Volume 16, Issue 3

Although there is a long-standing tradition discounting the effect of media exposure on language variation, this study shows how televised media formulate and reinforce the sociosemiotic links between linguistic features and their regional associations. The Mandarin aspect marker you is an interesting case in this regard, as it is semiotically linked mostly, if not exclusively, to Taiwanese Mandarin by many Chinese mainlanders, even though the feature is, in fact, also observed in many southern Mandarin varieties on the mainland. Drawing upon Agha’s concept of enregisterment, the goals of this study are 1) to provide empirical evidence of the semiotic work that media do to language, and 2) to test whether exposure to Taiwanese televised media contributes to the mismatch between the regional association and actual geographical distribution of the aspect marker you . The findings of this study suggest two levels of media influence: meta-awareness and indexicality. The relationships between these two levels are incremental and mutually constitutive, and televised media play the role of catalyzing these reciprocal processes.

Contextualized in the “Going Global” strategy of Chinese corporations under the Belt and Road Initiative and drawing upon the attitudinal and engagement systems of appraisal, this study aims to provide semiotic and rhetorical insights into the discursive strategies of Chinese corporations in microblogging on overseas social networking sites (SNS). The posts, made over a 15-day period by the five giant Chinese companies on the US-based SNS Facebook, are analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The results reveal that, in terms of attitudinal appeals, judgment resources are most preferred by Chinese corporations while affect resources are least deployed; in terms of engagement patterns, dialogic engagement patterns proliferate. It is explained that Chinese corporations strongly appeal to ethos and low power distance, demonstrating Western achievement-based cultural orientations, despite the existing discursive manifestations of the high-context, power-distanced, collectivistic characteristics of Chinese culture. This pragmatic and rhetorical shift elicits transculturality in a global cyber space informed by digital globalization and economic glocalization.

Grounded on the historical development of indirect translation mainly in China, a critical analysis of the definitions previously given for indirect translation has been made in terms of its nature, features, referential range, and classification, as well as the sign typology involved hereby. This results in a new definition of indirect translation as a process and as an end product respectively, highlighting its referential range, including relay translation, (tech- or human-based) mediated translation, adaptation, and free translation. The definition further divides it into seven types of operational mechanism (conventional single-sourced indirect translation, conventional double-sourced indirect translation, single-sourced relay translation, multi-sourced relay translation, interpreter-based relay translation, indirect translation in reverse translation, single-sourced multi-layered relay translation) and seven types of indirect sign transformation, namely: (1) T→T indirect translation; (2) T→I indirect translation; (3) I→T indirect translation; (4) T+I→T indirect translation; (5) T+I→I indirect translation; (6) T→T+I indirect translation; and (7) I→T+I indirect translation. Finally, the operational mechanism of indirect translation is explored on the macro level of Peirce’s Firstness–Secondness–Thirdness, on the meso level of Peirce’s First–Second–Third, and on the micro level of Peirce’s Sign–Object– Interpretant.

Translation semiotics studies the transformation of signs in translation, which generally involves semiosis, sign behavior, sign relations, semiotic hierarchy, intersemiosis, semiotic function, and semiotic conservation. This paper attempts to explore, from these seven dimensions, the disciplinary essence of TS and foresees the development of this burgeoning discipline as a branch of semiotics.

The development of new media enlarges the repertoire of semantic resources in creating a discourse. Apart from language, visual and sound symbols can all become semantic sources, and a synergy of different modality and symbols can be used to complete argumentative reasoning and evaluation. In the framework of multimodal argumentation and appraisal theory, this study conducted quantitative and multimodal discourse analysis on a new media discourse Building a community of shared future for humankind and found that visual symbols can independently fulfill both reasoning and evaluation in the argumentative discourse. An interplay of multiple modalities constructs a multi-layered semantic source, with verbal subtitles as a frame and a sound system designed to reinforce the theme and mood. In addition, visual modality is implicit in constructing the stance and evaluation of the discourse, with the verbal mode playing the role of “anchoring,” i.e. providing explicit explanation. A synergy of visual, acoustic, and verbal modalities could effectively transmit conceptual, interpersonal, and discursive meanings, but the persuasive result with the audience from different cultural backgrounds might be mixed.

Music is neither a construction of pitches nor a linear arrangement of vocal parts, but rather an energetic shaping through time that integrates articulation, harmony, melody, and rhythm. Music expresses a kind of gesture in the dimension of sounds. In most cases, musical expressions, compared to linguistic expressions, are more like a state of motion or a behavior of sounds originating from physical sensations. Musical gesture can interpret the emotional expression and meaning of music from a perspective that is closer to the nature of music. Such an interpretation is not constrained by the traditional analysis of form and content, self-discipline and heteronomy, subjectivity and objectivity. It is more about how to stimulate the sensory systems to join in and understand the behavior and contents of music expressions in order to synthesize the meaning of music in different dimensions.

The category of “artefact” has been analyzed by different semiotic theories and methods. Starting from the Marxian theory of the dialectical relation between production and use (or consumption ), Ferruccio Rossi-Landi (1921–1985) maintained the possibility of considering every “artefact” – or use-value – as a crossroads between material and linguistic production, i.e., as a crossroads between labor and language. This paper proposes a comparison – and a dialogue – between Rossi-Landi’s materialistic sign-theory and other semiotic approaches. From such a perspective, the concept of “artefact” could be considered as an analytical starting point for the study of further social and economic meaning-making processes.

The interdisciplinary grasp of semiotics makes it a good window into how humanities-based research programs deal with the issues of specific theoretical commitments, raising the stakes on how to do theory in a setting of disparity of approaches and methods. The particular case of biosemiotics as a naturalized instance of semiotics is used as a specific example of an interdisciplinary combination of theory and scientific practice to address the necessity of integrating both external methodological elements and scientific discoveries with a theory capable of giving both of these a valid connotation within the discipline. The main claim of the article will be that integrating different methods in humanities-based research programs such as semiotics creates a problematic picture for metatheoretical commitments, but examining this in light of metatheory itself can produce more robust theoretical positions within the humanities.

We aim to demonstrate the applicability of Peirce’s iconic logic in the context of current topological explanations in the philosophy of science. We hold that the logical system of Existential Graphs is similar to contemporary topological approaches, thereby recognizing Peirce’s iconic logic (Beta Graphs) as a valid method of scientific representation. We base our thesis on the nexus between iconic logic and the so-called NonReduction Theorem. We illustrate our assumptions with examples derived from biology (protein folding).