Jules Verne’s ‘Around the World in 80 Days’: Multilingualism, Multiculturalism and Symbols

In this announcement, the various –linguistic and non-linguistic- symbols used in the literary work 'Around the world in 80 days', written by Jules Verne, are examined from an intertemporal and contemporary point of view. The references through these points of view, in matters of multiculturalism and multilingualism, are becoming classical in nature: they concern the necessity of the applied ability to communicate between individuals who belong to different social classes and age groups, speak the same or different languages, come from different cultures, with rights and obligations in their various areas of life, etc. Key-words: linguistics, multilingualism, multiculturalism, semiotics, semiotic systems, symbols

Revisiting the Theory-Constitutive Metaphor

In his seminal article “Metaphor and Theory Change: What is `Metaphor ́ a metaphor for?” (1993, [1979]), Richard Boyd describes a certain class of metaphors within science, namely, the theory-constitutive metaphors (henceforth the TCMs); this class of metaphors, Boyd explains, plays an important role in the formulation and development of theories because they express explanatory claims which, at least for the time being, cannot be conceived in any other known (literal) way. Hence, TCMs become a part of scientific thought and the development of concepts. TCMs can fix reference to casual relations in the physical world, even though they have an open-endedness (vagueness and are not fully explicated); the TCMs, therefore, have a programmatic character or they invite further research. In the following we try to add more characteristics to the TCMs from a Peircean perspective, namely, that the TCMs depend on abduction – this 1) makes them both creative and explanatory, 2) relates them to guessing and anchors them in instinct, whereby 3) their plausibility concerns an affinity between mind and nature.

On the Relation between Memory and Language from a Cultural-historical Perspective in Neurolinguistics

In this essay, we reflect about the relationship between memory and language, conceiving both as complex functional systems, developed along the human history and strongly influenced by culture. We give special emphasis to the mediating role of signs, mainly based on the (neuro)psychological principles postulated by Vygotsky and Luria, but also in dialogue with several authors from the fields of Linguistics, Philosophy of Language and Semiotics, among which Mikhail Bakhtin, Aleida Assmann, Augusto Ponzio and Susan Petrilli. Two data are presented in order to contribute to our reflection – the first is extracted of a dialogical episode with a subject diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and the second episode with an aphasic individual. In sum, we argue that the cultural-historical approach may provide a better understanding of the interdependent and constitutive nature of the relationship between language and memory. Key-words: Memory, Language, Historical-Cultural perspective, Neurolinguistics, Semiotics

The National Anthem as a Symbol of Religiosity in Nigeria

A quick glance at the second stanza of Nigeria national anthem attests to the fact that religion is valued by Nigeria. The whole stanza is a prayer to God to guide Nigeria into the right path and is sung intermittently with the first stanza which contains an appeal to all citizens to uphold the unity and sanctity of the nation. The second stanza of the national anthem implies that public practice of religion is not a problem as the stanza is publicly sung in both government and private organisations. This paper proceeds on the earlier works of scholars such as Mbiti1 and Idowu2 who assert that Africans are incurably religious. Nigeria national anthem is a pointer to this assertion. The paper adopts both historical and content analysis methods to gather and interpret data. We conclude that despite the fact that religion is held in high esteem in Nigeria, it is hard to see its positive effect on national development.

The Metaphysical Quality that gives a Visual Identity Mark its Sway.

Addressing a specific aspect of visual communication, the focus of this paper is to examine the connection between elemental nature-inspired archetypal symbols and contemporary Visual Identity Marks, for example the archetypal Solar Cross to the BP VIM, Helios, by establishing the existence of a contextual relevance and relationship. It furthermore analyses the fundamental influence of these archetypal symbols upon the viewer/user (internal and external audiences), no matter what level of sophistication the viewer’s/user’s society has achieved. To build an appreciation of the continuity and effectiveness of the use of elemental nature-inspired archetypal symbols within a contemporary context, areas of expertise not traditionally utilised within visual communication, such as sociology, archaeology, theology and folklore were engaged. While being defined as “a recurrent symbol or motif in literature, art or mythology” (Random House Dictionary, 2012), an archetypal symbol also possesses a metaphysical quality. This metaphysical quality enables the symbol to act as a galvanising and motivating force, which re-enforces individual and group identity, and ultimately transmit a sense of the sacred and the institutional within a mutable world. The archetypal (natural) symbol is the response of the psyche reflecting the ‘internal truth’. The VIM (cultural) symbol is a vehicle to maintain power for financial or political profits as well as sustain group coherency, and individual identity. Encoded within both a ‘natural’, and a ‘cultural’ symbol, is a deep spiritual quality tapping into a deeper symbolic language which evolved from humanity relating back to nature. Drawing upon notions of individual interpretation, the paper analyses the very idea of personal and/or subjective mental constructs related to visual identity marks.

