Natural signs from Plato to Thomas A. Sebeok

The paper pays tribute to Thomas A. Sebeok with an inquiry into the place of the semiotics of nature within his system of “global semiotics” and of natural signs within his typology of signs, which distinguishes “six species of signs.” It complements Sebeok’s theory of natural signs with a historical study of semiotic definitions of natural signs in four chapters. The first, “Natural signs from Plato to the Scholastics” focuses on Plato’s Cratylus, Aristotle’s “On Interpretation,” Augustine of Hippo, and the Scholastics, in particular Roger Bacon’s distinction between natural and “given” signs. The second, “Natural signs in 20th century analytical and cognitive philosophy,” discusses Rollin’s Natural and conventional meaning as well as the definitions of natural signs proposed by Jerzy Pelc, David S. Clarke, Laird Addis, and in Ruth Garret Millikan’s teleosemiotics. The third, “Structuralist strategies of excluding natural signs from semiotics” discusses how natural signs were excluded from cultural semiotics in the writings of Roland Barthes (Mythologies), Algirdas J. Greimas, and in Umberto Eco’s early semiotic writings. The fourth investigates how C. S. Peirce overcomes the dualism of nature and convention in his general theory of signs founded on evolutionary principles. The paper concludes with reflections on Sebeok’s theory of modeling as the distinctive feature of human semiosis.

On necessary conditional marking and proposition suspension: The meaning of the Spanish construction si es que

This paper offers a unified analysis of the coded meaning of Spanish conditional marker si es que: it conventionally conveys conditionality and the speaker’s lack of commitment to the proposition. This second meaning differentiates si es que from the general conditional marker si. It is also argued that si es que has two values: suspending a proposition and expressing a necessary condition, and established that these two share the conventional meaning but differ in the discourse status of the proposition: suspension takes place when the proposition was explicitly evoked in previous discourse, while the marking of necessary conditionals takes place when the proposition is not evoked, but typically new information. The analysis of Spanish si es que contributes to determining the relationship between the operation of suspending a content and the expression of conditionality.

The Genesis of Reading and Intonation

This research deals with the genesis of reading and intonation and began by talking about the linguistic and conventional meaning of each and related to the definition of both the reader and the reader and the fruit of the science of readings and its usefulness. In this research, i.e. the stages of the genesis of the readings at the time of the descent of the Revelation and after the revelation, the seven letters and what they mean, and what character the Companions were reading. She also spoke about the genesis of intonation, which means language and terminology, and when the science of intonation began to emerge. What is the relationship between intonation and reading science?

Metonymic and metaphoric meaning extensions of Chinese FACE and its collocations

This paper studies the extension of conventional meanings of Chinese FACE expressions in their collocations as well as the collocations themselves through metonymy and metaphor. The data with five FACE expressions included are sampled from the corpus of Center for Chinese Linguistics at Peking University. The conventional meaning of these five FACE expressions is ‘the surface of the front of the head from the top of the forehead to the base of the chin and from ear to ear’. The conventional meaning of FACE in its collocations is metonymically extended to ‘facial expression, emotion, attitude, person, health state, affection, sense of honor, etc.’, and metaphorically to ‘the front space or part of something, a part, a side or an aspect of something, the surface or the exposed layer of something, the geometric plane in math or scope/range of something, etc.’. When Chinese FACE is collocated with other words, its meanings are also extended through metonymy-metonymy chains, metonymy-metaphor continuums and metonymy-metaphor combinations. The meanings of Chinese FACE collocations (phrases) are mainly metonymically extended when used in certain contexts.

Diachronic Semantic Shift of Sequential Conjunction: the Causal to Conditional Path

This paper analyzes the semantic shift of a Japanese construction V-e-bafrom causal to conditional. The conventional meaning of the V-e-ba constructionis a sequential conjunction in the sense of update semantics. The causal meaning in Old Japanese is obtained by an I-implicature, whilethe conditional meaning in Modern Japanese is obtained by Q-implicatures. Theproposed diachronic development is in accordance with Deo’s (2015) EvolutionaryGame Theory model.

Body Language and Its Universal Meaning: the Interpretation of Body Language in the Little Black Book Film

This study aims to examine body language, namely facial expressions that appear in film scenes entitled 'Little Black Book'. Therefore, this study discusses two research questions: 1) what conventional meaning is expressed by the facial expressions of central figures in 'Little Black Book' film? 2) what are the forms and patterns of body language that carry important messages besides facial expressions in 'Little Black Book' film? This study uses a qualitative approach to analyze data. The data source of this research is the film "Little Black Book". The data of this study are certain scenes related to body language. Data is collected through observation, which is watching carefully and repeatedly, and cutting or copying images that show gesture or gesture of body language. The result found was facial expressions which specified at upper neck, namely: head, eyes, and mouth. while the other parts of body language were hands and other acts of body language.

