text:
Semiocopeia, modeled after pharmacopeia (drug-making), would not amount to "sign-making", although Greek semeion, "sign" and poios, "making" would suggest that. The concept of semiopoiesis already covers that, signifying meaning-making, sense-making or sign-constructing. I would use semiocopeia, with that extra co, in the crude sense of drawing from various semiotics (e.g. semiotics of culture, Peircean semiotics, semiotics of texture and whathaveyou) in order to mesh together something novel. A metasemiotic synthesis, perhaps, would be a good designation. Following Peirce's ethics of terminology (CP 8.301), I believe that overly technical terms should be unattractive and disagreeable. On second thought, though, if I'm intending to combine these strands of theory from semiotics with more empirical data from recenty psychology, then the result would be more like a psychosemiotic synthesis.
- Andrews, Edna 1999. Lotman's communication act and semiosis. Semiotica 126(1/4): 1-15.
- Andrews, Edna 2003. Redefining textual boundaries: Torop and the Tartu school of semiotics. Semiotica 144(1/4): 377-380.
- Benjamin, Gail R. and Chet A. Creider 1975. Social distinctions in non-verbal behavior. Semiotica 14(1): 52-60.
- Bilmes, Jack 1976. Meaning and interpretation. Semiotica 16(2) 115-128.
- Bilmes, Jack 1994. Constituting silence Life in the world of total meaning. Semiotica 98(1/2): 73-88.
- Santaella Braga, Maria Lucia 1988. For a classification of visual signs. Semiotica 70(1/2) 59-78.
- Bruneau, Tom 1985. Silencing and stilling processes: The creative and temporal bases of signs. Semiotica 56(3/4): 279-290.
- Butchart, Garnet C. 2011. An excess of signification: Or, what is an event? Semiotica 187(1/4): 291-307.
- Buyssens, Eric 1988. Reference and communication. Semiotica 70(3/4): 191-197.
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- Charteris, J. and P. A. Scott 1993. Structuring the domain of human nonverbal behavior: A biological, Popperian perspective from the field of human movement studies. Semiotica 95(3/4) 205-234.
- Chomsky, Noam 1979. Human Language and Other Semiotic Systems. Semiotica 25(1/2): 31-44.
- Chvatík, Květoslav 1981. Semiotics of a literary work of art. Dedicated to the 90th birthday of Jan Mukařovský (1891-1975). Semiotica 37(3/4): 193-214.
- Cook, Mark and Mansur G. Lalljee 1972. Verbal Substitutes for Visual Signs in Interaction. Semiotica 6(3): 212-221.
- Csányi, Vilmos 2000. The 'human behavior complex' and the compulsion of communication: Key factors of human evolution. Semiotica 128(3/4): 243-258.
- Danow, David K. 1984. Lotman and Uspensky: A perfusion of models. Semiotica 64(3/4): 343-357.
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- Esposito, Joseph L. 1984. Peirce's speculations on the conditions of representability. Semiotica 49(1/2): 7-13.
- Evdoridou, Elissavet 2008. Multiscale textual semiotic analysis. Semiotica 171(1/4): 251-264.
- Fiordo, Richard 1989. Hypersemiotic and hyposemiotic communication: More ado about nothing? Semiotica 77(4): 461-479.
- France, Malcolm N. and Alexander M. Piatigorsky 1976. The existential function of some symbols. Semiotica 16(2): 141-158.
- Gilani, Zulfigar H., Wilma Bucci and Norbert Freedman 1985. The structure and language of a silence. Semiotica 56(1/2): 99-113.
- Goldschläger, Alain 1985. On ideological discourse. Semiotica 54(1/2): 165-176.
- Gorlée, Dinda L. 2007. Vital signs of semio-translation. Semiotica 163(1/4): 159-161.
- Ègorov, Boris F. 1974. Simplest Semiotic Systems and Plot Typology. Semiotica 10(2): 131-141.
- Grossberg, Lawrence 1982. Experience, signification, and reality: The boundaries of cultural semiotics. Semiotica 41(1/4): 73-106.
- Hak, Tony 1989. Developing a text-sociological analysis. Semiotica 75(1/2): 25-42.
- Hayashi, Makoto 2005. Joint turn construction through language and the body: Notes on embodiment in coordinated participation in situated activities. Semiotica 156(1/4): 21-53.
- Heusden, Barend van 2007. Semiosis, art, and literature. Semiotica 165(1/4): 133-147.
- Hoppál, Mihály 1987. Proxemic patterns, social structures, and world view. Semiotica 65(3/4): 225-247.
- Innis, Robert E. 2007. The making of the literary symbol: Taking note of Langer. Semiotica 165(1/4): 91-106.
- Jestrović, Vilvija 2008. Semiotics of nonsemiotic performance. Semiotica 168(1/4): 93-107.
- Kirk, Lorraine and Michael Burton 1976. Physical versus semantic classification of nonverbal forms: A cross-cultural experiment. Semiotica 17(4): 315-337.
- Koneya, Mele 1981. Unresolved theoretical issues in nonverbal communication. Semiotica 37(1/2): 1-14.
- Kuzar, Ron 2011. The subversive agent: Anatomy of personal ideological change. Semiotica 185(1/4): 223-234.
- Lanigan, Richard L. 1979. A Semiotic Metatheory of Human Communication. Semiotica 27(4): 293-305.
- Lepik, Peeter 2002. The anticulture phenomenon in Soviet culture. Semiotica 138(1/4): 179-203.
- Lindenfeld, Jacqueline 1971. Verbal and Non-Verbal Elements in Discourse. Semiotica 3(3): 223-233.
- Lotman, Juri M. 1975. Notes on the structure of a literary text. Semiotica 15(3): 199-205.
- Low, David 2008. Dissent and environmental communication: A semiotic approach. Semiotica 172(1/4): 47-64.
- Mandoki, Katya 2004. Power and semiosis. Semiotica 151(1/4): 97-114.
- Marling, William 1994. The formal ideologeme. Semiotica 98(3/4): 277-299.
- Meerzon, Yana 2005. Body and space: Michael Chekhov's notion of atmosphere as the means of creating space in theatre. Semiotica 155(1/4): 259-279.
- Nadal, José María 1990. Enunciation and narration: World and text. Semiotica 81(3/4): 357-384.
- Ning, Wang 2008. From linguistic semiotics to cultural semioticS: Semiotic and narrative studies in China. Semiotica 170(1/4): 139-151.
- Noakes, Susan 1987. Dante and Orwell: The antithetical hypersign as hallmark in literature and politics. Semiotica 63(1/2): 149-161.
- Poyatos, Fernando 1977. Forms and Functions of Nonverbal Communication in the novel: A New Perspective of the Author-Character-Reader Relationship. Semiotica 21(3/4): 295-337.
- Poyatos, Fernando 1980. Interactive functions and limitations of verbal and nonverbal behaviors in natural conversation. Semiotica 30(3/4): 211-244.
- Rewar, Walter 1989. On hierarchy, extension, and boundary in the cybernetic modeling of the literary text. Semiotica 75(3/4): 229-255.
- Scollon, Ron 1998. Reading as social interaction: The empirical grounding of reading. Semiotica 118(3/4): 281-294.
- Seaford, Henry W. Jr. 1978. Maximizing Replicability in Describing Facial Behavior. Semiotica 24(1/2): 1-32.
- Selg, Peeter and Andreas Ventsel 2010. An outline for a semiotic theory of hegemony. Semiotica 182(1/4): 443-474.
- Siefkes, Martin 2010. Power in society, economy, and mentality: Towards a semiotic theory of power. Semiotica 181(1/4): 225-261.
- Staiano-Ross, Kathryn 2005. Losing myself: Body as icon/body as object(s). Semiotica 154(1/4): 57-94.
- Tantam, Digby 1986. A semiotic model of nonverbal communication. Semiotica 58(1/2): 41-57.
- Vaina, Lucia 1980. Fuzzy sets in the semiotic of text. Semiotica 31(3/4): 261-272.
- van Poecke, Luc 1988. Denotation/connotation and verbal/nonverbal communication. Semiotica 71(1/2): 125-151.
- Veivo, Harri 2007. The new literary semiotics. Semiotica 165(1/4): 41-55.
- Veron, Eliseo 1971. Ideology and Social Sciences: A Communicational Approach. Semiotica 3(1): 59-76.
- Vávra, Vlastimil 1977. The Self and Body Movement Behavior. Semiotica 21(1/2): 1-22.
- Winner, Irene Portis 1983. Some comments on the concept of the human sign: Visual and verbal components, and applications to ethnic research (A wonderful father). Semiotica 46(2/4): 263-285.
- Young, Katharine 2000. Gestures and the phenomenology of emotion in narrative. Semiotica 131(1/2): 79-112.
Andrews, Edna 1999. Lotman's communication act and semiosis. Semiotica 126(1/4): 1-15.
Yuri Lotman has made a significant contribution to a semiotic theory of textual analysis, not only in his early work with the Tartu School where he distinguished primary and secondary modeling systems, but perhaps more strikingly in his more mature work on the semiosphere and discontinuities in cultural systems (cf. Lotman 1990, 1992a and b). (Andrews 1999: 1)Or is it a semiotic analysis of textual theory?
The Sebeok model of communication is similar to the Jakobsonian model with at least two major differences (1) the context is the factor within which the entire communication is embedded and (2) the modeiiga includes communication that is not based in human language. (Andrews 1999: 3)In Jakobson's scheme the context would appear as embedded in the communication act, rather than vice versa. E.g. the context (or referent) is what the message is about not in.
As Lotman continues his analysis of the text as a meaning-generating mechanism, he broaches the subject of autocommunication, where the subject is transmitting a message to him- or herself. Lotman argues that this phenomenon is much more important than has previously been thought, and that, in fact, it can fulfill not merely a mnemonic function (which is the case when the second 'I' is 'functionally equivalent to a third party' [1990: 21]), but also a cultural function. In the second instance, the information transmitted is qualitatively restructured and necessarily involves a doubling of both the message and the code and is never self-contained (1990: 22). (Andrews 1999: 4)When viewing the message and the code as constants (e.g. variables with constant values), one excludes varieties of autocommunication which do not restructure either but fulfil other functions. Aside from the mnemonic and creative there is also a phatic form of autocommunication, e.g. meditation. Though it would take a lengthy exposition to explain "phatic" in this context. "Getting in touch with yourself" barely captures it.
Some of the more salient features of autocommunication include increased indexicalization of sign types (e.g., abbreviations that are only decipherable by the text creator, lack of complete sentences) (Lotman 1990: 26-27). (Andrews 1999: 4)What is cue reduction?
Andrews, Edna 2003. Redefining textual boundaries: Torop and the Tartu school of semiotics. Semiotica 144(1/4): 377-380.
In his collection of essays, Torop presents the reader with a broader context in which to study Dostoevsky's aesthetic that includes not only Dostoevsky's published works, but treats his draft texts, letters, presentations, lectures, and personal behaviors and beliefs as equally valuable and essential components for critical study. The result of such an approach is to create a dynamically defined integrity between not only the writer's personal ideology and artistry, but also between the writer and the critic/researcher. (Andrews 2003: 378)Perhaps it is frivolous to write a work on Orwell's 1984 without considering his other works and his biographies?
Torop develops in great detail Dostoevsky's complex views of Christianity and its relationship to socialism. (Andrews 2003: 378)In relation with Orwell, one should perhaps investigate his work as a journalist as well, and bring his views towards war and journalism to the fore? Winston was, after all, essentially a censor.
I was particularly interested in Torop's application of Vygotsky's 'inner speech' and its autocommunicative function in interpreting the meaningfulness of these drawings to Dostoevsky's construction of his verbal texts. (Andrews 2003: 379)I'm interested in this as well, but alas cannot read Russian.
Benjamin, Gail R. and Chet A. Creider 1975. Social distinctions in non-verbal behavior. Semiotica 14(1): 52-60.
Body movement behavior perhaps more than verbal behavior is 'tied to context' so that it is at least surmisable that the category of body movement events that are utilized by observers (having roots perhaps in folk lexical sets dealing with body movement behavior) cover only a fraction of the kinds of behavioral events and processes which individuals perform and are capable of attending to in interaction. (Benjamin & Creider 1975: 52)Kinesics and Context. "Folk lexical sets" are what I term concourse. The authors are spot on that these sets are limited. For Poyatos it is relevant to study their mutual compatibility for sake of translation. My aim is to elucidate how these sets function semiotically in literary texts and everyday speech.
The third possibility about the interpretive capacities of the subject is that they have the same sort of coordinate speaker-hearer competence that language users have, so that they are able to interpret 'overseen' facial behavior in the same way - whatever that is - that they are able to interpret 'overheard' language behavior. We have not so far been able to frame experiments that would test this, either for facial or linguistic behaviors. (Benjamin & Creider 1975: 55)I should take these terms, overseeing and overhearing, into use for facecrimes and thoughtcrimes.
Although the extent of the difference was variable between individuals, adults usually showed markedly less facial muscle tonus when talking with children. (It is not practical to measure tonicity from the video tapes, but it is easy to distinguish high tonus from low.) In particular, the skin beneath the eyes and over the cheekbones hangs loosely down when adults talk to children, except during broad smiles, but is bunched and raised, occasionally leading to wrinkles in the corners of the eyes, when adults talk to other adults. (Benjamin & Creider 1975: 55)I find this interesting. It touches the topics of "dogfacing" and "Resting Bitch Face", even if only slightly.
One of th commonest behaviors which adults exhibited to children is a smile formed by lowering the upper lip until it presses into and extends over the lower lip which itself is slightly tensed with raised corners. This behavior appears to adults to connote a small degree of disbelief in what the child is saying and to suggest faint disapproval. It is sometimes accompanied by head raising and simultaneous looking down. In interviews with two children, they did not show any signs of recognizing this behavior. (Benjamin & Creider 1975: 55-57)Again, interesting. This configuration does seem to connote disbelief. I recall using it myself unintentionally in casual conversations when introduced to a ridiculous idea.
One kind of behavior which the children used but not the adults was an assentive gesture formed by covering the upper lip with the lower and nodding. The two boys looked sideways without turning their heads at the same time, something not done by white American men, either in general or on our tapes. Differences of this sort may indicate that the children have not yet learned the full set of adult facial behaviors, or may equally indicate that they use a slightly different 'dialect' of facial behavior. (Benjamin & Creider 1975: 57)These researchers are way interested in lip behaviours.
Bilmes, Jack 1976. Meaning and interpretation. Semiotica 16(2) 115-128.
We can place definitions of meaning into two broad categories. One type of definition locates the meaning of an utterance in some state of affairs external to the utterance. An example is Bloomfield's (1933) definition of "the meaning of a linguistic form as the situation in which the speaker utters it and the response which it calls forth in the hearer" (139). The second type of definition finds meaning in the word itself. That is, given a word, with no (or minimal) specification of situation or response, the meaning of the word can be stated. Componential analysis is one approach which seeks to elaborate this 'internal' meaning. Finally, there are heterogeneous definitions, which combine elements of both of the above types. I believe that the issues involved here can be clarified and perhaps resolved through an analysis of the process of interpretation. (Bilmes 1976: 115)These differences are evident elsewhere as well. I have argued that the concept of referent accounts for both object (which Bühler extended to "objects and states of affairs") and thoughts (e.g. the scholastic res).
Any 'meaningful' phenomenon is first of all simply a phenomenon. It can be apprehended by the mind and looked on as an object, and the fact of its existence can be used to provide information about the entity which produced it, the situation in which it occurs, and other objects to which it is related. We may speak here of the object's 'evidential meaning', and, clearly, any phenomenon has, or may have, such meaning. Therefore, if we define 'sign' as any phenomenon with meaning (the phenomenon being a sign of that which it means), then every phenomenon is potentially a sign. (Bilmes 1976: 115)E.g. every action can become a message. For my purposes, every verbal description of nonverbal behaviour in a novel is potentially "meaningful". There must have been a reason why the author wrote it down. It must thus carry some function. Perhaps it imparts information about the character who produced the behaviour, the broader context of the given episode or about some other factors with which it is related. I think it would be wise to try to apply Jakobson's scheme on this contention.
A special subcategory of evidential meaning is 'reflexive meaning'. An object can provide information about itself (other than the fact that it exists and has a certain appearance). An object, considered in conjunction with the situation in which it is produced, the responses which it evokes, and other objects to which it may conceivably be related, may provide information about its own structure and qualities, and the code, if any, that generated it (in the Chomskyan sense). (Bilmes 1976: 116)Intrinsic coding! Oh, how I've missed you. What I had in mind (above) seems more like reflexive meaning now, though it does seem that if one takes the Jakobsonian route then this is merely an echo of the poetic function. The responses which it evokes are conative, etc.
A representation need not be encoded into language. It is possible, for example, to make a non-linguistic, gestural representation. Gulliver produced a primitive representation in communicating with the Lilliputians by "putting my Finger frequently on my Mouth, to signify that I wanted Food". This is fairly simple, but how do we classify an inarticulate exclamation of pain, which may be deliberately produced in order to communicate (accurately or otherwise) that its author is in pain? Is this a representation? I would treat it as a 'designed' evidence rather than as a representation. (Bilmes 1976: 118)I see that we're heading towards the quagmire of intention. Are all intentional gestures and facial expressions 'designed'?
We recognize that exclamations of pain are normally caused by sensations of pain. We may also recognize that, in a particular situation, an exclamation of pain was not caused by actual pain but was intended as a deceptive communication, inaccurately suggesting that the utterer felt pain. The fact that it is recognized as a communication, however, does not make it a representation. (Bilmes 1976: 119)I don't follow. There must be a weird conception of representation in play. I would rather think that if I "truthfully" scream of pain then I'm 'presenting', and if I'm screaming of pain without feeling pain then I'm 'representing". Perhaps it would be best to avoid the notion of representation (and the historical "crisis" that does along with it) altogether...
This brings us to the matter of self-presentation. The false exclamation of pain is a self-presentation. More generally, a self-presentation is a designed evidence. It is an utterance or other behavior whose evidential meaning is designed to make the hearer or observer believe something about the actor. Suppose I say, "Ice floats on water", with the intention of making the hearer believe that I am a scientist. The representational meaning of the statement is, as such, irrelevant to my self-presentational purposes. It is merely a means to an end. It is the utterance's evidential meaning that I am trying to control. I want the hearer to use the representational meaning to infer something about me as a person, namely, that I am a scientist. (Bilmes 1976: 119)On the other hand, this does seem to conform to Goffman's The Presentation of Self.
Let us consider Bateson's (1966) second type of metacommunication in the light of the interpretive model. Any cue which helps to define the relationship between interactants is taken to be metacommunicative. This is so because the interpretation of any message is affected by the relationship which is perceived as existing between the interactants. (Bilmes 1976: 120)Oh, I get it. Metacommunication sensu Ruesch and Bateson (1951) is the first type of metacommunication and the mu-function (Bateson 1972[1966]) is the second type of metacommunication.
Thus, the message itself is a meta-message in that it is used in formulating a proposition about the interpersonal relationship holding between the interactants. (Bilmes 1976: 120)But it is not a meta-message! It is not a message about a message. It is a message about relationship, which is why Bateson designates it with 'mu-function'. Meta implies circularity that just isn't there in the second type of metacommunication; instead, there is overlapping.
There are various ways to classify sign phenomena. They can, for instance, be classified by channel - spoken, written, gestural, etc. - or by code - English, Chinese, Swahili, etc. - or by function - question, assertion, command, etc. (Bilmes 1976: 121)Questions, assertions and commands carry emotive, referential and conative functions (in that order). Poetic, metalingual and phatic functions are in this sense "meta-functions," but I should abstain from this term. "Metacommunicative functions" would be more suitable, although far from perfect.
For example, Mulder and Hervey (1972: 14-15) make this statement: "We may infer from what the Hottentot says that he is there, that he is a foregner, that he has a cold, etc., but this is not the purport of the communication, unless the Hottentot happens to be SAYING just that". What can be inferred about a situation by a particular instance of an utterance is what I have been calling the utterance's evidential meaning. (Bilmes 1976: 121-122)This definition comes too late in the paper. Is evidential meaning even meaning? A handful of putty is what that is.
Zipp (1971) attacks Grice's account. He points out that a mentally impaired person may produce a string of non-words, intending thereby to convey that he feels fine, and believing that everyone understands him. This meets Grice's conditions for a meaningful (NN) utteranc. But, as Ziff states, the sounds are in fact meaningless. (It might be said, in Grige's defense, that the sounds are meaningful to the speaker, but this will not do, since Grice is clearly aiming at a definition of meaning at an interpersonal level. If personal language were permissible, the definition would not include an intention to "produce some effects in an audience". This objection is, perhaps, not too devastating, since we can add to Grice's definition a requirement that the audience recognize the intention behind the utterance. (Bilmes 1976: 126)This is debatable, because "some effect" is quite inclusive. Art, for example, involves a lot of post-language symbols (signs of a "personal language"), but is often intended for an audience and, especially, to produce some effect in that audience. This is of course very general, but seems to (generally...) hold true.
The nonsense syllables, according to Grice's definition, are meaningful. On the other hand, as Ziff says, they are meaningless. Indeed, it is just this meaninglessness which constitutes their meaning. (Bilmes 1976: 126)Throwing so much putty.
What, then, would an appropriate and useful definition of meaning look like? I would suggest that the meaning of X is a way of ordering the universe (linguistic and nonlinguistic). X represents and conveys this order from mind to mind or (as in the case of spots and measles) from world to mind. X is not identical with that which X means, i.e., an object cannot mean itself. Ordering involves distinguishing among phenomena, either by arranging them on a dimension (continuum) according to the degree to which they possess some attribute, or by placing them in different categories according to their different attributes. Meaning involves ordering on one or several dimensions and/or categories, or an ordering of such orders. All this is very general, possibly comprising a class of definitions rather than a single definition. (Bilmes 1976: 127)This reminds me of Juri Lotman's contention that information organizes the world. E.g. the universe of the mind has a semiotic organization. Very general indeed.
Bilmes, Jack 1994. Constituting silence Life in the world of total meaning. Semiotica 98(1/2): 73-88.
Silence is what is between sounds and before sound. Everything else, perhaps, had to be created, but silence was there from the beginning. On second thought, though, we realize that silence is not a thing in itself but rather an absence, and its existence therefore depends on the existence of that of which it is an absence, namely sound. (Bilmes 1994: 73)Absence of detectable sound, it must be emphasized. Because sound cannot be divorced from the listener. Without the listener there is neither sound nor silence. Bacteria may live in complete silence. I recall vaguely that the sense of hearing may have developed out of tactile sense. While "non-hearing" organisms perceive their environment through more immediate reactions, ears and the neural equipment that go along are proximal receivers, enabling the hearer to detect occurrences further away. But there is always sound just as there is always light, as both, in the end, consist in physical processes, some of which may be undetectable to humans (e.g. infralight and infrasound). In short, silence is not absence of sound as such, but absence of detectable sound.
This is all too simple, of course. As Bishop Berkeley suggested, neither sound nor silence exists without a hearer. To take a less metaphysical stance, the concept of silence depends on the concept of sound, and both depend on the existence of a conceptualizer. (Bilmes 1994: 73)So this is going to be one of those papers?
This simple absence of sound, I will call 'absolute silence'. The relevant absence of a particular kind of sound, I will call 'notable silence'. The subtype of notable silence that will occupy our attention is 'conversational silence' - the absence of talk. (Bilmes 1994: 73-74)Almost 20 years later (from the last paper I read) he's still inventing clumsy terms.
Conversation is a state of talk, a situation within which talk is relevant. It is only when talk is relevant that we get conversational silence. (Bilmes 1994: 74)Could this be used to form a definition of interaction as a situation within which behaviour is relevant?
Our discussion so far also suggests a possible answer to the most famous of Zen koans: what is the sound of one hand clapping? One might risk a blow from the Zen master and venture that the sound of one hand clapping is the silence which is the absence of clapping. (Bilmes 1994: 74)Then don't hang around abusive Zen masters, dayum.
Silence is interesting because somehow we have made nothing, an absence, a void, mean something. (There is nothing like this in nature, where that which isn't simply isn't, and only that which is counts.) (Bilmes 1994: 74)An innocent hyperbole or a mark of an astounding lack of knowledge of biosemiotics and biomusicology? Oh, right, 1994.
