression, using new in-store digital technologies. Originality/value This study is one of the first to analyse luxury shopping for children taking the point of view of mothers. The paper underlines how young mothers build their new maternal identity and their projected relationship with their child through purchases of children’s luxury goods in specific retail environments.

The Semiosis of "Side Effects" in Genetic Interventions.

Genetic interventions, which include transgenic engineering, gene editing, and other forms of genome modification aimed at altering the information “in” the genetic code, are rapidly increasing in power and scale. Biosemiotics offers unique tools for understanding the nature, risks, scope, and prospects of such technologies, though few in the community have turned their attention specifically in this direction. Bruni (2003, 2008) is an important exception. In this paper, I examine how we frame the concept of “side effects” that result from genetic interventions and how the concept stands up to current perspectives of the role of organism activity in development. I propose that once the role of living systems in constructing and modifying the informational value of their various developmental resources is taken into account, the concept of a “side effect” will need to be significantly revised. Far from merely a disturbance brought about in a senseless albeit complex system, a biosemiotic view would take “side effects” as at least sometimes the organism’s active re-organization in order to accommodate or make use of novelty. This insight is nascent in the work of developmental plasticity and niche construction theory (West-Eberhard 2003; Odling-Smee et al. 2003), but it is brought into sharper focus by the explicitly interpretive perspective offered by biosemiotics. Understanding the “side effects” of genetic interventions depends in part on being able to articulate when and where unexpected consequences are a result of semiotic activity at various levels within the system. While a semiotic interpretation of “side effects” puts into question the naive attitude that would see all unintended side effects as indications of disturbance in system functionality, it certainly does not imply that such side effects are of no concern for the viability of the organisms in the system. As we shall see, the fact that such interventions do not respect the translation of information that occurs in multi-level biological systems ensures that disruption is still likely. But it does unprivilege the human agent as the sole generator of meaning and information in the products of biotechnology, with important consequences on how we understand our relationship with other species.

Non-anthropogenic mind and complexes of cultural codes

Abstract The object of research is to clarify the connections between non-anthropogenic mind and culture as sign systems. Investigation of such an object discloses the perspectives on construction of the generalized model of mind and can help to build the bridge between traditional and digital humanities. The subject of traditional humanities is natural human activity; the subject of digital humanities is computer-based forms of activity and communication. Finding signs created not only by human but also by natural circumstances helps to define the sign system that unites the natural (non-anthropogenic) and artificial kinds of mind. Methodology of research includes the principles of semiotics previously developed by Charles Peirce and Ferdinand de Saussure and expanded by Yuri Lotman and Boris Uspensky. Semiotic interpretation of mind as the object of culture allows the building of a generalized model of mind as one of textual constructions, presenting the history of mankind as the replacement of natural events by secondary models. The author concludes that the revealing of a generalized model of mind opens new opportunities for the construction of the intelligent activity strictly interpreted as special sign systems. Semiotic studies interpret culture as a rationality making machine, and activity of mind is caused by the work of such a machine. Because of that, if traditional meaning sign systems were estimated as human-made kinds of complex of primary signs, then modern statements help to see the absence of an irresistible limit to interpret such complex as a nature-made but non-anthropogenic phenomenon.

The Semiotic Relationship between Liu-shu and Hunminjeongeum

The purpose of this study was to explore the semiotic relationship between Liu-shu and Hunminjeongeum. To accomplish this purpose, first, this study made an attempt to define and classify the Korean alphabet based on Liu-shu. The findings of this study showed that the Korean alphabet has the close relationship with Chinese characters in regard to principles of making graphemes. In other words, both pictographic and simple ideographic letters are basic graphemes. Furthermore, both ideographic and semantic-phonetic compound characters are combinations of basic graphemes. Second, this study conducted the semiotic interpretation of Liu-shu to explore the principles of creating the Korean alphabet. The semiotic interpretation obtained some interesting findings as follows: 1) Both pictographic and simple ideographic letters revealed the basic relation between the sign vehicle and its meaning. 2) The semantic-phonetic compound characters displayed the relation between denotation and connotation. 3) The ideographic compound character seemed to support the relation between object language and metalanguage. Although this study did not fully explain the principles of creating Korean alphabets, this study probably helps to find the principles in terms of semiotics.

