Volume 11, Issue 2

The standardization of Chinese characters has always been a heated topic in Mainland China and elsewhere. After a brief introduction to newly emerging disciplines such as eco-semiotics and eco-linguistics, the paper attempts to discuss the role of the standardization of Chinese characters from the perspectives of sustainability, communication, contextualization and biodiversity.

The imperial boat-racing event, known as ‘Racing for the Target’ in the Northern Song capital Kaifeng in spring, was created at the close of the reunification campaign when the focus of the state policy was shifted towards internal cohesion. It signified the power and great order of the newly reunited empire. Through the re-interpretation of the event and its emulation at the local level, an imperial cultural language of boat racing was forged. It also allowed the imperial symbolism of ‘Racing for the Target’ to be communicated through the fabric of society. This paper treats performance and pageantry as a field of meaning production. It uses ‘Racing for the Target’ as an example to examine how symbols can be manipulated in the display of power. It argues that through the performance of ‘Racing for the Target’ the Song state with its political apparatus sought to establish its dominance over the symbolism of boat racing. Other versions of interpretation therefore were compelled to be confined within the imperial context.

The claim of cognitive semiotics to offer something new to semiotics rests on the ambition to bring together the research traditions of semiotics and cognitive science. Our focus has been on using the empirical approach of cognitive science in investigating semiotic issues. At the same time, however, phenomenological description plays a major part in preparing the studies and integrating their results, which is what is offered here. Eco has claimed that the mirror is not a sign, but once the notion of sign is specified, the mirror image is seen to be a perfect instance of it. It is no accident that the Gallup test, which is supposed to demonstrate the emergence of the self, starts having a positive result concurrently with the picture understanding. In contrast, mental images are not images and thus not signs. They are presentifications, i.e., a means for making something present, in the sense characterized by Husserl, and by such followers as Marbach and Thompson. We however argue that Husserl’s model of picture consciousness is incomplete, and that Thompson’s study of mental images lacks clarity because of the absence of any real comparison to pictures.

The paper discusses the possibilities of building a framework for conceptualization and understanding of the effects of the atrocities committed upon the collapse of ‘ex-Yugoslavia’. It relates the war-horrors and personal and collective traumas to the everyday of the people(s) of both the communist and post-communist times, and includes empirical cross-references from the social relations, cultural, educational and political contexts while revealing the ambivalent meanings of the ‘ghosts of the past’ and of their ‘return’. In rethinking the notions of the signifier, representation, the abject from the social/the symbolic, the text argues for the centrality of memory work based on victims’ experiences and their articulation in public spaces in the post-war societies. Envisioning the move forward and safer inter-ethnic relations on the discussed territories argues for individual responsibility in the processes of (re)construction and (re)formation of complex personal, collective and national identities, lived memory and institutions and in attempts to inter- and intracommunicate the particularized units.

This paper undertakes a semiotic analysis of Nigerian university lecturers and situates them as symbolic icons of socio-educational paradox and irony. It is based on interviews, secondary materials, the Internet and historical study, i.e. observation and recording of socio-educational events and attitudes of Nigerians and lecturers from the late 1980s to 2013. The paper shows that the Nigerian English coinage ‘Mr. Lecturer’ invokes several images in the minds of Nigerians: lecturers as purveyors of knowledge, habitual striking workers, sexual harassers, facilitators/manipulators of admissions, victimizers of students, makers and beneficiaries of easy money, promotions and other luxuries. The fact that these assumptions and beliefs are not always true and applicable in all cases presents lecturers as workers with mistaken identities. It is proposed that the Nigerian government at various levels, lecturers and all Nigerians should change their attitudes to university education and conditions of service, teaching and learning in Nigerian universities.

The communication analysis presented in the article compares the semiotic coding of visual perception in cultural theory and practice. The USA is used as an example of Western Culturology (egocentric, isometric) compared to the PRC as an example of Eastern Culturology (sociocentric, axonometric). Perception is explicated within the general context of Discourse Expression (rhetoric, aesthetics) and illustrated using examples from the visual arts, notably painting, a television image, and flower arrangement. Because contemporary popular media image production emerged from Japan, Chinese and Japanese art examples are also considered. The primary purpose of the general analysis is pedagogical, to teach semiotic phenomenological methodology in communicological and culturological research.