NEW SEMIOTICS
Between Tradition and Innovation
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SEMIOTICS
Between Tradition and Innovation
SEMIOTICS
SEMIOTICS SEMIOTICS
NEW SEMIOTICS
Between Tradition and Innovation
12
th
WORLD CONGRESS OF SEMIOTICS
Asociación internacional de semiótica Internationale Vereinigung für Semiotik
Southeast European Center for Semiotic Studies
ISSN 2414-6862
ISBN 978-954-535-943-9
© NBU Publishing House & IASS Publications, 2017
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Nueva Semiótica entre tradición e innovación
la Nouvelle Sémiotique entre tradition et innovation
Proceedings of the 12
thWorld Congress
of the International Association for Semiotic Studies (IASS/AIS)
Sofia 2014
16-20 September
New Bulgarian University
Editor in Chief Kristian Bankov Editors Ivan Kasabov Mony Almalech Borislav Gueorguiev George Tsonev Reni Iankova Dimitar Trendafilov Ivo Iv. Velinov Yagodina Manova Boyka Batchvarova
NEW SEMIOTICS
Between Tradition and Innovation
12
th
WORLD CONGRESS OF SEMIOTICS
Southeast European Center for Semiotic Studies
Sofia 2014 New Bulgarian University
Asociación internacional de semiótica Internationale Vereinigung für Semiotik
INTRODUCTION 15
AN INTERVIEW WITH UMBERTO ECO (1932-2016) 19
ENTREVISTA A UMBERTO ECO (1932-2016) 24
HONORARY GUEST SPEAKERS
LANGUAGE-GAMES AS A FOCAL NOTION IN LANGUAGE THEORY
Jaakko Hintikka 33
HIDDEN SIGNS. THE LITERARY FACE OF THE NON-LITERARY TEXTS
Solomon Marcus 41
THEORETICAL SEMIOTICS
BIOSEMIOTIC ETHICS
A SEMIOTIC APPROACH TO THE PET WORLD
Panagiotis Xouplidis 56
CULTURAL SEMIOTICS
SEMIOTIK DER KULTUR ALS ÜBERSETZUNG VON SCHRIFTZEICHEN BEI YOKO TAWADA
Aglaia Blioumi 67
LE ROLE DES NORMES DANS LE CADRE D’UNE SEMIOTIQUE DE LA CULTURE
Anna Maria Lorusso 74
EL MOTIVO DEL AGUA Y LA DIMENSIÓN MÍTICA EN EL FILM DOCUMENTAL SIGO SIENDO KACHKANIRAQMI (JAVIER CORCUERA 2013)
Celia Rubina Vargas 81
ABDUCTION AS THE MISSING LINK BETWEEN AESTHETICS AND BIOLOGY
Drude von der Fehr 91
WAITING FOR HISTORY. ON THE EVE OF EXPLOSION
Laura Gherlone 97
POPULAR MUSIC AND SIGNS OF TIMES. ROMANCES DEDICATED TO BUCHAREST
Mariana Neț 104
CULTURAL SEMIOTICS AS FLUXORUM SCIENTIA
Massimo Leone 112
SEMIOTICS OF CULTURAL HERITAGES: THE DIALECTICAL PROCESS OF ASSIMILATION AND REJECTION OF OTHERNESS IN THE CULTURAL HERITAGE OF THE AL-ANDALUS CIVILIZATION
Ricardo Nogueira de Castro Monteiro 118
CULTURE OF DIGITAL NOMADS: ONTOLOGICAL, ANTHROPOLOGICAL, AND SEMIOTIC ASPECTS
Irina Kuzheleva-Sagan, Snezhana Nosova 131
LA NEGATIVITE COMME FONCTION CULTURELLE DANS LE DISCOURS LITTERAIRE
ETHNOSEMIOTICS: APPROACH TO TRADITION AND CULTURE
SEMIOTIC APPROACH IN DETERMINING FUNCTION AND SEMANTICS OF RITUAL GESTURE
Dzheni Madzharov 149
MODELS, SIGNS, VALUES AND DIALOGUE
THE ARGUMENTATIVE CONSTRUCTION IN QUEIROSIAN FICTION
Cecília Contani Baraldo, Esther Gomes de Oliveira 156
MONEY TALKS: A SEMIOTIC EXPLORATION OF MONEY AS COMMUNICATION
Christopher M. Bingham 165
TRANSPERSONAL POETIC COMMUNICATION
Emilia Parpală 173
THE ARCHETYPAL LANGUAGE OF EUROPE. THE LANGUAGE OF THE GETAE AND ETRUSCANS
George Cadar 183
PROGRAMS, MESSAGES AND COMMODITIES IN ROSSI-LANDI'S MATERIALISTIC SEMIOTICS
Giorgio Borrelli 188
NARCO-TRAFFIC IN THE LIGHT OF CULTURAL SEMIOTICS AND COMPLEXITY THEORY
Julieta Haidar, Eduardo Chávez Herrera 197
PEIRCE`S PRE-1867 SEMIOTIC AND THE ORIGINS OF HIS THEORY OF INTERPRETANT
Michal Karľa 209
ALGUNAS TENDENCIAS DE LA SEMIÓTICA EN CHILE A PARTIR DEL AÑO 1990
Elizabeth Parra Ortiz, Jaime Otazo Hermosilla 216
DEED, OTHERNESS AND LOVE IN BAKHTIN AND PEIRCE
Susan Petrilli, Augusto Ponzio 227
SOCIAL DESIGN AND ETHICS IN PEIRCE´S PHILOSOPHY
Raquel Ponte, Daniele Ellwanger, Lucy Niemeyer 237
HEGEL’S SEMIOTIC FUTURE: BEYOND THE END OF ART
William D. Melaney 242
THE IMAGES OF THE TIME / LES IMAGES DU TEMPS
TRADITION, INNOVATION AND TIME
Antonio Roberto Chiachiri Filho, Rodrigo Antunes Morais 251
ALBUM COVERS: DISCOVERING BRAZILIAN LIFE UNDER MILITARY DICTATORSHIP
Eduardo A. Dieb 255
PERCEPTION AND COGNITION INSIDE TECHNOLOGICAL SPHERES
Felipe Gabriel Ervaz Garcia, Rodrigo Antunes Morais 265
INSTANT COMMUNICATION: A BRIEF HISTORY ABOUT TIME-SPACE COMPRESSION
Liliane Pellegrini 273
A SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS ON FRANCESCA WOODMAN’S ARTWORK
VIRTUAL AND PHYSICAL AESTHETICS OF THE HUMAN BODY–WITH REFERENCE TO THE FASHION DESIGNS OF JEAN-PAUL GAULTIER
Miki Okubo 291
TRANSMEDIATION AND SCHIZOPHRENIA: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL PROPOSAL
Rodrigo Antunes Morais, Antonio Roberto Chiachiri Filho 300
TIME: THEME AND CONTENT IN A VIDEO ART WORK
Edson Pfutzenreuter, Roberto Chiachiri 306
THE MYTH IN TRIUMPH OF THE WILL (TRIUMPH DES WILLENS) –
AN ANALYSIS OF THE SYMBOLISM USED IN THE AUDIOVISUAL NARRATIVE OF LENI RIEFENSTAHL
Sílvio Henrique V. Barbosa 316
FROM ELVES TO SELFIES
Simonetta Persichetti 327
THE LAW AS A SOCIOCULTURAL DISCURSIVE PRACTICE
Aparecida Zuin, Bruno Valverde ChahairaTiago Batista Ramos 332
SEMIOTIC PARADOXES: ANTINOMIES AND IRONIES IN TRANSMODERN WORLD
SEMIOTIC CHOICE AND TERMINISTIC SCREENS AS SEEN IN CROP CIRCLES
Jonathan Griffin 342
VISUAL SEMIOTICS
GENDERING THE NATION: FEMALE REPRESENTATIONS ON CYPRUS POSTAGE STAMPS
Sonia Andreou, Stephanie Stylianou, Evripides Zantides 347
INTERPRETANTS AND THIRDNESS IN THE WORLD OF THE QUANTA
Baranna Baker 359
SIGNS OF SPACE IN ARTISTIC, SCIENTIFIC AND CHILDREN’S DRAWINGS: DIFFERENCES AND SIMILARITIES
Eirini Papadaki 366
INTERPRETING PICTURES: A SYSTEMIC-FUNCTIONAL SEMIOTIC MODEL FOR VISUAL IMAGERY
Howard Riley 379
POLISEMIOTICITY OF VISUAL POETRY BY VIKTOR ZHENCHENKO
Iryna Zhodani 388
TAKING A STEP OUTSIDE THE PHOTO AND FRAME: HOW SHOULD
DRAWINGS BE ANALYSED IN THE CONTEXT OF GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION?