Searle (1969: 33ff) has made a well-known distinction between regulative rules, rules that 'regulate antecedently or independently existing forms of behavior', and constitutive rules, which 'create or define new forms of behavior'. (Bilmes 1994: 75)Neat, but probably just as useless as paradigmatic rules and enigmatic rules.
Rules that may be claimed to be strongly constitutive almost inevitably have a weakly constitutive aspect. Thus, if we are playing chess and, at some point well into the game I move a pawn entirely across the board and take your king with it, it would be somewhat obtuse of you to explain that that is not chess. arather, you would look for the meaning of the violation, finding in it perhaps pique or perhaps a joking concession of defeat or perhaps boredom with the game. Or, if a lecturer were to stop in midsentence and take a seat in the audience, your speculations would probably go beyond 'He's not lecturing anymore' or 'That's no way to lecture'. If you can reject incompetence and inadvertence as explanations, that is, if you conclude that he did it knowledgeably and deliberately, you will ask, 'What did he mean by that?' (Bilmes 1994: 77)If this happened midsentence then there could be a health-related reason. Also, this paper seems to have very little to say about silence.
Anything which produces meaning by creating relevant absence or negative contrast, by creating the sense of 'notness', I will call a weakly constitutive mechanism. When some action (or nonaction) has meaning by virtue of not being some other particular action (or nonaction), that meaning has been produced by weak constitution. (Bilmes 1994: 78)*smirk* Saussurean difference is a "weakly constitutive mechanism".
It is because of this weakly constitutive aspect of cules, and because of weakly constitutive mechanisms in general, that we live in what I called in the title of this paper 'the world of total meaning'. We cannot, as Watzlawick, Beavin, and Jackson (1967) observed, not communicate. In a world that is preconstituted as meaningful, whatever one does or refrains from doing is presumed to have meaning. When a rule is relevantly applicable, you can break it, but you cannot escape it. Where the rule is 'Speak', not speaking is communicative. (Bilmes 1994: 78)What I like about this statement is that it's conditional. There is "a world that is preconstituted as meaningful", perhaps an equally valid world as another one in which meaning is actively generated, created, made, constituted, invented. Also, you can escape a rule by removing yourself from the situation in which it is relevantly applicable. That 'when' is not 'always, everywhere'.
There are structural units in conversation that conversation analysts have called adjacent pairs. In general, as soon as a speaker completes a first pair-part (e.g., a question, request, invitation, etc.), the turn passes to the second speaker, whose job it is to provide an appropriate second pair-part. (Bilmes 1994: 80)This is why I have come to detest "active listening". When someone practices it on me and asks further questions to everything I say it imposes arbitrary pair-structure to a discourse that probably didn't necessitate it. Recently I had such a conversation and although it felt very "involved", I was interrupted so much that I didn't even get to the point that I wanted to make and ended up quite dissatisfied with the whole conversation.
Constituting silence has become a major occupation of social scientists. We find topics or points that the speaker or author might have mentioned, things that he might have said, but didn't, and we note his silence. We create silence by crating relevance. These are analyst-constituted silences. (Bilmes 1994: 82)This technique is commonplace in this blog as well. Especially with Jakobson and Lotman, whom I have read extensively, because noting someone's silence in one piece of writing may be negated by loud and clear exclamations in another.
I will draw here on the work of Neubauer and Shapiro (1985) and Neubauer (1987), whose work on silence is influenced by Foucalt. Their notion is that any actually existing form of discourse monopolizes the field of talk and so displaces, or 'silences', other possible discourses. (Bilmes 1994: 84)Why not Stephen Lukes?
Santaella Braga, Maria Lucia 1988. For a classification of visual signs. Semiotica 70(1/2) 59-78.
If we take each system separately, however, within each one the classification of its types operates on the basis of the redistribution or recursiveness of these same categories. Thus, written verbal language, for example (whose axis of dominance is in thirdness), will present three major types of text - description, narration, and dissertation - corresponding to first, second, and third respectively. A new redistribution or recursiveness of the categories within each of these types of text thus provides three subtypes for each one, corresponding once again to the logic which governs firstness, secodness, and thirdness, as follows: qualitative, indexical, and conceptual description; qualitative, successive, and causal narration; hypethetical, relational, and argumentative dissertation (Santaella Braga 1980). (Santaella Braga 1988: 61)Wow. This trichotomy could be very useful for concourse. Instead of three types of texts one could outline three types of concourse: first, a simple description of bodily behaviour; second, a set of descriptions with causal or other types of interrelations; third, talk, explanation or rationalization of said behaviours. Too bad (Santaella Braga 1980) is written in a foreign language.
In the case of verbal language, only its written form was precisely delimited as the object of classification. As a result, this classification is not suitable for oral language, which is a hybrid code constructed from the interweaving of several language (rhythm, pauses, modulation, and intonation of the voice as in music; body and facial gestures as nonverbal counterpoint to verbal language, etcetera). (Santaella Braga 1988: 62)Nonverbal counterpoint is a neat term for the other side of lexical affiliates.
When we speak of forms of visual representation in semiotic terms, we are evidently bringing forward for examination the relation between sign and object, or more precisely, the relation of the sign to the dynamic object (object in itself) and to the immediate object (the object as represented in the sign). (Santaella Braga 1988: 69)For a second I thought that "immediate object" could stand for the representation in the reader's mind upon reading a description of nonverbal behaviour, while the dynamic object would be the behaviour as it is actually performable. I should probably take Bilmes's route and invent my own clumsy terms.
Bruneau, Tom 1985. Silencing and stilling processes: The creative and temporal bases of signs. Semiotica 56(3/4): 279-290.
The most basic assumptions of semioticians concern the nature of human temporality or time-experiencing. While most people are content to ignore the complexities of time and space, it is the curse of those who discuss creativity in semiosis and the durational-processual characteristics of signs to make very tentative assumptions about the nature of time and space. An entire series of assumptions about the nature of time and space seems to be basic to the scientific study of sign processes. These assumptions are not exclusive to semiotics - all methods of study are given form by the silent assumptions about temporality subsuming them. It is most important that the interrelated underlying assumptions of semiotics should come to be considered as one dynamic subsystem (temporal beliefs) of a branch of semiotics discussed here under another heading and designated as 'chronemics'. (Bruneau 1985: 279)Temporality as "external worldly time (the time of clocks" and time-experiencing as "inner time-consciousness" (e.g. Larrabee 1993). On duration I recently thought about the conceptual pair of continuity and contiguity - both imply successiveness - in time and space, respectively. With "silent assumptions" for a moment there I thought this was a call-back to Edward T. Hall's 1964 paper "Silent Assumptions in Social Communication", which delved deep in these issues. I now realize that the only other instance of "chronemics" in my list of references is to another paper by Bruneau, "Chronemics and the Verbal-Nonverbal Interface" (1980).
As scientific semiotics concerns an assumed dialectic between conceptions of space and time, between form and function, and between content and process. In other words, it has been assumed that a sign is bifacial. (Bruneau 1985: 280)Not... dualistic? Because some branches of semiotics have been paraded as overly dualistic exactly for dwelling on these dialectics.
The interpreter in most semiotic thought is treated as a sleeping ghost who is there, but is not active in intercepting or shaping reality - reality is assumed to be a priori and formulated inwardly, i.e., as information. Reality, in this conception, is already there to be discovered. Such a view of the creation and processing of signs seems to be congruent with an image of human memory that functions to accommodate chunks of experience, or objects, which vie for a power of representation, but alas, are often filtered out completely. (Bruneau 1985: 280)There are exceptions, though. Morris's interpreter is quite active. And Lotman's conception of memory is creative (e.g. how remembering is a lot like rewriting a memory).
A mythic, steady-state consciousness bound to externals, of course, appears credible enough to those studying the science of signs as 'rules' and 'norms' and 'laws' and other notions of 'best fit' and central tendency. Such lines of best fit reinforce a static conception of consciousness as linear constancy, however. (Bruneau 1985: 281-282)Looking at you, Jack Bilmes (above).
Moments or signs as space-time configurations are complex products of multisensory surfaces, peculiar to various forms of motion manifesting themselves through various forms of space (as extensivity and intensivity), and occurring eventually as unique to the dynamic variations of the biological and psychological fabrications of specific individuals in specific life situations in specific socio-cultural contexts. (Bruneau 1985: 286)Viewing signs as space-time configurations seems tempting enough, but that is also where Bruneau loses me.
Chronemics is the study of human temporality as it relates to human communication at the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and socio-cultural levels of ontogenetic integration and interaction. Chronemics involves all forms of media and/or all channels of communication. Further, chronemics deals with time as the channel of communication channels. Chronemics involves the study of levels of time-experiencing: biological, psysiological, perceptual, objective, conceptual, psychological, social, and cultural. These levels of time-experiencing concern time, times, timings, and tempos. (Bruneau 1985: 286)And proxemics deals with space as the channel of the channel of communication channels, right?
Temporal beliefs: pertain to assumptions held about the nature of time and space; concern the degree of rigidity in the perception and conceptualization of space-time behavior; concern the validity of temporal cues and estimates; concern the validity of levels and kinds of time-experiencing; concern the validity of temporal products arising from temporal drives, temporal signals, temporal estimates, and temporal symbolism; pertain to the validity and nature of temporal judgments (see below); etc. (Bruneau 1985: 287)An analogy could be drawn with nonverbal beliefs: "the validity of nonverbal cues and estimates", etc. Must consider this concept for the history of pseudo-scientific discourse on body language which perpetuates some nonverbal beliefs.
The term 'chronemics' was introduced by Poyatos (1972). The use of the term was encouraged for a number of years in a nonverbal/semiotics newsletter distributed among scholars by Mary Ritchie Key during the 1970s. A number of other neologisms related to time study are growing in popularity: 'chronosophia', 'chronetics', 'chronopolitics', 'chronobiology', etc. (Bruneau 1985: 288)Wow. Poyatos (1972) = "The communication system of the speaker-actor and his culture: A preliminary investigation" in Linguistics 83: 64-86. Especially the journal in which it appeared seems highly congruent with Mary Ritchie Key, a linguist. That nonverbal/semiotics newsletter was probably basis for her Paralanguage and Kinesics (Nonverbal Communication) (1975).
Butchart, Garnet C. 2011. An excess of signification: Or, what is an event? Semiotica 187(1/4): 291-307.
It happens. To claim that something is there, is given, or simply happens seems all too easy. Notwithstanding the empirical circumstances out of which such claims might arise, and while certainly meaningful, these claims inevitably fail to fix a knowable object that to which they refer. In the case of something happening, what is it about a happening that happens such that it becomes possible to claim that it has happened, it is happening, or it will happen? In what does a happening consist in order for it to obtain the status of an object of knowledge? Is there a difference between a set of related occurrences and the identity of their concept? Is what happens distinct from what comes before it and everything else that codetermines it? To question in this way the certainty of claims about the happening of a given happening is not to blindly challenge the appearance of a possible occurrence. (Butchart 2011: 291)In other words: What is the semiotic status of the event? Is the event tied to a concept? Is the event removable from its synsemantic surrounding field?
Despite their investment in radically different philosophical projects (phenomenology for Marion, Marxist theory for Badiou), I argue that both Marion and Badiou can be understood to approach the event as a kind of limit, the opening of a horizon without referent. For Marion, the event offers a measure of the possibility of all apparent phenomena but itself cannot be seen; for Badiou, the event cannot be seen from the point of view of a given situation, but as such, holds the possibility for the radical reconstitution of its established state of affairs. (Butchart 2011: 292)The phenomenological point here, or, rather, the hermeneutical concept of horizon eludes me. But the possibility for a radical reconstruction of states of affairs is more akin to what I'd like to point out in 1984. The events I have in mind are facecrimes.
I argue that the presentation of an event cannot be shown, but must show itself. The event shows itself as the limit to, that is, in excess of, all signifying practices. (Butchart 2011: 292)The case is significantly different with literary material: all events in a narrative are shown by the author. To a given character in the narrative the event shows itself.
An event is not the product of a ready cause, such as an engine starting with the turn of a key and the sending of an electrical current. It is not a simple fact, as with the destruction of a skyscraper. Nor is an event anything akin to a unique occurrence, such as being at the right place at the right time. Rather, an event is that which precedes any determination of its cause. It surges forth without expectation, radically changes the given order of things, and then disappears, leaving its mark without return. An event shows itself as much as it gives itself to be seen, without recourse to official modes of representation, exceeding the identity of the concept, and refusing any common phenomenon claiming heritage to it. IN short, the event is not: It has no being. (Butchart 2011: 292-293)How can an event have no being? What is being, anyway? (cf. Morris on "universal signs") I'd much rather stick to a definition of event as "a thing that happens, especially one of importance" rather than a philosophical conception of event as an anti-event, difficult to imagine or measure, steeped in background radiation simply too static to be able to be seen under normal spectral analysis.
An event, properly so-called, poses a problem for thought to think it in ways other than according to the measure of its visible appearance. (Butchart 2011: 293)Much like postmodernism poses a problem for reading to read it is ways other than according to the measure of its readability.
The intending function of successive synthesis outlined by Kant is rendered impotent by the event, a phenomenon that is unknowable in all of its parts, and thus immeasurable in its magnitude (the historical event gives too much to the fully synthesized). By imposing itself - landing by surprise, for example - the event cannot be anticipated, thus cannot be aimed at or measured. As such it is unforeseeable according to quantity. (Butchart 2011: 294)This is as agreeable as it is superfluous. There are countless phenomena that can be described as "unknowable in all its parts". But I do like the contrast between anticipation and surprise. These are very much present in my material.
What snows, exactly? The "it" that "shows" cannot be explained since it is unforeseen, unexpected, and above all else, unwelcome. (Butchart 2011: 294)It's not so much as so little as to do with what everything is.
Any idiot can trace, of course. However, the true painter traces nothing. "He pinpoits," as Marion says. (Butchart 2011: 300)You can move this mass of molecules through the air over to another location at will. That's something you live inside of every day.
While we may attempt to specify "what happened" at a particular time, to explain the rupture of a particular appearance, all such attempts will inevitably fall short: The it that happens can never be fully fixed by any symbolic act. An event properly so called is thus only the coming-to-be of the not yet: Sheer unfolding. It forever remains more than the different forms of its possible appearance could ever be. (Butchart 2011: 303)If the style of writing in this paper is any indication of a style of thought then it appears irrefutable that the author is incapable of explaining or fully fixing anything. "[...] philosophy and rhetoric could be said to differ with respect to their goals: 'wisdom' (or some contribution to our overall body of knowledge) in the case of philosophy; 'persuasion' (or general discursive efficacy) in the case of rhetoric." (McLaughlin 2012: 27) This paper appears to be a species of the latter.
A propos of the perspective in communication philosophy discussed above, an event must be understood as a mark of the limit of representation, a locus of thinking about the singularity of occurrence that cannot be fully expressed in a signifying system. (Butchart 2011: 303)Or maybe I'm just too dumb to get any of this? I feel like I've been hit on the head with difficult turns of phrases. Perhaps I really should stick to papers published before 1980. Most authors before the advent of word processing seemed to correspond their theories, methods and discoveries rather than writing eloquent but incomprehensible prose.
Buyssens, Eric 1988. Reference and communication. Semiotica 70(3/4): 191-197.
Rare are, before the twentieth century, the authors who take communication into consideration in their theories; James Harris (eighteenth century), William Dwight Whitney, and Georg von der Gabelentz (nineteenth century) are excpetions. For most thinkers in the past, speech is the means of expressing oneself. (Buyssens 1988: 191)Presumably he means James Harris (1709-1780), English politician and grammarian. There seem to be very little, if any, sources on him and his views of communication (should look into it someday). William Dwight Whitney is a tad bit more familiar, through Jakobson and his historical overviews of linguistics. Georg von der Gabanetz was apparently a German linguist who studied Chinese grammar extensively.
As a first preliminary, it is necessary to clarify the opposition between concrete and abstract. Traditionally, the word concrete characterizes a material object, something that can be perceived by at least one of our senses. But when we say 'This table is too small', the word small refers to one of the constituents of the table (its size); other constituents of a table are its shape, its color, etcetera. All these constituents are as concrete as the table itself: they are perceivable. And yet they are abstract when they are considered separately, as the adjective small is in the above sentence. Consequently, the traditional definition of concreteness cannot be used to oppose concrete and abstract. (Buyssens 1988: 191)Finally! After four years I finally stumbled upon the source for the distinction between "abstract and concrete reference" which Anti Randviir, in lectures, sometimes presents as some self-evident truth that all semioticians should already know.
The exact nature of abstraction is very clear when we consider numbers. A number like two cannot be photographed alone; what can be photographed is a group of two objects. A number never exists alone outside our minds. But we give it a name and speak of it as if it did exist alone - 'two and two make four'. (Buyssens 1988: 191-192)This can surely be put to good use in relation with the 2+2=4 in Dostoyevski and 2+2=5 in Orwell.
This allows us to define abstraction as the psychological process consisting in considering separately what does not exist separately, what is part of a whole object:Replace the illustration of table with that of smile and BAM! Concourse.It is now easy to show that all words - except those for unique objects - have an abstract sense. A table is a concrete object, but the word table is called a common noun because it can be used for any sort of table: it tells us nothing about the shape, size, weight, color, etcetera of the table in question, though all these constituents are present in the table itself. The sense of the word table is abstract: it refers to what is common to all tables. (Buyssens 1988: 192)
abstract = part
concrete = whole
The sense of the other words is not the only abstract element in language: the modern distinction between phonology and phonetics is due to the discovery that every functional unit in pronounciation has an abstract nature. If, for instance, the word reveille is pronounced first by an American and then by an Englishman, the sounds are different, but it is the same word. If the word is pronounced in a loud voice or whispered, the sounds are different, but the word is the same; if pronounced by a man or by a woman, or by a person whose voice is altered by emotion or illness, the sounds are different, but it is the same word. We recognize the word because we listen not to all the characteristics of the pronounciation, but only to those parts that allow us to recognize the word, to those parts that are common to all the different pronounciations of the word. (Buyssens 1988: 192)All these examples concern the variants and invariants in language, as Jakobson would put it. No matter how you pronounce the word, with accent, with emphasis, etc. the word itself is invariant.
The phoneme is not the only functional part of a sound. When we distinguish an assertive sentence from an interrogative or imperative one, we are listening to other parts of the sounds: the pitch or rhythm. (Buyssens 1988: 193)By and large, these are the referential, emotive and conative functions of language, respectively.
When a child is born, its parents send to relatives and friends an announcement card informing of the birth and name of the child. This is not a real introduction, since the baby cannot accompany the card; the persons who do not come to see the baby cannot link the name to a personal knowledge of the baby; heard later, the name will remind the hearer of the announcement card.Ooh, these remarks could go a long way towards illustrating para- and metachannels.
This case is similar to that of a historical personage. We all know that there was an important philosopher called Plato; we know a lot about him, but we have never met him. Our knowledge of him is a secondhand one, an abstract one. (Buyssens 1988: 194)
A person may have different proper names according to the different social groups in which he or she is known: the Christian name for the family, a nickname at school, the family name for acquaintances, a nom de plume for readers, etcetera. (Buyssens 1988: 194)My names would appear to follow a different, topical, logic, but in essence it also includes the aspect of social groups: I have a citizen's name for family, schoolmates and institutions; a name for Facebook, forums, acquaintances and literary publications (a name that is still linked to my person); and a third name which is non-personal, for commenting on the internet and all sorts of silly things. The difference here is that these do not stem from one formal name but are in fact different names.
A concrete referent cannot be communicated; it must be known or present. (Buyssens 1988: 196)Spot on.
Caivano, José Luis 1990. Visual texture as a semiotic system. Semiotica 80(3/4): 239-252.
Can visual texture be considered a semiotic system? The affirmative answer will imply that in referring to it, we are dealing with signs. (Caivano 1990: 239)In one glorious burst, Caivano implicates all over the place.
Paraphrasing Peirce: when an observer sees a texture, it produces equivalent signs or interpretants in his mind (signs of other characteristics - e.g., tactile concepts such as rough, smooth, etc.). The texture stands for an object (perhaps for the physical composition of a material). (Caivano 1990: 239)Equivalent to what? What we have here is a semiotic cheese situation: when I see a piece of cheese in front of me on the table, do I see signs of cheese? (e.g. Austin 1970: 15; footnote 1) Similarly, if I see a texture, do I see signs of texture?
It is better to think that a texture can vary from plane (purely visual) to volumetric (visual and tactile) in a continuous way, by increasing its depth from zero to infinite, in order to include all the examples: from the textures drawn on a sheet of paper to the texture of cosmic space. (Caivano 1990: 241)Whoa, man, far out. Like, think about it, man. Maybe the universe is an infinite texture. That's deep, man.
Simple textures are formed by repetition and juxtaposition of a minimal unity called unity of texture. It is composed of a pair of texturing elements and their respective intervals. It is considered the texturing element, coinciding with Jannello's definition (1963: 395), 'the narrowest or thinnest part' that composes a texture. Thus, in the texture of a brick wall, for example, the texturing elements are not the bricks but the joints between them (Fig. 3). (Caivano 1990: 243)I wonder if any of this could be applied in some shape or form on the semiotics of text. E.g. maybe conceptualize that "certain unity" that a culture text is supposed to have as some sort of unity of texture...
We have, this, a sequence of formulas to select textures, going from absolute constancy ('monotony') to maximum possible variability (apparent 'chaos'). The expression of variability in relative rather than absolute terms, and the expression 'apparent chaos', are because I believe it is always possible to describe some organization, even if it is very complicated. As D. Bohm notes, 'there is no such thing as "disorder", if this term is meant to indicate a total absence of order of any kind whatsoever. For whenever anything appears, it evidently occurs in some kind of order...' (1968: 140). (Caivano 1990: 247)How about cacotony? Someone named Philippe Piguet has already invested it with a specific meaning, the colours found in real life. Also, Garnet Butchart argues that happenings do not occur in any kind of order. The singularity of occurrence cannot be fully expressed in a signifying system, or whatever.
This system of texture is not an isolated development. It is part of a more general Theory of Design, which involves also similar models for such subjects as Spatial Delimitation (form), Color, and Cesia (brightness, opacity, transparence, etc.). (Caivano 1990: 249)At first I thought this was a spelling error or a loanword from the author's native language. But it turns out that it's a term coined in 1980 by Cesar Janello. Even Wittgenstein wrote something about opaqueness and transparency, e.g. cesia.
The features of texture are, as a general rule, in direct relation with the physical or molecular composition of materials. One significant role of texture is to be a sign or a representation of that physical composition. (Caivano 1990: 249)Is it really significant, though? I would imagine that texture is a causal outcome of the physical or molecular composition of materials. The semiotic aspect of texture signifying its physical composition seems secondary, only relevant for...
It is normal, for example, in architectural plans to indicate the different materials of construction by means of drawing their textures. Sometimes these drawings represent iconically the textures observed in the objects (wood, concrete); other times they represent the materials symbolically, by means of an established code (steel, glass). (Caivano 1990: 250)...architectural plans. Right. Well, iconicity and symbolicity is covered. How about indexicality or at least Secondness more generally? I imagine some very fancy architectural plans may even come with paint swatches and texture samples. But I wouldn't know anything about that.
The directionality of texture can also indicate the treatment done to a material. Longitudinal slices in tree trunks result in pieces of wood with linear textures, while transversal slices produce non-directional textures. (Caivano 1990: 250)I nominate these two sentences for the prestigious Most Boring Paragraph Award. It's so easy to imagine a middle aged man with dorky glasses standing in a building supplies store and yammering away about types of textures to disinterested customers.
What kind of interpretants are related with visual textures? In what class of other signs can they be transformed as a result of their meanings? Principally, they give birth to synesthetic sensations, the most comon being tactile ones. There are numerous words to allude to such signs: smooth, rough, polished, abrasive, coarse, fine, soft, hard. (Caivano 1990: 250)All I can think about is how to use these words to describe verbal texts. This one, for example, would be rough, because it is irregular. It feels like a paper about types of textures that got a few tidbits of Peirce thrown in in order to publish it in Semiotica. But I digress. It wasn't nearly as bad a read as Butchart. This was actually interesting and clear.
Charteris, J. and P. A. Scott 1993. Structuring the domain of human nonverbal behavior: A biological, Popperian perspective from the field of human movement studies. Semiotica 95(3/4) 205-234.
As the interests of Human Movement scholars turn toward the domain of human nonverbal communication (HNVC), it will be important for us to contribute not only data, but also conceptual structure, from the perspective of our own field of study. (Charteris & Scott 1993: 205)Yes, please do! Some conceptual structure would be more than welcome.
