History Of Semiotics Research Articles

From the history of semiotics in the USSR: Georgy Kh. Shingarov

Abstract Georgy Kh. Shingarov is one of the few philosophers of the Soviet period who studied the conditioned reflex as a sign system. The originality of his theory, created in accordance with the provisions of dialectical materialism, is shown. He considered the signal in the model of the conditioned reflex as a sign, explaining its formation by the process of dialectical ‘sublation’, i.e. the transformation of a material unconditioned stimulus into an idealized object, devoid of the properties of materiality, but which is the result of the manifestation of matter. The socio-political conditions that determined the features of this theory are described.

Является ли язык знаковой системой? (Ленин, Соссюр и теория иероглифов)

This paper strives to pursue two goals at the same time: – how can one get to know in depth the intellectual life of the Soviet Union in the 1930s–50s? – what can the virulent anti-Saussurean criticism in Russia at that time tell us about the specificity of the Marxist-Leninist theory of sign? We will propose here an apparently narrow angle of attack: the recurring theme of this criticism, namely that Saussure’s Cours presents a ”theory of hieroglyphics” (or symbols), therefore a type of bourgeois idealist theory that Lenin assailed in his 1909 book Materialism and Empiriocriticism about E. Mach, and which was upheld for a time by Plekhanov. But thinking about hieroglyphics is based on much older controversies, dating back to the 17th century about the deciphering of Egyptian writing. The issue which arises here is semiotic in nature: it is the scalar opposition between transparency and opacity of the sign that is at stake. Does the sign hide or reveal? The Soviet discourse on language and signs in the 1930s–50s seems entirely to be based on an interrogation of the sign/referent, language/thought, form/content relationship. A part of the history of semiotics can thus be discovered from the critique of the “hieroglyphic theory”, a little-known episode in a debate on the interpretation of Saussurism.

From Sprachtheorie to semantics and cybernetics: Karl Bühler’s “Pocketbook on practical semantics”

Abstract Among the many Central European scholars and intellectuals driven into exile across the Atlantic in the 1930s was the prominent Vienna psychologist Karl Bühler (1879–1963). Bühler had great difficulty establishing himself in his new home of the United States, despite his attempts to adapt his ideas to the American scene. In this paper, we look at one such attempt at adaptation, the unpublished manuscript of Bühler’s “Pocketbook on Practical Semantics,” an effort to turn the Sprachtheorie of his Vienna period into a contribution to the applied semiotics and communications research popular in America at the time. Our paper represents the first detailed examination of the “Pocketbook” manuscript that places it in its context in the history of semiotics.

Metode Penelitian Analisis Semiotik Media Sosial

Semiotics or semiotics are terms that refer to the same science. Semiotics is commonly used by American scholars, although the term semiotics is more commonly used in Europe. Semiotics comes from the Greek word semeion, which means 'sign', or the English sign, which means 'signal'. Semiotics is known as a science that studies sign language systems such as languages, codes, signals, and human language. Semiotics is the science of symbols. To be able to read and interpret these symbols, we need "language". Meaning is formed through a structured system of linguistic differences. Meaning is generated through the process of selecting and combining symbols around two axes, the syntagmatic axis (linear, for example sentences) and the paradigm axis (the arena of symbols such as synonyms) which are arranged in a marking system. This symbol consists of a signifier (medium) and a symbol (meaning) (Saussure, 1960). The purpose of semiotic analysis is to find the meaning of symbols, including what is hidden behind them (text, advertisements, news). Keywords: history of semiotics, semiotics Roland Barthes, understanding of semiotics, semiotic figures, development of semiotics.

Is language a system of signs? Lenin, Saussure and the theory of hieroglyphics

This paper strives to pursue two goals at the same time: how can one get to know in depth the intellectual life of the USSR in the 1930s–1950s; and, what can the virulent anti-Saussurean criticism in Russia at that time tell us about the specificity of the Marxist-Leninist theory of signs?
 We propose the following angle of attack: the recurring theme of this criticism, namely that Saussure’s Cours presents a “theory of hieroglyphics”, therefore a type of “bourgeois idealist” theory that Lenin assailed in his 1909 book Materialism and Empiriocriticism about Ernst Mach. Yet thinking about hieroglyphics is based on much older controversies, dating back to the 17th century and concerning the deciphering of Egyptian writing. The issue which arises here is semiotic in nature: it is the scalar opposition between transparency and opacity of the sign that is at stake. Does the sign hide or reveal? The Soviet discourse on language and signs in the 1930s–1950s seems to be based on an interrogation of the sign/referent, language/ thought, form/content relationship. A part of the history of semiotics can thus be discovered from the critique of the “hieroglyphic theory”, a little-known episode in a debate on the interpretation of Saussurism.