THEORIES OF VAGUENESS AND THEORIES OF LAW

ABSTRACTIt is common to think that what theory of linguistic vagueness is correct has implications for debates in philosophy of law. I disagree. I argue that the implications of particular theories of vagueness on substantive issues of legal theory and practice are less far-reaching than often thought. I focus on four putative implications discussed in the literature concerning (i) the value of vagueness in the law, (ii) the possibility and value of legal indeterminacy, (iii) the possibility of the rule of law, and (iv) strong discretion. I conclude with some methodological remarks. Delineating questions about conventional meaning, legal content determination, and norms of legal interpretation and judicial practice can motivate clearer answers and a more refined understanding of the space of overall theories of vagueness, interpretation, and law.

“The Man of the Hour”: Hawthorn(e), Nebraska and Haunting

This paper provides a close reading and critical unfolding of central themes and motifs in Alexander Payne’s acclaimed 2013 comic ‘road movie’ Nebraska. It focuses on three key issues: (1) the symbolic significance of hawthorn as a threshold between different worlds (Hawthorne, Nebraska being the former hometown to which father and son make a detour); (2) the notion of ‘haunting’ in relation both to ‘importuning’ memories besetting the central characters and to particular sites of remembrance to which they return; and, (3) how the film’s pervasive mood of melancholy is subject to repeated interruption and punctuation by comic utterances and put-downs. In presenting us with a reluctant ‘gathering of ghosts’, a veritable phantasmagoria, the film articulates a particular sense of nostalgia, of a ‘homesickness’ understood here not in the conventional meaning of a longing to return to a forsaken ‘home’, but rather as a weariness and wariness at the prospect of revisiting familiar haunts and reviving old spirits.

The effect of the use of the jurists for Alfasid and Albatil in the acts of worship on Juristic Issues

This research deals with the difference between for Alfasid and Albatil. The researcher compares and prefers what appeared to him after investigation and inference. This research aims to indicate the meaning of Alfasid and Albatil, and based on the definition of a difference between jurists and speakers. This research aims to edit the difference between Alfasid and Albatil in the acts of worship on the four doctrines. And the impact on the branches of jurisprudence. This research has an introduction and two chapters: Chapter I: In a statement of the meaning of Alfasid and Albatil: and under three topics: The first topic: the linguistic meaning. The second topic: the conventional meaning. The third topic: the difference between jurists and speakers in the definition of Alfasid and Albatil. Chapter 2: The difference between Alfasid and Albatil at the four schools of worship. The first topic is: Alfasid and Albatil in the Hanafi and its impact on the jurisprudential branches. The second topic: Alfasid and Albatil in the other schools and its impact on the branches of jurisprudence. The third topic: the impact of the difference between the Hanafi and the other schools in achieving the difference between Alfasid and Albatil in worship.

The Psammetichus Syndrome and Beyond

Thanks to Bruno Galantucci, “experimental semiotics” is usually nowadays taken to mean the study of “novel forms of communication which people develop when they cannot use pre-established communication systems”. In spite of Galantucci’s claim to have picked the label because it was free, it has actually been used in different ways at least twice before: by Colin Ware, who takes it to be involved with “the elucidation of symbols that gain their meaning by being structured to take advantage of the human sensory apparatus”, as opposed to conventional meaning-making, and by Kashima and Haslam, who apply it to complex social situations. The label could also conveniently be used to describe the kind of experiment that we have realized at Centre for Cognitive Semiotics, which are classical psychological experiments which have been enriched with a focus on the particular semiotic resources involved, while also applying phenomenological analysis to both the experimental situation and its outcome. These are all reductive uses of the terms “experimental” and “semiotics”. In fact, although Galantucci himself refers to Psammetichus’s famous experiment as being roughly analogous to his understanding of experimental semiotics, there are important differences, the Psammetichus experiment, in spite of its intentions, being more unbiased, if it could really be accomplished. Pursuing the principle that I have called the dialects of phenomenology and experiment, and what Jordan Zlatev has termed the conceptual-empirical loop, I will suggest, in the present paper, that these different experimental approaches can be related to different varieties of semiosis, thus helping us to spell out the full task of the discipline termed cognitive semiotics. This, in turn, will help us determine the full scope of cognitive semiotics, while also highlighting the importance of the semiotic part, that is, the attention to meaning, revealed by phenomenology.