Markus Hilander 396
WHAT IS A LETTER?
Robin Fuller 404
TOWARDS A QUANTITATIVE VISUAL SEMIOTICS?
Yannis Skarpelos 413
STRIKE A POSE: THE SEMIOTICS OF ELECTORAL IMAGES IN CYPRUS AFTER STATE INDEPENDENCE IN 1960 UNTIL 2013
COGNITIVE SEMIOTICS
NEUROSEMIOSIS – AN EXPLANAT OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Karl Gfesser 434
EXISTENTIAL SEMIOTICS
COMPOSING GESTURE-TOPICS: A SEMIOTIC APPROACH TO VILLA-LOBOS’ AFRICAN FOLK DANCES
Cleisson Melo 446
TOWARDS A UNIFIED CONCEPTION OF THE LINGUISTIC SELF WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF SEMIOTIC PHENOMENOLOGY
Elżbieta Magdalena Wąsik 456
SIGNS AND EXISTENCE: THE EXISTENTIAL SEMIOTICS OF EERO TARASTI BETWEEN EXISTENTIALISM, SEMIOTICS AND PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Roberto Mastroianni 465
A SOLIPSISTIC PARADIGM OF NEW SEMIOTICS IN THE LIGHT
OF EXISTENTIAL PHENOMENOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL LINGUISTICS
Zdzisław Wąsik 471
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OR UNIVERSAL CULTURAL CONCEPTIONS? AN EPISTEMOLOGICAL RIFT
FOR A SOCIOSEMIOTICS: CENTRIFUGAL AND CENTRIPETAL FORCES
Anti Randviir 481
REVELIO! A (SOCIO-)SEMIOTIC READING OF THE HARRY POTTER SAGA
Gloria Withalm 487
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION AND IDEOLOGY IN ANIMATION FILMS
Maria Katsaridou 498
NOT NATURAL: AN ARGUMENT FOR THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF CINEMATIC SEMIOSIS
Rea Walldén 506
SEMIOTIC SPACE AND BOUNDARIES – BETWEEN SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONS AND SEMIOTIC UNIVERSALS
Tiit Remm 517
APPLIED SEMIOTICS
AN OUTLINE FOR A THEORY OF POLITICAL SEMIOTICS
FROM ALBERTI’S WINDOW TO TODAY’S INTERFACE. A SEMIOTIC READING OF THE SEEING METAPHOR IN THE POLITICAL DISCOURSE
Sorin Nicolae Drăgan 530
THE UPRISING OF SOCIAL VALUES AS A STAKE OF THE 2012 GREEK ELECTIONS CAMPAIGN. FOLLOWERS OF SYRIZA ARE DESIGNING THE NEW POSTERS FOR THEIR PARTY CAMPAIGN
Lazaros Papoutzis, Anastasia Christodoulou, Ifigeneia Vamvakidou, Argyris Kyridis 539 GRAMSCI'S PRISION NOTEBOOKS: A SEMIOTIC APPROACH TO CULTURE?
SEMIOTICS APPLIED TO MARKETING COMMUNICATION
ADVERTISING TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES APPROPRIATED TO CONSTRUCT THE GLOBAL BRAND MR. CLEAN
Carl W. Jones 554
SEMIOTICS AND QUALITATIVE RESEARCH: THE CASE OF FOOD TRENDS
Giacomo Festi 570
INTERACTIONS AND BEAUTY ADVERTISING
Jean Henaff 578
LA PRESENCE DU SILENCE. LE SILENCE COMME OBJET DE VALEUR DANS LES ESPACES DE PRODUCTION, DE CONSOMMATION
Zeinab Goudarzi 585
MUSICAL SEMIOTICS
NEW MUSICAL SEMIOTICS? INNOVATION THROUGH TRADITION
Gabriele Marino 594
ARTICULATION AS MUSICAL DIMENSION OF TEXT. THE RELATION BETWEEN WORD AND MUSIC IN SALVATORE SCIARRINO’S WORK
Julia Ponzio 601
ANDREI TARKOVSKY’S MUSICAL OFFERING: THE LAW OF QUOTATION
Julia Shpinitskaya 608
FRANZ LISZT – A DILEMMA OF STYLISTIC INTERFERENCES
Mihaela-Georgiana Balan 617
MUSIC AS A METAPHOR OF LIFE
Sandro Santos da Rosa 629
SEMIOTICS OF CULTURAL HERITAGES
THE LITHUANIAN SINGING REVOLUTION AS CULTURAL HERITAGE AND SOURCE OF SOFT POWER
Dario Martinelli 637
ETUDE SEMIO-CULTURELLE DE LA DANSE QACHQA’I PRATIQUEE EN IRAN
Arsalan Golfam, Ferdows Aghagolzadeh, Hamid Reza Shairi, Reza Rezaei 647
LE TAPIS PERSAN : FIGURE, MATIERE, PRATIQUE DISPOSES A FAIRE SENS
Hamid Reza Shairi, Université Tarbiat Modares, Iran 657
SEMIÓTICA DE LA MARCA / SEMIOTICS OF BRAND
LES MARQUES DE CONSOMMATION ET LES FORMES DE VIE SEMIOTIQUES QUELLES FONCTIONS, QUELLES RELATIONS, QUELLES DEFINITIONS ?
