Sense beyond communication
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Ugo Volli
Abstract
Ferdinand de Saussure assigned to semiotics the mission to study “the life of signs as part of social life” and the conception of Charles Sanders Peirce’s semiotics was even more extensive. But, in fact, semiotics in recent decades has been mainly occupied by a much narrower class of signs, those whose main function is “referential” in the sense of Jakobson (including the reference to possible words, as happens in fiction, paintings, literature etc.). There is a wide range of signs, (or as we prefer to say today, emphasizing the complexity: of texts) that work in a very different way. They do not refer to some external reality, do not stay “for the other”, but communicate a sender’s identity (“expressive” function), invite recipients to treat him/her in a certain way (“phatic” function), attest and often even form some standing or relation. They are signs because they literally make sense and it is possible to lie through them, but they do not have the same structure and working which characterizes the “regular” texts. These signs are “self-effective” or performative, as Austin would say, or expressive; that means they work just for the fact of being used and put in action, as happens in cases as diverse as intrinsically coded acts, many religious and civil rites aimed at tmemory, in clothing, status symbols, nonverbal language etc.
Abstract
Ferdinand de Saussure assigned to semiotics the mission to study “the life of signs as part of social life” and the conception of Charles Sanders Peirce’s semiotics was even more extensive. But, in fact, semiotics in recent decades has been mainly occupied by a much narrower class of signs, those whose main function is “referential” in the sense of Jakobson (including the reference to possible words, as happens in fiction, paintings, literature etc.). There is a wide range of signs, (or as we prefer to say today, emphasizing the complexity: of texts) that work in a very different way. They do not refer to some external reality, do not stay “for the other”, but communicate a sender’s identity (“expressive” function), invite recipients to treat him/her in a certain way (“phatic” function), attest and often even form some standing or relation. They are signs because they literally make sense and it is possible to lie through them, but they do not have the same structure and working which characterizes the “regular” texts. These signs are “self-effective” or performative, as Austin would say, or expressive; that means they work just for the fact of being used and put in action, as happens in cases as diverse as intrinsically coded acts, many religious and civil rites aimed at tmemory, in clothing, status symbols, nonverbal language etc.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter i
- Table of contents v
- Preface ix
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Section 1: Semiotics in the world and academia
- What the humanities are for – a semiotic perspective 3
- Semioethics as a vocation of semiotics. In the wake of Welby, Morris, Sebeok, Rossi- Landi 25
- “General semiotics” as the all-round interdisciplinary organizer – general semiotics (GS) vs. philosophical fundamentalism 45
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Section 2: Semiotics, experimental science and maths
- Semiotics as a metalanguage for the sciences 61
- Mastering phenomenological semiotics with Husserl and Peirce 83
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Section 3: Society, text and social semiotics
- Farewell to representation: text and society 105
- Social semiotics: Towards a sociologically grounded semiotics 121
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Section 4: Semiotics and media
- What relationship to time do the media promise us? 149
- Semiotics and interstitial mediatizations 169
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Section 5: Semiotics for moral questions
- Spaces of memory and trauma: a cultural semiotic perspective 185
- Media coverage of the voices of Colombia’s victims of dispossession 205
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Section 6: Questioning the logic of semiotics
- Sense beyond communication 225
- Semiotic paradoxes: Antinomies and ironies in a transmodern world 239
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Section 7: Manifestoes for semiotics
- Semiosis and human understanding 257
- Culture and transcendence – the concept of transcendence through the ages 293
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Section 8: Masters on past masters
- From Peirce’s pragmatic maxim to Wittgenstein’s language-games 327
- Semiotics as a critical discourse: Roland Barthes’ Mythologies 353
- Ricoeur, a disciple of Greimas? A case of paradoxical maïeutic 363
- Index 377
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter i
- Table of contents v
- Preface ix
-
Section 1: Semiotics in the world and academia
- What the humanities are for – a semiotic perspective 3
- Semioethics as a vocation of semiotics. In the wake of Welby, Morris, Sebeok, Rossi- Landi 25
- “General semiotics” as the all-round interdisciplinary organizer – general semiotics (GS) vs. philosophical fundamentalism 45
-
Section 2: Semiotics, experimental science and maths
- Semiotics as a metalanguage for the sciences 61
- Mastering phenomenological semiotics with Husserl and Peirce 83
-
Section 3: Society, text and social semiotics
- Farewell to representation: text and society 105
- Social semiotics: Towards a sociologically grounded semiotics 121
-
Section 4: Semiotics and media
- What relationship to time do the media promise us? 149
- Semiotics and interstitial mediatizations 169
-
Section 5: Semiotics for moral questions
- Spaces of memory and trauma: a cultural semiotic perspective 185
- Media coverage of the voices of Colombia’s victims of dispossession 205
-
Section 6: Questioning the logic of semiotics
- Sense beyond communication 225
- Semiotic paradoxes: Antinomies and ironies in a transmodern world 239
-
Section 7: Manifestoes for semiotics
- Semiosis and human understanding 257
- Culture and transcendence – the concept of transcendence through the ages 293
-
Section 8: Masters on past masters
- From Peirce’s pragmatic maxim to Wittgenstein’s language-games 327
- Semiotics as a critical discourse: Roland Barthes’ Mythologies 353
- Ricoeur, a disciple of Greimas? A case of paradoxical maïeutic 363
- Index 377
