Volume 2010, Issue 180

In this article, sign and language systems are analyzed from the viewpoint of reflexivity — a system's ability to reinterpret its own output. Human and natural sign systems are reflexive, so this feature has not become an issue in the domain of semiotics. In contrast, not all computer language systems are reflexive, and analysis shows that there are degrees of reflexivity. The history of computer language systems can therefore be regarded as a journey to discover ways of exploiting the reflexivity inherent in each language system to make it more dynamic and self-augmenting. This article examines various computer language systems from the viewpoint of reflexivity and compares this feature with the same feature in human systems.

Résumé Quelques différenciations du champ intermédial sont déjà établies entre lesquels l'intermédialité des arts que nous nommons du concept et du terme de phénomène interartistique comme une nouvelle catégorie du champ intermédial. Le phénomène interartistique se réfère à la relation entre les arts et naît à un même lieu et en un même moment dans l'œuvre d'art quand il y a une confrontation entre deux ou plusieurs arts.

Indexicality has been studied with two different philosophical interests — a semantic interest and an action-theoretic one. The semantic interest is regarding understanding how indexicals refer to what they refer to. The action-theoretic interest is regarding understanding the role that indexicals play in cognitive systems. John Perry's main concern throughout his seminal works is to provide a unified theory that fulfills both interests. That these two interests are distinct, however, is not fully appreciated. Also missing is the argument that they should be treated in one theory. This article shows that Perry's account of indexicality is not satisfactory and suggests a different way in which we should look at the notion of indexicality. The ultimate difficulty underlying Perry's approach, according to my diagnosis, lies in what I call “semanic foundationalism.” For a better understanding of indexicality, it is necessary to abandon semantic foundationalism.

This research investigates domestic strategies of highway codes in Nigeria and discovers that these strategies are products of the ingenuity and cultural bent of the Nigerian citizens, on the one hand, and the Nigerian government on the other, but more of the former than the latter. Out of the sixteen groups of domesticated codes encountered in the research, only two groups are government-designed while the remaining fourteen are attributable to the citizens. Significantly, the employment of almost half of the identified groups of citizens'-designed highway codes has effectively become part and parcel of the Nigerian culture. Not only would these domestic strategies of highway coding be both informative and educative to the outside world, some of them would also seem viable candidates for incorporation into a future highway code of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

The mental processes of the black box — what happens in the translator's mind — is not open to direct scrutiny and its study must remain empirical. The black box is called “black” because we cannot see inside the “box” or any closed department of the multilingual brain. We explain the information of looking at the input (source text) and output (target text) to look at what happens in the neurophysiological brain of the translator. Peirce discussed determinacy and indeterminacy of verbal signs: moving from a two-step to a three-step model. The neural activity of translating deals with the study of the immediate and dynamical objects in order to generate the immediate, dynamical, and final interpretants. The complexity of the black box is processed through the conceptual blending of the three signs of reasoning: abduction, induction, and deduction. The black box of the translating brain is understood as a translatability claim, construing a translated draft, and drawing a translated conclusion. Peirce's hypostatic abstraction transforms the quantity and quality of (in)determinacy into a new translated hypoicon in a different language.

This article investigates metaphor, especially fresh metaphor, from a perspective that integrates literary pragmatics, language as social semiotic, and cognitive linguistics. It proposes that such metaphor may be not only thought but also forged by deliberate choice. It posits a performative view of metaphor in use, that is, metaphor treated as possessing performative potential — being able to perform force. To elucidate the performative potential of metaphor, this article will first discuss a list of thirteen functions that metaphors can perform and address the question of why metaphor is sometimes used in favor of non-metaphorical language. It will then proceed to characterize the performative potential of metaphor in the light of Halliday's theory concerning the metafunctions of language. The concept of performative potential highlights the interpersonal function of language while not disregarding its ideational and textual functions. The notion of these three functional components provides a perspective from which to consider what can be performed by metaphor — to present and represent thought, to enable the writer to articulate his notion of selfhood and its role, to interact with the addressee, and to exercise textual performance. By way of illustration, I will analyze two passages from William Blake's The book of Thel and juxtapose them with several passages from The Dhammapada , a Buddhist text consisting of aphorisms in verse form. Both texts articulate the nature of the struggle towards a meaningful life, and more importantly, both contain metaphors of love and wisdom.

A semiotic focus on whiteness can improve our understanding of race issues and vice versa, given the role played by whiteness in the context of the interrelation among races, which is today, under the effect of globalization, a world scenario. This does not mean to say that whiteness and race studies converge or that they can be reduced to each other. Global, national, regional and local manifestations of racialization, ever more exasperated in today's world, cannot be explained in terms of the whiteness question alone. But whiteness studies, especially from a sociosemiotic perspective, can contribute importantly to race studies. In fact, both require an understanding of the logic or, better, “ideologic” that subtends them, that is, the logic of identity, inherent in the verbal ad non-verbal signs and behaviors in which they find expression.

Connotations as part and parcel of human communication are found in the course of semiotic analysis of works of visual art. Developed connotative formations, deeply connected with semantics, are revealed during analysis of some masters and trends of this kind of art. The works by Bellini are characterized by developed connotative sign formations, which are included into intentional, identification, and organizing codes, and form the basis of the creative-emotional impact and the composition of the works. Connotative formations of Bellini's pictures contain basic visually active elements — massive contours, color configurations, moving directions of the basic denoted objects. Bellini's connotative approach was continued in the works of his great followers.