Alain Perusset 668
LA MARCA COMO SIGNO
Antonio Caro 679
SEMIÓTICA DE LA IRRADIACIÓN
Fernando R. Contreras, Pedro A. Hellín Ortuño 684
BRANDOLOGY – NEW GENERATION OF MARKET(ING) KNOWLEDGE
Dimitar Trendafilov, PhD 690
POSICIONAMIENTO VISUAL EN EL CONTEXTO DE UNA ECONOMÍA GLOBAL- LOCAL: EL CASO DE LOS BANCOS EN CHILE
ROLE NARRATIF DU JINGLE DANS LE RECIT AUTOUR DE LA MARQUE
Mona Ansari 707
SHIFTING FROM CHANNELS AND CODES TO MODES:
A RECONCEPTUALIZATION OF BRAND COMMUNICATION VIA MULTIMODALITY
Oana Culache 717
SEMIOTICS OF BRAND OF PROCTER & GAMBLE PRODUCTS IN A BRAZILIAN MOVIE
Pablo Moreno Fernandes Viana 726
SEMIOTICS OF COLOR
COLOUR AS INTERSEMIOTIC TRANSLATION IN EVERYDAY COMMUNICATION: A SOCIOSEMIOTIC APPROACH
Evangelos Kourdis 736
SEMIOTICS OF COLOUR
Mony Almalech 747
THE SEMIOTIC ABSTRACTION
Russell Daylight 758
SEMIOTICS OF RELIGION
PERFORMATIVES IN RELIGION AND SCIENCE
Borislav Gueorguiev 767
TRANSPERSONAL POETIC COMMUNICATION
Emilia Parpală 774
DEUX NOUVEAUX MODELES DE L’ANALYSE FIGURATIVE ET DE
L’ANALYSE ENONCIATIVE APPLIQUES DANS LA PARABOLE DU BON SAMARITAIN
George Vasilakis 784
DE LA POLYPHONIE RÛMIENNE A LA TRANSCENDANCE MYSTIQUE DU SAMÂ, CAS D’ETUDE : LE PERROQUET ET LE COMMERÇANT
Marzieh Athari Nikazm 799
THE SEMIOTICS OF RELIGIOUS AMAZEMENT
Marzieh Athari Nikazm 808
BIBLICAL DONKEY
Mony Almalech 816
RELIGIÓN Y POLÍTICA. EL DISCURSO DE LA IGLESIA (ARGENTINA 2001–2003)
Norma Fatala 828
FLESH, METAL, AND VERSE: CULTURES OF VIOLENCE IN BRAHMANICAL SIGN SYSTEMS AND MEANING
Prasheel Anand Banpur 837
HOW RELIGIOUS ARE THE MODERN ANGLO-AMERICAN PROVERBS: A LINGUOCULTURAL STUDY
Roumyana Petrova 847
PEDAGOGY AND ENUNCIATION IN RELIGIOUS INTRINSICALLY CODED ACTS. THE CASE OF THE PASSOVER SEDER
SEMIOTICS OF FOOD
A SENSE OF FORCE AND POWER IN BANQUETING ICONOGRAPHY FROM HARD ROCK AND HEAVY METAL LP AND CD COVERS
Adriano Alves Fiore, Miguel Luiz Contani 864
FEASTING WITH THE OUTLANDER
Francesco Mangiapane 878
TOWARD A SEMIOTICS OF FOOD QUALITY: PERSPECTIVES AND INTERPRETATIVE CHALLENGES
Giacomo Festi 888
LE PARADOXE DU VIN SELON LES VOYAGEURS OCCIDENTAUX
Mohamed Bernoussi 897
“CON-FUSION CUISINES”: MELTING FOODS AND HYBRID IDENTITIES
Simona Stano 904
COCINA MIGRANTE: HISTORIAS SOBRE LA IDENTIDAD GASTRONÓMICA (MIGRANT CUISINE: STORIES ABOUT GASTRONOMIC IDENTITY)
Zuly Usme 914
CINEMA AND SEMIOTICS
UNE SÉMIOTIQUE DES ARTS DU SPECTACLE EST-ELLE POSSIBLE ?
André Helbo 923
COMICS IN MOTION: THE INTERSEMIOTIC TRANSLATION OF COMICS INTO FILM
Federico Zecca 929
A QUELLE DISTANCE SOMMES-NOUS DE LA SEMIOLOGIE DU CINEMA ?
François Jost 941
THE ROLE OF SOUND IN FILMIC EXPERIENCE: A COGNITIVE SEMIOTICS APPROACH
Juan Alberto Conde 946
MUSIC IN FILM SEMIOSPHERE: RECONSIDERING KUBRICK’S 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY
May Kokkidou, Christina Tsigka, Ifigeneia Vamvakidou 958
INNOVATION IN DEFIANCE OF HOLLYWOOD’S “INVISIBLE STYLE”: JEAN-LUC GODARD’S À BOUT DE SOUFLE (BREATHLESS, 1960)
Nikos P. Terzis 967
ÉNONCIATION AUDIOVISUELLE : FAUT-IL RENIER CHRISTIAN METZ?
Sylvie Périneau 979
DESIGN SEMIOTICS AND POST-STRUCTURALISM
TOWARD A SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS OF TOYS
Mattia Thibault 989
DESIGN SEMIOTICS AND POST-STRUCTURALISM
Melahat Küçükarslan Emiroğlu 999
THE CONCEPT OF SCENARIOS SUPPORTED BY SEMIOTIC CAPABILITY TO DESIGN A BICYCLE BETWEEN TRADITION AND INNOVATION
Liliana Soares, Ermanno Aparo, Manuel Ribeiro 1005
RESEARCH METHODS FOR EDUCATIONAL SEMIOTICS SYMPOSIUM
THE VALUE OF EDUCATION IN INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS’
ADVERTISEMENTS: A VISUAL SEMIOTICS-BASED MIXED METHOD RESEARCH APPROACH
YOUNG CHILDREN ACCESSING MULTIMODAL TEXTS: A CASE STUDY
Polyxeni Manoli, Maria Papadopoulou 1022
SEMIOTICS OF WEB SURFING AND ITS USERS / SEMIÓTICA DE LA NAVEGACIÓN POR INTERNET Y SUS USUARIOS / SÉMIOTIQUE DE LA NAVIGATION PAR INTERNET ET LEURS USAGERS
ESTRUCTURACIÓN COGNITIVA Y NAVEGACIÓN POR INTERNET EN LOS ADULTOS DE SANTIAGO DE CHILE
Evelyn Campos Acosta 1032
SEMIÓTICA DE LA NUEVA CULTURA DIGITAL Y EL USO DE LAS TAXONOMÍAS EN EDUCACIÓN
María Loreto Lamas Barrientos 1044
TEORÍA SEMIÓTICA: LÓGICA/CONTRADICCIÓN, CUERPO Y EDADES DE VIDA
Rafael del Villar Muñoz 1051
SOCIOSEMIOTICS
SOCIOSEMIOTICS AND MEDIATIZED PUBLIC SPHERE
EL RELATO ÍNTIMO EN EL MUNDO COMÚN: DEL SINSENTIDO AL SENTIDO EN LOS DISCURSOS AUTOBIOGRÁFICOS DE MUJERES MALTRATADAS
Diana Fernández Romero 1066
SEMIOTICS OF THE CITY
NATIONALIZING KAZAN’: TATAR STATE NATIONALISM AND ARCHITECTURE
Fabio De Leonardis 1076
LES LIMITES DE LA VILLE : ENTRER EN AVION
Gianfranco Marrone 1085
PRETENDING DEMOCRACY. DELEGATION OF AGENCY IN URBAN PLANNING
Gunnar Sandin 1094
CONNOTATIONS OF EQUATED SIGNS IN MODERN URBAN SPACES Sergio Marilson Kulak, Miguel Luiz Contani, DirceVasconcellos Lopes,
Maria José Guerra de Figueiredo Garcia 1103
RETHINKING THE INTERSECTION BETWEEN SOCIAL NETWORKS, URBAN TERRITORIES AND EVERYDAY LIFE PRACTICES. A CRITICAL APPROACH TO THE SPREADING OF HASHTAGS IN URBAN STORYTELLING
Paolo Peverini 1113
SMART CITY BETWEEN MYTHOLOGY, POWER CONTROL AND PARTICIPATION
Patrizia Violi 1125
POSTCARDS AS REPRESENTATION OF THE CITY: A VIVID PICTORIAL JOURNEY
Pedro Henrique Cremonez Rosa, Dirce Vasconcellos Lopes 1132
TOWARDS A SEMIOTICS OF SACRED GEOMETRY: ON THE ARCHETYPAL “ARCHITECTURE OF LIGHT”
Aritia D. Poenaru, Traian D. Stanciulescu 1140
TYPES OF SETS OF ARCHITECTURAL GRAPHICS AND TEXTS IN BULGARIAN PUBLIC SPACE – XX CENTURY
SEMIOTICS IN THE INTERDISCIPLINARY CONTEXT
FROM TRANSLATION TO SEMIO-TRANSLATION: ORIGINS, EVOLUTION AND METAMORPHOSES
