Communicology and the Phenomenology of "Semiotics" [Augusto Ponzio] (2013) (original) (raw)
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15th World Congress of Semiotics. Semiotics in the Lifeworld Thessaloniki_Book_of_abstracts
2022
Semiotics, collective and politics. The case of people Applied semiotics have been practicing the analysis of political discourse for a very long time, and more recently the analysis of political practices and interactions, but without the political dimension being considered as a structuring element of the theoretical and methodological organon of semiotics. Politics, in this case, would be just one object of study among others, such as advertising, photography, literature or electronic social networks. Yet another approach is possible, which targets politics as a semiotic problematic, and not just as an object of study; in other words: a political dimension integrated into the global architecture of semiotics. Therefore, we must choose an epistemological horizon and an entry point that allows such integration. This horizon will be that of anthropology, a semiotic anthropology that teaches us and insists that the political dimension of our societies, our civilizations, our daily worlds begin with the choice of a collective reference actant. This collective reference actant will be our entry point: what is it made up of? how is it constituted? how and why is it maintained? what are the possibilities and limits of its metamorphosis? what repositories is it on the initiative of and is it carrying? what is the nature of its interactions with the individual actants that compose it? with other collective actants? Etc. Today, for example, it seems to go without saying in intellectual and academic circles (cf. the popularity of the actor-network theory) that the relevant collective actants, those who can refer to, facing the challenges of our common future, must necessarily be heterogeneous, and include non-humans as well as humans, machines as living beings, natural elements (a river, a mountain) as much as technical or cultural artefacts. But no one can ignore that this perspective is both fundamentally political because it because it challenges the hierarchical and sectoral organization of our societies and our daily lives, and semiotic, because it deeply reconfigures the way in which we conceive our categories of analysis, in particular that of actant or that of values systems, or even the global hierarchy of our conceptual system. The main part of this conference will be devoted, first, to gradually laying down the theoretical and methodological elements which thus make it possible to integrate a political dimension into the semiotic organon, and then to examine the consequences for a type of collective actant which today constitutes a particularly problematic type of collective actant, namely the "people." Bionote Jacques FONTANILLE, born in 1948, is emeritus professor of semiotics at the University of Limoges, and honorary member of the Institut Universitaire de France. He is also Honorary President of the International Association of Visual Semiotics, and Honorary President of the French Association of Semiotics. Jacques FONTANILLE was President of the University of Limoges from 2005 to 2012. From 2012 to 2014, he was Advisor and Chief of Staff of the French Minister of Higher Education and Research. He is the author of over two hundred and seventy scholarly publications, in the fields of theoretical semiotics, literary semiotics, visual semiotics, rhetoric and general linguistics, semiotics of practices and biosemiotics. Most of his books have been translated in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Korean, Arabic, etc. He was visiting professor or guest lecturer in eighty American, European, Asian, and African universities. Most of his former PhD students now hold faculty positions at universities in Europe
A ‘Semiotic-Medical’ Inheritance: Cesare Lombroso and Paolo Marzolo
15th World Congress of Semiotics IASS-AIS “Semiotics in the Lifeworld” (University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, 30th August - 3rd September 2022), 2022
Semiotics, collective and politics. The case of people Applied semiotics have been practicing the analysis of political discourse for a very long time, and more recently the analysis of political practices and interactions, but without the political dimension being considered as a structuring element of the theoretical and methodological organon of semiotics. Politics, in this case, would be just one object of study among others, such as advertising, photography, literature or electronic social networks. Yet another approach is possible, which targets politics as a semiotic problematic, and not just as an object of study; in other words: a political dimension integrated into the global architecture of semiotics. Therefore, we must choose an epistemological horizon and an entry point that allows such integration. This horizon will be that of anthropology, a semiotic anthropology that teaches us and insists that the political dimension of our societies, our civilizations, our daily worlds begin with the choice of a collective reference actant. This collective reference actant will be our entry point: what is it made up of? how is it