Beyond the Words in Print: Identity Construction in Messages of Condolence

Death is part of human existence. When a person hears the news of someone’s death, it is very common for that person to express their feelings about it. This feeling is in the form of condolences which express the speaker’s sorrow, and condolences fall into the category of speech act. Semantically, condolences have a social meaning which refers to language use. Identities are created in relationships with others, and condolences are major platforms for the construction of identities, in that, existing relationships are, clearly, manifested in the messages that sympathizers expressed. Using a qualitative approach, the study analyzed twenty condolence messages which were purposely sampled from condolence messages posted in the portals of International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), when one of its members passed away. The analysis of the data revealed two main identity types enacted for the deceased: role identity and Social Identity. The major Role identity enacted, metaphorically, was Father while the least role was Achiever. Second, identity as an International Figure was dominant with the Social roles, but Good Personality was used less frequently. The present study adds to studies in identity construction, in general, and studies in condolence messages, in specific.

Contributions to a semiotics of religion: the semiosis from sign to meaning

This article approaches theoretically the religious experience in toto. Considering the semiotics applied to religion, contributions to understand and recognize the relevance of this discipline are proposed. Such approach to the semiotics of religion justifies the aim of the article: to understand the meaning structures of religious experiences. These experiences are diverse, intimate, subjective, but all have an idea of the “transcendent” as a referent and they are based on structures of meaning, expressions, and representations of the sacred, forms, uses and interpretations of religious signs, systems of collective thought and symbolic action. It is intended to advocate that: 1) the semiotics of religion is an interdisciplinary branch of social sciences and humanities and a sort of semiotics of culture; religion is a form of culture, as well communication and social meaning; 2) religion is a semiotic phenomenon; it is sustained by signs, representations, processes of signification and cultural construction of the world, without which there could be no religion. This is followed by a conceptual, theoretical strategy of critical discussion of the structures of meaning on which manifest culture is based through what we say or do, the way we behave and the attitude we have towards signs.

Spirit of the Place and the Place of the Spirit

Southwest Finnish folklore recorded in the early twentieth century contains a wealth of legends about local spirits, residing and acting both in the wilderness and on farm premises. They belong to belief systems that express social norms and regulations. Many of the legends contain enough information to allow us to locate exactly where local spirits are said to appear or interact with people. In this paper I study these locations and their place in the structure of village society, using historical village maps. The results shed new light on the nature of borders and boundaries in folklore and vernacular belief, as well as on the view of the social meaning of local spirits. Borders and border zones are common ground between several societies, lacking a clearly defined master. In places of uncertain mastery local spirits, endowed with taboos and the authority of the surrounding societies, play a social role in regulating the activities of people on such common ground.

Word Formation Process of Slang Word Used by Gamers In The Game Online “Mobile Legend”

This research analyzes about word formation process of slang word used by gamers in the game online “Mobile Legend”. The purposes of this research are to classify and to analyze the types of word formation processes of slang words used by gamers using theory word formation process by Yule (2010) and Katamba (2005) and to describe the meaning of slang words used by gamers. The method used in this research is descriptive qualitative. The data is formed of slang word in chat feature by gamers. In collecting the data, the researcher used participant observational method (SLC). Then, the analysis in this research, the researcher used agih method (distributional method) and used Segmenting Immediate Constituents Techniques (Teknik Bagi Unsur langsung/BUL) as the basic technique and delition technique (teknik lesap) as an advanced technique. The results of this research are stated as follows. Firstly, six types of word formation process in slang word used by gamers; abbreviation, acronym, borrowing, compounding, multiple process, and clipping. Then, the researcher found twelve slang words that utterances by gamer. While for word formation process, the type that dominant is compounding. In the meaning of slang word, the researcher only finds two from seven types of meaning by Leech (1981), they are: firstly social meaning and secondly connotative meaning.

Polymedia repertoires of networked individuals

This article introduces the concept of the polymedia repertoire to explore how social meaning is indexed through the interplay of communicative resources at different levels of expression (from choice of media to individual signs) in digitally mediated interactions. The multi-layered polymedia repertoire highlights how people move fluidly between media platforms, semiotic modes and linguistic resources in the course of their everyday interactions, and enables us to locate digital communications within individuals’ wider practices. The potential of our theoretical contribution is illustrated through analysis of mobile phone messaging between participants in a large multi-sited ethnography of the communicative practices of multilingual migrants working in linguistically diverse UK city neighbourhoods. Our analysis of mobile messaging exchanges in a day-in-the-life of these networked individuals reveals the importance of device attention in shaping interpersonal interactions, as well as the complex ways in which choices at different levels of a polymedia repertoire are structured by social relationships, communicative purpose and (dis)identification processes.

Social Meaning Brings Beauty

In the study discussed in this chapter, the authors found that concrete pictographs elicited variable aesthetic appraisals related to the aesthetic qualities of the reference objects. In addition, Chinese characters are also produced in the form of metaphorical writing symbols that convey social concepts (ideographic symbols of oracle bone script). The study investigated whether the reference social meanings altered neural responses in the aesthetic appraisal of oracle bone scripts. Similar to the findings of pictographs, the beauty judgment of positive oracle bone scripts activated the occipital lobe for perceptual processing, frontal lobe for cognitive judgment, and right putamen for rewarding experience. However, only perceptual processing regions were found in the ugly judgment of negative oracle bone scripts. Results indicated that aesthetic appraisal of oracle bone scripts mainly depended on the valence of the reference social meanings and was in accordance with the stereotype of “what is good is beautiful, and bad is ugly.”