THE POWER OF SILENCE IN INTERLINGUISTIC AND INTERSEMIOTIC TRANSLATION
Caroline Mangerel 1162
FROM TRANSLATION TO SEMIOTRANSLATION
Dinda L. Gorlée 1171
SEMANTIC CONNOTATION IN THE LINGUO-SEMIOTIC RESEARCH INTO TERMINOLOGICAL LOANWORDS
Olga Lesicka 1180
RAISING AND HOLDING ONE’S HEAD HIGH: A CORPUS-BASED STUDY OF STYLISTIC, PRAGMATIC AND LEXICAL VARIABILITY OF THE IDIOM IN RUSSIAN, SERBIAN, ENGLISH, AND GERMAN
Pavel Dronov 1189
INTERPRETATION AND ICONICITY IN THE TRANSLATION PROCESS
Susan Petrilli, Augusto Ponzio 1201
SOBRE LA CORPOSFERA: NUEVOS AVANCES EN LAS CARTOGRAFÍAS
DEL CUERPO / ON THE CORPOSPHERE: ADVANCES ON THE CARTOGRAPHIES OF THE BODY
DANCE INTERPRETATIVE SIGNS
Ana Cristina Medellín Gómez 1212
THE BODY AND ITS LIMITS WITH ESCENOSFERA
Benito Cañada Rangel 1221
APROXIMACIÓN SEMIÓTICA A LA VISION DEL CUERPO FEMENINO EN LA NOVELA COLOMBIANA MANUELA
Laura Cristina Bonilla N., Jhon Janer Vega R. 1228
MAROON SUBVERSIVE AESTHETIC: BASTING OF METAPHORICAL AFFECTIVE MEMORY
Marisol Cárdenas Oñate 1238
MUSIC, THEATER AND PERFORMANCE IN A GLOBALISED WORLD: A SEMIOTIC APPROACH
THEATRICAL PERFORMATIVITY AND STAGE SIGNIFICATION – THE PERFORMANCE AS A THEATRICAL TEXT
Ivaylo Alexandroff, Ph.D 1249
PLAY AS THE LIMINAL PERFORMATIVE MODALITY OF EXISTENCE. THE ORIGIN OF ‘FLIGHTS OF FANCY’ ACCORDING TO HENRI LABORIT
Simon Levesque 1258
SEMIOTICS AND NARRATIVE
NEW AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL WRITING: LI NA’S MY LIFE
Anita Kasabova 1268
TRANSMEDIA AND SEMIOTICS, A STRUCTURAL MODEL FOR TRANSMEDIA DYNAMICS
Oscar Bastiaens, Hans Bouwknegt 1279
ADAPTATION OF VIDEO GAMES INTO FILMS: THE ADVENTURES OF THE NARRATIVE
ANALYSE DU DISCOURS DE LA PIECE PALABRAS VERTICALES (DES MOTS VERTICAUX) DE RAFAEL LOPEZ MALO
María del Socorro Merlín de Pérez Rincón 1296
AUTOFICTION OR WRITING ABOUT ONE’S SELF: AESTHETIC ELEMENTS IN NEW LITERATURE – CONSIDERED THROUGH THE ANALYSIS OF HERVÉ GUBERT’S WORKS
Miki Okubo 1303
LOGOTYPE AND NARRATIVE
Rumyana Stefanova 1313
IS IT A STORY – OR JUST ARTWORK? GRAPHIC IMAGE AS A NARRATIVE
Silja Nikula 1324
DANCE NARRATOLOGY (SIGHT, SOUND, MOTION AND EMOTION)
Smilen Antonov Savov 1332
SEMIOTIZING HISTORY
Taras Boyko 1340
SOCIO-CULTURAL SIGNS IN POLITICAL DIALOGUE
Veronica Azarova 1346
NEW FORMS OF KNOWLEDGE, OF SOCIAL RELATIONS, AND OF ECONOMIC VALUE IN THE AGE OF THE INTERNET
TOWARD SYSTEMATIZATION OF BASIC SEMIOTIC DISCIPLINES
Ivan Kasabov 1351
CONSUMER RITUALS IN FACEBOOK
Kristian Bankov 1361
MATHEMATICAL SEMIOTICS: A CHALLENGING MEETING PLACE
Paolo Rocchi, 1368
THE IMPACT OF STUDENTS’ CREATIVITY ON BUILDING A SUCCESSFUL MARKETING COMMUNICATION OF A BRAND IN SOCIAL MEDIA
Yagodina Manova 1375
PENSER SÉMIOTIQUEMENT LE PRÉSENT À L’ÉPOQUE DE L’EXPLOSION
SEMIOTIC ENGINEERING
Assen I. Dimitrov 1385
THE SENSE OF ACTION: DIALOGUES BETWEEN SEMIOTICS AND ANTHROPOLOGY
DOSTOYEVSKY IN CAPE TOWN
Giovanni Spissu 1392
CROSS-CULTURAL DIALOGUE AND THE SEMIOTIC PARADIGM: NEW PERSPECTIVES FROM ANCIENT SPACES
Matteo Baraldo 1398
HABIT, NORM, RITUAL IN THE LIGHT OF CHARLES PEIRCE’S PRAGMATISM
Reni Yankova 1405
NOW HE TALKS, NOW HE ACTS. VOICE, ACTION AND SUBJECTIVITY IN TWO CASES OF ASYLUM CLAIMING IN ITALY
NATIONAL AND REGIONAL SEMIOTIC SCHOOLS
CHINESE-WESTERN SEMIOTIC DIALOGUE
A SOCIO-PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF CHINESE-ENGLISH CODE-SWITCHING IN ADVERTISING DISCOURSE
Xin Bin, Liu Mimi 1427
TARTU SCHOOL: OLD AND NEW
TOWARDS THE CULTURAL BRANDING MODEL OF THE BRANDOSPHERE: FROM SHARE-OF-MARKET TO SHARE-OF-CULTURAL REPRESENTATIONS
George Rossolatos 1439
SEMIOTICS OF POP-CULTURE – FOCUSING ON THE ANALYSIS AND EFFECTS OF THE JAPAN POP
TRANSLATING JAPANESE-STYLE REPRESENTATIONS IN MANGA AND ANIME TO THE LANGUAGE OF THE WESTERN CULTURE
Hristina Ambareva 1449
SEMIOTICS AND ITS MASTERS
GREIMAS INTERNATIONAL
LA QUETE DES MANIFESTATIONS DE LA STRUCTURE ELEMENTAIRE DE LA SIGNIFICATION (QUELQUES REPERES)
Mariela Crivat-Ionesco, Emmanuel Crivat-Ionesco 1459
ON DEPTH: ONTOLOGICAL IDEOLOGIES AND SEMIOTIC MODELS
Massimo Leone 1464
THE ROOTS OF SEMANALYSIS; JULIA KRISTEVA’S MASTERS IN SEMIOTICS
JULIA KRISTEVA’S SEMANALYSIS AND THE LEGACY OF ÉMILE BENVENISTE
Marga van Mechelen 1473
SEMANALYSIS AND LINGUISTICS IN JULIA KRISTEVA. LITERARY WRITING, DIALOGUE, STRANGENES
Susan Petrilli, Augusto Ponzio 1481
SEBEOK AS A SEMIOTICIAN. THOMAS A. SEBEOK (BUDAPEST 9 NOVEMBER 1920 – BLOOMINGTON 21 DECEMBER 2001)
THE CONCEPT OF MODEL IN THOMAS A. SEBEOK’S SEMIOTICS
Marcel Danesi 1495
SIGNS AND LIFE IN A LIFE FOR SIGNS. THOMAS A. SEBEOK’S GLOBAL SEMIOTICS
SIGNS AND LIFE IN A LIFE FOR SIGNS. THOMAS
A. SEBEOK’S GLOBAL SEMIOTICS
Susan Petrilli University of Bari "Aldo Moro", Italy susan.petrilli@gmail.com Augusto Ponzio University of Bari "Aldo Moro", Italy augustoponzio@libero.it
Abstract
Thomas A. Sebeok is no doubt a major representative of contemporary semiotics. With Se-beok the boundaries of this discipline have extended beyond historical-natural language, be-yond culture. Such amplification is possible largely on the basis of an axiom that is pivotal to the global semiotic perspective: where there is life there are signs, that is, signs are present wherever there is life. Sebeok was the first to point out that semiotics is “global semiotics”, because all life-forms depend upon the action of signs (semiosis). Moreover, as a “semiotic animal” capable of “metasemiosis,” the human being has a capacity for responsibility and is responsible, first of all, for life and its health over the entire planet. From this perspective semiotics is also semioethics.
