Volume 2011, Issue 185

The theoretical and methodological underpinnings of the cognitive paradigm have traditionally been discussed against the background of generative grammar, its immediate predecessor. A significantly less researched yet no less interesting relationship is the one between the cognitive and structuralist paradigm. This article focuses on the in part converging, in part diverging semiotic assumptions underlying European structural linguistics and Cognitive Grammar. A comparison of important concepts of both theories (isomorphism, the sign concept, compositionality, and case marking) shows that, although Cognitive Grammar arrives at a more realistic understanding of how language works in discourse, the theory fails to offer a coherent theory of the linguistic sign.

In the field of biosemiotics in our time, Ferdinand de Saussure's theory of semiology has been dismissed for its glottocentric, anthropocentric, and dyadic characteristics and as such unsuitable for the said field. Such accusation is symptomatic of an extremely narrow view of Saussure, which ignores the efforts he made in tackling problems concerning the unification of biology (natural sciences) and semiotics (human sciences). A broader view of Saussure, emerging from the newly-discovered orangery manuscripts along with his thought-provoking course lectures, reveals that his epistemology is actually grounded in evolutionary differences and the concept of uniformitarianism. In order to demonstrate the value of his ideas, this paper proceeds through five sections. (1) To begin with, the understandings and misunderstandings of key terms are summarized while seeking to reconcile arbitrary and relatively arbitrary (analogical) modes of consciousness within the network of differences that Saussure proposes in his manuscripts. (2) My study points out how such a network blurs disciplinary or systematic boundaries between language and non-verbal systems and how it might serve as a framework for appreciating true analogies between natural sciences and the science of language. (3) The paradox of analogy, torn between the synchronic and diachronic schemes of time, is discussed. This unravels several strings that have made the functioning of analogy into such a delicate point in Saussure's theory of evolution. (4) The concept of état de langue is made comprehensive in relation to appropriations of Darwinian model and Neo-Darwinian ideas. Saussure's model of evolution explicates the phenomenon of symbiogenesis, which is non-linear, non-adaptive, non-restrictive as regards localities, yet claims certain truths about nature and culture. (5) Finally, my study draws attention to the implications of conceptualizing non-linear evolution within and across systems. There are indeed disparities between Saussure's epistemology and that of biosemiotics: nineteenth-century confused epistemology reoccurred within biosemiotics in its early phase.

Résumé A Choice of Emblemes and other Devices est un livre d'emblèmes adapté et traduit en 1586 par Geffrey Whitney. Il s'agit du premier livre d'emblèmes connu de langue anglaise. Cet ouvrage, qui comporte d'abondantes adresses au lecteur, mérite notre attention pour au moins deux raisons. Tout d'abord, certains de ces emblèmes, dans leur dimension picturale, semblent rendre un écho intéressant à quelques passages de pièces shakespeariennes, comme si le Barde avait trouvé là de quoi nourrir, entre autres sources, son inspiration. Par ailleurs, d'autres emblèmes mettent en scène la vie des petites gens, centre d'intérêt iconographique assez rare pour cette période. Enfin, certains emblèmes présentent la particularité d'associer une iconographie gréco-latine et chrétienne, selon un cadre sémantique néo-platonicien et cabbaliste chrétien. Le dialogue du texte de l'emblème et de l'image peut ainsi permettre d'élaborer une interprétation relative à des divinités ou des symboles obscurs. L'étude que nous proposons abordera, tout d'abord, cet ouvrage comme source supplémentaire d'inspiration poétique et métaphorique pour Shakespeare, avant de le considérer comme un livre des arts et métiers concernant les petites gens. Enfin, notre dernière partie esquissera quelques tentatives d'interprétation d'emblèmes énigmatiques.

Although semioticians routinely examine the use of signs and symbols in everyday life, they rarely explore symbols embedded within handwriting. Graphology, (handwriting analysis), is an academic discipline that has practitioners analyzing graphic features of handwriting in order to discern the personality of the writer. Graphologists perform a “semiotic read” of signatures, often demonstrating how writers inadvertently express their interests, affiliations or emotional issues by embedding symbols within handwritten script. Handwriting samples are reproduced in order to demonstrate this phenomenon and to introduce the relevance of handwriting to semioticians.