The HK [Human Kinetics] conceptal model, a format for curriculum construction and research in the academic field of HMS [Human Movement Studies], has a formal history dating backt o the mid-1960s in Canada, though the success of this experiment was only made more widely known after a decade of practical implementation (Charteris et al. 1976). An update of the contribution of this paradigm to the emerging discipline of HMS has appeared more recently (Charteris 1986). The HK conceptual model sees man as being the subject of thee movement 'imperatives', for the adaptive zone occupied by our species is characterized by a long phyletic history of bonded social interaction, object manipulation, and upright locomotion. (Charteris & Scott 1993: 206)This is neat, but I'm not not sure these categories would suffice for my own research, which is somewhat removed from social interaction (e.g. nonverbal behaviour instead of nonverbal communication). Though I do intend to include both object manipulation and upright locomotion in my analysis of 1984.
When man swims, with whatever stroke, he does so using a structure preeminently adapted not for swimming at all, but for upright terrestial bipedality. So the three movement 'imperatives' are seen as overarching motor categories whose effects permeate every human motor performance. Clearly these three categories may overlap behaviorally, as in the case of walking while making symbolic gestures with the hands; the categories are not mutually exclusive, any more than they are uniquely human. (Charteris & Scott 1993: 206)The also overlap semiotically, as both object manipulation and locomotion may serve as social signals as well. They take account of this in their model of interlocking circles.
The HK conceptual model is an attempt to focus attention on the human movement phenomenon, rather than to use existing disciplinary programs whose concern is deflected from the specific 'Center-M' focus. Thus, while psychology studies man, it does not necessarily elucidate a man-in-motion focus; and, in a worst case, biomechanics might elucidate motion but cannot per se tell us anything about the essentially human elements of human movement. (Charteris & Scott 1993: 208)Though, to be sure, more recent psychology has paid more attention to both of these aspects. Can verify this when I turn to some recent papers in Psychological Science.
Michael Argyle (1975) has cautioned that some of the research of social psychologists has been very artificial, with results not readily applicable to real-life situations. Argyle warns further that sociologists of many persuasions are unlikely to embrace ethological methodology inasmuch as they see many bodily movements as 'social acts' not coherently reducible to physical measurement simply because the context is the act. He cites the case of the raised finger of a cricket umpire or a bidder at an auction: the movement has no relevance whatever beyond its social context. (Charteris & Scott 1993: 208)This sounds like an all-too-clever take on "the medium is the message".
The definitive paper of Ekman and Friesen (1969) spanned the repertoire of HNVB, discussing categories, origins, usage, and coding. With respect to the virtually continuous signals emanating from a human being and potentially interpretable (whether correctly or incorrectly) by an observer, Ekman and Friesen distinguished immediately between signals more or less volitionally 'given-out' and tohse more or less unconsciously 'given-off'. (Charteris & Scott 1993: 212)This virtually continuous emanation of signals is always abstracted in some way or another. The observer is hindered by the limits of his perception. The writer is limited by the limits of language. Even video recordings are limited, as they often capture only one perspective and cannot move along with the subject as freely as an observer can. I'll just note that the distinction between "expressions given and expressions given off" is presented on the first few pages of Goffman's breakthrough monograph (Goffman 1959: 4).
An immediate obstacle confronting investigators of HNVB is that the concepts involved (of 'language', 'communication', 'expression', 'action', 'meaning') are by no means universally understood, and there is no guarantee that laborious new definitions will be acceptable to anyone but their author(s). (Charteris & Scott 1993: 212-213)Sadly this is all too true. Personally, I would like to distance myself from such "putty," as Morris calls it, and concoct my own terminology for the specific purposes I have in mind.
It is at this point that we must diverge from Birdwhistell, whose model is specifically focused on social communication per se, and is for 'the student who would understand human social relationship, social learning, social organization and communication'. Since these interesting foci are his, but not ours, this point of divergence is anything but a point of disagreement; Birdwhistell remains one of the clearest writers and most percipient of scholars addressing the field of HNVB from any perspective. Indeed, our operational structure is, at many points, closely congruent with Birdwhistell's (1975) framework. (Charteris & Scott 1993: 213)These authors are so sympathetic. Note that the reference is not to Kinesics and Context but to this paper: Birdwhistell, Ray 1975. Background considerations to the study of the body as a medium of 'expression'. In: Benthall, Jonathan and Ted Polhemus (eds.), The Body as a Medium of Expression. London: Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 36-58.
For Birdwhistell, species-specific core behavior may exist; but if it does no one has yet unequivocally demonstrated it because every so-called universal isolate is in practice culturally modified. Moreover, what we think are true universals turn out to be homomorphs caused rather by the inescapable fact that the finite architecture of the human body has finite motor capabilities. Birdwhistell makes the search for universals a non-issue not because there aren't any, but because his (social interaction) focus lies elsewhere. (Charteris & Scott 1993: 214)Ekman and Friesen consolidated this fact in their own moder, in which cultural modifications are viewed as "display rules". Now that I think about it, it would appear that their insistence on display rules may have been a product of their time. Nowadays it may be possible to dispense with the concept of rules and replace it with, well, anything, really. Even semiotic jargon could do - semiosis, sign systems, etc. (even memes) could take the place of "rules". The most general label I can think of at the moment would be "display modification", as modification leaves open the method by which modification is brought about and whether it is as persistent or compulsive as rules or not.
If we assume the facile view that species-specific core behavioral 'universals' would represent innate and hence extracultural emissions, free of volitional control and thus outside the realm of intentionality (which is in any case operationally inaccessible), then we can only find meaning in a behavior by investigating social consequences. It is not the decoder's interpretation of the encoder's verbal explanation of what his NVB signifies that is evidence for meaning. Such encoder responses are data, not meaning. Nor is it the consensus of experts judging a given situation that provides meaning. Rather, the meaning of any act rests in the differences its presence and absence makes in a customary interactional sequence. Mackay (1972) provides several interesting examples to show how encoder intentionality is inferred from just this process. (Charteris & Scott 1993: 214)Wow. This is extremely interesting. I would build on this and extend it to concourse in that in a literary work, although the author may try to conduct or instruct the reader to interpret a behaviour in a specific way, ultimately the "meaning" of a behaviour rests in its relations with the semiotic totality of the novel. That is, not only social consequences, but the structure of the work in general. A solitary character's behaviour may have no social consequences, but it does effect the reader's interpretation of what is going on in that world.
Ekman and Friesen had noted that emotion-reflecting affective movements (usually in the form of expressive facial affects) constitute a major component of HNVB. These are easily remembered by the acronym SADFISH, as comprising mood-related expressions of sadness, anger, disgust, fear, interest, surprise, and happiness: hence the broad category, Affects. (Charteris & Scott 1993: 218)lol wut
The fourth category, like the third tied to speech, was however distinct inasmuch as it covered those movements which, on a longer-term basis than illustrators, serve as Regulators of the flow of verbal social interaction, or are concomitant with directions of conversation rather than single-word inflections. (Charteris & Scott 1993: 220)The regulative function that I wished to outline, though, didn't involve speech. That is, it didn't regulate speech or conversation, but the other's behaviour. I use past tense because I'm not sure if anything would come of it.
Apart from the fact that these five categories do not seem to be of equal significance as components of HNVB, there is also the question whether Ekman and Friesen's Illustrators and Regulators are sufficiently distinct to merit separate and equivalent status. We recognize rather a category we call modulators, comprising Ekman and Friesen's Illustrators and Regulators as the main components, sometimes separate, but sometimes linked in a synchrony or feedback or reciprocity system between interlocutors or potentially conversing agents. (Charteris & Scott 1993: 220)You could probably shorten it to modors.
Modulators may also regulate (at a level beyond word or phrase) the flow of verbal interaction by signifying 'go on', 'repeat', 'elaborate', 'hurry up', 'stop'. In a sense postural echo, gaze behavior, and affirmation/negation signals are applicable here. It is, in our view, a matter of taste whether or not one wishes to accept Poyatos's more recent (1983) incorporation of these same regulatory cues during nonconversational interactive encounters. (Charteris & Scott 1993: 221)I welcome this expansion. I agree with Poyatos's expansion as well, because conversation is not important for my purposes. But then again I'd like to view regulation as a function of behaviour rather than a category of behaviours. Poyatos, F. 1983. New Perspectives in Non-Verbal Communication. New York: Pergamon Press.
For instance, submissive behavior throughout the Primate Order (and even more universally) involves cowering postures in which the body is made to appear small; it comes as no surprise that in human displays of religiosity, regardless of cultural tradition, submission before assumed deities likewise can be reduced to genuflections of one form or another, with trunk bowed and head lowered, often with the eyes averted. (Charteris & Scott 1993: 222-223)I'm sure there are religious practices which demonstrate abduction (pulling away from the body) rather than adduction (pulling towards the body). Even Christian prayer postures are diverse enough to prove this (e.g. holding arms out and looking up).
In a somewhat different approach, Hinde (1974) expressed the dilemma as follows: 'not all cross-cultural or cross-specific similarities involve the form of a movement pattern. Sometimes they concern general muscle tonus'. Hinde was here specifically distinguishing between the eyebrow-flash, for him a movement pattern, and the dynamic postures of dominant versus subordinate and dejected rhesus monkeys, for him a phonemenon of 'general muscle tonus' as distinct from movement. While from the perspective of our discipline the submissive and/or dominant demeanors of rhesus monkeys, or primates in general, are unequivocally movement phenomena, we sympathize with the technique whereby Hinde sidesteps the slippery misuse of 'movement' as explanatory of something as concrete as an eyebrow flash and also of something as vaguely specified as a conformation, a deportment, a general demeanor or generalized 'muscle tonus'. (Charteris & Scott 1993: 223-224)Hinde is on to something here. Facial attractiveness, for example, I think stems not so much from facial animation (as some anecdotal reports would have it) but from muscle tone. It's still a nonverbal phenomenon, but not exactly a movement phenomenon.
As observers of HNVB, any instance of which occurs somewhere on the corporeal-contextual continuum, our first operational decision is whether this behavior lies at the elemental (corporeal) end of the spectrum, at the amplified (contextual) end, or in fact is a methodologically inseparable melange of the two. (Charteris & Scott 1993: 228)These can be boiled down to "an anatomical analysis of facial action" and "inferences about underlying state" in the case of facial expressions (Ekman & Friesen 1976: 61), although "underlying state" should be replaced with "social situation".
Chomsky, Noam 1979. Human Language and Other Semiotic Systems. Semiotica 25(1/2): 31-44.
One approach, which happens to interest me particularly, begins with the observation that knowledge of language - what is sometimes called competence - develops through a series of stages reaching a mature steady state, some time before puberty, after which changes are quite marginal to the system. (Chomsky 1979: 31)If competence is taken by itself then equating it with "knowledge of language" is quite exclusionary. If, on the other hand, this is viewed in conjunction with language as code and with its concomitant metalingual function, then it makes a lot of sense and I wouldn't be surprised one bit if this is a point of concordance between Chomsky and Jakobson.
The second question, what is a language, is not, as it stands, a question of science at all - just as the question, what is a visual system, or a system of locomotion, is not as it stands a question of science. Rather, these questions pose problems of conceptual analysis. To determine whether music, or mathematics, or the communication system of bees, or the system of ape calls, is a language, we must first be told what is to count as a language. If by language is meant human language, the answer will be trivially negative in all of these cases. If by language we mean symbolic system, or system of communication, then all of these examples will be languages, as will numerous other systems - e.g., style of walking, which is in some respects a conventional culturally-determined system used to communicate attitude, etc. If something else is intended, it must be clarified before inquiry can begin. (Chomsky 1979: 32)By this merit a lot of work done in semiotics is not science. Though he does not define science. With regards to language, I think it's best to avoid this term. It's a piece of putty, just like meaning.
Human language is characteristically used for free expression of thought, for establishing social relations, for communication of information, for clarifying one's ideas, and in numerous other ways. While some describe its essential purpose as 'communication', there is, to my knowledge, no substantive formulation of this proposal with empirical content; it can be sustained only if the term 'communication' is used in so loose a sense as to deprive the proposal of any interest. Crucially, there is no basis for the belief that human language is used 'essentially' for 'instrumental ends' - to obtain some benefit. (Chomsky 1979: 35-36)Does this negate the Jakobsonian statement that language is a goal-oriented structure? Also, a random idea - what if I played around with the idea of a "concursive function of language"?
It has even been proposed - quite plausibly, in my personal view - that the study of word meaning is not, properly speaking, part of the study of language at all, but rather concerns other cognitive systems which are connected in part to language through some sort of 'labelling'. To the extent that this assumption is valid, the study of semantics of human language will be concerned with compositional properties, that is, the ways in which the meaning of a phrase relates to the meaning of its parts. (Chomsky 1979: 37)Damn, Chomsky, it's like you're trying to be controversial. Also, if taken at his word, then my concursive study is not a study of language, either (which I'm completely fine with).
Chvatík, Květoslav 1981. Semiotics of a literary work of art. Dedicated to the 90th birthday of Jan Mukařovský (1891-1975). Semiotica 37(3/4): 193-214.
Many authors of semiotic interpretations of literature do, in fact, overlook the fundamental thing that distinguishes a literary work of art from other texts: the language in a work of art does not function as a mere intermediary; it is not restricted to objective information on phenomena and events that exist independently of the speaker and text, as is the case with the communicative function of language, but has another function as well. Or, more exactly, its communicative function is modified by other functions. For instance, the language of a literary work of art tells of reality that itself - as a literary utterance - is only constituted in the structure of a possible potential sense: The tragedy of the life of Madame Bovary does not exist before or outside the text of Flaubert's novel. There is not only a qualitative, not only an aesthetic, but a fundamental ontological difference between the text of a court testimony on a murder case and the text of Dostoyevski's Crime and Punishment. (Chvatík 1981: 197)Or in other words, the literary work is not a historical document. It's reality is artistic.
"[...] the [mental or intellectual] character of the denotation of a work of art". E.g. thought, not object.If signs not relating to any distinct reality are possible, still a sign always does refer to something... What, then, is the indistinct reality to which the work of art refers? It is the total context of all phenomena that may be called social, for example, philosophy, politics, religion, economics and so on. It is for this reason that art, more than any other social phenomenon, has the power to characterize and represent the 'age'. (Mukařovský 1936a: 84)In his later works, of course, Mukařovský further developed and deepened the bases of semiotics of a work of art (submitted in condensed form in a paper 'Art as a semiotic fact' [1978](, especially as concerns the noetic character of the denotation of a work of art. (Chvatík 1981: 198)
The summit of Mukařovský's semiotics of a literary work of art is the study on the 'Genetics of sense in Mácha's poetry' (Mukařovský 1938a), which develops the ideas of semantic context, semantic gestures, and the whole sense of the work. The process of semiosis is made dynamic and viewed as a historic process of the origin of the sense of a literary work of art. (Chvatík 1981: 198)"Semantic gestures" has peaked my interest.
Červenka was led to the characteristics of the work as an indication by the necessity of replying in the affirmative to the question of whether a work of art in its totality can be considered a sign. But the recognition of the sign character of the whole work does not demand agreement with the thesis that the work as a whole forms a single sign (even though Mukařovský sometimes used this shorthand formulation). On the contrary, the analysis of semantic dynamics and of semantic unification taking place in the sign construction of a work of art, as presented by Červenka in his book, comes logically to the conclusion that the resulting overall importance of the work is the new quality, formed by the complicated layered structure of the subsidiary signs and meanings. In other words, the whole work is a sign structure, not a single sign. (Chvatík 1981: 199-200)Related questions were tackled by Lotman, who also followed Mukařovský's work closely. In Lotman's view, the whole text is indeed a sign, but (at least as far as I understand it) it is a sign in culture. When thought in terms of levels, Chvatik is referring to the intratextual fact that a whole work is composed of signs, while Lotman approaches the intertextual level. When it comes to my material, 1984 is definitely considered a sign in its totality. That is, "Orwellian" and "like 1984" have gained cultural currency as signs of surveillance society (among other things).
Naturally a question arises of how the work-sign can signify - and indicatively, too, that is on the basis of causal connection - the personality of its originator, which, according to Červenka's conception, is constituted only by the complex meaning of the work. (Chvatík 1981: 200-201)This emphasis on the personality of the author seems like a pseudo-problem. Such work-signs can function in a culture and signify complex meaning even without a knowable author (e.g. anonymous texts).
The analysis of the semantic construction of a literary work presented in the tenth chapter of Červenka's work permits another conclusion that, in our opinion, represents more adequately the sense of Mukařovský's theoretical impulses and of Červenka's own analyses: (1) The text of a literary work of art as a certain meaningful whole is created by a complicated, dynamic, richly layered structure of signs, interpreted by the reader against the background of the concrete structure of the artistic codes of a certain society. (2) Very heterogeneous elements can enter into the process of art semiosis, constituting the resulting overall meaning of the work as a new semantic quality, including various kinds and types of signs. The specificity of art semiosis does not consist in the use of one kind of signs (symbols, icons, or indications), but in the specific manner of the construction of meaning contexts, in the dynamic oscillation on the axis of real-fictive denotations, and also in the specific nature of the semantic-aesthetic codes, especially the genre and style codes. (Chvatík 1981: 200)For my purposes it must be pointed out that some of these "various kinds and types of signs" are nonverbal and that literary work binds descriptions of bodily behaviour (concourse) into the narrative in ways that may influence how these bodily behaviours are conceptualized by the readers not only against the background of the artistic codes of a certain society but above these codes. E.g. not only does art imitate life, but life also imitates art.
Opposed to the picture of the personality in lyrical poetry, for instance, stands the objectivity of the epic and the impersonality of the aspect of a social novel, and the effort to suppress the image of the subject of the author in documentary prose, in various kinds of factual literature, collages, etc. (Chvatík 1981: 201)Is this related to "individuation"?
Again, we were careful in using the formulation 'semiotic process modified by the aesthetic function', not using, for instance, 'aesthetic signs,' since (a) words used in the text of a literary work of art are also used in purely informative language; (b) the basic characteristics of the process of semiosis, mediated by signs, indicating some third thing that lies outside the bearer of the sign, i.e., outside the verbal text, must be preserved; and (c) the aesthetic function does not always visibly come to the fore in the structure of the function of a literary work of art, and on the contrary it can accentuate and 'foreground' some other function, for instance one of recognition, evaluation, ethics, etc. (Chvatík 1981: 201-202)So in case of concourse, we'd have (1) verbal description of behaviour; (2) the mental image of behaviour this description calls forth; and (3) the behaviour as experienced in real life. In this sense, Peirce's Representamen → Interpretant → Object can be conceptualized at least in two ways. In reading a literary description the order goes: word-sign → thought-sign → body-sign. In describing someone's behaviour in real life, on the other hand, proceeds thus: body-sign → thought-sign → word-sign.
A superficial view identifies the usual structuralist semiotics of literature with the thesis of the autonomy of aesthetic signs, with emphasis on the 'excessive' arrangement and polysemy of artistic texts. It is true that Roman Jakobson continues to develop and deepen his thesis on poetic language as language for the purpose of expression, on information for its own sake - as when, for instance, in connection with music he speaks of the so-called 'introvert semiosis', which occurs expressly in poetry. But the sense of his conception is better expressed by the following old formulation:Is it introvert semiosis or introversive semiosis? The weight and value of words and their compositions concern the question of autonomy. "Noetic" does seem appropriate in this context, as "intellectual productivity" signifies something completely different from the consciousness of reality.A word is felt as a word and not as a mere representative of the object named or as an outburst of emotion ... words and their composition, their meaning, their outer and inner form are not an indifferent indication of fact, but take on their own weight and value. - Why is all this necessary? - Because, besides the direct consciousness of identity between the sign and the object (A is A1) also a direct consciousness is necessary of the lack of this identity (A is not A1); this antinomy is essential, because without this contradiction there is no movement of ideas, there is no movement of signs, the relationship between the idea and the sign becomes automatic, the course of events is stopped, the consciousness of reality dies away. (Jakobson 1934: 175)This includes, besides syntactic productivity (words and their composition), whose examination is Jakobson's greatest contribution, also noetic productivity (the consciousness of reality) of the process of semiosis with the dominance of the aesthetic function. The elaboration of these aspects, not only from the linguistic aspect, but also from that of literary theory and aesthetics, is the contribution made by Jan Mukařovský. (Chvatík 1981: 202)
Mukařovský faces this possible objection in this way: 'The answer to it was anticipated by the finding that a work of art is a sign, and therefore in its essence a social fact; also the attitude that an individual takes up towards reality is not just his personal property ... but is to a great extent ... predestined by the social relationships into which the individual is bound' (Mukařovský 1936b: 83). (Chvatík 1981: 205)Very reminiscent of Peirce and his attitude towards the individual and his circle of society, which are intertwined, syncretic. Still, not all art is social, though both these terms are ambiguous enough to make any argument fluid and ultimately pointless. I'm currently not interested in putty fights.
There is a question of how concretely the aesthetic function evokes that meaning-forming activity of works of art, pooling partial meanings from the whole culture, from philosophy, science, ideology, ethics, in brief from the whole sphere of meanings and values apart from art, but transforming them into a qualitatively new system of meanings. This ability to integrate and make accessible to sensory perception meanings that are often largely abstract makes art, in fact, a kind of semiological link to the whole culture. (Chvatík 1981: 205)Semiosphere? Semiosphere.
This question brings us to the syntactical problem of artistic semiosis. On a general level it can be answered by saying that a work of art achieves semiotic productivity with the dominance of the aesthetic function through its specific semantic construction, evoking the characteristic intertwining sense happenings, proceeding from lower to higher components and layers and coming to a peak in the overall sense of the work, in its unique semantic gesture, representing the dynamic unity of the meaning and form of the work (Jankovič 1972). (Chvatík 1981: 205)Thus, "semantic gesture" is not meant as "semantic hand movement" and probably has nothing to do with nonverbal communication. It is very likely that what is meant by "gesture" in this context is the more archaic meaning, something like "semantic disposition" or "semantic deportment". E.g. how the literary work "carries itself" semantically.
The central position here is occupied by the semantic context, in whose development lies, to a great extent, the specificity constituting the sense of works of art. The function of the artistic semantic context lies in its releasing the individual semantic elements and layers from their immediate (documentacy) relationship to the things signified, so that the concluded meaning of the whole can bring the perceiver all the more intensively into relationship with the world as a whole: 'So far however as the nomination as a semantic unit is firmly planted in the context and stands out in intensive contact with its nominated neighbours, the cohesion of the context is rid of immediate contact with the thing which it means in itself: only the completed context as a meaningful whole links directly into the contact with reality' (Mukařovský 1938a). (Chvatík 1981: 205)E.g. the events of 1984 have not occured in reality, but the work as a meaningful whole is related to WWII and Stalinism.
Finally, the most fundamental specific feature of semiosis of art is its creative character. An utterance in informative language has a purely functional, instrumental character; its aim lies outside itself. An utterance in verbal art constitutes, on the contrary, a relatively independent world of a work of art that, like a statue, picture, or symphony, lasts and carries its being, value, and sense within itself. The meaning of a work of art does not disturb the value of its form, its sign structure. In the process of artistic semiosis the very act of presentation of things and events becomes deeply meaningful. The values potentially penetrating all components of the construction of a work are realized in its whole meaning in the impulse to take up an evaluating attitude toward the world. One is captivated by the work it presents a new vision of things many times passed by; a question is born in one's mind of the sense and the value of being. (Chvatík 1981: 209)E.g. introversiveness, autonomy or self-referentiality. For my purposes, it is relevant that the presentation of bodily behaviour becomes "deeply meaningful". Or, rather, how it becomes meaningful.
The creation of a work is not a mere technological operation - even though it requires perfect mastery of technique - nor is it a panel construction, a manipulation with prefabricated meanings, truths, and values. True creation is a hazardous search, testing and grouping in unmapped territory; it is the creation of new values and new sense by renewing and making problematic the original relationship between words and things. (Chvatík 1981: 209-210)Same could be said about semiotics on the metalevel.