constituted? how and why is it maintained? what are the possibilities and limits of its metamorphosis? what repositories is it on the initiative of and is it carrying? what is the nature of its interactions with the individual actants that compose it? with other collective actants? Etc. Today, for example, it seems to go without saying in intellectual and academic circles (cf. the popularity of the actor-network theory) that the relevant collective actants, those who can refer to, facing the challenges of our common future, must necessarily be heterogeneous, and include non-humans as well as humans, machines as living beings, natural elements (a river, a mountain) as much as technical or cultural artefacts. But no one can ignore that this perspective is both fundamentally political because it because it challenges the hierarchical and sectoral organization of our societies and our daily lives, and semiotic, because it deeply reconfigures the way in which we conceive our categories of analysis, in particular that of actant or that of values systems, or even the global hierarchy of our conceptual system. The main part of this conference will be devoted, first, to gradually laying down the theoretical and methodological elements which thus make it possible to integrate a political dimension into the semiotic organon, and then to examine the consequences for a type of collective actant which today constitutes a particularly problematic type of collective actant, namely the "people." Bionote Jacques FONTANILLE, born in 1948, is emeritus professor of semiotics at the University of Limoges, and honorary member of the Institut Universitaire de France. He is also Honorary President of the International Association of Visual Semiotics, and Honorary President of the French Association of Semiotics. Jacques FONTANILLE was President of the University of Limoges from 2005 to 2012. From 2012 to 2014, he was Advisor and Chief of Staff of the French Minister of Higher Education and Research. He is the author of over two hundred and seventy scholarly publications, in the fields of theoretical semiotics, literary semiotics, visual semiotics, rhetoric and general linguistics, semiotics of practices and biosemiotics. Most of his books have been translated in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Korean, Arabic, etc. He was visiting professor or guest lecturer in eighty American, European, Asian, and African universities. Most of his former PhD students now hold faculty positions at universities in Europe
SEMIOTICS, A GLOBAL AND DETOTALIZING ENTERPRISE
Bloomsbury Semiotics, Vol. 3, 2023
This is the third of four volumes constituting The Bloomsbury Companion to Semiotics, a state-of-the-art survey of semiotic inquiry, proposing developments and research priorities, as though responding to Sebeok (1991: 97-9) when à propos semiosis and semiotics he asks, 'what lies in their future?'. The nature of the project is implementation of the 'detotalizing method', thus denominated by Rossi-Landi (1985). Uniting different disciplines, universes of discourse, a multiplicity of voices in an open dialogical totality, the detotalizing method presupposes alterity of signs, language and communication beyond the separatism of specialisms and universalisms, and as such is a dialectical-dialogical method. A global survey, diachronic and synchronic, historical and transdisciplinary, this project also recalls Morris and his appeal for 'unity of semiotic' ([1938] 1971: 55-64); a detotalized unity corresponding to the detotalized and dialogic nature of its object of study in its manifold manifestations-signs and sign systems, semiosis. The aim is not to juxtapose multiple special semiotics syncretically, nor to propose a totalizing transversal language of unified science, nor for semiotics to prevail over different disciplines in the name of philosophical omniscience. Instead, a general and global semiotic vision can perform a detotalizing, critical function towards all claimed totalities, thereby fostering dialogue among specialized disciplines. In this sense semiotics is unique, not merely 'a science among sciences, but an organon or instrument of all the sciences' ([1938] 1971: 67-8). Based on listening to the other, the detotalizing method favours deconstruction of the larger totality, evidencing interrelationship among its constitutive totalities, alias alterities. Otherness and dialogism are intrinsic to the sign, condition of interconnectiveness and interdependency among signs, sign systems and dimensions of semiosis in which human experience is articulated, its sense, meaning and significance. Regarding the arts and social sciences, attention is on verbal and nonverbal semiosis, before and beyond the word. Contrary to reductionist oversimplification, meaning cannot be encapsulated in definitions, pseudo-scientific jargon and improbable typologies. Technical terminology of special languages aside, signifying ambiguity is irrepressible. Alterity, dialogicality and listening are structural to the life of signs and enable semiotic research beyond prescribed boundaries of academic disciplines with their commonplaces and stereotypes, beyond institutionalized listening. Such propensity characterizes literary speech genres, and indeed artistic discourse generally.
