Marks as masks: A study of traditional African occupations and their visual indices
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Victoria A. Alabi
Victoria A. Alabi (b. 1954) is a professor at the University of Ilorin 〈valabi2004@yahoo.com〉. Her research interests include semiotics and stylistics. Her publications include “The highway code in Nigeria: Examples of domestic strategies” (2010); “Problems of an emergent written language of the global system for mobile communication (GSM) in Nigeria” (2010); “Stylistic creativity via schemes, tropes, lexical cohesion and descriptive adjectives in SMS text messaging among Nigerian university graduates” (2010); and “Illuminating the illuminator: A stylistic study of Obafemi'sIlluminations ” (with V. T. Alabi, 2010).
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Olalere Adeyemi
Olalere Adeyemi (b. 1959) is an associate professor at the University of Ilorin at 〈adeyemiolalere@yahoo.com〉. His research interests include Yorùbá literature and culture. His publications include “Representation of gender in fiction: A reading of the novels of Fagunwa” (2011); “Politics and proverbs in selected Yorùbá political novels” (2011); “Cosmopolitanism in African literature: The example of contemporary Yorùbá novels” (2011); and “The role of literature in Yoruba language teaching” (2011).Sola A. Ojeniyi (b. 1969) is a PhD candidate at the University of Ilorin 〈sola.ojeniyi@gmail.com〉. His research interests include semiotics, pragmatics, and sociolinguistics. His publications include “Joke: A violation of Grice's principle of interpersonal rhetorics” (2008); “A semiotic study of the signification of bodily signs in narrative writings” (2009); “A stylo-semiotic appraisal of the realities of globalization of English” (2009); and “The semiosphere of metaphor in Lawal'sSmiles of Sorrow ” (2012).
Abstract
Most times, when we meet unknown persons, our first judgment either consciously or unconsciously begins from observing their physical somatogenic features that may serve as effervescent semiotic materialities for assessing their personalities. These somatogenic features include physical marks on the body, skin texture, clothing, hair or the total configuration of body structure. Beyond signifying personality, it would seem that somatogenic features may also show occupational engagements. In this study, therefore, we specifically examined the semiosis (i.e., sign activity) of some bodily marks, textures of skins, and body structures of some traditional artisans in Nigeria. Our analysis was carried out using semiotic postulates such as Ouzman's (1998) notion of “mindscape,” Vogt's (1998) notion of “physiognomy,” and the postulate of “semasiology.” From our analysis it was established that certain somatic signs are self-referent and recursive signs whose hermeneutics can only be generated through a metalevel meaning construct. Some bodily marks, skin textures, and body structures can, therefore, be described as semiotic materialities that are capable of serving as regular and typical visual indices that reflect the occupational engagements of the bearers.
About the authors
Victoria A. Alabi (b. 1954) is a professor at the University of Ilorin 〈valabi2004@yahoo.com〉. Her research interests include semiotics and stylistics. Her publications include “The highway code in Nigeria: Examples of domestic strategies” (2010); “Problems of an emergent written language of the global system for mobile communication (GSM) in Nigeria” (2010); “Stylistic creativity via schemes, tropes, lexical cohesion and descriptive adjectives in SMS text messaging among Nigerian university graduates” (2010); and “Illuminating the illuminator: A stylistic study of Obafemi's Illuminations” (with V. T. Alabi, 2010).
Olalere Adeyemi (b. 1959) is an associate professor at the University of Ilorin at 〈adeyemiolalere@yahoo.com〉. His research interests include Yorùbá literature and culture. His publications include “Representation of gender in fiction: A reading of the novels of Fagunwa” (2011); “Politics and proverbs in selected Yorùbá political novels” (2011); “Cosmopolitanism in African literature: The example of contemporary Yorùbá novels” (2011); and “The role of literature in Yoruba language teaching” (2011).
Sola A. Ojeniyi (b. 1969) is a PhD candidate at the University of Ilorin 〈sola.ojeniyi@gmail.com〉. His research interests include semiotics, pragmatics, and sociolinguistics. His publications include “Joke: A violation of Grice's principle of interpersonal rhetorics” (2008); “A semiotic study of the signification of bodily signs in narrative writings” (2009); “A stylo-semiotic appraisal of the realities of globalization of English” (2009); and “The semiosphere of metaphor in Lawal's Smiles of Sorrow” (2012).
©[2013] by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston
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Artikel in diesem Heft
- Masthead
- Linguistics through its proper mirror-glass: Saussure, signs, segments
- The interrelation of metaphors and metonymies in sign systems of visual art: An example analysis of works by V. I. Surikov
- Information-theoretic confirmation of semiotic structures
- An information-based semiotic analysis of theories concerning theories
- An integrational response to Searlean realism, or how language does not relate to consciousness
- Peirce, meaning, and the Semantic Web
- The puzzling world of Harry Potter
- The sign system of human pretending
- Place and subjectivity in contemporary world: An analysis of Lost in Translation based on the semiotics of passion
- Peirce and the specification of borderline vagueness
- Marks as masks: A study of traditional African occupations and their visual indices
- The linguistic sign at the lexicon-syntax interface: Assumptions and implications of the Generative Lexicon Theory
- Presence of la femme: The semiotic silence
- On trans-semiosis
- Individual variation in participants' account of their own interaction
- From funeral to wedding ceremony: Change in the metaphoric nature of the Chinese color term white