The the thesis asserting that the work of art is a single sign comes into conflict with a fact to which Mukařovský drew attention in his study 'Intention and non-intention in art'; it is exactly nonintention that makes us feel the work as a thing. Mukařovský rightly speaks of 'the oscillation of a work of art between the quality of signs and reality, between the mediation and directness of its effect. ... the basis of the sign effect of a work of art is its semantic unification, and the basis of its "reality", directness, is what resists unification in a work of art' (Studie z estetiky [1966: 105]). It is exactly the heterogeneity of elements and components of which a literary ork of art is built up, the presence of signs of various kinds and types and also nonsign aspects, resisting the process of semantic unification, that forms the tension of the development of literature as an art and has an effect, through its 'directness', on the deeper, generally human layers of the recipient's consciousness. (Chvatík 1981: 210-211; note 8)This is the point of convergence with Lotman that I find most interesting. What are "nonsigns", though? Extrasemiotic reality?
He further differentiates the sign, the verbal meaning, and the objective meaning from the layer of intentional objects and the sphere of reality: 'A differentiation must be made between reality (Wirklichkeit), that somehow has an effect (wirkt), and words that do not give the effect of reality - only in childish thought or if there is some magical meaning as in the case of primitives. In art, however, even pure meanings may find themselves in the sphere of intentional objects. For instance, Gogol's "Nose" strayed into the sphere of intentional objects involuntarily - the name itself became a (literary) reality' (p. 10). (Chvatík 1981: 211-212 [Appendix: Essence of Mukařovský's course 'The semiology of art' (1936b: 37)])Too bad that "objective meaning" is too philosophical a concept. I'm not at all sure if body-signs belong to the sphere of objective meaning.
Mukařovský searches for other ways of understanding the specificity of the sign construction of a work of art. In the record of his lecture, for instance, we find the formulation according to which 'the main task of an autonomous sign in art is to represent an informational sign' (p. 17) - so that an artistic sign is a sort of 'sign of a sign'. According to another formulation new meanings are formed by the aesthetic use of signs; 'art is a constant rebuilder of the empire of signs'. (Chvatík 1981: 212)Oh wow. This is more useful. In concourse, the autonomous, artistic word-sign represents an informational, communicative body-sign.
The concluding formulation, summing up the record, states: 'A work of art is a sign. It is neither a direct expression of the creator nor of the life of society - nor a means to something that stands outside them, for it has its own inner reason: it is within itself. However, this autonomy should not be understood as separating it from all relationships or placing it in a vacuum. On the contrary, a work of art has a relationship to everything: an intensive and dynamic relationship, as it represents the world to man.' (p. 39). (Chvatík 1981: 212)A very sensible exposition of the autonomy of the aesthetic sign (e.g. the poetic function of language) or introversiveness.
Cook, Mark and Mansur G. Lalljee 1972. Verbal Substitutes for Visual Signs in Interaction. Semiotica 6(3): 212-221.
Kendon (1967) has described visual signals given by the speaker to show whether he has finished or not ('completion signals' and 'non-completion signals'). When the speaker has finished, he looks up at the listener. If he does not do so the speaker will take significantly longer to start speaking. (Cook & Lalljee 1972: 212)I recently ranted on reddit about how an Australian bank representative's headshake while saying something to the effect that "things will be better in the future" was not a nonverbal Freudian slip but a means of emphasis and a means for signaling completion. Since the interviewer cannot be seen on the video, it can only be guessed that his visual completion signal complements this interpretation. Generally, these conversational signals are easy to ignore.
What other verbal substitutes could be used for visual signals? The least likely is overt decision, for comments about the interaction are taboo according to Goffman (195(). More indirect signals are necessary. Questions are one good way of signaling completion, making it clear that the speaker has finished and it is up to the other person to speak. (Cook & Lalljee 1972: 231)Nonverbal ethics has it's beginnings in Goffman? This should not be surprising but somehow it still is.
Kendon has also provided data on 'attention signals'; at intervals throughout the speaker's utterance, and especially at pauses, the listener nods, signalling continuing interest and willingness to listen. Matarazzo et al. (1964) have shown that these nods affect the speaker's length of utterance. (Cook & Lalljee 1972: 231)Pseudo-scientific body language books suggest nodding intentionally to manipulate the conversation. I'd advise against it, because nodding along to something you're not really interested in will contrive the situation.
A more general conclusion can be drawn. Much work on nonverbal signalling has tended to ignore redundancy, and to assume that every signal is given deliberately, conveys a vital piece of information, is the only signal to convey that information, and is anxiously awaited and carefully digested by the listener. This admittedly exaggerated picture is obviously false, for human communication is very redundant, often very casual, and frequently ignored entirely. However we do not know how redundant nonverbal signalling is - the present study suggested that it may be very redundant indeed. It is obviously important to establish the significance of various signals, and the weight given them by sender and receiver. (Cook & Lalljee 1972: 220)Fortunately, studying literary material can evade this problem as there is little need for unintentional redundancy (intentional redundancy would be a whole different matter). But I agree. Even today redundancy is, as far as I am aware, ignored.
Csányi, Vilmos 2000. The 'human behavior complex' and the compulsion of communication: Key factors of human evolution. Semiotica 128(3/4): 243-258.
Species-specific behavioral traits of humans can be sorted into three main groups. First is the group of social behavior patterns, second is the group of various mechanisms of behavior-synchronization and the third one is the activities of construction. (Csányi 2000: 243)It would appear that I am interested in only the first two groups, lest "activities of construction" includes semiopoietics.
Social traits connected to group life:Whaddayaknow, semiopoietics is actually included. These other factors are interesting, too. Since they are very general, it would be fruitless to begin tying them with my material right now, but I'll just make a note that INGSOC does not believe in the "Multifunctionality of sexual life".
Behavior mechanisms for synchronization of group activities:
- Social attraction, existence of closed and dense groups
- Decreased and regulated internal aggression of the groups
- Xenophobia
- Food-sharing
- Complementary type of cooperation
- Multifunctionality of sexual life
- Group loyalty
- Group individuality
Constructive abilities:
- Empathy: synchronization of emotions
- Hypnability: governed behavior synchronization
- Rhythm, singing and dancing: emotional and behavioral synchronization
- Imitation
- Education, teaching and discipline
- Rule-following
(Csányi 2000: 244)
- Abstraction
- Tool usage and tool-making
- Mimics
- Language use
After the separation from the apes, members of the Homo line were able and compelled to tolerate the continuous close presence of the other group members. This trait is only weakly present in our closest relatives, the chimps, which live in small fission-fusion type groups but spend a considerable part of their time alone or together with their young (McGrew 1992). (Csányi 2000: 244)Hmm. When people casually say that humans are "social animals", it should perhaps not be treated simply as a self-evident truism. Here it would seem to be an atypical trait in primates.
Susceptibility to hypnosis also belongs to this group, enabling control of one another by means of a close emotional bond and, according to recent findings, this is not a unidirectional communication channel but a bilateral one. Studying both the hypnotists and the subjects, Bányai (1985) found that sudden deepening of hypnosis occurred after a number of phenomena, which was called comprehensive interactional synchrony (CIS). CIS appeared either in overt movements (like joint movements of the limbs when the subject performed motor suggestions), postures (e.g., posture mirroring), or in some covert processes (like breathing and myographic activity). These movements were involuntary and unaware. The most important aspect of this study is that the 'control' is not a one-way process directed from the hypnotist to the subject, but that there is a mutual interaction in which both the hypnotist and subject participate by concerting their cognitive and emotional experiences (Bányai 1992). (Csányi 2000: 246)This sounds all too familiar from some pickup (seduction) manuals I read before my studies in semiotics. One of those suggested to synchronize your breathing with your target's by observing the movements of the shoulders and collarbones. Now it would appear extremely contrived, as communication is about mutual awareness and influence, not unidirectional control. This latter aspect has made me dislike pickup artists greatly.
The question also could arise whether there is an adaptive value of the special human trait of hypnotic susceptibility, and if there is, then what is its basis? In my opinion, hypnotic susceptibility might have evolved as a mechanism for concerting actions of cooperative individuals. It has been a tool to synchronize brain models by non-linguistic means for hominid groups and in that way promote cooperation for a given complex task. (Csányi 2000: 246-247)This seems reasonable enough, if not slightly utilitarian (or, as biologists would have it, functionalistic).
Well-founded hypotheses exist which suggest the appearance of biological communication mechanisms enabling the synchronization and planning of group actions well before the advent of language. An example is mimetics, the enhanced ability of the human face to communicate (Hjortsjö 1969, Ekman 1973), comprising some 250-300 different possible messages and exceeding the communication ability of animals by about a factor of 10. (Csányi 2000: 247)Ah, well done! Besides a paper by Ekman and Friesen (1976) detailing their methods, this has been the only other reference to Hjortsjö's Man's Face and Mimic Language (1969) that I've come across.
A very important mechanism for synchronization of group behavior is the rule-following behavior of man. Our species is attracted by group norms, verbal or written rules at every level of social existence. At the simplest level rule-following is a behavior tool for minimizing conflicts. To achieve such effect we do not need formulated rules. Rule-following is closely connected to the rank order of the group The ethological ability of man to form and keep a rank order is transformed to a new organizational level by rule-following. Positions in human groups correspond to personal physical power only in the most primitive ones. Groups, which have culture and language, have behavior rules to define higher positions. A leader of a group or tribe usually does not have to fight physically for his position, because the ideas connected to leadership embody rules that control acquiring and maintenance of the various positions. (Csányi 2000: 247)Ah, well done! Besides a paper by Ekman and Friesen (1976) detailing their methods, this has been the only other reference to Hjortsjö's Man's Face and Mimic Language (1969) that I've come across.
It is important to recognize another connection between rank order and rule-following. If animals are standing face to face, then the dominant one takes its share or fulfills its will. When he takes food, a female or a sleeping place etc. from the other, we may call this brutal dominance. When a man follows a rule he is obeying a depersonalized dominance. We call this rule dominance. The dominant individual is substituted by a socially accepted rule, and the submissive person performs the order embodied in the rule. The source of the command in the various social ideas is frequently personalized by the ancestors or gods, but for the average man it is convincing if something 'must be done' in a certain way.This exactly the kind of stuff I'm reading these papers for. Social power is largely semiotic. I have little hope in the concept of "rules", but there are other means of depersonalized dominance and one of those, in 1984, is Big Brother's omnipresent gaze.
Obedience can easily be achieved by just mentioning that rules exist. (Csányi 2000: 247-248)
Construction ability appears in abstract thinking, language usage, and making of artifacts, in behavior and even in forming the social structure of the group. With the help of construction, man creates linguistic models of his environment and of his group, and operates and analyzes them as well (Csányi 1992a and 1992b). The greater part of the rules controlling the activity of human groups exists only in linguistic models; they can be formulated only in them. The humanization of the Homo groups cannot be separated from the evolution of language. (Csányi 2000: 248)Yup, semiopoietics.
Animal communication, because it is called such, is a group of controlling mechanisms which allows the recognition of individuals, controls aggression and sex, helps to maintain contact and avoid predators, etc. All of these functions are provided without conscious intention. (Csányi 2000: 249)A somewhat too cybernetic definition of animal communication.
True communication appeared in man with sender and receiver, message and meaning. It appears as the transfer of a conceptual construction from one mind to another mind. The primary force helping the emergence of this new property could be the increase in density of the early Homo groups. Living together in continuous face to face situations, they needed not only regulatory mechanisms concerning aggression and sex, or signaling danger, but also tools for receiving information about the intentions, and even about the fine details of the mental states of their group mates. This urge, which can be called 'compulsion to communicate', helped to concert the actions of individuals in the interests of the whole group. (Csányi 2000: 249)Hence this paper's title. There is another side to the compulsion to communicate. When communication is restricted, censored or forbidden, this compulsion... Well, it leads Winston to write his diary, doesn't it.
The song of a male tit is very attractive for a female, and it is the introductory part of the courtship. The same song is repulsive for a male competitor and is connected to aggression and territoriality. For a predator the tit song is also attractive because it signals a prey. It could be entirely neutral as a background noise without any information value for another uninterested species. (Csányi 2000: 250)This paragraph has Uexküll written all over it.
Concerning the social function of the expression of emotions, it is possible that they serve to signal the motivation behind them. Expression of an emotion could be a very important predictor for the action of the sender in the next moment. (Csányi 2000: 251)What is "a truncated act" (sensu George H. Mead).
For mimetics a conscious self-induced representation in the brain is necessary which is not linguistic yet, but intentional, communicative in nature. Joining representation and communication is the essence of this new trait. (Csányi 2000: 252)Will confirm after reading about "Facial Self-Imitation" (Cook, Johnston & Heyes 2013).
The mimic communicates not only a concrete object or person or an event but also a story Thestory is not a signal which one can understand, and then choose to ignore it or not. The story occurs in time - someone does something to somebody. The units of the story have meaning only in relation to the whole event. The story must be interpreted, and we have to be involved in it with our emotions and empathy. Mimetics play is very important even nowadays; it is the source of the arts. (Csányi 2000: 252)This is a valuable construct for advancing Santaella Braga's (above) triad of description, narration, dissertation, namely the middle one.
These properties of mimetic skill can lead to high differentiation among the groups. The mimetic symbols can evolve separately in each group. Mimetic cultures start to isolate themselves in this way, which further enhances the effects of group selection. With mimetic skill, a communication system emerges which has an almost infinite component pool, and its usage needs a construction ability to create the complex stories from the components. (Csányi 2000: 252)This could be tied in with the topic of facial memes, e.g. MS Paint drawn anonymous images with verbal correlates (names) and specific uses (e.g. trollface, me gusta, etc.). The difference is that while mimetic symbols here are attributed to specific groups, the internet enables facial memes to become almost instantaneously known the world over, resulting in "bleeding into reality" in different significantly cultures.
Representation can be divided into two large categories in the brain of the carrier of a mimetic culture. In the first category all of the primary or personal representation is sorted including those which are secondary representations for personal use only. These are the same by and large as those used by an ape. But the carrier of a mimetic culture possesses representations that appera during group communications. Those are the memories from when he understood something from somebody's mime, or his own mime was understood by the group. (Csányi 2000: 253)These primary or personal representations seem compatible with the topic of private signs. Damn, Csanyi is blowing through my catalogue of interesting topics in semiotics.
From these two domains of representations the common will be called 'global', and the personal will be called 'local'. The transfer between the two domains is not simple. Someone may think of communicating something which is known only to himself. This primary knowledge can be represented very richly but when transferred to the global domain by mime its richness disappears, but those parts, which were transferred, are multiplied. (Csányi 2000: 253)An interesting addendum to the hypothesis that autocommunication precedes, accompanies and succeeds intercommunication. The multiplication resulting from transferred parts of personal signs may be likened to Lotman's metaphor of textual avalanche. While some would hold that there is no "top of the mountain" from which the first text originated (due to infinite semios.... I mean intertextuality), in this case there is a point of origin - the person who shares his "local" knowledge and can witness the ensuing avalanche. It may be dissatisfying, due to loss in semiotic richness, but you can't stop an avalanche.
It is important to remark that both global and local representations can be regarded as an associative network in the brain because the meaningful components have connections with each other. The larger the network, the more easy it is to increase it and create new meaning in it. The network of meaningful representations is a group construction which is a continuously growing open system. (Csányi 2000: 254)By analogy, this blog can be thought of as a "cognitive" network (in the metaphorical sense that it contains intellectual products from various sources tied together by my haphazard emphasis and comments). It would follow that it's easier to increase it (which it is - this paper, for example, has been extremely interesting and provided lots of quotes because it touches upon topics that I have met and thought about before). But is it easier to create new meaning in it? This post begins with a neologism, semiocopeia. It would appear that it indeed is easier to create new meaning, but this new meaning seems, at least now, very trivial and inconsequential. This last fact is actually related to the last sentence in this quote - my tedious neologisms are not part of the group network of meaningful representations. They are local, not global.
Danow, David K. 1984. Lotman and Uspensky: A perfusion of models. Semiotica 64(3/4): 343-357.
All of the essays are deeply rooted in material derived exclusively from Slavic 'texts'. The latter term is used in the broadest possible sense in these writings to embrace all-inclusively heterogeneous material including historical accounts, biographical detail, literary works, religious rite, documented social behavior, ethnographic features, linguistic concerns, and other cultural manifestations. In this creative way, by extending their research beyond analyses devoted exclusively to literary concerns, Lotman and Usponsky apply this broad theoretical concept of 'text' in concrete analytic practice. Understood on one level as a delimited configuration of signs, a text may also be conceived, on another, as a complex sign within an entire constellation of texts, or 'sign complexes'. (Danow 1984: 344)What here is called "documented social behavior", I label concourse for sake of brevity. The "documentation" part is problematic, though, and in several ways, as my conception of concourse also includes literary descriptions of social behaviour, and I believe that even quite accurate documentation of social behaviour relies of literary linguistic conventions for sake of accurate documentation.As the epigraph of this paper would have it, we're not dealing with separated, isolated phenomena, but with a part of a larger picture.
Culture is therefore understood as the mechanism which allows for the creation of texts, while the texts are seen as the basic product or realization of culture. Conversely, the culture is itself mirrored by its constituent texts, yielding as a purely hypothetical construct an all-embracing 'culture text'. Posited to encompass at the highest level all cultural texts (and the ideologies expressed within them), this term is intended to convey the most abstract formulation of a particular culture's 'model of the world' or conception of reality, while itself remaining an abstraction. (Danow 1984: 344)My understanding of the notion of "culture text" seems limited compared to this exposition. I would have thought that culture texts are merely texts that carry a cultural function. Here it would appear that culture texts are essentially the texts of self-description of a given culture.
Affording a fundamental unity to their work is the view of culture variously expressed, but consistently defined at the outset, 'as a system that stands between man (as a social unit) and the reality surrounding him ... as a mechanism for processing and organizing the information which comes to him from the outside world' (p. x.) In one crucial regard, this linked formulation views man as regulated by culture; his reactions to both the world and the collective are largely determined thereby - as is, significantly, the manner by which he models reality. But it implies as well, as the Russian thinkers affirm, that as a social being man is in potential dialogue with the collective to which he reacts, and which in turn reacts to him. (Danow 1984: 345)This is where a concept such as the regulative function of sign systems would come in handy. The five types of textual communication outlined by Lotman could very well be supplemented with a regulative function which would operate on both production and reception of texts.
As a further significant corollary, in any case, culture is not defined by the sum total of these 'languages' (or sign systems) but rather by their mutual influence and interdependence. Not one of these exists or functions in isolation; all interact, develop, and change as a result of their interaction, allowing for the general functioning of culture as a whole. (Danow 1984: 346)Concourse, in general, is a manifestation of this line of thought. While discourse can be thought of as language in use, e.g. collections of utterances, texts, etc. all the while remaining within the bounds of a single "signifying system", as the French-incline would call it, concourse implies mutual influence and interdependence between at least two different sign systems: language and behaviour. Though it must be admitted that viewing the latter as a sign system has its own corollaries which I won't get into here.
The ingenuity of their selected essays derives largely from the employment of a vast array of explanatory models, buttressed by a wealth of little-known semiotic detail, that affords the possibility (significant in itself) of reinterpreting previously held theoretical positions. (Danow 1984: 346)Again, the Tartu-Moscow School of Cultural Semiotics can be viewed as the original semiocopeia. E.g. Lotman's metaphor that semiotics is like a gun that constructs itself in the process of shooting. A more familiar, but essentially similar, metaphor would be of a plane being built while in flight.
Also considered in detail are such complex issues as the ritualization of everyday activity realized in part as the (sometimes state-supported) theatricalization of reality and the corresponding realization of theatrical or literary models as approved modes of everyday behavior. (Danow 1984: 351)I wonder if ritualization of this kind could also be present in 1984. When everything is said and done before the watchful eye of the telescreens, isn't it all a kind of theater?
As perhaps the main correlative to these related concerns, the role of behavior in culture is treated as a prominent extension or realization of written texts. That behavioral patterns may also be codified, in principle, Lotman and Uspensky attempt to establish in terms of certain basic lineaments. Thus it is pointed out that in the eighteenth century several types of coded behavior are discernible, including the image of the epic 'warrior', the drawing room wit, and his close relation, the professional cynic. Historical figures are shown to have patterned their lives - or deaths - on literary example. But, in lending themselves to possible codification, such lineaments as these are not easily accessible to the analyst, who must rely primarily on written documents in determining the correlating physically enacted mode of conduct. (Danow 1984: 352)Accessing these extensions and realizations is of course a matter of concourse, of interpreting verbal descriptions of bodily, nonverbal behaviour. In case of historical analysis this is of course problematic, because what is recorded is probably fragmentary and inconclusive.
For Lotman and Uspensky, however, the concept of text is indissolubly connected with behavior (or with the culture as a whole), and vice versa: 'A text can only be understood if it is compared extensively with the culture, or more precisely with the behavior of the people contemporary with it; and their behavior can likewise only be made sense of if it is juxtaposed with a large number of texts' (p. 38). Or, as Lotman puts it: 'Behavior is to be regarded as a certain language and as the sum of historically recorded texts' (p. 192) - a viewpoint which again appears to equate, in general terms, behavior with culture. (Danow 1984: 352)This would in effect reduce the sphere of behaviour to that of textualized behaviour. I'm not very pleased with this textual approach to culture, to be honest.
In suggesting that during the Romantic period 'Art becomes a model that life imitates' (p. 145), that excessively broad model is, then, paradoxically prescriptive. In considering realist texts, the direction is reversed, with art modeling life situations, thereby affording a model which is primarily descriptive (Danow 1983: 321-323). 'Realist images ... give a name to types of behavior which exist spontaneously and unconsciously in the depths of a given culture, thus transplanting them into the sphere of the socially conscious' (p. 207). (Danow 1984: 254)Instead of "realist images" I see this very same process in concourse. To be more specific, a certain variety of concourse is especially implicated in this: the pseudo-scientific body language books, which spout descriptions, narrations and dissertations on nonverbal communication. These have gained a wide circulation in the past half century and the myths they contain are perpetuated by unsuspecting readers even today. I wrote an Estonian Wikipedia entry on this, pointing out some most common myths, and my article was edited, adding a whole list of faulty dissertations from those vulgar books.
In effect, Lotman takes as his broad subject for extended analysis a theoretical viewpoint articulatedd by Bakhtin: 'however immutable the presence of that categorical boundary line between [the real and the represented world], they are nevertheless indissolubly tied up with each other and find themselves in continual mutual interaction...' (1981: 254). In his broadly conceived approach to the 'poetics of behavior', Lotman confirms through numerous illustrative instances the potential for the transformation of art into life (proposed as fundamental to romanticism) and of life into art (bearing a similar related relevance to realism), and their intertwining. (Danow 1984: 355)It's too bad that my current literary material does not welcome an analysis of this aspect and must remain on the theoretical side of concourse.
Davidsen, Helle M. 2007. Literary semiotics and cognitive semantics. Semiotica 165(1/4): 337-349.
Altohugh semiotics and cognitive semantics have comparable views of language and meaning, cognitive semantics stresses the realistic aspect more consequently. In fact, structural semiotics seems to have missed the realistic exploration of meaning in preference to a formal and structural investigation. (Davidsen 2007: 337)That is a serious accusation, Miss! And what do you mean by the realistic exploration of meaning? And does my lack of knowledge in this regard stand as a testament to this accusation's truthfulness?
Semiotics has been very successful in describing structural aspects of meaning creation (which cognitive semantics could, in fact, learn from), but literary semiotics has especially failed in its description of specific meaning realization, and has neglected the cultural context of meaning. (Davidsen 2007: 338)More accusations! At this point I can't even realize a description of the structural aspects of meaning-making.
In a cognitive view, language is tied to the human world; it reflects and represents the human conception and the human experience of the world, and the cultural aspect of meaning therefore cannot be eliminated. It is not only language but also literature that inevitably contains cultural meaning. Since literature is made of language, it reflects and represents the human world through its language content. (Davidsen 2007: 338)For my purposes it is relevant to point out that bodily behaviour or nonverbal communication is tied to both conception and experience, not to mention the Secondness inbetween, action.
Cognitive models refer to the cultural knowledge that we all take for granted and share in a culture. They are, as Holland and Quinn put it, 'presupposed, taken-for-granted models of the world that are widely shared ... by the members of a society and that play an enormous role in their understanding of that world and their behavior in it' (1987: 4). (Davidsen 2007: 338)Interesting stuff. I was not aware that "cognitive models" can be defined like that. And wouldn't know what to do with it. It would probably be possible to tie it in with Csanyi's discussion of global and local representations, but that's where my ideas come to a stop.
