Volume 11, Issue 4

From the perspective of cultural semiotic theory, Lotman divided the dynamic communication process within a semiosphere into five stages: contact, selection, internalization, integration and transmission. This process contains two communication models: the“I-YOU” communication model and the“I-I” communication model (the autocommunication model). This paper brings Lotman’s cultural semiotic theory into the field of classroom discourse analysis and recommends treating the classroom as a semiosphere. By investigating the dynamic communication process between the teacher and the students in the classroom semiosphere, this paper attempts to reveal the inner dynamics of classroom communication as well as the functions of classroom discourse in different communication models. It is found that the communication process in the classroom semiosphere should be seen as dynamic and inter-subjective. Finally, it confirms the significance of the autocommunication model for the construction and generation of students’ knowledge.

The phenomenon of intersemiotic translation from literature (source-sign) to graphic illustration (target-sign) is well known and has been exhaustively analyzed. Jakobson (2000: 114) defines the phenomenon as “transmutation⁄ or interpretation of verbal signs by means of signs of nonverbal sign systems”. This paper presents an intersemiotic translation of El libro de los Seres Imaginarios by Jorge Luis Borges, more specifically the chapter that describes a bestiary of Chinese fauna. Written in collaboration with Margarita Guerrero, El libro was first published in 1957 with the title Manual de Zoología Fantástica; later it was expanded and republished with the title El Libro de los Seres Imaginarios (“The Book of Imaginary Beings”). In this paper, we identify some formal aspects of the literary source-sign to be considered most relevant. Afterwards, we submit those aspects to graphic recreations directed by the construction of fantastic characters in the aesthetic domain of pixel art.

Why did semiotics develop as a discipline that concentrates on the concept of sign, and that sees and interprets the world through this concept? Why was the idea of a science that systematically studies signs welcome in a certain epoch of humanity, and why does it seem so abstruse to most nowadays? Should it be given up, like something that belongs to a remote, vanished past? Or is there something, in semiotics, that still offers answers that no other discipline can provide?

In this paper we propose Peircean semiotics as one of the most useful methodological tools to analyze and elaborate interpretative hypotheses about the social meaning of rock art. Social meaning implies a dialectic interaction among memory, identity, and distribution of power within a social group. These three elements, together with materiality, take part in a dynamic productive process of social discourses. In many archaic cultures, rock art was one of those discourses.

Globalization is fast expanding the ways in which the performing arts and entertainment are received around the world. This situation should be analyzed from several perspectives, including technological, economic, artistic, philosophical, historical and social. Given that scientific development does not justify the use and value that has been attributed to the social media that convey artistic information in post-modern societies, the various systems of representation should be described in detail, followed by a critical analysis of social interaction that leads to the performing process. The Olympic Games are among the most viewed sporting events on the planet. Over the years, opening and closing ceremonies have become a complex model of a spectacular show. The opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games is a paradigmatic example.