Linguistique intégrationniste et histoire sémiotique des mathématiques

Cet article propose une présentation et une discussion de la linguistique intégrationniste de Roy Harris. On y rappelle la caractérisation du « mythe du langage », les critiques qui lui ont été adressées et les principes intégrationnistes proposés pour y répondre. Les thèses et les arguments intégrationnistes sont ensuite confrontés aux résultats de plusieurs études d'histoire sémiotique des mathématiques. Un examen du ressort de l'efficacité des critiques intégrationnistes permet de reconsidérer les conséquences qui en ont été tirées.

¿Por qué es necesaria una historia de la semiótica? En busca de la identidad y la memoria a reconstruir

Este ensayo tiene por objetivo reflexionar sobre la historia intelectual nuestra y las teorías que se han venido siguiendo con la esperanza de incrementar nuestra mirada y visualizar qué historia de la semiótica amerita ser narrada para orientar nuestro trabajo y de paso levantar nuevas propuestas teóricas o quizás otras historias que pudieran enriquecer a la disciplina.

Two basic analyses of the historiography of semiotics: M. Foucault’s comparative semiology and J.N. Deely’s semiotic realism

AbstractIn this study I compare the work of two scholars who are important for contemporary research into the history of semiotics. The main goal of the study is to describe specific rhetorical/figurative forms and structures of persuasion between two epistemological positions that determine various possibilities in the historiography of semiotics. The main question is this: how do we understand two important metatheoretical forms of descriptions in the historiography of semiotics or the history of sign relations? The first perspective is semiology and its corollary, “structuralism,” as presented in Michel Foucault’sThe Order of Things. This perspective prefers to consider history as a set of ruptures (i). The second position explores the possibility of the historical development of semiotic consciousness as presented in the works of John N. Deely (ii). The main aim of this study lies in the exploration of these two different epistemological bases – divergent bases for developing specific understandings of interconnections that hold between between semiotics, semiosis and historical processes. A goal of this paper is to demonstrate the limits and advantages of these two paradigmatic positions. The positions in question are “meta-theoretical” in the following senses such that: (i) the historical episteme is taken to be ana priorideterminant of all sign-operations in a given era and is also the semiologic grid through which Foucault approaches every mode of scientific knowledge (from “science” to “economy” and beyond); (ii) the quasi-Hegelian development of semiotic consciousness based on a conception of the sign considered as a triadic ontological relation. The latter is Deely’s guiding meta-principle, through which the history of semiotics can be articulated, examined and evaluated.

Theology and Catastrophe: A (Girardian) Semiotics of Re-Humanization

Girardian anthropology tells us that the birth of human meaning and its signs are the result of a primitive catastrophe. But if these origins are exposed by the biblical record it is because another, transformative semiosis has opened in hu- man existence. Girard’s seminal remarks on the Greek logos and the logos of John, endorsing Heidegger’s divorce of the two, demonstrate this claim and its source in the nonviolence of the gospel logos. In effect, there is a second catastrophe, one embedded in the bible and reaching its full exposition in the cross, generating a new semiosis in humanity. The transformation may be measured by viewing the original semiosis in a Kantian frame, as a transcendental a priori structured by violence. The second catastrophe generates an equivalent new a priori of nonviolence. The work of Charles Peirce illustrates both the way in which interpretants (of signs) open us progressively to new meanings, and how this process may ultimately be conditioned by love. The catastrophe of the gospel, therefore, works both on the dramatic individual level, with Paul of the New Testament as the great example, but also in slow-motion over semiotic history, changing the meaning of existence from violence to nonviolence.