In a semiotic context, cognitive models can be used to make cultural meaning recognizable and to clarify the content of Eco's encyclopaedia (1979, 1984). Cultural or encyclopedic meanings can be identified, namely, as cognitive models inscribed in words. Words such as picnic, tent, birthday, nurse, lawyer, forest, ship, love, apple, ice cream, etc., do not only contain a semantic content, they alse include cultural knowledge in form of scripts, stereotypes, and scenarios. These clusters of knowledge are equivalent to cultural meaning. (Davidsen 2007: 340)I seem to find tentative connections with concourse everywhere I look (almost every paper I read), but here it seems especially justified, for concourse can also be defined as the totality of cognitive models of bodily behaviour that are inscribed in words (be it in an actual dictionary, which contains verbs for various types of facial expressions, e.g. smiles, frowns, etc. or in a literary work).
Configurations are semiotic manifestations of cognitive models. Both concepts can, along with figurative and thematic meaning, be used to grasp the cultural meaning in literary texts. I will give a short and schematic example to illustrate this. Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway begins with the following sentence:What is here called "visual representations" I designate as the intersection of thought-signs and body-signs, e.g. visualizing bodily behaviour in one's mind. Although I would be reluctant to use the terminology of figuration and configuration, I think Davidsen is on to something important here.Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.'Buy the flowers' refers tot he cognitive model 'flower-buying' (a script), and the figure 'flower' activates the cognitive model 'flower' (a stereotype). The script 'flower-buying' involves the script for 'buying' something and more specific knowledge about where to buy flowers, why to buy them, etc. We would not be surprised, then, if we are told later on that Mrs. Dalloway puts the flowers on the table, but we would begin to wonder if we were told that she ate the flowers. The cognitive model for flowers activates visual representations of flowers and the situations with which flowers are connected (making the home pretty, presents, love, etc). We cannot identify the function of the flowers from the isolated sentence. We need to have more information. But the word itself - flowers - instills a huge amount of encyclopedic knowledge in the text. (Davidsen 2007: 341)
Wills, Dorothy Davis 1986. Not in so many words. Semiotica 58(3/4): 343-369.
The presented study hopes to contribute data and interpretation to a growing body of work on young children's speech. Much of this literature also implicitly or explicitly assumes a critical pose toward the description of this early speech as single-word sentences (holophrases), a popular model in the sixties and into the seventies (not unlike that proposed even by early researchers such as Guillaume). (Wills 1986: 343)I've only met the concept of holophrase in Jakobson (and, of course, in the sixties and early seventies), so I'm firstly just happy to know who (may have) originated it (Gustave Guillaume?).
In our culture, first words are assigned an importance surpassing that given comprehension, good conduct, or other facets of a child's behavior. We think these early linguistic items are vastly overrated, for reasons we will make clear shortly. African parents do not seem to share the American preoccupation with not only the production of some kind of vocabulary at a young age, but with its specific content. For instance, Americans expect and desire children to begin their lifelong careers of word-learning with 'mama' and 'dada'. That many children do say something resembling these terms in their first utterances is no reason to insist on it. Hausa and Wolof parents certainly are not very concerned over when children commence using words or what those words should be. (Wills 1986: 344)Welp, I think this is one of the least annoying cultural characteristics of Americans. Their insistence of perpetual positivity or awesomeness and various forms self-aggrandizing are much more remarkable. hashtaghatinonmurica // Actually, I'm at fault for reading the title of this paper and thinking that it may be about nonverbal communication. Gonna push through nevertheless.
Each child can often does invent words and services for them to perform. These may share meanings with some item(s) from the adult lexicon, or have a new signification of the child's creation. They are easily separable from babbling, tokens, and near-misses. Antinucci and Parisi (1973: 609), Bloom (1973), and other researchers, have labelled such utterances 'dummies', but we feel this is a misnomer. There is nothing false, dead or stupid about them, merely because they count for little in adult terms. Nor are they mere props. (Wills 1986: 346)What do small children and a lot of semioticians have in common?
Monologues, Piaget's egocentric speech, are dominated by babbling but can also be a platform fo rextensive word practice. In conversation with others, children imitate, initate, and reply to dialogue, just as their elders. (Wills 1986: 347)Something that I do frequently in this blog. In effect, I turn academic texts into an autocommunicative dialogue.
The word-babble combinations do not sound bizzare to anyone hearing them. (One is tempted to call them condominiums rather than combinations, due to their property of being shared by both the child who speaks them and the adult language whose words are loaned.) They are generally ignored as communications except in so far as they show communication itself, or its basis, i.e. participation. (Wills 1986: 349)E.g. the babbles are understood as attempts to communicate. This "basis" of communication is phatic - it's a matter of the channel and opening it, without producing (shared) referential signs.
Having evidently exhausted her verbal resources for the time being, namely, the good negative token produced at first, the child resorts to tears and departure to defend her cookie. When interactions get out of hand, children quit communicating discursively. (Wills 1986: 351)Oh snap, shit just got nonverbal!
It may also be true that relatively more of the burden of communication of children is carried by nonverbal signals nad contextual cues sensitively read by caretakers than linguistic data alone. Nonetheless, we observe in the text of their verbal sendings a code far surpassing in complexity the on/off repertoire with which they are sometimes credited. (Wills 1986: 355)Oh. Now it actually went nonverbalistic.
Meaning itself may be different int he universe of small children. As Rodgon observes, language is tied to action, from children's point of view, and to description of the world around them (1976: 122). To say that for them it is more of a whole act, heavily dependent on expressive and deictic gestures and movements plus paralinguistic signals, is not the same as telling us what the act is or how it means. (Wills 1986: 356)Good stuff. Similar attitudes are expressed above (in the paper by Charteris and Scott) in the notion that "the context is the act". That is, the holophrase is an expressive action perhaps not by itself as a standalone unit but as a certain totality, evidencing the child's intention to use its first language.
The main point here is that some characterizations of the 'one-word stage' seem: (a) adultomorphic, that is, describing the child's system in terms of and as if it were a variant of the adult's; looking for the adult form (the goal of development and socialization, supposedly) in any amnifestation [sic] of a child's ability to approximate it, and (b) pathological, namely, having taken the stance that this is an adult sort of business; single-word speech and other childish verbalizations are clearly deficient or deviant in relation to it. (Wills 1986: 357)I think "semitoics" and "nonverberal" just found a buddy: "amnifestation". Now I form my first phrase in this spelling-error-language. It's "an amnifestation of nonverberal semitoics".
Drechsler, Wolfgang 2009. Political semiotics. Semiotica 173(1/4): 73-97.
Political semiotics, as a field and as regards fashion, institutions, and influence on other areas, in spite of quite a number of publications in its realm, some very good, has - if anything - regressed more than progressed. On the one hand, this is not surprising, since, as Ahonen has pointed out, 'semiotics and related orientations have given legitimacy for people with intellectual aspirations to turn from questions of politics, the macro-society and the international system and its injustices to questions involving subjects, subjectivities, minds and selves' (1993b: 5). (Drechsler 2009: 74)That stuff sounds more like philosophy than semiotics, yo.
Bourdiei's similar criticism of semiotics' 'apoliticy,' that it treats 'the social world as a universe of symbolic exchanges and ... reduce[s] action to an act of communication' (1991: 7), is well-known. (Drechsler 2009: 74)This is something I've noticed myself. Modern humanities often makes use of communication theory counterproductively.
[...] we have some definitions of politics for semiotics that are almost exclusively by Ahonen (1987, 1990a, 1990b, 1991b), and they can be easily followed here as well. Particularly helpful is his 1987 essayistic piece, 'Semiotics of politics and political research,' where ahonen refers to the difference between the two (1987: 143), stating that 'political research tends to be more abstract and conceptual than politics' (1987: 149) and that what 'is politics is different in different contexts' (1987: 145).The relation with power is clear enough, but "political meaning" sounds about as useful as "objective meaning" (above). Loads and loads of putty.What politics is must therefore be understood not only as what politics is according to any single of the competing views, but politics also consists of the different conceptions concerning what politics is as well as / the competition between these views. (Ahonen 1987: 145-146)The key point is that 'Politics has to do with power, but there need be synthesis of the rationalist view and the view which emphasizes anonymous structures, processes, and effects' (1987: 146). 'Political research studies structures, processes and effects of the generation and regeneration of political meanings' (1987: 149), and it 'covers the entire generation and regeneration of meaning in politics and in mixtures between politics and what is less politics' (1987: 149-150). (Drechsler 2009: 75)
What is crucial here is that the definition of the political becomes meaningless if it moves away either from power (never mind how embedded or potential) or from institutions - not exclusively, but vitally, politics is about formalized and legitimized hierarchies in a public context (but cf. Neumann 2003). This definition will strike many a reader as forced or even Schmittian (see Schmitt 1991[1932]), but it is just meant to describe what is typically political, not to delineate the field. (Drechsler 2009: 75)E.g. politics is what happens in the "political theater".
The problem is even greater with the lack of definition of semiotics, due to what appears to be an incessant dodging of the definition (see, for fear of infinite regress, Sebeok 1997: 291), and the same is surely tre for the meso-field of sociosemiotics (Randviir 2004: 44-45), to which political semiotics belongs. (Drechsler 2009: 76)Is the same true for sociosemiotics, though? I get that defining semiotics as the study of signs and signs as the objects of semiotics, but sociosemiotics - to my knowledge - deals with sign-use in society, something more "pointed".
But semiotics today strikes me as largely a linguistic, or even philological, exercise and comparatively little concerning with signs and symbols 'proper' - as even intellectuals and academics would assume a 'science of signs' (Danesi 1999[1994]: xi) to be. (Drechsler 2009: 79)Yeah, tell me about it.
One could also say, of course, that this is what semiotics is, and always was, never mind the possibility or even desirability of another focus. There are many reasons for this: historical, such as the rise from linguistics (if we consider Saussure especially); methodological, if semiotics considers, as Eco, verbal language simply as its most interesting part and thus deals with it; science-sociological, because most semioticians these days work in Modern Language departments; the now quite outdated - but in some places still resilient - fad to declare everything a text, a very semiotic habit (Randviir 2004: 7, 19-20), and the accompanying use of "reading" simply in place of 'interpretation' generally, etc. And it should be underlined that, of course, language and texts are in fact what the analysis of human interaction, and certainly of the political, should be concerned with - what is implied by the term glottocentricity, however, is an emphasis that has turned into an almost exclusive focus, at the neglect of other possibilities. And what seems clear is that the concern with language has driven out, or at least seriously diminished, the interest in visual signs in semiotics proper, as well as in political semiotics. (Drechsler 2009: 79-80)Chief Runs With Premise would now probably point out how "for my purposes" this is somehow related to concourse.
Semiotics' link with structuralism and post-structuralism (Ahonen 1993b: 3) guarantees its existence within the penumbra of postmodernism, although even a friendly definition of postmodernism shows that this cannot be a hospitable environment for semiotics, which is about communication and perception but in itself scientistic and built on a 1900s view of 'reality' (which is not 'wrong,' it's just not postmodern. (Drechsler 2009: 81)This 1900s view of reality could very well be what deters me from "postmodern" prose. Or it could just be that I don't enjoy reading authors who obnubilate and obscure more than enlighten and explain.
The 'semiotician that went to the market' (MacFarquhar 1994) has long been back, i.e., semiotics is probably one of the most purely academic, indeed self-focused academic disciplines today. This means that the result of semiotic research does not have to be policy-relevant and a 'reality check' is missing even more. The act of analysis in semiotics is by and large sufficient, nothing follows or has to follow; this means that certain questions do not even pose themselves, and nothing becomes relevant except the approval of one's peers. (Drechsler 2009: 81)Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
Because, for example, glottocentricity is particularly strong in political science, the 'tradition of political science accentuates politics written down in texts' (Ahonen 1991a: 225). (Drechsler 2009: 82)Am I studying nonverbal behaviour in Orwell's 1984 because of glottocentricity?
How important the non-verbal in politics is can be seen from Martha Davis' brilliant analysis, 'Presidential body politics: Movement analysis of debates and press conferences' (1995). And, indeed, 'It would seem unnecessary to make a case for the importance of the subject' (1995: 207). Highly interesting here is the difference between intentional and unintentional messages, and the possibility of having both, and different levels of interpretation (in the ned a hermeneutic aspect, less a semiotic one strictly speaking). However, had Davis' essay not appeared in the present journal, one would think the essay to be political psychology; there is no semiotic theory whatsoever in it. Still, the importance of such research, and a fortiory of well-done research like that, becomes very apparent. (Drechsler 2009: 84)I skipped that paper when making up this current list of readings. It just isn't interesting for me. Comparison of nonverbal qualities in politicians' speeches is as far from natural behaviour as possible. Moreover, such studies are usually quite tedious - I recall reading such studies in the early 1970s Journal of Communication. But I should probably withhold judgment on Davis (1995) before reading it (one day I will). I do concur wholeheartedly with the emphasized statement. This is also characteristic of Semiotica in the early to at least mid-1970s: since the nonverbal side of the journal began so gloriously with Ekman and Friesen's famous 1969 paper, it apparently attracted quite many researchers to this journal. But, they were psychologists, used psychological (e.g. quantitative) methods and sometimes even seem oblivious to any semiotic theory. But I digress, their papers are often interesting nevertheless.
If semiotics is just a kind of linguisics - even claiming universal paradigmaticity but, in the end, not delivering - then it is not particularly interesting, and all the more so as far as political semiotics is concerned. The reason is that there are many ways, methods, and disciplines dealing with linguistic aspects, and many of them may be much more interesting and important, and fashionable, for political science - from Chomsky vie hermeneutics to the reemerged study of political rhetoric - than semiotics is these days. What is always interesting is what is not done otherwise. And linguistic, language, and discourse analysis models are a dime a dozen. If we agree with the proposition that semiotics covers all communication, then semiotics pertaining to language is prima facie the least and not the most interesting one for political semiotics, because too many other schools and tools can cover that area already. (Drechsler 2009: 86)I agree. Semiotics should not be "linguistics with a twist". Since language is already all the fuss in so many disciplines and topics, a kind of obligation is on semioticians to deal with questions which are uniquely semiotic.
Considering the semiotic attention to construction, communication, and decoding, it is surprising that semiotics generally, and political semiotics certainly - with the exception of Hedetoft and his followers, who however do not get to the heart of the matter - have often neglected this phenomenon, i.e., signs that are not meant and emitted but rather taken in both senses - taken as signs and taken by someone. (Drechsler 2009: 88)I wonder if Goffman's distinction between "expressions given" and "expressions given off" (in the sense of "signs given" intentionally and "signs given off" unintentionally) could be complemented by equivalent distinction between "signs taken" and "signs taken in". The semantic potential of these pairs is too great to start limiting it right away. I'll come back to it someday.
Uexküll is the main contender for category 3, i.e., for a work that really promulgates a political semiotics in the sense of political philosophy.On the surface this sounds like Hobbes' Leviathan, especially because of monarchy. I'd think that if modern biologists attempted political philosophy, they'd rather confer the organization to self-regulatory mechanisms than to a monarch.
This is his Staatsbiologie (1933[1920]), read best in parallel with the respective segments in his popular work Biologische Briefe an eine Dame originally from the same year (1920). Here, Uexküll establishes a highly original, comprehensive model of the state, based on its economic functions, that arises from his concept of Umwelt and his bio-theoretical views in an integrated way. (Of course, this is not a textual, but a body metaphor, and thus non-semiotic to some; see Randviir 2004: 13.) As a result, he calls for a monarchy as the only way to organize a state (1933[1920]: 29-30), and actually one that is not linked to a majority of any sort (1933[1920]: 36, 67; 1920: 105). (Drechsler 2009: 90)
And finally, from political science there may come the claim that all is well and that there are actually no lacunae in research and understanding due to its glottocentricity - if it exists. But if one agrees that there is such a deficit as described, and for the reasons presented, then the argument that a non-glottocentric political semiotics is potentially the best remedy for it seems, I think, rather credible indeed. (Drechsler 2009: 92)This paper made a good case for the need for a non-glottocentric political semiotics but suggested nothing in the way of what such a semiotics would be about.
Esposito, Joseph L. 1984. Peirce's speculations on the conditions of representability. Semiotica 49(1/2): 7-13.
These sorts of questions assume a cognition-centered semiotic; specifically, the assumption is that the potential for representability is given and it is simply a matter of ascertaining proper specific circumstances in order to determine whether an actual representation is to take place. Much of Peirce's work of classifying the various kinds of sign and sign relations was carried out within the domain of cognition-centered semiotic. (Esposito 1984: 7)E.g. Peirce's signs are more often than not logical and thus mental signs (thought-signs). I find "actual representation" as problematic as "objective meaning". What is non-actual representation?
If A represents B to C, then C must link A to yet something else, A', and this latter to C before representation takes place. Icons, for example, can only be signs within the context of other signs held within memory. Similarly, an index can only serve as a sign if there is an attending apparatus and a capability in that apparatus of recognizing that the direction of its attention was regulated by the index; without this the goal is not recognized as a sign. In short, representation appears to be an irreducible concept. (Esposito 1984: 8)In some form or another this is present in cultural semiotics as well. Namely, texts (of all variety) are conceptualized as cultural memory. Thus, taking an arbitrary example, a picture of a politician can become a sign in the full sense of the word if there is already some representational acquaintance with said person. I vaguely recall Peirce expounding quite fervently on this point.
In the former we recognize that information transmission requires a sender, message-medium, and receiver, and then realize that no message is received unless the sender's code is known by the receiver. But this just pushes the problem to a higher level of establishing the possibility of code-learning itself as both required for sign-transmission and impossible without it. We are then faced with the problem of establishing how signs of signs, or in general triadic information, can be transmitted. (Esposito 1984: 9)This issue cannot be so absolute. A message can be received in the sense of "taking in," e.g. recording, memorizing that something was sent and what was sent, but interpreting or"taking" the meaning of said message requires code. In case of nonverbal communication I may notice a peculiar facial expression (a personal example: outstretched closed lips) and memorize its occurrence and only later come to realize, via relevant literature, that this was an expression of fear.
The regress is first established by showing the necessity of a real dichotomy between sign and object. (Peirce does give two examples where the dichotomy can be said to be arbitrary: A prop that is the genuine article of which it is a sign, and a map of territory containing a mark locating the very map of that territory. Yet both are in fact instances of 'semiotic environments' where it is assumed at the start be a cognizer that 'everything under consideration is a sign', so that the prop and the map cannot be both sign and object at once without shifts in point of view.) (Esposito 1984: 9)What is intrinsic coding? A sign that signifies itself, or, rather, its material form, or representation. E.g. the case of semiotic cheese - seeing a piece of cheese on the table and interpreting the piece of cheese as signifying itself. In a broad sense this is quite useless, as every material object then can become a sign of itself. It is only somewhat useful in the realm of hand gestures and for a very specific categorical purpose: for distinguishing illustrators which imitate an act and intrinsically coded gestures which are what they are without "standing for" anything else. But even this curious case is only significant within the context of a conversation. E.g. saying "look at this" and proceeding to throw the cigarette in the air to catch it between the lips. Some comfort can be taken in the fact that the verbal component, "look at this", is not exactly necessary. But, in the end, "intrinsic coding" is merely a fancy notion for which there are other equally valid terms: instrumental actions, for example. Or the whole miscarried subfield of actonics.
Evdoridou, Elissavet 2008. Multiscale textual semiotic analysis. Semiotica 171(1/4): 251-264.
Thus, through the above-mentioned considerations, the isotopic analysis cofirms the concept of a tekt taken as a sign, consisting of signifier and signified, the latter showing its complexity according to the hyperonimic or hyponic order, or according to a meaning differentiation, and ramification. (Evdoridou 2008: 253)Yeah, I have no idea what's going on here.
Marciani's and Zinna's (1991: 110) approach to thematization in the Semantic level demonstrates how various values, semiotically important, may disseminate in narrative programmes, leading to differentiation and also figuratively or, in other words, the elements of expression. In this way, it is apparent how isotopies correlate with the modality of values in various main and secondary narrative programmes of a given text. (Evdoridou 2008: 253)This is about as perplexing as some late meta-behaviorism (e.g. Longstreht 1971). There really are downsides to reading Semiotica articles without their context (in this case, Greimasian narratology).
According to Miller and Johnson-Laird 'memory for the meaning of words does not have the property known to computer scientists as random access,' and the emphatically indicate:I'm wondering whether or how they did or how one would verify this. Or is it just a hypothetical model based on neurons?... semantically related items are connected in some way. These connections between memory items are called associations. Association is a two-term relation ... when more than two elements aret o be associated therefore, the pairs must form an associative network ... when some item is activated by recall, the activation spreads over these connections to all related words ... the nodes represent the concepts and the arrows stand for cross-references labeled according to the relation between the concepts. (Miller and Johnson-Laird 1976: 271-273)As mentioned above, in associative networks the node linking vectors stands for a cross-reference, and reminds one of the semiotic index. (Evdoridou 2008: 254)
Fiordo, Richard 1989. Hypersemiotic and hyposemiotic communication: More ado about nothing? Semiotica 77(4): 461-479.
Anouilh's poetic drama reminds us of a gap that exists between human beings, even between two loving human beings - a communication gap. Life deaf people talking, many of us proceed daily as though we make sense and make contact. Rather than belabor the failings of our daily efforts to make contact and make sense - that is, to communicate - let us examine through this paper the options available to us when we decide to attempt communication. (Fiordo 1989: 461)But How Can Sense And Contact Be Real If Our Minds Aren't Real?
Reduced to lowest terms, the hypersemiotic approach might be seen as the high sign approach to communication, while hyposemiotic might be seen as the low sign approach (see Figures 1 and 2). High-sign and low-sign semiotic might be analogous to the terminology of telecommunications media - namely, comparable to high-tech and low-tech media. Note well that high or low 'tech' is still technology; likewise, high or low semiotic is still semiotic. (Fiordo 1989: 262)That's an interesting analogy. You don't really see very many metaphors brought over from technological vocabulary in semiotics. At least I don't think so.
In conceptualizing face-to-face communication, hyposemiotic approaches tend to reduce it to the low-level use of simple sign phenomena, whereas hypersemiotic approaches tend to augment it to the high-level use of complex sign phenomena. Hypersemiotic approaches include the hyposemiotic use of signs, but do not limit themselves to low sign usage. (Fiordo 1989: 463-464)These "simple sign phenomena" and "complex sign phenomena" are not very useful.
As a strategy of simplification, hyposemiotic approaches to communication can be helpful. When a hyposemiotic approach is seen not as a strategic reduction but as the nature of intersomatic communication, issue must be taken. The suggestion of messages (verbal and nonverbal) being transacted spontaneously, reciprocally, and bilaterally at best occurs in an incipient form in the abusive sense of hyposemiotic. (Fiordo 1989: 464)Does anyone call nonverbal communication "intersomatic communication"? *googles* Oh, Poyatos does.
The encouragement propounded in this paper is that we sign in - so to speak - to the hypersemiotic approach to communication in order to maximize our input of information, and sign out of the hyposemiotic approach when we feel overloaded with information and wish to reduce input. Both have their beneficial functions. Hypersemiotic and hyposemiotic are extremes on a semiotic continuum. (Fiordo 1989: 464)Brilliant! ...ly useless. // At least at this point.
Although Morris does not do an intensive analysis of the term communication, he does render an inchoate analysis of the concept and its relation to communication. Perhaps more germane to the discussion, he assumes its existence. Since communication involves establishing 'at least temporary similarity between the interpretants of communicator and communicatee', the difficulty in communicating is learning 'how to attain this similarity'. To improve communication depends, therefore, on having signs with a 'high degree of signification to different members of a community' (Morris 1946: 120). The establishment of the common ground is, once again, based on signification, or the meaning created through the use of signals and symbols (Morris 1964: vii, 7, 9). (Fiordo 1989: 467)Huh, finally someone takes up communization. Marris 1964 = Signification and Significance.
When we turn to Morris's description of communization, we encounter a concept that is, in comparison with communication, more derived and more elusive. He tells us that communization occurs when one person causes another to become a certain way (e.g., angry, happy, despondent, etc.); yet, establishing this commonness may take place with or without signs (Morris 1946: 118). Hence, although signs are not necessary, they are sufficient to bring about communization.I had a hunch that Burke has dealt with something like communization but only found identification (Burke & Zappen 2006: 338: note 10).