DISCOURSES OF ROUTINE AND AFFECTS IN THE TEXT OF REGIONAL SPACE (on the example of Volgograd region)

The article discusses social space, which is the region of the text that is defined by a set of messages sent to settlements, streets, squares, monuments, buildings, and a system of signs that reflect possible interpretations of the actors, due to the peculiarities of the subjective state, language and experience. Using the methods of discursive and semiotic interpretation, we can distinguish two components of a heterogeneous, multi-code text — space of routine and space of affects. Space of routine presupposes a rational perception of space, rational response, it is a formation of traditions, attitudes, norms of conduct governing the behavior of social actors in a specific spatio-temporal locality. Changes in the perception of the usual attributes of the regional landscape can in a certain sense and individual context trigger affective reactions. The followihg factors form the space of the affects: sensual perception of space, emotional stimulation and intrapsychic representation, the sense of injury/cure, dangers/safety, negativity/ pleasure, shame/pride, or a combination of them. Dualism in the perception of space, its dialectical nature, congruence, flexibility, variability, the conflict of local and individual meanings, existing practices, patterns, mentalities and cultures, situations, the media are a condition of existence, and labeling of the regional text, updating its discursiveness and research.

Semiotic Interpretation of Lotka–Volterra Model and its Usage in Knowledge Management

Convergence of NBICS-technologies makes relevant the exact definition of objective goals’ spectrum, which pursued this self-organizing system of technologies. Authors consider the objective goals of this system of technologies as “semiotic attractors” and the tasks related to knowledge management at the NBICS-technologies niche as management of competition between the goals, which cause processes of creation, transmission, reception, usage and duplication of the new knowledge. Competitive interaction of these goals (and their symbolizations) were researched on the grounds of Lotka–Volterra model. The original interpretation of Lotka–Volterra model is posed on the basis of stated interconnection between the stages of complex systems’ non-linear dynamics, this self-organization’s information mechanisms and the semiotic results of information processes’ stages. This synthesis of synergetic, cybernetic and semiotic paradigms is implemented on the grounds of A. N. Whitehead process philosophy. Semiotic interpretation of the model allowed determining the order of goals’ conversion and defining the stages of dynamics at which this transformation by means of knowledge management is constructive.

What is Mathematics, Really? Who Wants to Know?

AbstractFamous physicists, like Einstein and Wigner have been wondering, why mathematical symbolism could play such an effective and decisive role in the development of physics. Since the days of Plato, there have been essentially two different answers to this question. To Plato mathematics was a science of the unity and order of this universe. Since Galilei people came to believe that mathematics does not describe the objective world, it is not a reflection of some metaphysical realism. It is rather a reflection of human activity in this world. Kant, by his “Copernican Revolution of Epistemology” seems to have been the first to realize this. For example, number, or more generally arithmetic, was to the Pythagoreans “a cosmology” (KLEIN, 1985, p. 45), to Dedekind it is a means to better distinguish between things. The paper sketches the transition from an ontological to a semiotic interpretation of mathematics.

Reading hypermedia narrative stars, 88 Constellations For Wittgenstein by David Clark. Analytical approach to Constellation 18 Cassiopeia

http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/1807-9288.2015v11n1p287Este artigo apresenta uma abordagem para analisar elementos de hipermídia encontrados no discurso de "Cassiopeia", uma das constelações que compõem 88 Constellations for Wittgenstein (To Be Played with the Left Hand) (2011), pelo artista [ ] David Clark. Embora existam muitas abordagens para o tema da literatura eletrônica, ainda há muitas obras inexploradas esperando para serem estudadas, o que, indubitavelmente, levantará questões sobre a literalidade da literatura eletrônica. Este artigo descreve brevemente as questões de representação, temporalidade, semióticas, interação e manipulação nesta constelação específica do trabalho acima mencionado. O artigo utiliza teorias literárias específicas do meio digital (possibilidades temporais em textos programados, níveis temporais para cibertextos com conteúdo narrativo, acoplamento pluricode, instabilidade de obras digitais) a fim de examinar as nuances e gradações da textualidade eletrônica e da recepção literária. A análise mostra que a manipulação e a interação do usuário com a obra afetam certos elementos do discurso narrativo hipermídial e sugere novas possibilidades de interpretação temporal e semiótica.