American Journal of Cultural Sociology, 2018
Meaning makes the social world go round and signs play a crucial role in processes of meaning-making. A cultural sociology that advocates a meaning-based analysis of social phenomena needs – in one form or another – a theory of semiotics. We can also speak of social semiotics, not as a subfield, but rather as recognition of the fact that the use of signs is inherently social. Two classical figures dominate the field of social semiotics: One is Charles S. Peirce, who coined the term ‘‘semiotics’’ and proposed a pragmatist theory of signs; the other is Ferdinand de Saussure, who developed in his Cours de linguistique ge´ne´rale a theory of the linguistic sign as a general model for ‘‘semiology,’’ ‘‘a science which studies the role of signs in social life’’ (quoted in Heiskala, 2003, p. 166). With the rise of the structuralist movement in the second half of the twentieth century, the Saussurean approach to semiotics became dominant in social as well as cultural theory, even though Roman Jakobson (1977), one of the founders of linguistic structuralism, was critical of Saussure while promoting the ideas of Peirce. In the last years, there has been a revival of Peirce in the social sciences, and of Peircean semiotics in particular (e.g., Keane, 2003). The following essay discusses three contemporary contributions to social semiotics. Each book has a distinct style and thematic focus, but they are all concerned with the role of signs and systems of signs in society. Risto Heiskala’s book Society as Semiosis, published already in 2003, argues that the rival theories of Saussure and Peirce actually converge and can be used as a foundation for a neostructuralist theory of culture and society. In Meaning in Action, published in 2016, Rein Raud presents a theory of culture as a network of texts and practices based on an innovative account of signification. The newest book, Social Semiotics for a Complex World by Bod Hodge, does not offer a coherent theory or framework, but rather ‘‘ideas and approaches for readers who want to understand and cope better with their world’’ (2017, p. vi). Despite the fact that each book differs in form as well as content, they intersect at points of crucial importance for social semiotics and cultural sociology. Focusing primarily on those intersections, I will discuss the works in chronological order and conclude with a synopsis suggesting directions for the future development of social semiotics in cultural sociology.
Semiotics Today: An Introduction
2012
When the Managing Editors of this journal asked us to undertake this special issue on the position of semiotics in the vast domain of contemporary cultural studies, we accepted with great pleasure, given our personal involvement with structuralism and semiotics during nearly half a century. While we ourselves work within the tradition of semiotics defined by Ferdinand de Saussure in the early years of the 20 century as the study of how sign systems function in the life of society, we did not limit the scope of this volume to classical Saussurean semiotics (or semiology, as it is also known). In our Call for papers we asked for submissions “on all aspects of semiotics, focusing on analysis informed by a reflexive theoretical and methodological awareness” and it is our hope that readers will find these qualities in the papers selected. It has become something of a ritual in introductory courses, handbooks and papers on semiotics to pay respects to the two founders of the discipline, F...
1979
A well-known academic semiotician in the 1970s, Umberto Eco, later achieved a degree of popular fame with his novel In the Name of the Rose ,, a remarkable commercial exploitation of esoteric critical theories. Here, he outlines his basic approach to semiotics. His interest in forms of human communication is broad: this selection includes an annotated list of the possible subjects of semiotic study. Eco's writing is only indirectly applicable to film, but his influence on other semioticians writing about film has been great.
S.G. Proskurin Essays in Contemporary Semiotics.pdf
This book contains a series of essays, which are devoted to burning problems of semiotic research in the past and the present. The continuation and enlargement of semiotic approach nowadays brings to the forefront issues of general semiotics, biosemiotics, anthroposemiotics and cultural semiotic studies. The book is recommended to the students, postgraduates and scholars.