1. Going back to our 2002 monograph on Sebeok
As we claim in the opening pages of our Italian monograph on Thomas Sebeok, I segni e la
vita. La semiotica globale di Thomas A. Sebeok, 2002, this particular master of the sign is no
doubt a major figure in semiotics today.(1) With Sebeok the boundaries of this discipline have extended beyond historical-natural language, beyond culture. Such amplification is possible largely on the basis of an axiom that is pivotal to the global semiotic perspective: where there is life there are signs, in other words signs are present wherever there is life. Sebeok was the first to point out that semiotics is “global semiotics”, because all life-forms depend upon the action of signs (semiosis).
In this monograph, we present Sebeok’s semiotics, his global semiotics or semiotics of life, and consider its influence on scientific research and the current historical-social situation. This is the main task of the first part which is entitled “Ricognizioni”. Taking off from this platform we then move on in the second part, entitled “Il punto,” to formulate a few conclusions, as
pro-visional as they may be, concerning central problems and concepts in semiotics.(2) Following Sebeok, I segni e la vita (Signs and Life) overall not only addresses semiotics as a discipline, but also semiotics understood as the capacity for reflection on signs, proper to human beings, semiotics understood as the capacity for conscious awareness and responsibility. Here reference is to responsibility of the semiotician, once we recognise with Sebeok that to deal with signs is to deal with life.
Today the relation between semiosis and life needs special attention given that it is vital for humans as much as for all other life-forms. But such a focus is not at all easy to reach in the contemporary world. In fact, human communication at a planetary level has developed to the point where it pervades the entire social reproduction process, that is, not only the level of cir-culation where commodities are exchanged, but also the processes of production and consump-tion. The consequence is that the signs of this order of communication tend to be the only ones we human beings take an interest in. This leads us to loosing sight of the larger picture, the far vaster dimension of communication, that involving all of life over the planet. Human signs only constitute a minimal part of communication thus described and are totally dependent upon it.
Anthropocentrism has generally dominated over the study of signs, especially since the rise of semiology, following Ferdinand de Saussure, with its specific programs and fields of re-search. But today with current developments in global communication, anthropocentrism is not only a flaw in a discipline, but a danger to all of life over the planet.
Nowadays we witness the hypostatization of human communication as an effect of globali-zation. This process goes together with privileging the communicative function as the absolute function. This not only involves privileging human signs, but also reducing them to the status of a communication means, internal to the current world system.
On his part, instead, Sebeok has insisted on the function of signs, beyond the communicative function, on semiosis as modelling worldview, being a preliminary condition for communica-tion (see also Danesi and Sebeok 2000). This is the case for all living beings. But for what concerns humans from the time of their appearance as hominids – and which enabled their evolution through to the current phase – their species-specific modelling device is such that it constructs not only one world, as in the case of other living species, but numerous worlds, un undetermined number of different worlds (the multiplicity of historical-natural languages is proof of this): this is what Charles S. Peirce tagged “the play of musement”. Sebeok took up this expression as his formula for human modelling and used it as the title of his 1981 book.
More than by the word, the human being is characterized by language, where by “language” is understood “modelling device” of the world, one capable of inventing an infinite number of possible worlds. In Sebeok’s work, the critique of semiotic anthropocentrism is accompanied by the critique of phonocentrism. Speech and the different historical-natural languages are a manifestation of language understood as a modelling device, a mute modelling device up to the transition, in human evolution, from homo habilis to homo sapiens. Nor are historical-natural languages simply a means of communication. They too become (with respect to language, sec-ondary) modelling systems.
It follows from all this that the function of signs is not exhausted in communication. Moreo-ver, human communication is not reduced to communication as it occurs in the current global communication system. On the contrary, rather than limit ourselves to carrying out the role of organic communicators, functional to today’s reproduction system, we are endowed with a ca-pacity to plan economic-social and cultural worlds altogether different from the existing world. This is important to underline considering how manifestly destructive the global communica-tion system is at different levels, not only in quantitative terms, but also qualitative.
evidence the relation to “simulation,” that is, “imitation”. Misunderstandings relatively to the concept of “imitation” are largely due to the fact that the word “imitation” is often wrongly interpreted as passive repetition, rather than as innovation and as oriented in a creative sense to varying degrees. More than just evidence the creative valency of “imitation”, we need to explain the sense of “imitation”, with an interpretant that shifts its meaning so as to evidence the active, creative, inventive role of imitation. In the first place this interpretant must free the semantic field of “imitation” from the juxtaposition imitation/innovation or creativity, as well as from interpretation of imitation as being subject to a model, instead of as modelling activity. To this end the interpretant we propose for “imitation” is “simulation”. Imitation is simulation. And simulation is a modelling process.
The expression “signifying simulation” (Bettetini 1991) refers to the simulation processes inherent in verbal language and all other sign systems. Simulation is the specific object of knowledge theory and of studies on cognitive processes generally, or of epistemology when a question of studying scientific languages and therefore theory of scientific knowledge.
Signifying simulation lies outside the boundaries of semiotics and belongs to the border-ing territory of theory of knowledge and epistemology. However, it is of interest to semiotics when, as metasemiotics or philosophy of language, it addresses the processes of their formation and conditions of possibility, thereby abandoning a purely descriptive approach to the study of signs. In this case, the theory of verbal language and of the sign generally is connected with theory of knowledge and of cognitive processes generally. On their part, theory of knowledge and epistemology which study signifying simulation and therefore languages and signs as well, frequently invade semiotics, even without knowing, and therefore must necessarily confront themselves with semiotics.
Primary signifying simulation in the human being is what we have identified as language. This statement is completely free from phonocentric implications. In fact, language is distin-guished from speech whose specific function is communication. As anticipated above, language as we are describing it is a modelling device. According to Sebeok, its specific characteristic is what the linguists, logicians and semioticians calls “syntax”. Thanks to syntax modelling uses construction pieces that can be assembled in an infinite number of difference ways and create an indeterminate number of models that can be deconstructed to reconstruct different models with the same pieces. This enables us not only to produce worlds like other animals, but also an infinite number of “possible worlds”.
All this allows for that complex “play of musement” traceable not only in the “good” simula-tion of ficsimula-tion and the different forms of artistic creasimula-tion, as in the imaginary of myths, relasimula-tions, popular beliefs, social utopias, e in the “bad” simulation of lying, deception, ideology as bad conscience (cf. Bonfantini and Ponzio 1997, 2006), but also in all forms of investigation, from the most immediate and unconscious present in ordinary perception to investigation oriented scientifically.
As a modelling device language has an iconic relation with the universe it models. On this aspect may we recall studies by Peirce, Wittgenstein, Jakobson, Sebeok.
