Volume 2008, Issue 169

Resumé L'article examine la présence du concept de pulsion dans la sémiotique, aussi bien combinatoire (formelle) que morphodynamique (substantielle) et dans l'analyse structurale des mythes. Qu'est-ce qui est en jeu dans l'appropriation du concept freudien le plus radical par des théories de la narrativité ? Quelles sont les transformations subies par la notion de pulsion dans le cadre de ces théories et quelles en sont les implications épistémologiques ? Poser ces questions nous permet i) d'aborder la problématique du structuralisme — plutôt des structuralismes — à travers le débat entre psychanalyse, anthropologie et sémiotique autour du rapport entre réel et signification, tout au long de la seconde moitié du vingtième siècle ; ii) de plaider pour l'étude de l'écriture dans la théorie narrative en recourant au concept lacanien de lettre, pour rendre compte de ce qui de la pulsion n'est pas saisissable par les lois de la production des récits et ‘reste comme chose.’

The study combined organizational theory with semiotic and discourse analysis to arrive at some compelling themes concerning higher education culture in the United States. One of the theoretical vehicles for intertextuality in organizational fields appears to lie in institutionalism and the mechanisms involved in isomorphism where organizations become to share similar structures, components, images and language. Three concepts of institutional isomorphism are at play — mimetic, coercive, and normative — where institutions become like one another especially in organizational fields (Dimaggio and Powell 1983). These three processes provided the theoretical backbone to explore the how universities represent themselves to the public through mission statements and their corresponding university websites at 28 randomly sampled research intensive universities.

A comprehensive framework is presented for the analysis or description of context in relation to human-computer communication, in a manner that is also consistent with the contextual analysis of interpersonal communication among humans. Following a discussion of the nature of context, a hierarchically structured framework is proposed, which distinguishes between those contextual factors that are intrinsic to the communication process and those extrinsic factors that are classed as situational. Both of these overall classes are subdivided into broader and narrower categories, and the situational context is additionally analyzed in terms of physical and socio-cultural factors. Cognitive aspects of context are also included within the treatment, while allowing for the differences that exist between human and computer-based representations. Finally, the application of the framework to various aspects of human-computer communication is discussed, with a view to the resolution of attendant problems.

Taking back-bearings from Plato, this paper considers the way in which poetry has been categorized as different in kind from the other sister arts specifically in respect of its employment of ‘signes artificiels.’ It is argued that poetry's status as an aesthetic object ought not to be weighed in the balance between its apparent artificiality and its naturalness as a system of signs, but must instead be understood as both more culturally-historically determined and also simultaneously more cognitively determining than has generally been admitted in the tradition of philosophical aesthetics or the praxis of literary criticism.

Resumé Dans la progression de nos recherches, nous avons marqué une pause pour examiner deux points théoriques de la sémiotique des passions, à savoir l'aspectualité et le tempo. Sur la base du poème de Pierre Reverdy intitulé « Encore l'amour », nous nous sommes interrogés pour tenter de justifier leur présence ou leur absence, dans la sémiotique narrative et sensible. Ainsi donc, nous avons pu constater la résistance du texte à l'analyse narrative. Notre réflexion nous a alors permis de confirmer que sur un texte dominé par le sensible, comme celui de notre corpus, le tempo, ainsi que l'aspectualité singulière, s'imposent particulièrement. Et cela d'autant plus que ces deux éléments auxquels nous avons adjoint les modalisations tensives concourent à construire la forme de vie du sujet masochiste ; une forme de vie presque similaire à la réalité quotidienne du poète.

This paper is dedicated to the potentiality of symbol-mediated interpreting activity where application of Peircean symbol as mediator and interpretant is elaborated for the purpose of examining a subject's thought-activity in a triadic semiotic system. A functional approach to symbols with a pragmatic attitude is a prerequisite to seeing how semiotic structure and mind are interrelated. In so doing, three layers of investigation proceed: symbol's definition, symbolic structure in the interpretive structure of mind and mediational structure of sign, and symbol's function in the interpreter's role and the sign's dialogic interaction. Then, the paper draws attention to the act of interpretation in connection with the matter of understanding for communication.

The present work considers the place of phenomenology within intercultural communication scholarship and argues for semiotic phenomenology as a theory and methodology that can address the current ‘paradigm crisis’ within the field. Current misunderstandings of phenomenology as an ‘interpretive’ research paradigm are challenged. ‘Metatheoretical’ efforts to develop dialectical approaches to the study of communication are critiqued for their failure to adequately interrogate the deep-seated cultural habits of perception that are necessarily present in intercultural communication research. Semiotic phenomenology is offered as a corrective that entails the capacity to address the question as to how we know when, in fact, we have truly achieved a shift at the habituated level of human experience where cultural perception is generated. Martin and Nakayama's (1999) dialectical perspective provides the context through which the discussion proceeds. A focus on Perice's categories of firstness, secondness, and thirdness constitute the theoretical point through which the argument proceeds.

In both natural language and biology, signs are polysemous, with a range of possible meanings before interaction-in-context determines their value. What is the meaning of polysemy? What is the role of polysemy in linguistic and biological systems? In this paper, I present the idea that organisms function by using two di¤erent, orthogonal modes of communication: digital (involving discrete units) and analogue (involving continuous values). I argue that the polysemy of the sign, here metaphorically interpreted as a ‘superposition,’ is necessary for orchestrating these modes and tying them to a concrete context of interaction.

This paper proposes to reflect from a semiotic perspective on the transformation that brands have undergone since the rise of the Internet. After a brief theoretical introduction to digital communication and the semiotics of brands, the case of the Google brand is analyzed by applying concepts of generative and interpretive semiotics. The paper holds that the iconic and linguistic enunciations are secondary with respect to interaction. In digital media interaction — the interactive experience that the Internet user lives — is a fundamental component of the hypermedia cocktail and occupies a central position in the brand building process. The article concludes with some of the questions and special characteristics raised by so-called eBranding.

In an article recently published in this journal, Bundgaard et al. present a series of arguments against non-compositional theories of (noun-noun) compound semantics. In consequence, they present a compositional alternative, where compositionality is relativized a bit to also take constructional semantics into account. I am fully convinced this is the right way to go about it, but unfortunately, the authors remain unclear about the exact nature of linguistic constructions. In particular, they analyze in my view, certain constructional e¤ects in terms of conceptual schemas. This article presents cross-linguistic data (redundant compounds, stress patterns, linking elements and ungrammaticality phenomena) that support a multiconstructional view, where constructions replace the most abstract conceptual schemas. On the one hand, it provides strong evidence in favor of a compositional theory of compound semantics, and thus supports the theoretical claims of Bundgaard et al.; but on the other hand, it calls for a new, clearer distinction between constructions and conceptual schemas.

We examine lambda calculus as a sign system and show that it explains important properties of language. First, we verify that a lambda-term has two essential functionalities of signs — articulation and naming — and argue that a lambda-term can thus be regarded as a sign model. Then, when signs are defined by self-reference, we show that these two functionalities become tightly coupled and that dyadic/triadic sign models become equivalent. Last, we show that the difference of structuralism is explained in relation to the undecidability of the equivalence of two arbitrary lambda-terms.