The book that follows is intended as a methodological guide to a group of semiotic writings frequently taught in advanced un- dergraduate courses in North America and Britain, writings that are for the most part available in English. It should therefore be viewed as a supplementary and explanatory text rather than as one that precedes the reading of any primary semiotic ma- terials. The Subject of Semiotics differs from other synthetic books on post-structuralism in three important ways. First, it maintains the centrality of psychoanalysis to semiotics; it proposes, that is, that the human subject is to a large degree the subject of semi- otics. The chapters of this book approach the connection be- tween psychoanalysis and semiotics in a variety of ways, but each argues that signification occurs only through discourse, that discourse requires a subject, and that the subject itself is an effect of discourse. The final three chapters also situate signi- fication, discourse, and subjectivity within the larger symbolic order that determines their relation to each other. Second, The Subject of Semiotics assumes the connections be- tween literary and cinematic texts and theory to be at all points reciprocal, and it attempts consistently to pose one in relation to the other. Thus theoretical discussions merge into literary and cinematic explorations, and analyses of specific novels, poems, and films return us to broader speculative paths.The third respect in which The Subject of Semiotics must be distinguished from its predecessors is its emphasis upon sexual difference as an organizing principle not only of the symbolic order and its "contents" (signification, discourse, subjectivity), but of the semiotic account of those things. Not only does psy- choanalytic semiotics establish that authoritative vision and speech have traditionally been male prerogatives, whereas women have more frequently figured as the object of that vision and speech, but it provides a vivid dramatization of this role divi- sion at the level of its own articulation. The theoreticians most fully associated with this branch of semiotics—Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan—function as exemplary representatives of the paternal values they locate at the center of the existing sym- bolic order. The relationship of the female subject to semiotic theory is thus necessarily an ambivalent one. That theory affords her a sophisticated understanding of her present cultural condition, but it also seems to confine her forever to the status of one who is seen, spoken, and analyzed. In order for semiotics to be of any real value to the female subject, she must somehow inter- rupt its "always-already"—she must find ways of using it that permit her to look beyond the nightmare of her history. In the sections of this book devoted to sexual difference (Chapters 4 and 5), I have attempted just such a rewriting of female subjectivity. I have tried, that is, to denaturalize the con- dition of woman, and to isolate its cultural determinants. This project puts a certain critical distance between my discourse and those of Freud and Lacan, particularly whenever the Oedipus complex is on the agenda. Chapter 1 of The Subject of Semiotics charts the path leading from Ferdinand de Saussure and Charles Sanders Peirce to that much more recent body of semiotic theory within which the categories of discourse, subjectivity, and the symbolic order centrally figure. It thus provides a context for the chapters that follow. Chapter 2 explores those signifying processes described by Freud as the "primary" and the "secondary," and which he associates with the two major areas of psychic reality: the un- conscious and the preconscious. Chapter 3 accounts for the sets condensation and displacement, metaphor and metonymy, and paradigm and syntagm in terms of these processes, thereby Preface demonstrating the impossibilityof isolating even the most ru- dimentary of signifying formations from subjectivity. Chapter 4 outlines the two most important theories of the subject made available by semiotics—the Freudian and the Lacanian—theo- ries that give a conspicuous place to discourse and the symbolic order. Chapter 5 uses the theory of suture to articulate the re- lationship between the subject and the discourse of the classic cinematic text, and to explore some of the ideological implica- tions of that relationship. The final chapter of The Subject of Semiotics confronts the subject's relationship to another dis- course (or to be more precise, group of discourses), the literary. It also outlines some of the strategies evolved by Roland Barthes for uncovering the symbolic field inhabited by the individual literary instance. Whenever possible I have utilized English language sources, so as to facilitate ready access to those sources for as wide a range of readers as possible. The numerous literary and cine- matic examples are also intended as aids to the general reader. I would like to thank John Wright for encouraging me to write this book, and Bob Scholes and JoAnn Putnam-Scholes for intellectual and culinary support while I was doing so. I would also like to thank my students (and in particular the "Rome contingent") for their constant stimulation,and for their willingness to share my obsessions. Khachig Tololyan read a late version of this book, and offered such fine and persuasive criticism that I returned enthusiastically to the typewriter, for which I am most grateful. Thanks are also due to Leona Cape- less, whose editorial suggestions untangled many syntactic knots, and helped me to say what I meant. Finally, I would like to thank Michael Silverman, who read this book at every stage of its production with the energy most of us reserve for our own work.