Presence of la femme: The semiotic silence
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Aarne Ruben
Aarne Ruben (b. 1971) is a PhD candidate at the University of Tallinn 〈aarne_ruben@hotmail.com〉. His research interests include semiotics and literature.
Abstract
This paper is concentrated on the phenomenon of silence in a situation, which lacks an actual signifier: silence is renderable, although not accessible for every hearer. Different strata of silence are represented and thoroughly depicted. The author observes several historical appearances of the phenomenon of quietness: pictorial, radio silence, conventional (arbitrary) silence.
Silence is never perfect, it is only a harmony of accidental noises. Silence in the Hell-mouth tradition in folklore plays the role of semiotic relaxation time. There were devils in the seventeenth century Estonian witchcraft tradition. In cases when witches would not be quiet and revealed some parts of their identity to their enemies, e.g, through their magic spells, Satan could immediately run with them to a remota loca. Through the stages of civilization's formation, silence cast the following roles: discursive or memorial gaps, memory traumas. The symbols of local memory traumas are codes for the magical operators in the mouth of Hell: you should never disclose your name to the non-identity.
About the author
Aarne Ruben (b. 1971) is a PhD candidate at the University of Tallinn 〈aarne_ruben@hotmail.com〉. His research interests include semiotics and literature.
©[2013] by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston
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Articles in the same Issue
- 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