Human language (or simply “language”) includes both verbal and nonverbal language. Ver-bal language is both oral, or vocal language, that is, speech, and written language. Written lan-guage is usually considered as secondary with respect to oral lanlan-guage as a result of a “phono-centric” orientation (cf. Derrida’s critique). According to such a perspective written language is no more than an external cover, transcription. Instead, on the basis of considerations by Sebeok on the origin of language, oral language itself, speech is secondary: secondary with respect to language understood as primary modelling, specific to the human being, while on the level of phylogenesis speech comes later. Verbal language, whether oral or written, and therefore
histor-ical-natural languages, and their transcription systems, where they exist, presuppose language understood as modelling. Just as nonverbal languages presuppose language.
Speech, like language, made its appearance as an adaptation, but for the sake of
communi-cation and much later than language, exactly with Homo sapiens. Speech organizes and
exter-nalizes language. Consequently, language too ended up becoming a communication device, enhancing the nonverbal capacity already possessed by human beings; and speech developed from language as what some evolutionary biologists call a derivative exaptation (cf. Gould and Vrba 1982: 4–15).
Important to underline is that thanks to language not only do human animals produce worlds similarly to other species, but, as Leibniz stated, they can also produce an infinite number of possible worlds. This brings us back to the “play of musement,” a human capacity that Sebeok following Peirce (1931–1966) considers particularly important for scientific research and all forms of investigation, and not only for fiction and all forms of artistic creation.
2. Reasoning with Sebeok: on the relation between sign and interpretant
For Sebeok the “cardinal notion” of semiotics is the sign (see Sebeok 1994b: 1, trad. It. 51). We have made a few observations on this account, which we will now recall. Sebeok posits that all components in the definition of sign (i.e., in addition to Sign the Object and Interpretant) are
signs in turn, “as its species”. This ends by leaving such notions unexplained.
According to Sebeok (1994b: 10-14), both the Object (O) and the Interpretant (I) are Signs. Consequently, we may rewrite O as Son and I as SIn so that both the first distinction and the second are resolved in two sorts of signs (Ibid.: 12–13).
In our opinion and in accordance with Peirce who reformulated the classic notion of
substitu-tion in the medieval expression aliquid stat pro aliquo in terms of interpretasubstitu-tion, the sign is firstly an interpretant. The Peircean terms of the sign include what we propose to call the interpreted
sign on the side of the object, and the interpretant sign in a relationship where the interpretant makes the interpreted possible. The interpreted becomes a sign component because it receives an interpretation, but the interpretant in turn is also a sign component endowed with potential for engendering a new sign. Therefore, where there is a sign, there are immediately two, and given that the interpretant engenders a new sign, there are immediately three, and so forth ad
infinitum as conceived by Peirce with his notion of infinite semiosis or chain of deferrals from
one interpretant to another.
To analyze the sign beginning from the object of interpretation, that is, the interpreted, means to begin from a secondary level. In other words, to begin from the object-interpreted means to begin from a point in the chain of deferrals, or semiosic chain, which cannot be considered as the point of departure. Nor can the interpreted be privileged by way of abstraction at a theo-retical level to explain the workings of sign processes. For example, a spot on the skin is a sign insofar as it may be interpreted as a symptom of sickness of the liver: this is already a secondary level in the interpretive process. At a primary level, retrospectively, the skin disorder is an in-terpretation enacted by the organism itself in relation to an anomaly which is disturbing it and to which it responds. The skin disorder is already in itself an interpretant response. To say that the sign is firstly an interpretant means to say that the sign is firstly a response (cf. Petrilli 1998: 1.1. and 2014: 1.1.). We could also say that the sign is a reaction: but only on the condition that by “reaction” we mean “interpretation” (similarly to Morris’s behaviourism, but differently from the mechanistic approach). The expression “solicitation-response” is preferable to “stimulus-reaction” in order to avoid superficial associations with the approaches they respectively recall. Even a “direct” response to a stimulus, or better solicitation, is never direct but “mediated” by an interpretation. Unless it is a “reflex action,” the formulation of a response means to identify the
solicitation, situate it in a context, and relate it to given behavioural parameters (whether a ques-tion of simple types of behaviour, e.g., the prey-predator model, or more complex behaviours connected with cultural values, as in the human world).
The sign is firstly an interpretant, a response through which something else is considered as a sign and becomes its interpreted, on the one hand, and which is potentially able to engender an infinite chain of signs, on the other. Consequently, the “ambiguity” of the concept of semiosis discussed in the entry “Semiosis” in Enyclopedia of Semiotics, edited by Paul Bouissac (1998), does not concern the term but the phenomenon itself of semiosis. In fact, semiosis is at once a process and relation, activity and passivity, action of sign or action on sign, including sign solici-tations and responses, interpreteds and interpretants.
In Peirce’s view, semiosis is a triadic process and relation whose components include sign (or representamen), object, and interpretant. “A Sign, or Representamen, is a First which stands in such a genuine triadic relation to a Second, called its Object, as to be capable of determining a Third, called its Interpretant, to assume the same triadic relation to its Object in which it stands itself to the same Object” (CP 2.274). Therefore, the sign stands for something, its object, “not in all respects, but in reference to a sort of idea” (CP 2.228). However, a sign can only do this if it determines the interpretant which is “mediately determined by that object” (CP 8.343): as stated, semiosis is action of sign and action on sign, activity and passivity. “A sign mediates be-tween the interpretant sign and its object” insofar as it refers to its object under a certain respect or idea, the ground, and determines the interpretant “in such a way as to bring the interpretant into a relation to the object, corresponding to its own relation to the object” (CP 8.332).
3. Proceeding together with Sebeok
Global semiotics is an important instrument for the study of signs today, given that the world we inhabit is the world of global communication (Sebeok 1994a, 2001). Global semiotics identi-fies the study of signs with the study of all life forms over the planet and is the historical develop-ment of the human capacity for semiotics, that is, metasemiosis, therefore conscious awareness and critique. In addition to indicating the general science of signs, “semiotics” is the term used by Sebeok to indicate the specificity of human semiosis. This concept is proposed in a paper of 1989, “Semiosis and semiotics: what lies in their future?” (see Sebeok 1991: Ch. 9), and is vitally important for a transcendental founding of semiotics given that it explains how semiotics as a sci-ence and metascisci-ence is possible. Sebeok writes:
Semiotics is an exclusively human style of inquiry, consisting of the contemplation – whe-ther informally or in formalized fashion – of semiosis. This search will, it is safe to predict, continue at least as long as our genus survives, much as it has existed, for about three mil-lion years, in the successive expressions of Homo, variously labeled – reflecting, among other attributes, a growth in brain capacity with concomitant cognitive abilities – habilis,
erectus, sapiens, neanderthalensis, and now s. sapiens. Semiotics, in other words,
simp-ly points to the universal propensity of the human mind for reverie focused specularsimp-ly inward upon its own long-term cognitive strategy and daily maneuverings. Locke desi-gnated this quest as a search for “humane understanding”; Peirce, as “the play of muse-ment” (Ibidem: 97).
Sebeok has shown how in the whole semiobiosphere, the human being is the only animal capable of semiotics in the sense that it not only uses signs, but also reflects on signs. Therefore
the human being is a rational animal, that is, a “semiotic animal” (Deely, Petrilli, Ponzio 2005). To claim that the human animal is a “semiotic animal” means to claim that humans are endowed with a capacity for metasemiosis, for reflecting on signs and taking responsibility. By “respon-sibility” is understood responsibility for the whole of life, that is, for the whole of semiosis, for all living beings on Earth. It ensues that responsibility concerns semiotics as a general science of signs and the semiotician as a semiotician (cf. Deely 1998). Awareness of responsibility in such terms is particularly important today given that, as anticipated, semiosis on the planet, that is, life, is in serious danger in the face of the destructive character of the human world of global communication.
