From case to topology

The Scanian dialect of Middle Danish underwent a range of changes and reductions in its case system. I argue that these changes were caused neither by phonological developments nor by language contact as often assumed, but by multiple processes of grammaticalisation. The present paper focuses on one of these factors: that the relatively predictable constituent order within the Middle Danish noun phrase made case marking redundant in its function of marking noun-phrase internal agreement between head and modifier(s). This redundancy caused the case system to undergo a regrammation where the indexical sign relations changed so that the expression of morphological case no longer indicated this noun-phrase-internal agreement, leaving only topology (as well as morphologically marked number and gender agreement) as markers of this type of agreement. This factor contributed to the subsequent degrammation of the entire case system.

Between Two Minds: The Work of Peirce’s Energetic Interpretant

This inquiry illustrates how Peirce’s Energetic Interpretant facilitates consciousness-raising between sign users. Because it forces attention and progression of action, the Energetic Interpretant highlights perfective aspectual characteristics, namely atomistic/punctual cause-effect sign relations by featuring junctures between events: beginning, middle, end. For example, the stops and starts of events are influenced by the nature of the action, in addition to the agent’s idiosyncratic preferences and predilections. The Thirdness underlying it further perpetuates the punctual component (Vendler 1967) present in action relations, operational when effort produces resistance against an opposing force. Because effort can materialize physically, or internally, it demonstrates the continued primacy of Peirce’s categories in fostering certain consequences. Energetic Interpretants can inhibit (Secondness), i.e., attention to one stimulus, while ignoring another. Nonetheless, consciously inhibiting/resisting a force (via Energetic Interpretants) introduces control beyond the self—another’s reflections upon the conscious acts of an agent (ms 318). This influence between interlocutors satisfies Peirce’s maxim of a “common place to stand” (ms 614), demonstrating mutual comprehension of the sign’s proper effect (5.475). In fact, Energetic Interpretants may result in an effect of such proportion upon either or both interlocutors that a habit-change materializes. As such, Energetic Interpretants epitomize the perfectivity exercised by particular efforts, intimating the likelihood of their discursive success. Inherent in punctual events (versus dynamic ones) is the element of surprise, which ultimately hastens the kind of habit-change especially exhibited in Peirce’s double consciousness (5.53)—self talking to self or other.

Polarisasi “Liyan” dalam Meme Please Help Me: Contraceptive Pills

Contraceptives are considered to be the key to solving poverty problems by controlling women's reproductive systems. In campaigning for poverty solutions, women's bodies are presented in the Please Help Me: Contraceptive Pills meme through a representation system. Representation is closely related to the use of stereotypes which are subjective and prejudiced labeling. The first discussion is about how women's cultural identity is represented in the sign relation of a Please Help Me: Contraceptive Pills meme and what ideological practices that works behind the meme. This paper aims to analyze the representation system of women's cultural identity in a meme, Please Help Me: Contraceptive Pills. In addition, this paper seeks to show the pervasive discrimination through sign relations. This qualitative research uses the semiotic method in interpreting signs in memes. The results of this analysis state that the practice of the representation system has limited the flow of meaning so that in this meme there is an imbalanced represention of women's cultural identity and that the responsibility for procreation is only a woman's concerns. Keywords: discrimination, identity, meme, representation, the Other

A Cultural Semiotics of Jingshen: A Manifesto

In the face of myriad crises in modern societies, semiotic inquiry has many valuable contributions to make. However, the long-standing dominant analytical paradigms in the field have made it exceedingly difficult, if not altogether impossible, to tackle the countless unanalyzable aspects of semiosis in the human condition. What needs to be done in semiotics is to highlight another mode of knowing, synthetic thinking, without excluding the analytical mode. Drawing inspiration and strength from classical Eastern philosophies and aesthetics, notably I Ching and Laozi, as well as classics and advances in global semiotics, the present paper proposes a cultural semiotics of jingshen, understood here as the holistic flux of mind, vitality, and creativity. This route of inquiry seeks cogent coalescence of the two foregoing modes of knowing so as to better inform semiotics in a new age. At the same time, it creates a unique methodology: the fusion of revelatory “embodied cognition” and “cognition via knowledge/ abstraction.” Viewed in this light, the purpose or function of semiotics is not limited to understanding signs and sign relations or uncovering laws governing the evolution of semiosis, but more importantly it embraces the improvement of mental capacity, the expansion of cognitive space, and the liberation of human thinking.

