Review of " Semiotics and its Masters " by Kristian Bankov and Paul Cobley (Editors (original) (raw)
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Signs and values: For a critique of cognitive semiotics
Journal of Pragmatics, 1993
After various phases in the development of semiotics, commonly tagged 'code semiotics' or the 'semiotics of decodification' and 'interpretation semiotics', the boundaries of this science are now expanding to include studies that focus more closely upon the relation between signs and values. In truth, this relation is already inscribed within the make-up itself of semiotics, within its very history: whereas Ferdinand de Saussure founded his sign theory on the theory of exchange value taken from marginalist economics, Charles S. Peirce, in his sign model, breaks the equilibrium of the logic of equal exchange with his theory of unlimited semiosis, or, if we prefer, of infinite deferral from one sign to the next. This approach allows for an opening toward otherness, for the concept of signifying surplus. Charles Morris explicitly emphasized the need to theorize about the relation between signs and values, and in fact oriented a large part of his own research in this direction. However, official semiotics has largely emerged as a predominantly cognitive science, as a descriptive science with claims to neutrality. Our proposal is that we recover and develop that particular bend in semiotics which is open to questions of an axiological order and consequently to studies focusing on a more global understanding of man and his signs. The expression 'ethosemiotics' (proposed by August0 Ponzio) captures the sense of such an orientation with its focus on the relation between signs and sense, and therefore on the question of significance as value; but if we go back to the end of the last century, we soon discover that Victoria Welby had already introduced the term 'signifies' for the same purpose, thus marking her distance from what was commonly intended at the time by both 'semantics' and 'semiotics'. When considering the philosophical question of 'communication' with reference to semiotics and to the contribution that may come from it, presentday experts think less and less in terms of 'sender', 'message', 'code', 'channel', and 'receiver', while practitioners of the popular version of the science of signs still tend to cling to such concepts. This particular way of presenting the communication process derives from a certain type of semiotics (best called 'semiology', owing to its prevalently Saussurean matrix), currently identified as 'semiotics of decodification' (criticized by Rossi-Landi (1968) as
SHORT COURSE of GENERAL SEMIOTICS, 2022
My first book on semiotics was published in Moscow in 1992; it was called "Language as a Sign System". After that, I wrote and published many books and articles, trying to understand the intricacies of semiotics and highlight its main characteristics. Over time, some of my views have undergone metamorphoses, and I have adjusted my earlier statements to express new formulations. Now, on the threshold of my 95th birthday, I want to sum up my vacillations and doubts in a short concluding essay, which seems to me worthy of attention. Whether this is really so, is for the readers to judge. I want to say a few words about what general semiotics means. De facto, semiotics originated in ancient Greece and Rome − no science or craft can exist without its own signs. But only at the end of the 19th century did a movement arise for the creation of semiotics that would formulate general principles for all branches of this science. In contrast to particular semiotics, such science can be called general semiotics.
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.
Semiotics and Semiology: From Sign to Semiosis and From Code to Discourse
2021
I originally wrote this document in French as a supplement to an academic course I taught in the first semester of the academic year 2020 - 2021. The main goal was to lead students to see the link between semiotics, semiology, and linguistics, as well as some of their main terms and how they evolved over time. While semiology is stable, semiotics is presented in different forms: Briefly under philosophy to highlight how ancient it is, and as a generality to spark curiosity and encourage students to learn more about the topic, then according to the first account of C.S Peirce with an eye toward the three types of signs and some ideas that were ahead of their times in his era, and later as an art after it was a science as an introduction to some of the post-structural ideas which will be needed thereafter to understand the raison d’être of fields that fall into it. This course is more suitable for license students following an LMD course and its equivalent in the anglosphere, bachelor’s degree.
Another Page in the Foundation of Semiotics
1993
s life ended in flames at the stake. The attraction, then, is not to the work, just as it is probably not to a heroic figure-which he was not-or to a martyr. One wonders: Do we celebrate in Bruno the never subsiding attraction humans have to the realm of magic? Or the sui generis instinct of non-conformity? Or the scope of work whose reputation well exceeds its real impact on the minds and souls of its readers? Probably all these and more are at work. I know that I came to Bruno with skepticism. Marxist indoctrination required a dose of the "heroic Bruno," the materialist opposing Inquisition and religious dogma, with the suggestion of breakthrough contributions to mathematics and astronomy comparable to those of Galileo. Well, if there are any, I never came across these contributions. But due to the extraordinary writings of Frances A. Yates on memory, Giordano Bruno attracted me as a primary source-original books, not mere references passed from one writer to another until post-modern fiction entirely erases the original thought. Surprise! Bruno's writings revealed elements of semiotics, logic, cognitive science, some ideas whose time has passed, and some whose times are just coming. I found out how much he impressed Leibniz and how many of his thoughts were furthered in Leibniz's revolutionary system. And I became aware-not sufficiently though-about his influence on other scholars of his lifetime and of times beyond his life. Then, in the spring of 1981, at the
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...
Introduction: Semiotics and history revisited
The introductory article offers a general frame for the special issue of Sign Systems Studies, discussing the emergence of semiotics of history as a new discipline or approach in the humanities. It presents an overview on the attempts of joining the history and semiotics in the Western world since the early 1980s, with a special focus on the United States, and examines the contribution of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics to the semiotic study of history, paying the main attention to the work of Juri Lotman and Boris Uspenskij. Finally, a survey of the articles that make up the special issue dedicated to the 80th anniversary of Boris Uspenskij is presented.