The first part of another book we have co-authored together, Semiotics Unbounded (2005), is entitled “Semiotics and Semioticians”. A good part is dedicated to Sebeok’s global semiotics.
As claimed by Lévi-Strauss:
A lire les ouvrages de Sebeok, on est confondu par sa familiarité avec les langues et les cultures du monde, par l’aisance avec laquelle il se meut à travers les travaux des psycho-logues, des spécialistes de neuro-physiologie cérébrale, de biologie cellulaire, ou ceux des éthologues portant sur des centaines d’espèces zoologiques allant des organismes unicellu-laires aux mammifères supérieurs, en passant par les insects, les poissons et les oiseaux. Ce savoir plus qu’encyclopédique se mesure aussi aux milliers de noms d’auteurs, de langues, de peuples et d’espèces composant les index des ouvrages écrits ou dirigés par lui, et à leurs énormes bibliographies. (Lévi-Strauss 1986: 3)
For Sebeok semiotics is more than just a science that studies signs in the sphere of socio-cultural life, “la science qui étude la vie des signes au sein de la vie sociale” (Saussure 1916: 26). Before contemplating the signs of unintentional communication (semiology of signification), semiotics was limited by an exclusive focus on the signs of intentional communication (semiol-ogy of communication). This was the main trend in semiol(semiol-ogy following Saussure. However, after Sebeok semiotics is not only anthroposemiotics, but also zoosemiotics, phytosemiotics,
my-cosemiotics, microsemiotics, machine semiotics, environmental semiotics and endosemiotics (the
study of cybernetic systems inside the organic body, on the ontogenetic and phylogenetic lev-els). All this is developed under the umbrella term biosemiotics or just plain semiotics. According to the global semiotic perspective, signs and life converge as do semiosis and behaviour among all living beings.
In Sebeok’s view, biological foundations, therefore biosemiotics, are at the epicenter of studies on communication and signification in the human animal. From this viewpoint, the research of the biologist Jakob von Uexküll, teacher of Konrad Lorenz and one of the cryptosemioticians most studied by Sebeok, belongs to the history of semiotics. Sebeok’s semiotics unites what other fields of knowledge and human praxis generally keep separate either for justified needs of a specialized order, or because of a useless, indeed harmful tendency toward short-sighted sectorialization. This attitude is not free of ideological implications, often poorly masked by mo-tivations of a scientific order. Biology and the social sciences, ethology and linguistics, psychol-ogy and the health sciences, their internal specializations – from genetics to medical semiotics (symptomatology), psychoanalysis, gerontology and immunology – all find in semiotics, as con-ceived by Sebeok, the place of encounter and reciprocal exchange, as well as systematization and unification. However, systematization and unification are not understood here neopositivisti-cally in the static terms of “encyclopedia”, that is, in terms of the juxtaposition of knowledge and linguistic practices or reduction of knowledge to a single scientific field and its relative language,
for example, neopositivistic physicalism.
Sebeok develops a view that is global thanks to his continuous and creative shifts in per-spective, which favour new interdisciplinary interconnections and new interpretive practices. Sign relations are identified where for some there only seemed to exist mere “facts” and rela-tions among things, independent from communication and interpretive processes. Moreover, this continuous shift in perspective favours the discovery of new cognitive fields and languages which interact dialogically (cf. Bakhtin 2008). They are the dialogic interpreted-interpretant signs of fields and languages that already exist (cf. Ponzio 1990, 1993, 2004a, b, c). In his explo-rations of the boundaries and margins of the various sciences, Sebeok dubs this open nature of semiotics “doctrine of signs”.
Developing and specifying Peirce’s idea that the entire universe is perfused by signs, Charles Morris recognized that semiotics could be extended to the organic in its wholeness: for there to be a sign there must be interpretive activity by the living organism (cf. Petrilli 1999). Following Morris (1971), Sebeok develops this thesis and claims that the entire life sphere is made of signs. This means that even a microorganism, for example a cell, flourishes insofar as it interprets signs. Sebeok extends the boundaries of semiotics to a maximum with his “semiotics of life” or “global semiotics”. Anthroposemiosis is only a small part of this. And within the sphere of an-throposemiosis an even smaller part is represented by verbal language. Even human beings, like all other members belonging to the sphere of zoosemiosis, communicate above all through non-verbal signs (see Sebeok 1998, 2001). Furthermore, the basis of all voluntary communication is formed of endosemiosic processes like those relative to the immunitary and neural systems.
Thanks to Sebeok the science that studies the semiotic animal, i.e. the human being – the only animal not only capable of using signs (i.e. of semiosis), but also of reflecting on signs through signs, anthroposemiotics, has today freed itself from two traditional limitations:
anthropocen-trism and glottocenanthropocen-trism.
With regard to the first, anthroposemiotics no longer coincides with general semiotics but rather is a part of it. Semiotics is far broader than a science that studies signs solely in the sphere of socio-cultural life. Semiotics also studies the signs of unintentional communication (semiology of signification); but before this it was limited by exclusive preference for the signs of intentional communication, Saussure’s sémiologie (semiology of communication). By con-trast, semiotics following Sebeok and his “global semiotics” studies communication not only in culture, but also in the universe of life generally. With regard to the second aspect, getting free from glottocentrism, the critique of glottocentrism in anthroposemiotics must be extended to all those trends in semiotics which refer to linguistics for their sign model. Anthroposemiotics insists on the autonomy of non-verbal sign systems from the verbal and also studies human sign systems that depend on the verbal only in part, despite the prejudicial claim that verbal language predominates in the sphere of anthroposemiosis. To get free from the anthropocentric and glottocentric perspective as it has characterized semiotics generally implies to take other sign systems into account beyond those specific to mankind.
In his article “The evolution of semiosis” (in Posner, Robering, and Sebeok 1997-2004, vol. I), Sebeok explains the correspondences connecting the branches of semiotics with the differ-ent types of semiosis, from the world of micro-organisms to the superkingdoms and the human world. Specifically human semiosis, anthroposemiosis, is represented as semiotics thanks to a species-specific “modelling device” called “language”. This observation is based on the fact that it is virtually certain that Homo habilis was originally endowed with language, but not speech. Sebeok’s distiction between language and speech corresponds, even if roughly, to the distinction between Kognition and Sprache drawn by Müller in his 1987 book, Evolution, Kognition und
That the human being is a semiotic animal also means, as anticipated, that it is the only ani-mal existing that is capable of awareness, of responsibility: the human being is responsible for semiosis over the entire planet, that is, for life, which unless proven otherwise only exists on the terrestrial globe. Again we have dealt with this issue in a series of earlier writings, in particular in another co-authored book of 2003 titled Semioetica (see also Ponzio and Petrilli 2014).
In Semiotics Unbounded, we refer to Mikhail M. Bakhtin, another important figure from the twentieth century, who is not generally taken into consideration in semiotic or philosophical circles, and unjustly relegated to the sphere of literary criticism. But in all his writings he repeats, “I’m a philosopher”, that his reflections belong to the sphere of philosophy of language. He also qualifies his thoughts in terms of semiotics and metalinguistics. An important focus in his writ-ings is his critique of the reduction of communicative processes to relations between the sender and receiver and between langue and parole, as improperly established by Saussure.
A particularly interesting aspect of Bakhtin’s work is his insistence, from his early studies, on the problem of responsibility – he characterizes this interest as “moral philosophy”. Bakhtin established a very close relation between sign and otherness: signs flourish in the relation with others, and require a responsible standpoint towards them, without alibis and without evasion. There is a close connection between Sebeok and Bakhtin. It is not incidental that Bakhtin too has always viewed the biological sciences with great interest (Bakhtin 1926). In his book on Rab-elais he evidenced the inseparability and intercorporeal compromission of all living individuals, including human beings, in organic and nonorganic processes throughout the entire universe.