The imagination, the conscious, and the unconscious in Jean Cocteau’s La Belle et la Bête

Charles S. Peirce’s and Sigmund Freud’s theories may be used to interpret Jean Cocteau’s film La Belle et la Bête (1946). This film has a specific set of codes which connote its filmic language. Cocteau uses fetishistic objects as symbols and icons to reflect the psychological meaning of the film’s narrative. Peirce’s icons and symbols include the connection a person may make through the conventions and expressions of language a person links with the object or idea being observed. Peirce’s semiotic theory functions as a theory of communication. His theory refocuses on culture. Freud’s theories can be linked with ideas produced by Peirce in forming sign relations with the interpretation of the film and the role of imagination in the film. Especially important are Freud’s ideas of repression, conscious and unconscious as they relate to Cocteau’s filmic narrative and the film’s main character Belle.

Russian and Polish Grammars of the 18th Century as Textbooks on Language Theory

The article presents Russian and Polish grammarians’ points of view (Vasily Adodurov, Mikhail Lomonosov, Anton Barsov, Walenty Szylarski, Onufry Kopczyński) on considering language theory issues and how they described them in their works written in the 18th and early 19th centuries. The grammars under consideration were aimed not only at a detailed description of the Russian and Polish languages or teaching the correct language usage; in addition, they contained some theoretical information given in a manner that is comparable with modern linguistic knowledge. That information lay in the field of linguistic typology. It was also assumed that a language could acquire communicative, cognitive, nominative, and poetic functions (the appropriate terms were not used at that time). Besides, the issues concerning the forms of language existence – written and oral, as well as the dicho­tomy of language and speech, the nature of a language sign, including the ideas about its arbitrariness, its semantics and pragmatics were raised. Additionally, interesting discussions about sign relations at the phonetic-phonological language level, as well as some ideas of functional syntax were initiated. The results of the study lead to the conclusion that the grammars of the 18th century were a reflection of the historical situation in which this grammatical research was done.

Translation Semiotics: The Disciplinary Essence

Translation semiotics studies the transformation of signs in translation, which generally involves semiosis, sign behavior, sign relations, semiotic hierarchy, intersemiosis, semiotic function, and semiotic conservation. This paper attempts to explore, from these seven dimensions, the disciplinary essence of TS and foresees the development of this burgeoning discipline as a branch of semiotics.

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

In 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’s The 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 an a priori determinant 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.

The metaphor and the iconic attitude

This paper discusses visual metaphors and aspects of similarity in relation to metaphors. The concept of metaphor should here be understood as a semiotic unit that is also a sign (cf. Ricœur, P. 1986. The Rule of Metaphor: Multi-Disciplinary Studies of the Creation of Meaning in Language. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.). This implies that not all semiotic units are signs, but also that not all signs are typical metaphors. The metaphor is a particular kind of sign because of its making use of the openness present in similarity relations. Metaphorical meaning making is related to a quality of vagueness in iconic sign relations. Furthermore, a notion of iconic attitude is proposed as a designation of subjective and intersubjective perspectives that might be taken on meanings founded on similarity. The iconic attitude mirrors the flexibility of thought and responds to the potentiality of vagueness in iconic sign relations; but, at the same time, the iconic attitude works as a stabilizing factor for meaning. Moreover, this attitude is crucial for the specification of the similarity relation in an actual sign experience with an iconic ground.

Foundations of the Theory of Signs (1938)

“Foundations of the theory of signs,” published by Charles W. Morris in 1938, deals with the relations between semiotics and science, and those between semiosis and semiotics, among others. Compared with previous research regarding the aspects of semiotics being meta-science, the three dimensions of semiosis, semiotic as organon of the sciences, etc., this article does push forward the development of linguistics and semiotics since the late 1930s. However, its discussions on semiotics being meta-science, the nature and classification of signs, the three dimensions of semiosis, organism in the sign relations, universals and universality of signs, and thing-language are either not logically rigid or inadequate in content and scope. For a piece of work discussing the theoretical foundations of signs, it does not consider sign transformation, a universal and ubiquitous sign activity, which is not consistent with the keyword “foundations” in its title. A critical analysis of these problems involving the aspects mentioned above may not only enrich the visions of triadic sign relations, semiotics, and translation semiotics, but also inspire future semiotic studies and even other new research related to signs.