Morris's notion of communization is related to Burke's notion of consubstantiality. Under consubstantiality Burke includes an 'acting together' in which 'men have common sensations, concepts, images, ideas, attitudes that maket hem consubstantial'. Qualifying identification, Burke says that to 'identify A with B is to make A "consubstantial" with B'. Though 'two persons may be identified in terms of some principle they share in common', the identification does 'not deny their distinctness' (Burke 1969b: 21). (Fiordo 1989: 467)
While 'A is not identical with his colleague B', inasmuch as their 'interests are joined, A is identified with B'. Even when their interests are not joined, if there is an assumption that they are joined, A may identify with B. Identifying with B, 'A is 'substantially one' with a person other than himself' (Burke 1969b: 20-21). (Fiordo 1989: 467)Or in Meadian parlance, this involves "participation in the other".
Expressing at one point an idea akin to Dance's, Vygotsky argues that 'in the absence of a system of signs, linguistic or other, only the most primitive and limited type of communication is possible'. In fact, Vygotsky asserts that communication 'by means of expressive movements, observed mainly among animals, is not so much communicated as spread of affect'. Vygotsky explains that a 'frightened goose suddenly aware of danger and rousing the whole flock with its cries does not tell the others what it has seen but rarther contaminates them with its fear' (1962: 6). Vygotsky may be presenting us here with a blessing in disguise, although he too overlooks the higher levels of semiotic communication available in his preoccupation with the lower levels. (Fiordo 1989: 471)Morris's example of communization was anger, Vygotsky's is fear. Both seem, superficially, indeed more communizable (spreadable) than surprise or joy, for example. The spread of fear (or generally "anxiety") has been studied extensively in psychiatry by Jurgen Ruesch.
Wilbur Schramm presents the semiotic reduction of communication as two or more people coming 'together over a set of informational signs athat are of mutual interest to them' (Schramm 1973: 41). By informational sign, Schramm means the 'element of communication - a sound, a gesture, a written word, a picture - that stands for information'. (Fiordo 1989: 471)This would appear to be a tautology, as neither information nor sign are defined here. But then again no quote is comprehensive. It is laudable that the sign at least stands for information, as opposed to containing information, for example.
After reviewing these prominent theorists on communication, two scholars - known mostly for their work in applied communication - offer a definition of communication containing the seeds for Morris's communization. Their definition suggests that communication is post-semiotic. Defining communication as the 'sharing of experience', Goyer and Sincoff (1977) acknowledge that communication may occur with or without feedback. They recognize that feedback is 'not a necessary condition for the occurrence of communication'. Without feedback, 'it simply means that one does not know whether or not [communication] occurred'. For the parties involved, the communicative sharing may be either 'direct ("real") in terms of time and space dimensions of the event' or indirect ("vicarious"), removed in some way from the original experience and thus a substitute for it' (1977: 2). (Fiordo 1989: 472)All this is well and good but why does Fiordo struggle towards post-semiotics though? Actually, I take issue with communication as shared experience, because it seems to lack something, but I can't say what, yet.
Since Morris discusses experience in terms of non-linguistic, pre-linguistic, linguistic, and post-linguistic stages (Morris 1964: 58), it may be in order to discuss communication in terms of non-semiotic, pre-semiotic, semiotic, and post-semiotic (or hypersemiotic) stages. Insofar as humans can attain hypersemiotic states of communication, it seems they are involved in post-semiotic communication. (Fiordo 1989: 474)Whoa. I'm not sure If Morris discussed "experience" or types of signs, but in any case even the suggestion of applying these distinctions on communication is interesting. Especially, I have to note, because "post-linguistic" - as I understand it - Morris's term for private or personal signs (e.g. autocommunicative signs).
As Sebeok points out, 'semiotics encompasses the whole of ... our planetary biosphere' (Sebeok 1979: 63). Morris calls attention to post-linguistic functioning in humans; that is, 'signs which owe their signification to language but which are not themselves elements of language' (Morris 1964: 58). Since the biosphere can be identified by the occurrence of signs and judged by the functional level of signs, the case for post-semiotic or hypersemiotic communication states begins to emerge. Humans alone may be capable of this dimension of communication. Although the 'range of each man's sense organs is significantly exceeded by those of a host of other animals' (Sebeok 1979: 101), post-semiotic functioning may be the domain of humanity alone - or any other superior life form, hypothetically speaking (Sagan 1977). While people may believe an augmented form of semiotic communication occurs between people through metaphysical or parapsychological channels, it may rather be through highly sophisticated sensory and neural channels that are augmented hypersensitive and hypersemiotic forms of communication. (Fiordo 1989: 475)That sounds like some science-fiction-y stuff. Is he proposing intersomatic communication in the sense of mind-to-mind sharing?
Reporting on Kendon's microsychnrony and foreknowledge in human communication, Sebeok adds that a listener's precise movements synchronized with a speaker's remarks means the listener is able to anticipate that speaker's remarks (1979: 101-102). Rather than look to metaphysical or parapsychological sources as the basis for this stunning mode of communication, Sebeok suggests the rational concept of the zero signifier. With vehemence, Sebeok declares that before 'resorting to cheap and hoc paranormal rationalizations, a sophisticated research program must be conducted to pin down the mechanism at work in ecah instance'. Rather than attempting to establish communication with 'supposititious extraterrestial civilizations', Sebeok chooses the 'rest of animate existence' (1979: 102). (Fiordo 1989: 475)This is not supernatural. It can happen while reading texts as well - if you read a passage, think about it and write down your comments then you may discover upon continuing the reading that your comments anticipated the next paragraph quite exactly. Thus, firstly, it depends on the topic at hand and how much shared knowledge there is between communicators. And secondly, it may be possible to anticipate another's remarks by guessing their thought-process not only from facial expressions, visual behaviour, hand movements and body movement in general. This has actually been studied in relation with hand gestures (but I haven't gotten into that literature because I'm not yet into hand gestures). Thus, there are mechanisms that could explain this amazing bit of suggestion. But I do protest against the concept of "zero signifier", if only because the question of zero signs is still elusive for me. Rather than zero signifiers, we seem to be dealing with quite complex semiotic phenomena. "Hypersemiotic" would be the appropriate term here.
Being fooled by subtle and rapid semiotic events occurring through multiple channels simultaneously, some might falsely conclude they are experiencing a metaphysical or parapsychological form of communication rather than having a hypersemiotic experience. (Fiordo 1989: 476)Yup, this is exactly what I was getting at. It is possible that many accounts of extrasensory perception are actualy accounts of hypersemiotic experiences.
Back in 1959, Rawcliffe critiqued the psychology of the occult. In criticizing the telepathic research of S. G. Soal, Rawcliffe attacks Soal's 'failure to find a rational solution to explain his results' linked with his 'adoption of a supernatural explanation or the hypethosis of "an operative principle unknown to science"' (Rawcliffe 1959: 462). Consistent with Sebeok's zero signifier concept, Rawcliffe - in this particular critical analysis - points to hyperaesthesia ('extra-acute sensitiveness of the physiological sensory organs of the ear and afferent nervous system') or 'a sense of hearing considerably above average' as the basis for so-called telepathy. He then links sensory hyperacuity to sensory discrimination and interpretation. Finally, he tries interpretation to concentration and alertness at the subconscious level (1959: 465-466). (Fiordo 1989: 476)All this is interesting for me for a weird reason - in one of my unwritten fantasies these are exactly the kinds of things that push "magical" future scientists to invent experimental modifications for hyperintelligent brains.
An extremely important deduction to be drawn from Poyatos's thought concerning intersomatic sensory channels of interpretational perceptions and communication has to do with words as interference. Words may distract and block us from the complexity of semiotic happenings in intersomatic communication. Instead of being open to and aware of the multidimensional interactions at the verbal and nonverbal levels, intersomatic communicators can face Burke's terministic screens through words that select and so deflect (Burke 1968: 45-47) their attention from the multifaceted goings-on of the intersomatic exchange through interactive multimodal sensory channels. (Fiordo 1989: 477)A point of view that seems obvious enough but which I don't recall coming across before.
[...] humanity may also see hypersemiotic intersomatic communication as spiritual interaction - the 'exchange between man and God, or between man and other spirits'. This ultimate semiotic experience, being the most intimate, the most profound, and the least mediated of all experiences, enjoys special manifestations in the 'lives of different holy men and women through history, who have documented their mystical experiences' as well as those who have 'experienced all the phenomena described in the New Testament' (1983: 134). Since spiritual interactions would, once again, be beyond scientific verification, they will for our purposes remain, as Poyatos remarks, 'a fascinating topic for semiotic research (not undergone as yet...), as the ultimate form of interaction' (1983: 50). (Fiordo 1989: 478)A theological side to nonverbal communication is equally infrequent. Only other such moment I recall had to do with Augustine and how according to him God could see inside your soul without any need for prayer or humbling gestures. All in all, this is a very good paper.
France, Malcolm N. and Alexander M. Piatigorsky 1976. The existential function of some symbols. Semiotica 16(2): 141-158.
22.214.171.124. In the first place, a symbol represents something; it expresses an idea, an experience, an individual, a proposition, another object, or perhaps some other referent not covered by this list. (France & Piatigorsky 1976: 141)How about bodily behaviour? asks the nonverbalist.
184.108.40.206. Secondly, there is the communication of roles, attitudes and personal identity which are ascribed to the individual who admits the symbol into his field of attention. For example, an object which is used as a religious symbol not only has a referential function - representing some idea, belief, event, or obect of veneration, which is an integral part of the cult or rite in which it is employed - it also evokes, or is intended to evoke, appropriate attitude and behavior in the believer. This second use we may call the 'existential function' of symbols. (France & Piatigorsky 1976: 141-142)Notice that this second function of symbols is essentially "receptive" - the perceiver "admits the symbol into his field of attention". Hence, this second function is essentially conative. But "conative" is not appropriate here. Bühler's "appeal" would be more appropriate. The symbol triggers (evokes) something in the perceiver.
188.8.131.52. Thirdly, there is the organization of symbolic objects in a context; this will define symbolic themes, relations, and values, giving prominence to some and evoking associations and contrasts among all. Thus the composition of a painting is never without significance, even though a poor artist may give it little or no thought. Or to take another example, the rules of procedure in diplomatic protocol are important in international relations because of the symbolic status of diplomats on official occasions. This third function we may call the 'dispositional function'; it acts as a commentary on the other two, and could in that sense be said to be 'metasymbolic'. (France & Piatigorsky 1976: 142)Huh. So these three functions are actually a reformulation of Bühler's organon model, as applied on symbolism (presumably religious symbolism foremost).
In this paper, we shall illustrate symbolism understood according to the second function - the existential - neglecting the others. In particular we shall consider that function as it operates at a cognitively primitive level, i.e., as it affects individuals who are struggling with anxiety about the forms in which they exist in relation to others. (France & Piatigorsky 1976: 142)Doesn't this include everyone?
1.2.2. In attempting to comment on the symoblism in those experiences, we are faced with the fact that the symbols themselves have lost a degree of reality. Either they have become meaningless, or the stability of their forms is in doubt. The words which should represent states of the speaker can no longer do so: the semantic relation, whereby a sentence in context represents an experience, cannot be relied on. (France & Piatigorsky 1976: 148)2+2=5
Their tendency to lose form itself symbolizes the approach towards meaninglessness, i.e., towards that state in which the participant observer perceives no form in his experience, and none in himself either. The student calls this 'madness', but one need not be psychotic to be in a state in which existence has degenerated into non-existence throug the loss of its forms. (France & Piatigorsky 1976: 148)How many fingers am I holding up? Four or five?
2.0.1. The three functions of symbols - referential, existential, and dispositional (as described in 1.0.1.) - correspond to the three aspects of symbols (as conceived in a broader buddtological approach) - ontological, psychological, and ethological. That means that when I say "there is a symbol there", or "that is a symbol", I bear in mind the three following things. (France & Piatigorsky 1976: 150)These correlations also have implications for the Bühler model. Namely, that the referent can be approached ontologically, the subject's inner states psychologically and the addressee's behaviour ethologically.
There are two views about metalanguage. Either one may think that it precedes language, that there is no element of language that does not have a metalinguistic significance, or one may state on the contrary that only the outside onlooker has a possibility of seeing metalanguage, that subjective viewers, using words, cannot decide or discern whether or not they are metalinguistical. (France & Piatigorsky 1976: 153)I can't vouch for any type of metalanguage. I can vouch for metalinguistic operations, because you can use any linguistic construct to comment on any other linguistic construct, making the first metalinguistic, but not a metalanguage. There certainly are specially designated metalanguages, e.g. scientific metalanguage and other such instances, but in most cases, as in here, I am irked by how the meaning of "metalanguage" is twisted to substantiate it as a distinct language all the while forgetting that metalanguage is "language about language", not language about any other type of objects.
As when I walk, my feet cannot perceive that the world is round; so as a buddhologist I am sure that there is an importance in my communication with my mother only with relation to my communication with myself. As a child I could only do this through my mother, and now it is impossible to discern between, on the one hand, communication with my mother and, on the other, that with myself through my mother. (France & Piatigorsky 1976: 155)E.g. autocommunication through or by means of intercommunication.
188.8.131.52. As for the first question, we may clearly see here three main points:The blueprints for a postmodern novel.
(France & Piatigorsky 1976: 156)
- The unreality of 'physical objects';
- The unreality of words; and
- The unreality of one's inner life (feelings, emotions, etc.).
Gilani, Zulfigar H., Wilma Bucci and Norbert Freedman 1985. The structure and language of a silence. Semiotica 56(1/2): 99-113.
Whether filled or unfilled, the pause - the silence - has been seen primarily as a gap - a space - which derives its significance from the words that surround it. (Gilani, Bucci & Freedman 1985: 99)This issue begs the zero sign: the lack of a sign can be meaningful only if the context determines whether there should or should not be a sign. By itself, an absence is mere absence.
Silence speaks. Silences are filled bit we do not mean filled with sound, rather they are full of body movements. (Gilani, Bucci & Freedman 1985: 100)Nice. Although it is doubtful how much of body movement during (conversational) silence has actually been studied. If anyone ever does, hopefully attention will be paid to the stillness of bodies also.
In previous work, distinctions were made between movements that have the function of discharge of energy, and body-focused kinetic movements, which are self-stimulating (Freedman and Bucci, 1981). Movements that seem to play the disrcharge role are postural shifts, foot-kicks and foot-flexes, while body-focused movements which seem to be stimulations, are touching of parts of the body with a hand. Furthermore it was shown that the pattern of discharge and self-stimulation is systematically related to cognitive activity. (Gilani, Bucci & Freedman 1985: 100)You mean adaptors?
Other work has shown that during the monologue there was a spurt of increased language production after a particular pattern of movement behavior; the pattern included discharge movements followed by self-stimulating body-focused movements and was called the contrasting sequence (Freedman and Bucci 1981). The hypothesis is that the pattern of kinetic and discharge movements during the pre-narrative period will foreshadow the emergence of subsequent verbal behavior during the monologue. Specifically, we hypothesize that subjects who demonstrate the contrasting sequence during the PNA period will have more organized and cohesive verbal performance during the monologue. (Gilani, Bucci & Freedman 1985: 101)This links up neatly with Fiordo's discussion of how some forms of extrasensory perception may be explainable with hypersemiotic interpretive procedures. Namely, these are exactly the kinds of signs that may be involved in guessing what another person is going to say.
We will argue that silences can have different functions but more importantly, that it is possible to get a sense of the internal processes going on during a silence by analyzing the observable external kinetic and movement behavior. (Gilani, Bucci & Freedman 1985: 101)I wouldn't have expected any implications for concourse in this paper, but there you have it: if literature presents us with "observable" (in the metaphorical sense) external kinetic and movement behavior then it may stand to reason that these can be used to infer the literary character's internal processes. This may seem like something all too obvious, but I would have been satisfied to investigate the general characteristics of concourse without such inferences.
The cognitive process of thought construction is accompanied by body movements that do not play a communicative role but which seem to be linked in systematic ways to the cognitive activity. The particular body movements we have focused upon seem to be related to the structure of subsequent verbalizations. We do not imply that these physical body movements cause thinking processes, but that they are inseparably intertwined with them. That physical bodily activity is central in the ontogenetic development of cognitive activity is now widely accepted (Piaget 1952, Held and Hein 1963, Klein 1965). But in the descriptions of later developmental stages, no role has been assigned to physical activity. (Gilani, Bucci & Freedman 1985: 110)Hence the appropriateness of "nonverbal behaviour" instead of "nonverbal communication" in this case.
Goldschläger, Alain 1985. On ideological discourse. Semiotica 54(1/2): 165-176.
Anthropologists have long noticed that control over language is the essential base on which authority rests and that the exclusive manipulation of words must remain with the one in power if he means to stay in power. Even more so, the right to speak may become a duty to speak so as to prove the master's dominion over words. Pierre Clastres argues: 'the man in power is always, not only the man who speaks, but the sole source of legitimate speech' (1974: 133). (Goldschläger 1985: 165)There are many studies related to Orwell's newspeak (some even in this journal) about control over language, but - as far as I am aware - none dedicated to control over behaviour in the sense of the newspeak word facecrime.
The idea of an empty discourse is repugnant to linguists whose prime goal is to prove the value, efficiency, and density of language. Consequently, the concept of asemantic linguistic discourse is often rejected as only a theoretical possibility. Accepting the concept has often been felt as a denial of that science's value and existence. This explains why little linguistic work has been devoted to this kind of approach, apparently totally in contradiction with the actual work and aims of language. (Goldschläger 1985: 166)This wouldn't be a hindrance if the concept of "asemantic text" were adopted, as "text" is much more inclusive than "linguistic discourse".
The lack of a verification or discussion process integrated within the text allows it to dissociate itself from reality, without getting into any problem of understanding or acceptability. Although it escapes criticism and ploemic by its lack of semantic value, this discourse - by virtue of the assumption that it means more than words can carry and that the understanding of it is larger than the possible expression - can give the illusion that it carrues a more potent meaning. (Goldschläger 1985: 167)Could very well be the description of a whole range of French philosophy and anglophone works derived thereof.
If you accept that God exists, all demonstration of its existence is convincing; if you accept the principle of the class struggle, all the communist discourse is very well structured and articulate. (Goldschläger 1985: 167-168)The case is similar with semiophrenia - if you accept the notion of sign, in any variety, then semiotics will become intelligible.
The ideological structure is based upon an illuminating principle explaining all things, as opposed to the rational structure which tries to discover an alays-escaping truth. In an ideology, everything is explained by the Summit Truth that irradiates its absolute principles and veracity upon all aspects of life and knowledge: as such, for example, the basic marxist thinking not only controls politics and economy but physics and painting, psychiatry and agriculture, philosophy and dance as well. All explanation comes from above and all action has an answer to a proper direction and guidance. (Goldschläger 1985: 168)Emmanuel Goldstein's book explains everything.
Facts are arguable, truth is not. (Goldschläger 1985: 168)How many fingers am I holding up? Four or five? Also, thruthiness.
To stay strong and unarguable, the ideological discourse will become, in its entirety, a tautology, repeating ad vitam aetemam the very same words and formulas, applied to all events because it is disconnected fgrom all of them. (Goldschläger 1985: 168)There is something akin to this in the ending of 1984. E.g. only the party can say what is true or exists.
What is to be heard is the voice of the authority, not its thoughts or desires, only its words indicating its presence in all circumstances. (Goldschläger 1985: 169)One of my core arguments at this early stage is that it is the omnipresent gaze of the Big Brother, it's nonverbal presence, which is to be heeded.
I should now like to apply these considerations to the discourse of Marshal Pétain, which has been chosen not because it specifically fits any theory but because its corpus is limited and compact; sufficiently recent to ring some bells, yet far enough in the past not to provoke emotional reactions. (Goldschläger 1985: 169)1984 is suitable for similar reasons. It is limited and compact in the sense that it's a stand-alone work and very well known. I'm not sure about emotional reactions, though.
Anybody defined as non-French is thus hostile to the truth of which he cannot participate by nature or by choice. This simple qualifying term of 'non-French' equals a death sentence, not because it means to be different but because it automatically means to be wrong. This, of course, applies in the first instance to any foreigner who carries by nature a sinful pestilence and so can legitimally be condemned: Polish coalminers, Spanish exiles, German Jews. This can also apply to people from within who have erred: Jews who cannot be really French in any circumstance, free-masons, Communists, Gaullists. Thus there is a crusade of 'true' French against foreigners and 'false' French. This is the logical argument used to implement the racist policy of 'France for the French'. What strikes us is that the real fault for which people are condemned is not their actions but their essence: they have to pay for what they are, not for what they do. This is obviously a situation that leaves little room for discussion. (Goldschläger 1985: 172)This applies on thoughtcrime as well: Winston was at fault before he ever set pen to paper; a thoughtcriminal does not have to commit a thoughtcrime to be a thoughtcriminal. Similar tendency can be noted in our neighbouring Imperial Russia, where homosexuals are condemned, persecuted and killed not because of what they do but what they are.
The totalitarian discourse is thus a discourse that has a meaning given to us, as opposed to democratic discourse, which has a meaning conferred by us. (Goldschläger 1985: 175)Some valuable insight.
Gorlée, Dinda L. 2007. Vital signs of semio-translation. Semiotica 163(1/4): 159-161.
Semio-translation pioneers found semiotic causes in modern translation theory (or translatology). (Gorlée 2007: 159)Hmm. My work should ideally be oriented towards the semiotic underpinnings in (the study of) nonverbal communication.
- intersemiotic translation of the Bible, Torah, Qur'an, and other sacred texts. (Gorlée 2007: 160)Good luck translating (even a part of) Qur'an into a visual medium.
Translation - an activity carried out by a human - makes people understand each other, as an accurate conversion or turning of one language into another, trying to discover the authentic and original content of others and self. But is also a negative, even alarmist, strategy beset by multilingual troubles, trying to discover the being-as-another. The real and virtual otherness of the new message could also be understood or perhaps misunderstood by the 'barbarous' expression, movements, and rituals of a foreign culture and language - including the voice of the outsider, alien, and emigré and even the divine voice - a particular challenge for translators and translation critics. (Gorlée 2007: 160)Point for Poyatos for pointing out the poignancy of potential problems in transposing concourse from one language to the other. P.O. box poetic ponderings.
Ègorov, Boris F. 1974. Simplest Semiotic Systems and Plot Typology. Semiotica 10(2): 131-141.
Ultimately a 'professional' fortunetelling is supposed when the fortuneteller plays the game with her naive victim - the game of guessing (guessing of past and present); during such a 'game', especially when the victim does not look at the cards or understand anything in them, one can speak not of several, but of countless stages of freedom, since for the 'professional' fortuneteller cards are a pure fiction, because the information is obtained not from the cards, but from the oiter (and inner) appearance of the subject, from his reaction to the fortuneteller's words, etc. (Ègorov 1974: 131)Fortunetelling is at least in part a nonverbal interpretation game.
The predicates of the majority of groups acquire an evaluation only with the specification of suit and value: troubles are unpleasant (JS), troubles are merry (JD), a talk is unpleasant (8S), a talk is merry (*D), etc. It turns out that the second part of the conditional meaning of the cards ('rank', 'value') seems to signify the very state-action, and the first part ('suit') introduces something qualitative, evaluative, attributive. (Ègorov 1974: 137)Compare these to Sapir's existents and occurents, and Joos's actor-expressions and action-expressions.
An incomparably more difficult task confronts the investigator of the plots of artistic works. The writing of a full text is done by a writer, who enlists an immense store of poetic vocabulary, and is saturated with the author's ideas, emotions, and associations (the subsequent introduction of the reader's 'subjectivity' goes without saying, it is analogous to the reading of the cards' layout, only again, more complicated). (Ègorov 1974: 139)Out of the blue, an analogy from philology. From the phrase "We literary critics" on the same page one learn Ègorov's academic disposition.
There is still much work to be done. In attempting to represent extratextual ties with the text, in the formularization of poetic plots, the researcher will encounter extraordinary difficulty. (Ègorov 1974: 141)Does he perhaps mean intertextual ties? Or the documentary value of a text? (e.g. ties to extratextual reality in the sense of reality-reality)
Grossberg, Lawrence 1982. Experience, signification, and reality: The boundaries of cultural semiotics. Semiotica 41(1/4): 73-106.
Poststructuralism is a particular discursive strategy and experience has a particular role within it. That strategy - deconstruction - rejects any appeal to the categories of experience as foundational for a description of human existence. Experience is itself the product or expression of the determining forces that constitute its particular appearance. (Grossberg 1982: 74)Right. It is more than likely that I am not going to enjoy reading this 30+ page paper.