4. Confronting Sebeok with Ferruccio Rossi-Landi
Among the various authors we have studied in addition to Sebeok, in the field of semiotics, another author who has had an important influence on our works is the Italian philosopher of language and semiotician Ferruccio Rossi-Landi (1921–1985). Between these two masters of the sign and guides in our research we have detected some fundamental points of convergence, in spite of the differences that no doubt are present.
As from the early 1960s Rossi-Landi proposed and developed his hypothesis of language as work from his early writings of the 1960s onwards. According to this approach the two defini-tions of man as laborans and as loquens coincide. Natural divisions that oblige one to assign verbal work and nonverbal work, the production of messages and the production of merchan-dise to separate regions do not in fact exist. In both cases we are dealing with semiosis, with the
linguistic work of modelling. On the basis of such a claim it is possible to establish a connection
between Rossi-Landi’s concept of work, on the one hand, and the concepts of primary, second-ary and tertisecond-ary modeling as elaborated by Sebeok, on the other.
Similarly to Sebeok, Rossi-Landi criticized those theories that reduce the problem of the ori-gin of language to the problem of communication. As writes Rossi-Landi in Metodica filosofica
e scienza dei segni: “We must evidence the nonreducibility of language to mere communication,
otherwise it would not be possible to place the capacity of language in a coherent framework concerning the phylogenesis of nerve structures and relative psychic functions” (Rossi-Landi 1985: 234).
In Rossi-Landi’s view, language understood as work is at the origin of the different historico-natural languages; these in fact are viewed as the product of language as work. Linguistic work reactivates languages and endows them with new value through the parole. The latter is indi-vidual only because each single elaboration is indiindi-vidual. However, the model of production is social (see Rossi-Landi 1968, 1973, 1975, 1992).
In our view, all this puts us into a position to relate Rossi-Landi’s concept of “language as work” to Sebeok’s concept of “language as primary modeling”.
Commodified and alienated work is a characteristic of today’s social system. Work in the ex-pression “linguistic work” evokes something that is juxtapposed to play, and therefore may lead one to believe that linguistic work contrasts with the “play of musement”, as described by Peirce. But let us remember that Sebeok too evoked the play of musement to the end of characterizing the human being as a semiotic animal, therefore to evidence specifically human primary mod-eling or what he calls “language”.
The truth is that the concepts of “linguistic work” and “play of musement” (expression that corresponds to the title of a book by Sebeok) do not contradict each other. As Rossi-Landi ex-plained, work and play are not juxtapposed, indeed play requires preliminary work as well as work for its performance, work no doubt that is particularly agreeable .
Another point where Rossi-Landi’s position and Sebeok’s come together concerns the criti-cal stand taken by both against hypotheses that attempt to explain the origin of language on the basis of the need to communicate.
For both Rossi-Landi and Sebeok language is what makes the constitution, organization and articulation of properly human work possible. Speech and historico-natural languages presup-pose language understood as the capacity for syntactic construction and deconstruction proper to human modeling which, as a result of syntax, is capable of producing an indefinite number of possible worlds.
From this point of view both Sebeok’work and Rossi-Landi’s work may be associated to an approach in semiotics envisaged by myself with Susan Petrilli and which we have proposed to call “semioethics”.
5. Going beyond in the sign of Sebeok: semioethics
Semiotics, understood not only as a science but as an orientation perspected by semioethics, arises and develops in the field of anthroposemiosis. Therefore, it is connected with the Umwelt and species-specific modelling device (or language) proper to human beings. And as we have just observed, this species-specific primary modelling device endows human beings (differently from other animals) with the special capacity to produce a great plurality of different worlds, whether real or imaginary. The implication is that human beings are not condemned to remain imprisoned in the world as it is, to forms of vulgar realism. Semiotics is a fact of the human species. But the possibility of its effective realization is a fact of the historical-social order. Our
Umwelt is a historical-social product in addition to a biosemiosical endowment, so that any
possibility of transformation or alternative hypotheses finds its effective grounding and starting point, its terms of confrontation, the materials necessary for critique and programming in his-torical-social reality as it gradually evolves and is distinguished from merely biological material. A global and detotalizing approach to semiotics demands openness to the other, the extreme capacity for listening to the other (see Petrilli 2013; Ponzio 2009). Therefore, it presupposes the capacity for dialogic interconnection with the other. Accordingly, we propose an approach to semiotics that privileges the tendency towards detotalization rather than totalization. Otherness opens the totality to infinity or to “infinite semiosis,” leading beyond the cognitive order or the symbolic order to enter the ethical order, which implies infinite involvement with the other, therefore responsibility towards the other.
Note 1. The Italian monograph on Sebeok, published in 2002 with Spirali in Milan, was
fol-lowed by another monograph on Sebeok’s global semiotics co-authored by ourselves with Mar-cel Danesi, Semiotica globale. Il corpo nel segno, 2004 (Graphis). In English, Thomas Sebeok and
the Signs of Life by Petrilli and Ponzio was published in 2001 in the series Postmodern
Augusto Ponzio in the early 1990s, Sebeok had happily foreseen that this “extraordinary young man” would contribute to semiotics and its dissemination internationally. In fact, Cobley is now the newly elected President (at the VII World Semiotic Conference, Sofia, 2014) of the Interna-tional Association for Semiotic Studies, but before this most importantly director (with Kalevi Kull) of the flourishing book series “Semiotics, Communication and Cognition,” published with De Gruyter Mouton, in addition to acting as editor of numerous collective publications and promoting the work of others in semiotics. So on this account too, as a talent scout Sebeok saw well. And today in fact Cobley’s commitment to semiotics after Sebeok has now been officially recognized by the Semiotic Society of America with the nomination of9th Sebeok fellow (2014).
Our monographs and numerous essays on Sebeok and his work on the sign is also the result of our own lifetime work dedicated to translating his books into Italian: In fact, I segni e la vita
(2002), which appeared with Spirali, was preceded, in 1998, by publication in Italian translation
by Susan Petrilli of Sebeok’s 1991 monograph, A Sign is Just a Sign with the same publishers. In 1984, Spirali had already published the Italian translation (by Massimo Pesaresi) of Sebeok’s book of 1981, The Play of Musement. Other books by Sebeok published in Italian translation by S. Petrilli, in consultation with A. Ponzio, include Sebeok’s 1979 monograph The Sign &
Its Masters, in 1985 (Adriatica, Bari), his 1986 book, I Think I am a Verb, in 1990 (Sellerio,
Palermo), and his 1991 book, Semiotics in the United States, in 1992 (Bompiani, Milano). In 1998 we also published an original collection of essays by Sebeok under the title Come
comu-nicano gli animali che non parlano (Edizioni dal Sud, Modugno, Bari), which does not have
a counterpart in English. By Sebeok and with Sebeok is another volume we co-authored with him, Semiotica dell’io, published in 2001, Italian translation by S. Petrilli (Meltemi).
Note 2. The fifteen chapters forming I segni e la vita are divided into two blocks: Part I,
Ricognizioni, contains the following eight titles: 1. For a global approach to semiosis; 2. The
interdisciplinary perspective of American semiotics; 3. Towards the signs of Gaia and beyond; 4. Signs on the masters of signs: a transition book; 5. Languages and non languages; 6. How other animals communicate; 7. Planetary semiotics and world communication; 8. Semiotics of learning and education; Part II, Il Punto, contains the following seven: 1. The sign; 2. Semiosis and semiotics; 3. Icon, index and symbol; 4. The origin of language and writing; 5. Linguistic creativity; 6. Bioethics, semiotics of life and global communication; 7. Semioethics and global semiotics.
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