Theology and Catastrophe: A (Girardian) Semiotics of Re-Humanization

Girardian anthropology tells us that the birth of human meaning and its signs are the result of a primitive catastrophe. But if these origins are exposed by the biblical record it is because another, transformative semiosis has opened in human existence. Girard’s seminal remarks on the Greek logos and the logos of John, endorsing Heidegger’s divorce of the two, demonstrate this claim and its source in the nonviolence of the gospel logos. In effect, there is a second catastrophe, one embedded in the bible and reaching its full exposition in the cross, generating a new semiosis in humanity. The transformation may be measured by viewing the original semiosis in a Kantian frame, as a transcendental a priori structured by violence. The second catastrophe generates an equivalent new a priori of nonviolence. The work of Charles Peirce illustrates both the way in which interpretants (of signs) open us progressively to new meanings, and how this process may ultimately be conditioned by love. The catastrophe of the gospel, therefore, works both on the dramatic individual level, with Paul of the New Testament as the great example, but also in slow‑motion over semiotic history, changing the meaning of existence from violence to nonviolence.

Semiotics of History in the Works of the Tartu-Moscow Group

This article examines the contribution of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics to semiotic studies of history, with the main focus on the work of Yuri Lotman and Boris Uspensky.

Education, Signs, and the History of Ideas

Abstract This interview/dialogue addresses an important issue of how educational semiotics is grounded in the history of ideas. The discussions concern the shared history of semiotics and liberal education; the modern university and its medieval antecedents; semiotic consciousness, the traces of which are found in both Christianity and Islam (and the hermeneutics of Abrahamic and mystical religions, in general); intercultural translation; the relationship between learning (conceptualized edusemiotically) and biosemiotics, and how our social understandings of learning determine and shape our basic relationship to the world. Touching on the concepts of scaffolding and evolution, the chapter discusses adaptation in relation to learning, social semiotics and contemporary social reality, while imploring us to consider education in terms of its service to learning (and not the other way around). Campbell: This interview was originally published as a recorded podcast-interview in 2017, on philosophasters.org as part of the interview series Signs of Life. Thank you to Thomas Hoeller for recording and editing the sound and music, and Marion Benkaiouche for transcribing the interview. Thank you, Inna Semetsky, for summarizing the dialogue, included in part in the above abstract description. Please bear in mind that as this interview was conducted two years ago, the author´s current ideas on some of these topics may have changed.

Текст в контексте Тартуской школы: проблемы и перспективы

In this article, I discuss problems associated with the emergence and development of the concept of text, which is central to the Tartu-Moscow Semiotic School (TMS). The first prob­lem is the interrelation between statics and dynamics. From the perspective of classical struc­turalism, the language system is a static entity. The generation of a text, however, is a dy­namic process. Therefore, language should contain the possibility of dynamics. The TMS of­fered a twofold solution to this dilemma. Firstly, the text was assumed to have a polysemiotic nature: the verbal text is encoded not by one, but by several sign systems. Secondly, there was an idea of the activity, memory, and responsibility of the text. The two major lines of research within the TMS developed accordingly. The first one focused on polysemiotic systems and mechanisms: the theory of poetic language, translation theory, and intersemiotic interactions in various fields of biosemiotics. The second one explored interactions between the text and the discourse, the semiotics of history, ideology, etc.

Semiose em Peirce e Lotman

The aim of this work is to discuss the notion of semiosis in the context of Peirce and Lotman’s semiotics, clarifying their similarities and differences, in order to point out a possible dialogue between this two important authors for the history of semiotics. For this, we will first present the concept of semiosis within the theoretical framework of Peirce, discussing the main notions of its phenomenology, category theory, the notion of triadic identity (teridentity), which are important for understanding what Peirce understood as sign and semiosis. In a second moment, we discuss some of the main concepts of Lotman’s culture semiotics, bringing to light concepts such as text, modeling system, modeling, semiosphere, frontier. Finally, we compare the notions found in each theory, considering the dissonances and consonances between them.

Science and semiotics: What’s the relationship?

This article considers the relationship of semiotics to science. A history of semiotics is provided. Questions are addressed of whether semiotics is empirical and what is distinctive about semiotic approaches to the inbuilt challenges of science such as controlling for bias. These scientific matters are supplemented by a discussion of the use and purpose of art in semiotics. The second half of the article demonstrates semiotic technique by applying it to debates within the market research community over the scientific status of semiotics, behavioral economics, neuromarketing, and neuroscience. Provisional conclusions are drawn regarding the fate of new market research methods within these debates, and recommendations for further investigation are offered.