While a much investigated concept because of its importance in shaping human discourse, modality has still not been given an agreed understanding. Using authentic Chinese court judgments in Hong Kong, this paper aims to unravel the complexity of modality as exemplified in its usage in the legal domain. It examines formal, semantic, and functional approaches to modality, showing their weaknesses in identifying and explaining modality in legal discourse. It proposes a socio-semiotic approach as an alternative for giving us a better understanding of modality in respect of its meaning and function in our language as a sign system.

Speakers frequently produce elaborate hand movements during talk that have been shown to serve a communicative function. Nevertheless, two-thirds of the semantic content of these hand movements is encoded linguistically elsewhere in the discourse (Beattie and Shovelton, Semiotica 184: 33–52, 2011). The present experiment demonstrated that while 62.9% of semantic information in gesture was elsewhere, most gestures (81.8%) retained at least one semantic feature that was never represented linguistically. Semantic features were more explicit when they occurred in gesture than when represented linguistically. Even in cases where the imagistic gesture appeared somewhat redundant, gesture at the narrative level preserves a discernable communicative function.

Cities are inextricably bound to their human denizens, although this human dimension is complicated by the emphasis on scale, speed, and progress that often dominates the semiotics and discourses of urban competition. In a profoundly ambivalent movement, various aspects of human “livability” are highlighted in the “quality of life” components of cities rankings and planning, while at the same time the “megacity” trend in planning and semiosis constantly threatens to overwhelm precisely that human livability. We can thus detect two broad and fundamentally-opposed semiotic trends, namely, the confidently cosmopolitan trend that emphasizes urban growth and the positive effects these are assumed to have on quality of life; and the dehumanizing trend that emphasizes the human cost of urban growth and its technological components. The profound ambivalence that this indicates, needs to be figured into urban discourses towards a more holistic and balanced account.

Values such as justice, fairness, reason, and truth permeate the cultural fabric of societies. A key image of these values in many Western democracies is the legal icon of Justitia or Lady Justice as she embodies notions of justice. Examining such cultural constructions promotes discussion of assumed values and meanings pertaining to iconic representations. Semiotic analysis of Justitia and her compositional elements — the sword of justice, scales of justice, and blind-fold reveal tensions between the rhetoric and reality of our interpretations of justice. This paper makes explicit the iconic representations of societal values imbued in Justitia and raises questions about the invisible power of cultural reproduction.

The first part of the paper is dedicated to a theoretical discussion of the Western individual, the Althusserian subject and its more active counterpart, the agent. The agent is endowed with a logic that is not fully predictable and can be creative, in which case it may become subversive. The second part of the article is devoted to an application of the theoretical framework to a case in Israeli culture. The organization da'at emet attempts to address the native logic of the ultra-orthodox yeshiva student, and to foster in him a curious agent who will put his logic to work in processing the new data provided to him by the pamphlets of the organization. The student is expected to become a subversive agent who will embrace secular logic and practices. It is claimed that theories of the individual or the subject alone cannot capture the scenario described. The agent, with his creative logic, is needed to fully account for it.

This article addresses concerns about the relationships between practice and theory in today's theatre and examines the discipline's analytical methodology. This contribution re-introduces Yuri Lotman's concept of semiosphere as an anthropological and social space of communication, in which every participant maintains their existence concurrently across temporal, linguistic, and cultural zones. Finally, by launching the notion of a theatrical semiosphere that embraces the dynamics of cognitive impulse in the tripartite proximity of the space of the stage, the space of the audience, and the space of the “in between,” this study seeks to demonstrate how the transitory nature of theatrical communication directed at the multiple audio-visual, cognitive, and cultural sensors of actors and spectators can still be considered and studied from the perspective of semiotic exchange as the primary device of human cognition.

The first two volumes of John Deely's trilogy, Postmodernity in Philosophy: A Poinsot Trilogy , address the role of John Poinsot in the evolution of semiotics from its protosemiotic beginnings (Augustine & Poinsot: The Protosemiotic Development, Volume 1) and its subsequent cryptosemiotic period (Descartes & Poinsot: The Crossroad of Signs and Ideas, Volume 2) . The third volume entitled Peirce & Poinsot: The Action of Signs from Nature to Ethics will appear in late 2010 or 2011. The first two volumes of this trilogy and the forthcoming third volume will provide the reader with the evolutionary history of semiotics from its beginnings to the twenty-first century.