Semiotic and Rhetorical Patterns in Dance and Gestural Languages

The body is the crossroad of the biological and cultural (representational) experience of human being. It has a basic rhetoric potential, which is exploited, in various cultures, through ’s concept of “orientation metaphor”, able to transpose certain concepts into space, as well as Fontanier’s “metonymies of the physical”, or Greimas“ ’metonymic actors” identified in the bodily segments and acting each “in the name of an actant” (Greimas). Therefore, the body is an “expressive space” (Merleau-Ponty), the symbolic value of its segments being deeply involved in choreographic significations.

Identity Today and the Critical Task of Semioethics

The critical task of semioethics implies recognition of the common condition of dialogical interrelation and the capacity for listening, where dialogue does not imply a relation we choose to concede thanks to a sense of generosity towards the other, but on the contrary is no less than structural to life itself, a necessary condition for life to flourish, an inevitable imposition. With specific reference to anthroposemiosis, semioethics focuses on the concrete singularity of the human individual and the inevitability of intercorporeal interconnection with others. The singularity, uniqueness of each one of us implies otherness and dialogism. Semioethics assumes that whatever the object of study and however specialized the analysis, human individuals in their concrete singularity cannot ignore the inevitable condition of involvement in the destiny of others, that is, involvement without alibis. From this point of view, the symptoms studied from a semioethical perspective are not only specified in their singularity, on the basis of a unique relationship with the other, the world, self, but are above all social symptoms. Any idea, wish, sentiment, value, interest, need, evil or good examined by semioethics as a symptom is expressed in the word, the unique word, the embodied word, in the voice which arises in the dialectic and dialogical interrelation between singularity and sociality.

A Socio-semiotic Analysis of Qat culture in Yemen

Qat, Catha edulis has become synonymous with Yemen, as the phenomenon of Qat chewing in Yemen dates back hundreds of years in history. No social, cultural, or political gathering in the afternoon time can do without Qat. Afternoon time becomes the sign of Qat sessions and socialization. Despite Yemen's openness to other cultures and the recent revolution in all kinds of social media, Yemenis do not stop the habit of chewing Qat. The purpose of the present research work is to analyze 'Qat' as a linguistic sign consisting of a signifier and a signified to understand its various social, cultural, and political signifieds that give it the semiotic power to dominate all aspects of life in Yemen and to ground the coinage of many lexical items that are culturally specific to Qat culture and Yemeni dialects. The present paper uses semiotics as a research method in which it adopts Saussure's linguistic model of sign, signifier, and signified and Barthes' concepts of denotation and connotation. Semiotically, this paper shows that the Yemeni people are not addicted to Qat as a drug, as might be assumed by some foreigners who are not familiar with the sign system of Yemeni culture. The Yemeni people are addicted to Qat as a polysemous sign that is associated with values, norms, rituals, enjoyment, relationship, and socialization at the connotative level.

Mourning the Bards: Interrogating the Contemporaneity of John Milton’s Lycidas and Pius Adebola Adesanmi.

This paper examines John Milton’s ‘Lycidas’ in line with the traditional conventions for analyzing pastoral elegies which include the invocation of the muses, the presence of nature in the mourning process, the charging of the guardian spirits by the mourners of negligence, the mourning procession, the questions of justice, elaborate passage and the final consolation. The paper further interrogates the African concept of death and the mourning of the dead. It further discusses the semiotic codes of death and mourning in Africa. It also critically examines the contemporaneity ‘Lycidas’ and its place in the contemporary society by juxtaposing the mourning of the death of King Edward and Prof. Pius Adebola Adesanmi. The paper, which is dedicated to the sad memory of late Prof. Pius Adesanmi, quarries the similarities and the coincidences between the death and the mourning of King Edward and Prof. Pius Adesanmi who were both young and dynamic poets and scholars but who died prematurely while travelling. The paper shows that their death symbolizes the universality and the inevitability of death.