John Deely’s Influence on Prague Semiotics

In this paper, we give account of how the present shift in thought of the Prague School of Semiotics towards the history of semiotics (including, perhaps most notably, the exegesis of Peirce’s work) has been initiated and shaped by the ideas of John Deely. We discuss how works of John Deely were “discovered” in Prague, and how they found their way into our scholarly work and curriculum. We concentrate on the two Deely’s ideas which influenced us the most: his method of the “archaeology of concepts” applicable to the study of the history of semiotics, and his historical account of what constitutes a sign in its proper being, which not only makes semiotics and its historiography possible, but also advances a new conception of philosophy considered as semiotics.

The Bivium Syndrome in the History of Semiotics

Recent interest in the history of semiotics has begun to generate some concern for the theoretical framework housing the development of the discipline in relation to thinkers who have been pondering the nature and function of the sign in Western scholarship (e.g., Jakobson 1975; Sebeok 1977:149-188). Among the problems immediately surfacing to the attention of aspiring historian of semiotics, there are three which stand out for their dfficulty of content, boundaries, and methodology.

Reading Uspenskij: Soviet ‘semiotics of history’ in the West

The article explores the reception of Boris Uspenskij’s writings and ideas outside of the Soviet Union, primarily in Western European and North American academic contexts. The present brief overview of Uspenskij’s academic reception covers the translations of his best-known scholarly works [first and foremost “Historia sub specie semioticae” and “Istoriya i semiotika (Vospriyatie vremeni kak semioticheskaya problema)”] into English, French, Spanish, German and other European languages, as well as various references to Uspenskij’s ideas on what nowadays would be categorized as ‘semiotics of history’, or thoughts at least in some way related to the ‘cultural-semiotic approach to history’ of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics.

Para uma leitura semiótica das teorias de framing: reinterpretando o enquadramento com base na categoria peirceana de terceiridade

Resumo Explorar a peculiaridade semiótica das teorias de framing, questionando simultaneamente novos enquadramentos para a história da semiótica e do seu campo é o propósito deste estudo. As pesquisas sobre framing, muito profícuas na análise jornalística e na crítica mediática, têm uma origem multifacetada que o trabalho examina, procurando inserir uma nova linha nessa genealogia, particularmente descurada, e que tem a ver com o trabalho da semiótica como instrumento hermenêutico de criação de sentido. As categorias peirceanas são apresentadas como método que permite explicitar os mecanismos de enquadramento ou frames latentes nos seus produtores, no texto mediático, e na recepção pela audiência, perspectivando-se a terceiridade como elemento criador de regras ou habitus interpretativos, que identificaremos com o framing nas narrativas, e como paradigma integrador capaz de superar a fragmentação do campo e das suas origens.

Designing the New Negro: The Color of Late Nineteenth-Century Multimodality

Abstract Focusing on the 1900 publication of A New Negro for a New Century, this article examines multimodal design's “social and semiotic history” ( Kress, 2010 , p. 46), arguing that multimodality as semiotic potential and design as semiotic performance were both racially charged in the late nineteenth-century United States. By positioning multimodality, and thus designing writing, historically, this essay exposes the racial coding of design. It reveals the challenges posed by multimodal agency for African Americans as well as their concerted efforts to claim multimodality as a rhetorical resource serving the goal of racial uplift. To underscore the color of fin de siecle multimodal design, the article begins by addressing the racial valance of the book as medium, situating A New Negro for a New Century as a communication event within post-Reconstruction print culture, a transitional moment for technology and publication processes. Then, the article turns to the two key modes of image and word, contending that the White dominant culture sought to construe image and word as White resources. At the same time, the African American community fought back by seizing and exercising their modal agency despite overt and covert resistance. This analysis emphasizes that, as a semiotic performance, late nineteenth-century multimodality was neither neutral nor colorless. Instead, design was interpolated with race, suggesting the need to examine digital multimodality through a racial lens. Thus, the article concludes with a three-part heuristic by which the racial dimension of digital multimodality might be made visible.