Semiotics of Programming


Book Description

Considers what computers can and cannot do, analysing how computer sign systems compare to humans through a concept of reflexivity.




Semiotics at the Circus


Book Description

Semiotics is long on theoretical, often obscure discourses, but short on applications that demonstrate with clarity the applicability of its methods. This book confronts a challenging object, the circus, and endeavors to describe its performances in ways that explain how circus acts produce meaning and cause a deep emotional involvement for their audiences. The approach is not top-down, such as would be a method that would dogmatically apply a particular theory to fully explain the phenomena in terms of this theory alone. Epistemologically, this book is an example of the bottom-up strategy, which consists of considering first the objects and heuristically calling upon methodological resources in a broad theoretical array to come to grips with the problems that are encountered. Any circus act is a complex event that has cognitive and emotional dimensions. It is also a part of a history and an institution, and cannot be abstracted from its cultural and sociological contexts. Thus the range of relevant theoretical and methodological approaches must include structural semiotics, biosemiotics, pragmatics, socio-semiotics, cultural anthropology, the cognitive sciences, the psychology and sociology of emotions, to name only the most important. But the ultimate focus of this book is to enable the readers to better understand the meaning of circus performances and to appreciate the skills and creativity of this traditional popular art, which constantly renews itself from generation to generation.




Media Literacy and Semiotics


Book Description

Media Literacy and Semiotics provides helpful tools to help readers think critically about the meaning of the media images they are exposed to on a daily basis. In this comprehensive book, a basic model of semiotic logic is applied to a variety of media studies to promote critical thinking and media literacy. Elliot Gaines systematically analyzes the hidden meanings in mass-mediated products and texts, and shows how basic meaning structures underlie everything from The Daily Show to television documentaries to infotainment.




Semiotics: The Basics


Book Description

This fourth edition of the bestselling textbook, now available in print, eBook, and audiobook, has been fully updated, continuing to provide a concise introduction to the key concepts of semiotics in accessible and jargon-free language. Demystifying what is a complex, highly interdisciplinary field, key questions covered include: what are signs and codes? What can semiotics teach us about representation and reality? What tools does it offer for analysing texts and cultural practices? The fourth edition of Semiotics: The Basics focuses in particular on its application to communication and cultural studies. It has been extensively revised and extended, with an entirely new section on cognitive semiotics, many more illustrations, and a new glossary. With updates to theory, further examples, and suggestions for review and further reading, this must-have resource is both the ideal introductory text and an essential reference guide for students at all levels of language and communication, media, and cultural studies.




Semiotic Theory of Learning


Book Description

Semiotic Theory of Learning asks what learning is and what brings it about, challenging the hegemony of psychological and sociological constructions of learning in order to develop a burgeoning literature in semiotics as an educational foundation. Drawing on theoretical research and its application in empirical studies, the book attempts to avoid the problematization of the distinction between theory and practice in semiotics. It covers topics such as signs, significance and semiosis; the ontology of learning; the limits of learning; ecosemiotics; ecology and sexuality. The book is written by five of the key figures in the semiotics field, each committed to the belief that living is a process of interaction through acts of signification with a signifying environment. While the authors are agreed on the value of semiotic frameworks, the book aims not to present an entirely coherent line in every respect, but rather to reflect ongoing scholarship and debates in the area. In light of this, the book offers a range of possible interpretations of major semiotic theorists, unsettling assumptions while offering a fresh, and still developing, series of perspectives on learning from academics grounded in semiotics. Semiotic Theory of Learning is a timely and valuable text that will be of great interest to academics, researchers and postgraduates working in the fields of educational studies, semiotics, psychology, philosophy, applied linguistics and media studies.




Semiotics and its Masters, volume 1


Book Description

This volume presents a broad range of topics and current frontline research by leading semioticians. The contributions are representative of the most cutting-edge work in semiotics, but project as well the developments in the near future of the field.




Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language


Book Description

"Eco wittily and enchantingly develops themes often touched on in his previous works, but he delves deeper into their complex nature . . . this collection can be read with pleasure by those unversed in semiotic theory." —Times Literary Supplement




Experimental Semiotics


Book Description

In the early twentieth century, Ferdinand de Saussure envisioned "a science which studies the role of signs as part of social life". About a century later, a science has emerged that is very much in the spirit of that envisioned by de Saussure. Researchers who are developing this science, which has been labeled Experimental Semiotics, conduct controlled studies in which human adults develop novel communication systems or impose novel structure on systems provided to them. This volume offers a primer to Experimental Semiotics and presents a set of studies conducted within this new discipline. The volume is an ideal text complement for an advanced graduate seminar and it will be of interest to anyone who wonders how humans assemble and develop new ways to communicate with one another. Originally published in Interaction Studies 11:1 (2010).




Archaeological Semiotics


Book Description

This interdisciplinary book examines archaeology’s engagement with semiotics, from its early structuralist beginnings to its more recent Peircian encounters. It represents the first sustained engagement with Peircian semiotics in archaeology, as well as the first discussion of how pragmatic anthropology articulates with anthropological archaeology. Its central thesis is that archaeology is a distinctive kind of semiotic enterprise; one devoted to giving meaning to the past in the present through the study of materiality. It compliments standard studies of linguistics and reformulates contemporary theories of material culture. Providing an introduction to Saussure and a review of his legacy across structural, symbolic, and cognitive anthropology, Preucel goes on to present the Peircian alternative and highlights its influence on pragmatic anthropology. Of special interest are the discussions of the interrelations of structuralism and processual archaeology, poststructuralism and postprocessual archaeologies, and cognitive science and cognitive archaeology. The author offers two original case studies demonstrating how material culture pragmatically mediates social relations- one focusing on the aftermath of the Pueblo Revolt from 1680-1694 and the other on the New England utopian community of Brook Farm from 1842-1846. Throughout his analysis, Preucel emphasizes the close links between archaeology and other social sciences. But he also contends that archaeology, by virtue of the powerful ideological character of the past, can open up new spaces for discourse and dialogue about meaning, and, in the process, make a valuable contribution to contemporary semiotics.




Multimodality


Book Description

Gunther Kress, a pioneer in the field of multimodality and the co-author of the bestselling Reading Images, produces a comprehensive theoretical framework for the study of the topic providing sample analyses and suggestions for further reading.