No single term can define the origin or essential nature of the various constitutive moments of concrete human existence. (Grossberg 1982: 74)Okay.
Deconstruction explicitly locates human existence within discourse understood as textual processes. (Grossberg 1982: 75)So there is a single term that can describe the origin or essential nature of the various constitutive moments of concrete human existence and this term is discourse, understood as textual processes⸮
Meaning is merely the trace of difference, but because that trace is always a supplement as well since it is constantly dispersed into the discursive process, meaning is always undecideable. (Grossberg 1982: 75)Your meaning may be undecidable.
Everything, including the individual's identity and subjectivity, is an effect of discourse. (Grossberg 1982: 75)Some people just need a slap in the face, a direct hand-to-face effect of discourse.
The deconstructionist says that discourse 'positions' the individual; the identity of the individual is dispersed or fragmented into a context of determining discourse or difference: the individual as intertext. (Grossberg 1982: 75)It is the space we are listening to divided as such which gives us the information in comparison to something other than gives us the idea of what the idea that wants to be transmitted wants to be.
Derridean practice condemns us to an endless reading, an endless problematizing in which everything is reduced to a trace of difference, to a supplement (without there being something identifiable of which it is the supplement). (Grossberg 1982: 78)Yes. I, too, have a feeling that much of this babble is borne from reading and re-reading obtuse authors to the point where they seem to make sense and spur the reader to write, without rhyme or reason, supplements to nothing in particular.
The semiotic is precisely that which is constantly transgressing the symbolic, the arena of Freud's primary processes. It is The unconscious as already implicated within signifying practices. (Grossberg 1982: 80)No. The semiotic is not the unconscious.
The text is neither the product/expression of its author, nor is it a representation of a reality outside of significance. Its only 'reference' is to itself as signifying practice, as signifiance. (Grossberg 1982: 82)No. No text is absolutely introversive.
Individuality remains an effect of textuality or significance and that which is outside discourse appears only as a contradictory other. (Grossberg 1982: 84)No. Speak for yourself.
To ask what something is, is to ask how it is produced and how it functions. (Grossberg 1982: 86)Yeah, no. Let the record show that I ragequit this article. It would have been nice to read all the articles I took on my plate all the way through, but I just can't do it. I have no idea why the subtitle of this article is "The boundaries of cultural semiotics". It should properly be "The limits of your tolerance for French philosophy".
Hak, Tony 1989. Developing a text-sociological analysis. Semiotica 75(1/2): 25-42.
In this article I will read Carlo Ginzburg's study, The Chees and the Worms (1980), as a contribution to sociology, considered as text sociology - i.e., as exemplary for Studies in which a social-scientific question is examined by means of a method of textual analysis. In The Cheese and the Worms a method of textual analysis is used; although Ginzburg does not define his method in so many words, it can be easily deduced from is extensive description of how he arrives at his conclusions. In this article I will reconstruction I will examine what contribution Ginzburg is making to (text) sociology with it. (Hak 1989: 25)"Text sociology" is attributed to Peter Zima, who reformulated "sociology of literature" under this new label to distance it from aesthetics. In a similar way, I think it's correct to distinguish "text semiotics" from semiotics with other objects of study. It should also be noted that "text semiotics" would not be just another label for cultural semiotics, which also deals with texts (namely, cultural texts) but any type of semiotics - whether Peircean, Saussurean or other, which draws its conclusions from textual analysis.
Second, the distance between Menocchio and us is so great that it would be a misunderstanding to read his words straight (i.e., methodless). In the preface to the English edition of The Cheese and the Worms, Ginzburg summarizes these assumptions as follows (1980: xii): 'he [Menocchio] is a man very different from us. The analytical reconstruction of this difference was necessary, in order to reconstruct the physiognomy, partly obscured, of his culture, and of the social context in which it has taken shape. (Hak 1989: 26)Hmm. "The facial features or expressions of a culture."
IN Montaillou a library was circulating which consisted of three volumes (19799: 236), from which people read around the fire in their homes. Sometimes other books circulated among the heretical population of Montaillou. The testimonies of the villagers do not give a definite answer, however, as the titles and the exact contents of those books. Sometimes the contents of a book are briefly indicated, or the effect of a book is described. It is argued, for instance, that the heresy in Montaillou started with reading a passage from a book; it is not clear, however, which book it was (1979: 233-234). (Hak 1989: 27)An analogy with Emmanuel Goldstein's book is certainly possible, but in a historical perspective this may be related to books like The Cloud of Unknowing.
The miller says: "I say that it is a greater rule to love one's neighbor than to love God, because I read in a Historia del Giudicio that when judgment day comes, [God] will say to that angel: "You are wicked, you have never done a good deed for me"; and that angel replies: "My lord, I have never seen you so that I could do you a good deed". [And God said] "I was hungry and you did not feed me, I was thirsty and you did not give me drink, I was naked and you did not clothe me, when I was in prison you did not come to visit me." And because of this I believed that God was that poor neighbor, because he said "I was that beggar"'. (Hak 1989: 29)This conforms neatly to my own ambiguous religious views, according to which God exists insofar as humans do. This notion is also present in The Cloud of Unknowing, e.g. that God and the Soul are one. In Buddhism something similar can be found, only that the aim there is not to ail the suffering of people, only, but all beings. In that sense, God is Life, not only Consciousness.
Ginzburg presents ample quotation from the part of the Historia del Giudicio where the chosen ones ask for Lord what it is that they owe their election to:Countenance, like physiognomy, is also "a person's face or facial expression". The tendency to reduce religion to morality is not unique, I think. It seems probable that religion is often reduced to something other than itself. How else could it operate at all? In modern times it is often reduced to science (e.g. the "Christian Science") or allegorical literature (in Bible scholarschip) or to politics ("America is God's country. It was written in the Bible!"). The notion that "every reading is a misreading" is nowhere as prevalent as it is in religion.Christ will reply in joyful countenance:And the doomed are addressed by the Lord thus:
'That beggar who came to the door
Famished, afflicted, and overcome
Was asked for charity in my name,
He was not driven off or cut down by you,
But he ate and drank of what was yours,
To him you gave for love of God:
Know that I was that beggar.''When you drove off the miserable beggar.in reply to the question of why this adversity has befallen them. Menocchio does quote this passage correctly (from memory). But he makes one further step: from the remark 'that I was that beggar', Menocchio concluded that it is more important to love thy neighbor than to love God. This is one of the interpretations from which Ginzburg concludes that in Menocchio's statements there is a marked tendency to reduce religion to morality, which was - according to Ginzburg - a widespread tendency in sixteenth-century Italy. (Hak 1989: 29)
You did not have pity for the downtrodden
Or ever show charity toward them.'
The concept of 'filter', which is apt to describe a process of (biased) selection, is of course not capable of doing justice to the active restructuralization of the elements of the (read) text as this is apparently practiced by Menocchio. Ginzburg then introduces the image of an 'encounter' in Menocchio's head: 'It was not the book as such, but the encounter between the printed page and oral culture that formed an explosive mixture in Menocchio's head (1980: 51). (Hak 1989: 31)Since this is the only other semiotic use of the metaphor of explosion I've come across (as far as I remember), I'll note that Ginzburg uses the term "explosive" in only two instances in The Cheese and the Worms. This here is the second. The first occurs in the preface: "The enormous rupture resulting from the end of the monopoly on written culture by the educated and on religion by the clergy had created a new and potentially explosive situation." (1980: xxiv)
The problem Ginzburg poses is not a new one. Actually, it is a problem that has occupied sociology from its very beginning, viz. the question of whether an 'objective interpretation' of social phenomena (events, actions, institutions, and especially meanings) is possible. Ginzburg answers this question in the negative. (Hak 1989: 34)Exactly the problem of "objective meaning" (somewhere above). Personally, I find even "shared" meaning problematic, as we seem to live rather in the illusion of sharedness, threading through similarities and possibilities of convergence rather than one-to-one correspondences. But this is more of a philosophical problem.
According to Garfield, much 'core sociology' consists of what he calls 'reasonable findings', although this is not acknowledged in so many words in must discussions about methods of sociological research. 'Reasonable findings' are research findings that are the product not of a 'literal description', but of a researc decision that is justified by its acceptability ('reasonableness') in terms of common sense (1967: 99-100). (Hak 1989: 34)Interesting. So instead of something like "objective meaning" or objective interpretation" we have "reasonable findings" or "reasonable interpretations".
Garfinkel has referred to this method of interpretation as 'documentary method', which he defines thus: 'The method consists of treating an actual appearance as "the document of", as "pointing to", as "standing on behalf of" a presupposed underlying pattern' (1967: 78). Actually, it is not a question of method here, but of an indication of a way of interpreting which every member of a society is considered to be practicing constantly; this therefore applies also to a social scientist and his work. (Hak 1989: 34-35)Likewise with concourse: the instances of descriptions of bodily behaviour in a given novel point to a presupposed underlying pattern, which I refer to - for sake of convenience - as concourse. This presupposed pattern of linguistic use may be an artifact of my theoretical thinking or it may turn out to have interesting qualities despite being a theoretical construct, but in any case I cannot dismiss it before I have examined it more thoroughly.
- The object of a text-sociological method consists of both the transformation of statements and the substitution of the context in which they function. (Hak 1989: 36)In broad strokes these aspects should also be studien in relation with concourse: how a specific description changes (either through time or in different genres, for example) and how these specific descriptions are used in different contexts or what they are used for (e.g. how they "function").
Following Garfield, I am looking for a method of 'literal description'. One may wonder now, however, why it is necessary to have a description. Why might the two texts to be compared not simply be printed next to one another? If it is not possible to say something about such texts without adding a new meaning (through a new context), why would one develop a new description anyway? The answer to that question is that The sociologist (as far as I picture him, at least) is interested not in analyzing individual cases, but in the (common) logic of several transformations. (Hak 1989: 36)Very relevant. This is why an ideal project of concursive study would include a very large corpus of material. A since literary work may lead to nothing but a characterization of a specific author's concursive register, but a broader selection could demonstrate more dynamic aspects.
Language as a system of selection, combination, and transformation rules can be seen as a (sociologically speaking) neutral medium through which sociologically relevant phenomena (i.e., 'meanings') are realized. The fact that these 'meanings' themselves are non- or translinguistic does not preclude description of the process of their production as a reorganization or transformation of material (i.e., that this production process can be described in linguistic terms). (Hak 1989: 37)This point is bothersome for my project of concourse, as properly speaking, all "signifieds" are nonverbal. So what justification is there for cutting out a slice or barring off a piece of the sphere of "signifieds" which concern human bodily behaviour? I cannot think of any valid justification at the moment. The fact that "biosemiotic criticism" does something similar by taking literary descriptions of nature as their special realm of objects, seems to be my only recourse for justification at this moment.
Actually, this model can be usurped for my purposes as well (although there is no specific need for it). Namely, "observations during home visits" could be replaced with "personal observations of nonverbal behaviour", "discourse of psychiatric assistance" with "concourse", and "report of duty" with "concursive passages in the literary work". Here, "concourse" itself essentially signifies cultural, literary and everyday acquaintance with descriptions of nonverbal behaviour.
Menocchio's statements about what he has read can be seen as a representation of the 'meaning' those texts have for him. This 'meaning' is but the transformation occurring from one text (the books read) to the other (Menocchio's words). (Hak 1989: 38-39)The same can be said about most comments I make in this blog.
The term 'positive' I bollow from Foucault (1972), who calls his own method of historiography 'positive'. By that he understands description of statements in their exclusiveness, a type of description which he opposes to the search for meaning in those statements. In the sociology I suggest here, hde necessity for opposing the positivity of the sign (the statement) to the non-positivity (metaphysics) of the 'meaning' loses ground. Insofar as 'meaning' is a category that is empirical-scientifically useful, it has to be positive 'somewhere'. The 'meaning' of a discourse coincides with the way in which that discourse excludes statements. Hence my definition of 'meaning' as 'restriction to new statements'. As a result, this approach makes it impossible to think of 'meaning' as a characteristic of a text. Here, 'meaning' is an effect of (transformational) work that is applied to the text. (Hak 1989: 39)This definition of "meaning" would appear to be suitable only for lingvosemiotics. I'm not so sure that the "meaning" of a nonverbal behaviour can be captured in what can and cannot be said about it, e.g. concourse. This is largely so because unlike verbal material (words), which we presume to be meaningful, bodily behaviour functions in other ways as way. For example, instrumentally. You can't chop wood with words. You can use words to make another person chop wood, but that other person must still put his or her body to use. Even if there were a voice-activated wood-chopping machine, it would be the latter that would actually do the physical work. And I don't think any of it is "meaningful" in the sense of what is or is not said about it. Thus, something else is needed for nonverbal semiotics.
Ginzburg does not describe Menocchio's interpretive work; rather, he judges it. This means that in one important aspect Ginzburg does not differ much from the Inquisition. (Hak 1989: 40)Ugh, so if I study the semiotics of facecrime in Orwell's 1984, I am not much different from thoughtpolice?
Hayashi, Makoto 2005. Joint turn construction through language and the body: Notes on embodiment in coordinated participation in situated activities. Semiotica 156(1/4): 21-53.
I examine how language and participants' bodily conduct mutually contextualize one another to build temporally-unfolding frameworks of co-participation, and explore ways in which participants utilize such frameworks as resources to accomplish joint turn construction. (Hayashi 2005: 21)An aspect that is also present in literature.
The relationship between language and the body has been studied from a number of different perspectives. Some researchers investigate bodily conduct, particularly gesture, in terms of how it correlates with the psychological functioning of a single speaker's mind in the process of speech production (e.g., Freedman 1977; Butterworth and Beattie 1978; McNeill 1985, 1992; McNeill and Duncan 2000; Feyereisen and de Lannoy 1991; Goldin-meadow et al. 1992; Kita 1997, 2000). In this type of research, the link between language and the body is viewed primarily as a psychological/cognitive one. That is, bodily conduct is analyzed as an externalization or a by-product of fundamentally private, psychological phenomena of language processing in an individual's mind. (Hayashi 2005: 22)E.g. bodily behaviour stands for or indicates cognitive processes or inner states.
The focus of analysis here is on how Chika's talk and concurrent embodied enactment of the description provide a heightened moment for Asami to demonstrate her ongoing understanding of the description in progress in line 4. (Hayashi 2005: 24)At some point I should probably address the distinction between concurrence and concourse. The first appears in conversations wherein speech and body movement occur simultaneously in time. Concourse on the other hand appears in the content of speech or text and signifies body movement as it is mediated by language use. In this sense concourse is also concurrent, but instead of speech and body movement there is an abstract simultaneity between text as a verbal product and the body movement signified by the text. Clearly I still need to work on these notions.
At the heart of language and bodily conduct as public resources for the achievement of socially coordinated participation in situated activities is the projectability of human conduct. Projectability allows participants to anticipate the future course of action being produced by another participate and produce a specific form of action that fits into the unfolding structure of that other participant's ongoing action. All the three instances examined above showed that recipients of ongoing descriptions orient not only to the projections provided by the detailed structure of emerging talk, but also to the projections provided by unfolding visual conduct produced by the speaking to successfully accomplish joint turn construction. (Hayashi 2005: 45-46)All this amounts to a broader view of truncated acts (sensu G. H. Mead). Namely, that in everyday conversations there is more like an ongoing truncation of action in which all participants take part. This is a means for communication to produce "oneness" (in the sense that two minds in communication are one). The gesturally produced projections are not only affiliated with verbal content but acknowledged and responded to by other participants. It is also related to hypersemiotics, which Fiordo outlined above.
Moreover, in the last two instances examined above, recipients display congruent understanding not only through the joint construction of talk in progress, but also by producing visual conduct that is recognizably tied to the unfolding bodily conduct of the speaker. We observed an instance of 'gestural co-construction' whereby a recipient anticipatorily produced a part of the gestural enactment of gas-pipe installation being produced by the speaker, as well as an instance of 'gestural tying' through a formal similarity between the speaker's prior gesture and the recipipnt's current gesture, by means of which the recipient retroactively provides a linguistic specification ('casual sweater') of the earlier gesture by the speaker whose meaning was left unspecified. (Hayashi 2005: 46)From this point "interaction synchrony" seems overly superficial. It turns out that one's (illustrative) gestures more like "inspire" similar (illustrative) gestures in another.
The discussion so far about the multimodal character of talk in interaction leads to our final point, i.e., the issue of how we should think about what we call 'turns at talk.' The intricate process we observed above through which participants deploy vocal and visual conduct to build action together in interaction clearly demonstrate that turns are not simply 'opportunities to produce strips of speech.' Rather, they are multimodal packages for the production of action (and collaborative action) that makes use of a range of different modalities, i.e., grammatical structure, sequential organization, organization of gaze and gesture, spatial-orientational frameworks, etc., in conjunction with each other. (Hayashi 2005: 47)Such an intricate analysis does seem overly complicated for simplistic studies, though. This paper managed to analyse three illustrations. So little data may prove insufficient for broader conclusions. The effort is commendable nevertheless.
Heusden, Barend van 2007. Semiosis, art, and literature. Semiotica 165(1/4): 133-147.
It is argued that literature is linguistic mimetic meta-representation. (Heusden 2007: 133)This looks promising.
We are living in a visual age. This at least seems to be the communis opinio, the mantra repeated over and over again, especially in the circles of the humanities and cultural studies. (Heusden 2007: 133)"The generally accepted view" or "general professional opinion", communis opinio, is an international legal term that has a Wikipedia article about it only in Dutch (the author is also, presumably, Dutch).
We also enjoy all sorts of more or less extreme bodily sensations: we dance until trance, we experiment with drugs, we are carried away by roller coasters, and we seek the thrill of tho void in bungee jumping. The sensations do not need always to be extreme: we love to do sports, fitness, and hiking - we love to feel our body and keep it in shape. (Heusden 2007: 134)By "we" he means Western Europeans. Right?
Although, in my opinion, the statement that we are living in a visual culture misses the point, there certainly is a point. If we consider what has been said above, the common feature of most of the information we deal with in contemporary culture is that it is very often extremely concrete. The images, the sounds, and the bodily sensations are seldom abstract, in the sense of being either conceptual or theoretical. (Heusden 2007: 4)Are bodily sensations concrete? In what sense? I can store images and music on my harddrive, but I can't do the same with bodily sensations, for example. This is an absurd example, but in any case the increasing concreteness of modern culture would need further substantiation.
It is my conjecture that the literature that is endangered is a particular type of literatuer. It is a literature that requires conceptual and abstract thought, whereas the literature that appeals to the concrete imagination is not in jeopardy at all. Examples of the latter would be Dave Eggers' A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Jonathan Safran Foer's novels Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, or Rosalind Krauss' The History of Love. A recent case in point in Dutch literature would be Tommy Wieringa's novel Joe Speedboat. (Heusden 2007: 135)I wonder what role does concourse play in this concerteness? It seems obvious enough that novels which rely more on bodily descriptions and, in a loose metaphorical sense, "show" instead of "tell", are more concrete, but again, concreteness is not well defined here.
Literature, or 'art in language,' is a specific type of semiosis. Semiosis involves the use of signs. What are signs? From my perspective, signs are nothing but the stable memories that humans use to recognize the changing actuality they interact with. Semiosis is the continuous process of matching memories, or signs, to an ever-changing reality. This semiotic process can be realized with the help of externalizations, or artifacts (imitations of behavior, gestures, pictures, linguistic signs, etc.), but it need not be. (Heusden 2007: 136)Huh. This sure is a novel way to look at it. But what if the actuality that I interact with is constant to the degree of banality and the signs that I use are anything but stable? What then?
I have distinguished three basic forms of semiosis: mimetic (image), conceptual (symbol), and theoretical (structure). Moreover, I have argued that these three forms of semiosis are cumulative: the structure presupposes the symbol, the symbol presupposes the image. All semiosis rests, therefore, upon concrete - or perceptual - representations. (Heusden 2007: 137)Yeah, I don't see how this isn't a poor man's Peirceanism. It would have been okay if there simply were three types of semiosis. But throwing the protocol of degeneracy (cumulative-ness) into the mix just spoils it, in my opinion.
The hypothesis I would like to put forward is that the mimetic meta-representation corresponds to what we, in Western culture, have come to call 'art' (van Heusden 2004b). The function of the mimetic meta-representation is to represent concretely, that is, in figurative signs, the representation process. The structure of the representation process is the 'universal' referent of art. (Heusden 2007: 137)This is where you lose me. When it gets too double-hermeneutic-spiral-ly, I am unable to follow.
In the case of literature, the approach allows us to schematize three groups of literary devices:And mimetic representation of bodily behaviour is not accounted for. For me it's a bit ironic that all representations serve action, but it doesn't even deserve a mention that action can be represented.
As we all know, representations, in the end, serve action. We will act in a certain way depending on our representation of a situation. Life consists of representations and actions that follow up on the representations. (Heusden 2007: 138-139)
- literature as mimetic representation of perception - sound and rhythm, imagery (prototypes), the perspective of consciousness
- literature as mimetic representation of linguistic and conceptual thought - literature as representation of communication, of linguistic consciousness (dialogism), of collective beliefs (wisdom), of oral and written; new forms in postmodern visual or concrete culture; the problem of genre(s)literature as mimetic representation of thought - literature as representation of a theoretical culture (cf. Kundera 1986 on the history of the novel, among so many others), of individualism, and of consciousness in modernist literature in the sonnet, the novel, and tragedy.
In Michelangelo Antonioni's film L'avventura, for example, we come very close to a pure meta-representation, but even there, the protagonists act, although minimally. And not acting may be considered, in the end, as a 'zero-degree' of acting. Most of the time, therefore, a part from being a meta-representation of the representation process, a mimetic representation of human life is also the representation of human action. This basic dichotomy of meta-representation and representation of action corresponds, on the level of the mimetic representation, to that between art and entertainment. (Heusden 2007: 139)There it is, maybe? At this point I have no idea what "representation" and "meta-representation" signify in this text.
The more the representation tends toward the (meta-)representation of consciousness, the more it becomes art. If, on the other hand, action is stressed, the representation tends to become entertainment. (Heusden 2007: 139)That's a very poor evaluation. I ragequit. Note, also, that the definition of said procedure is "to quit out of a game because you are either losing, failing, or just plain suck". In other words, I quit reading this article halfway through because I'm not up for it, I fail to get any pleasure from reading it.
Hoppál, Mihály 1987. Proxemic patterns, social structures, and world view. Semiotica 65(3/4): 225-247.
By creating sign systems or (to put it in an even simpler way) by coding, symbolic systems guide and regulate the social practices of everyday life. The new thought here is that the production of signs is a part of human productive activity, and that the point of departure should be not the hypothetically abstract concept of the sign, but the notion of sign-production as a type of activity, since this leads to semiosis (sign-process as C. S. Peirce said it). Here coding is synonymous with production. This means that the code (and the process of coding) is highly important to cultural semiotics. It might even be said that focusing on the process is at least as important as was (earlier) the concept of sign. (Hoppál 1987: 226)Related to sign-control (or social control of signs). It also makes me wonder if I should include the concept of "concursive code" in my work. For example, popular books on body language present such "concursive codes" and the use of these codes can be traced in literature, too. Pease's anecdotal account of how the direction of holding a cigarette signifies the emotional state of the smoker is echoed in Olev Remsu's Kurbmäng Paabelis, wherein a female character brags about how she is able to "read people" by the way they hold their cigarettes.
Culture is a hierarchically constructed system of the various phenomena of the intellectual life of man and society, which serves to store, accumulate and exchange information' (Uspensky et al. 1973: 1). Ethnosemiotics provides a conceptual tool for the analysis of this production, since in folk culture and society there is a characteristic mechanism which guarantees the constancy and maintenance of the codes where nonverbal codes (the organization of space and gesture) are used to transfer messages at least as improtant as those relayed through the natural language text, and are characterized by a high level of constancy of these codes (see on the different types of codes Hoppál 1979a). (Hoppál 1987: 227)A highly dubious notion. I have yet to see a practical application of the concept of "nonverbal code".
Our hypothesis here is that culture-specific proxemic behavior is based on a 'set of beliefs' (Loflin and Winogrond 1976). The belief system is made up of propositions (taking the special sense of the word as used in logic) which contains the necessary information for the reproduction of all space-using patterns in a given society. In the next part we will take a closer look at the belief system. (Hoppál 1987: 227)The title of Loflin and Winogrond's paper is "A culture as a set of beliefs". This leads to a reinterpretation of the first sentence of this quote as "Our hypothesis here is that culture-specific proxemic behavior is based on culture". This appears as a kind of tautology. On the other hand, I agree that nonverbal behaviour is in part conditioned by statements about it (e.g. the "dissertation" type of concourse).
Human beings actually create worlds within which they live, think, speak, and act; this is what Berger and Luckmann (1967) called the process of world construction, or the social construction of reality. An ideological system is a particular cultural code by which the world is defined, described and understood. (Hoppál 1987: 229)This ideological system appears quite verbal (if it involves defining and describing). An interesting approach would be to investigate a nonverbal ideological system. In Orwell's 1984 this is almost the case. E.g. there are no laws, but when you get caught with something, you are most definitely off to a labor camp.
It is important to notice here that each culture must be studied in terms of its own world view, rather than in those of the anthropologists (Jones 1972: 87). (Hoppál 1987: 232)Likewise, I believe that in studying nonverbal behaviour in a novel one should proceed with the terms that the novel itself offers, rather than introducing categories from other sources. These other terms can be used for sake of analysis, sure, but they cannot structure the material lest the outcome conform to a preconceived plan.
To the Americans a space is empty - one gets into it by intersecting it with lines' (1966: 159). The Japanese, for example, arrange furniture in the middle of the room; this is rarely the case in Western countries, where it is usually arranged along the walls (Hall 1969: 50). It means that the central space is empty, contrary to both the Japanese household and the Central Asian yurt (where the center coincides with the place of the sacred fire). (Hoppál 1987: 241)Huh. I started imagining trying this out in my dorm room. I'd place the large shelves back-to-back near the entrance, then the desk (or workplace generally) and then bed near the window. I could then pace around the whole room, deep in thought.
Innis, Robert E. 2007. The making of the literary symbol: Taking note of Langer. Semiotica 165(1/4): 91-106.
An art work, in any genre, is for Langer essentially a 'symbol of feeling.' Langer's use of the notion of a symbol is not that of Saussure, which involves motivation, nor of Peirce, which is purely conventional, nor of the 'symbolic' tradition. A 'symbol' for her, following Whitehead, is any device by means of which we can make an abstraction (Feeling and Form: xi, hereafter FF). For Langer a symbol mediates knowledge, giving us cognitive control, or insight, in one way or another. An aesthetic symbol, on Langer's conception, is an abstraction device that is meant to give us knowledge of 'feeling.' (Innis 2007: 91)More reasons to read Whitehead - it may aid understanding Langer (which is quite complicated at times). I imagine it would be difficult to apply this theory of feeling-symbols on my present work, but it sure is interesting.
The role and function of the aesthetic symbol is not to 'represent' the world in the discursive mode but rather in the non-discursive, or presentational, mode. (Innis 2007: 92)Synonyms for "nonverbal".
Not only, on Langer's account, is 'music not a kind of language' (FF: 29), no work of art, no matter what the medium, is a kind of language, for works of art lack 'conventional reference' because they have no 'conventional meaning.' Works of art have significance, which can be complex indeed, but this significance is really a 'vital import' (FF: 32), which corresponds, I think, to Peirce's affective or emotional interpretant. (Innis 2007: 93)u
The right approach, in Langer's conception, is 'to look upon the art object as something in its own right, with properties independent of our prepared reactions, and make art the autonomous essential factor that it is in every human culture' (FF: 39). (Innis 2007: 93-94)This, on the other hand, is in line with both Jakobson (the autonomy of art and the aesthetic/poetic function) as well as with later Lotman (especially in "A justification of art").
Still, an art work does not involve a mere rearrangement of 'given things - even qualitative things' (FF: 40). It is an achievement of the imagination, which Langer calls man's 'utmost conceptual power' (FF: 40). It is the artist's great ability to envisage what it feels like to feel the world and to construct a symbolic image that articulates and carries, that is, embodies, such a feeling or complex of feelings. (Innis 2007: 94)I should not forget - amidst all the speculation about concourse as a cluster of cultural codes - to make room for imagination.
This production of a semblance is a process of dissociation from the ordinary, a form of 'othering' or of producing otherness. In this sense the art work is a 'sheer image' (FF: 46) marked by 'strangeness, separateness, otherness' (FF: 50). These properties put a real gap between the image and its model, traffic between which is not central to art. Langer rejects, indeed, the notion of art as copying, or even, it would appear, of mimesis, if we are to think of the purpose of art to render a model, or make a model present. For Langer, rather, the purpose of art is to present a way of accessing a model. Art, in this sense, is an 'access structure,' but it is not the model that determines the access structure. While the model may indeed, and in some cases must, be represented, representation is not central to art or applicable to all the arts. (Innis 2007: 95)This approach seems much more serviceable than viewing art in terms of mimetic metarepresentations or whatever Heusden's article was about.
At any rate, the semiotic 'strangeness' of the art symbol comes from its liberation from the imitative impulse, from the demand for representation. The import of the work of art is found totally within the art symbol. This import is created not mirrored from an antecedent completed state of the artist or of the world. (Innis 2007: 96)Compare this to the formalist's deformation, deautomatization, etc.
Now every successful poem, Langer claims, must have 'organic character' (FF: 314). Its task is to create the 'semblance of experienced events ... a virtual order of experiences' (FF: 214). But the import of the poem is not 'literal' in any sense of that term. It is a self-contained world, purely virtual, not actual, a 'presented "world"' (FF: 217). This world is purely experiential. It is this feature that 'makes the "world" of a poetic world more intensely significant than the actual world ...' (FF: 216). The virtual world of literature parallels the virtual space of a picture. (Innis 2007: 97)I'm sure this "organic character" of literature is, at least in part, due to concourse. Bodily experiences and experiences of bodies are presented in literature.
So, the primary illusion of literature arises from its primary abstraction - virtual events embodied in a text, a web of words. (Innis 2007: 98)Hitting the nail on the head.
A poem, and a fortiori a novel or short story, is not a set of statements but a 'created appearance, a fabric of virtual events' (FF: 228). It is not an 'escape from reality' (FF: 228). When direct statements are found in a poem or another form of literary 'fiction,' when, that is, we seem to be dealing with a discursive form, their 'directness is a means of creating a virtual experience, a non-discursive form expressing a special sort of emotion or sensibility; that is to say, their use is poetic, even if they are bald assertions of fact' (FF: 228). (Innis 2007: 98)Thus, concursive dissertations (e.g. conceptual thought in the novel about the significance of bodily behaviour) may appear as assertions, they are still a literary creations and carry a function different from a scientific treatise. Most likely these functions will become apparent in the context of the novel.
The virtual life that is presented in literature is 'always a self-contained form, a unit of experience' (FF: 272), having a closed form that actual experience does not have. The virtual experience, virtual history, and virtual memory of a literary work, Langer holds, must give us the illusion of a life that is experiential through and through, wherein 'all its connections are lived connections' (FF: 265). (Innis 2007: 100)In 1984, we also have a virtual language (newspeak).
The job of the critic or of the interpreter is then to discover 'the intricacies of real memory through the artistic devices that achieve its semblance' (FF: 277), with all the complications of the 'play of tenses' that may be involved. (Innis 2007: 100)Whoa!
For Langer every work of art, including a literary work, is 'a single, indivisible symbol, although a highly articulate one' (FF: 369). But it is a prime symbol, not a symbolism, since its elements play their roles in a 'total form' and have no independent standing (FF: 369). This total form is marked by tensions that arise from interacting elements. (Innis 2007: 102)Thus Langer must be placed in line with Mukařovský and Lotman in this regard.
First of all, Langer denies the legitimacy of the notion of a 'message.' The art symbol is not a discourse nor a comment, she claims, which is a very deceptive 'working model' (FF: 394). (Innis 2007: 103)Something we have in common, but probably for different reasons. I dislike the notion of message because it belongs to the parlance of communication theory, which is more often than not misused. There is another reason, which I can now phrase in Fiordo's terms: "message" is hyposemiotic. Nonverbal communication is often hypersemiotic. It's too bad I don't yet have a good alternative for "message". Eesti keeles on sõnum eriti kohatu mitteverbaalse käitumise kontekstis: sõnu-m peaks siiski sisaldama sõnu.
Jestrović, Vilvija 2008. Semiotics of nonsemiotic performance. Semiotica 168(1/4): 93-107.
In his 'Manifesto of structuralism,' published in 1975 in The Drama Review, Kirby distingusihed structuralist performances from other types of theatre and drama, all of which, of course, involve certain structuring principles, but do not make form and structure into dominant aesthetic features. As the editor of The Drama Review in 1979, Kirby put together a special issue on structuralist performance that features articles on a variety of works in theatre, dance, and film (including Kirby's plays) that could be described as structuralist. (Jestrović 2008: 93)I should probably inform Iiris Viirpalu of this.
In his 1982 article "Nonsemiotic performance,' Kirby argues that his work recycles structural theory as its creative source, while subverting semiotic activity in the process of creation and reception (1982: 105-111). Starting with the premise that semiotics is a process of decoding the encoded message, Kirby refuses to encode massages [sic] in his plays, thus resisting the model of art-as-communication. Furthermore, he sees in structural theory a possibility of establishing a deductive system of analysis of theatrical structure that goes beyond particular works and forms but deals with structure as a phenomenon in time and space. Kirby explores the possibilities of going beyond the notion of theatrical event as a semiotic process and by the same token searches for alternative theoretical approaches. Semiotics becomes obsolete in a 'pure' structuralist theatre. (Jestrović 2008: 94)I think it's perfectly correct to dismiss communicative approaches to cultural phenomena which are communicative only on the theoretical level. But semiotics goes far beyond communication. Theatre is still semiotic, that is, involves signification, even if it's natural communicative aspect is often minimal. In short, semiotics is not only about communication.
Yuri Lotman, who introduced the idea of semiosphere, points out that 'throughout the whole space of semiosis, from social jargon to fashion, there is also a constant renewal of codes. So any one language turns out to be immersed in a semiotic space and it can only function by inetraction with that space' (2000: 124-125). It is thus possible for nonsemiotic performance to stay out of semiotic space, which constantly adapts and renews its codes to accommodate new and emerging structures? And could structural theory and performance defy the gravity of the semiosphere? (Jestrović 2008: 94)No, it is not. Even if there was a means to "break out of the semiosphere", so to say, theatre is certainly not the way to do it. But then again, the semiosphere also has its issues. As Randviir, for example, points out, the semiosphere is too "totalizing" - there is nothing "outside" of it, because as soon as something is "found" outside, it is brought "inside" by the mere fact of discovery. It would be like trying to touch something that has not been touched by human hands in order to keep it that way.
The problem comes down to two questions: What is understood by meaning? And what is the relationship between function and meaning? Kirby relates meaning to message, thus placing it with communicational and referential function of the work. He writes: 'The spectator assumes that, since there are semantic elements, the presentation should be understood semantically. Materials were interpreted; meanings were "read in" where they were not intended' (1976: 61). (Jestrović 2008: 96)Exactly. The meaning of meaning is ambiguous. It is a handful of putty. And does the lack of semantic elements itself become a semantic element? E.g. zero-signness.
Poetic function does not support or clarify the meaning in the process of aesthetic reception, but rather refers back to itself. In such case, the task of the message is not to serve the communicational purpose and bring forth the 'meaning' of the work. This kind of message is self-centered, focused not on the recipient, but on its own expressivity. (Jestrović 2008: 96)This is a false opposition. The poetic message is not opposed to the addressee but to reference. It is not "extroversive" in the sense of being about something other than itself, e.g. reference, something in the world. It is "introversive" in the sense of being about nothing in particular and thus only about itself. It must not be forgotten that the theory of poetic function was formulated against the background of and by a participant in Russian futurism, zaum. The zaum poem is written in a language that has been intentionally deformed so as to remove it's "understandability", it's "thought". The zaum poem is the ideal example of the poetic function because it brings forward not what it is about, by whom it was written and for whom, but the fact of its own existence, it's sound-qualities. The poetic function is the function of the message because it concerns the production of the message irrespective of its content.
Poetic function does not support or clarify the meaning in the process of aesthetic reception, but rather refers back to itself. In such case, the task of the message is not to serve the communicational purpose and bring forth the 'meaning' of the work. This kind of message is self-centered, focused not on the recipient, but on its own expressivity. (Jestrović 2008: 96)This is a false opposition. The poetic message is not opposed to the addressee but to reference. It is not "extroversive" in the sense of being about something other than itself, e.g. reference, something in the world. It is "introversive" in the sense of being about nothing in particular and thus only about itself. It must not be forgotten that the theory of poetic function was formulated against the background of and by a participant in Russian futurism, zaum. The zaum poem is written in a language that has been intentionally deformed so as to remove it's "understandability", it's "thought". The zaum poem is the ideal example of the poetic function because it brings forward not what it is about, by whom it was written and for whom, but the fact of its own existence, it's sound-qualities. The poetic function is the function of the message because it concerns the production of the message irrespective of its content.
Through the poetic function the auto-textual or auto-expressive level is established that determines the immanent quality of an artistic work, regardless of its communicative value. (Jestrović 2008: 97)I believe the "auto" in these notions is completely superfluous. People tend to take "auto-referentiality" too strongly. It is more like a metaphor for a lack of external reference, not a statement that the poetic work is completely about itself.
In structuralism, 'structure dominates,' it is the most important element. He further explains that a structuralist 'knows about memory and expectancy and how these mechanisms work. He knows that anything that is remembered or expected - a phrase, a gesture, an action, an attitude, a thing, color, a shape - indicates structure. He knows that structure becomes manifest in the workings of the mind' (1975: 82). (Jestrović 2008: 97)Yeah, I'm not so sure about that. In structuralism, according to Jakobson, function dominates. It is called structuralism because language is a structure. But what language does as a goal-oriented instrument of human creation involves a multiplicity of functions. Anything that is remembered or expected does not "indicate" a structure but is a structure. To reduce structuralism to structure is not to understand structuralism, at least not Jakobson's structuralism.
As the Futurist theatre that inspired Jakobson's revisions of the communicational model in art, the structiralist theatre is based on suppressing the communicational potential of the work and minimizing its referential function. (Jestrović 2008: 98)Nope. The practical, informative ol communicative function of a work of art does not have to be suppressed or minimized. It is already antithetical to the aesthetic function of the work of art. In Langer's terms, communication is "discursive" while art is "non-discursive" or "presentational". In both approaches, a piece of art can still be about something in the world (e.g. political art), but it's dominant function is not referential but aesthetic.
Kirby's rejection of menaing, his anti-message approach, is indeed a message oriented towards expression. And even though this kind of message does not want to be sent out, it still cannot exist independently of the internal communicational circle of the work. It becomes not only possible but almost unavoidable to approach a nonsemiotic performance via models that are intrinsically semiotic [...] (Jestrović 2008: 98)I think this term is an oxymoron. Semiotic is not, after all, a quality of something. It is a field of study. By the same token "non-linguistic" is similarly nonsensical, although a better example would be something like "non-cardiological", e.g. not using any knowledge of cardiology. I think this happens so often (e.g. even in the case of Fiordo's "post-semiotic") because "semiotics" does not indicate what it is as clearly as "semiology". "A nonsemiological performance" would sound banal, wouldn't it? This paper is riddled with such misuses and false oppositions. For example, an anti-message is a message oriented towards expression? Then it is an expressive message, not an anti-message. I'm being extremely pedantic because I'm getting tired of putty-throwing.
In subverting semiotic relations and communication in the process of creation and reception, Kirby writes and stages a work that does not communicate but is indeed about communication. (Jestrović 2008: 99)Isn't that the lowest form of communication, though? Writing about writing is what beginner bloggers do. Speaking about speaking is what nervous speakers do. Why is it that in practical, informative and communicative spheres "going meta" is a disturbance but in artistic creation it is welcome and appropriate to be up oneself, to go up one's own arse. Somehow, either through theoretical work or simply lazyness, so much art has become gleefully pointless. I don't think "ragequit" is appropriate in this and the last instance I invoked it. I disappointquit.
Kirk, Lorraine and Michael Burton 1976. Physical versus semantic classification of nonverbal forms: A cross-cultural experiment. Semiotica 17(4): 315-337.
A second question motivating the work is whether people will classify nonverbal acts on the basis of anatomy and motion or on the basis of semantics. (Kirk & Burton 1976: 315)This would indeed be good to know.
Such criteria could include the body parts used or the kinds of motion involved in performing the emblems. The verbal/semantic and visual kinaesthetic criteria are, however, not mutually exclusive. It is conceivable that people would switch from one kind of criterion to another within a judged similarity task. (Kirk & Burton 1976: 316)Understanding "semantic" in the sense of "verbal" is kind of restrictive, isn't it?
Emblems may be iconic in that they resemble their referents; by contrast, the meanings of spoken words are generally unrelated to the sounds of words. (Kirk & Burton 1976: 316)In that case they are emblems only if there is a verbal correlate (a name for the gesture). Otherwise they are illustrators.
The most striking result of the clusterings of body parts is that Maasai and Kikuyu differ in the location of 'body' with respect to other anatomical terms. The Maasai link 'body' with the head (most closely with 'mouth' and 'ear'). By contrast, the Kikuyu link their word for 'body' with the parts of the leg. (Kirk & Burton 1976: 317)In Estonian the word for "body" (keha) may similarly stand for either the whole body indiscriminately or, particularly, the trunk of the body. For the latter there is also a separate word, kere.
1. Mouth Point. This emblem is used to indicate an object or direction, very much as the finger is used for pointing in English. The core of this movement is a protrusion of the lips in the direction of the object or space indicated. (Kirk & Burton 1976: 319)This tidbit of (Maasai or Kikuyu) nonverbal behaviour is often met in popular books on body language.
9. Indication That a Secret is Being Communicated (Maasai) / Expression That Something is Funny (Kikuyu). In the Maasai emblem (secret), the tongue touches the outside of the cheek on a horizontal plane. In the Kikuyu emblem (funny), the hand is placed over the mouth and the shoulders raised. (Kirk & Burton 1976: 319)Why do these behaviours seem so familiar?
1. Deixis. Five of the Kikuyu emblems serve to locate a person or location in space. These are:Conative and referential gestures!
(Kirk & Burton 1976: 325)
- 'Contempt': Directed towards the person being abused.
- 'Mouth point': Communicates the location of something.
- 'Finger point': Communicates the location of something.
- 'Stop that': Arm is extended in direction of person addressed.
- 'Come': Arm is extended in direction of person addressed.
The clarity of this contrast is surprising, as there is great room for error in obtaining labels (necessarily through approximations) for the emblems and in administering the triads tests orally under field conditions.If the verbal labels are difficult to elucidate and their use is not interchangeable with these verbal labels then you're not really dealing with emblems.
Also from the correlations data: (a) It can be concluded that emblems are to a very great extent context independent. Some amount of context independence is generally assumed for emblems, but to our knowledge little if any empirical work has been done to support this. (b) The existence and context independence of emblems is demonstrated to be a cross-cultural phenomenon and to occur within the non-western world. (c) It is demonstrated that triads tests as a measure of judged similarity can be used successfully to produce nonrandom data with kinesic material. (Kirk & Burton 1976: 328)
Koneya, Mele 1981. Unresolved theoretical issues in nonverbal communication. Semiotica 37(1/2): 1-14.
There can be little doubt that the realm of nonverbal communication, having been discovered and rediscovered, continues to have a great deal of allure for communication researchers. During each of the past several years a conspicuous number of new books and articles on various aspects of this attractive subject has come forth from a wide variety of disciplines. (Koneya 1981: 1)Discovered and rediscovered? I know this is true of the universal facial expressions hypothesis (according to Ekman 1973), but not of nonverbal communication in general.
Despite this proliferation in the number and kind of studies, there does not appear to have been any sustained effort to establish the limits and attributes of the domain presumed to exist under the nonverbal rubric. At the same time, there has not been very much in the way of reflective and summarizing writing about all the data and issues that have emerged during the 22-year period since the landmark use by Ruesch and Kees (1956) of the term nonverbal communicaiton in a book title. (Koneya 1981: 1)What about Mary Ritche Key's compendium? (Paralanguage and Kinesics, 1975) It can also be argued that the limits and attributes of this domain cannot be established before a saturation point has been achieved in discoveries. And the discoveries are still, as far as I know, still coming in.
Taken at its face value, the word nonverbal seeems to imply a reference to everything but words. Numerous current textbooks, which are usually better known for their student appeal than for their theory building, have offered logical and reasonable definitions of nonverbal communication as 'messages without words' (Eisenberg and Smith 1971); 'communication without words' (Myers and Myers 1973); 'all the cues that are not words' (Wenburg and Wilmot 1973), 'all the source and receiver behaviors, except the production of verbal messages, performed in a communicative text' (Applbaum et al. 1973); and 'all the actions, things characteristic of people, including the physical setting itself which either get exchanged or which influence the exchange and which are "taken into account' by the communicators - other than words themselves or word substitutes' (Koneya and Barbour (1976). (Koneya 1981: 2)Beautiful, just beautiful.
But unfortunately for those tehory building efforts aimed at refining the domain, there are many researchers of nonverbal communication who fail to distinguish these mere substitutes for words from those genuine nonverbal variables that do not directly represent words. In the literature of nonverbal communication, those body and facial movements called 'emblems' are the most conspicuous examples of verbal surrogates that regularly get included in lists of nonverbal communication variables. (Koneya 1981: 3)As in the previous paper I read, which seemed confused as to the definition of emblem itself.
An emblem produced by the human hand could be affected in meaning and intensity by the significance given by the receiver to the color of the hand, the age of the hand, the apparent texture and sex of the hand, and by whether the hand is bare, gloved, or adorned with jewelry. These meaningful characteristics of the hand can best be classified as the nonverbal attitudes of the emblem being expressed by the hand. (Koneya 1981: 4)Yes, even emblems have synsemantic characteristics.
The way in which actions can substitute directly for words have been given an imaginative treatment by the renowned linguistics scholar, Pike (1972). To demonstrate his functional view of language and to enable culture-bound American students to understand non-Indo-European languages that resisted analysis and groupings of their components into the familiar verb, noun, and other subdivisions of English grammar, Pike used the old church social and party song, 'Under the Spreading Chestnut Tree'. This sing is first sung with all the lyrics intact. On each subsequent round of singing, a body of action or gesture is substituted for a word in the song. For example, 'under' might be represented by a hand movement curving away and down, 'spreading' by arm movements away from the torso, 'chest' might be expressed by pointing to one's chest, and 'nut' by pointing to one's head. Each round of singing would result in a progressive substitution of the song's words by actions until, in the last round, the song is 'sung' almost entirely with actions, except for necessary conjunctions and articles. (Koneya 1981: 4)I have actually tried something like this once when bored. I didn't know Kenneth Pike used it so illustratively. It seems like a good way to demonstrate the selection/combination paradigm of Jakobson, although our inherently cynical university students would probably not be the best group to try it with. // Note, also, that this is the exact some song modified in Orwell's 1984 - "Under the spreading chestnut tree, I betrayed you and you betrayed me."
On the other hand, pitch, stress, length, and pause can be considered nonverbal when they occur in nonverbal vocalizations such as jazz 'scat' singing and have some value in and of themselves without linkages to words. Consequently, it may be best to consider paralinguistic elements linked to words as 'extraverbal' rather than nonverbal for the sake of indicating their complementary relationship to words. (Koneya 1981: 5)There is a possibility for confusion when this term is considered in Russian/Soviet context, as it there seems to signify "outside of language" rather than "addition to language". (I may be mistaken here - maybe I just don't understand the Soviets.)
Communication is a special kind of human behavior involving exchanges with other human beings. Sleeping, sneezing, sweating, coughing, and all the physiological functions of humans are not communicative unless specific circumstances exist. (Koneya 1981: 6)It should be noted that in literature (concourse) these circumstances are primarily involved with the abstract concept of "communicating with the reader". In literature, every behaviour becomes communicative in this dimension. It is a whole another question in what measure a given behaviour is communicative between two literary characters.
It was toward resolution of this issue that Exman (1965) presented the concepts communicative and indicative. The former term was used to refer to exchanges of information between two or more interacting humans, while the latter was used to refer to information transmitted by and about one or more human beings but not taken into account by interacting and immediate human beings. Studies of nonverbal indication examine only the sender within the communication exchange and tell an observer nothing directly about whether a receiver can decode any systematic information from a nonverbal indicator. (Koneya 1981: 6)I stand corrected. Literary descriptions are indicative. But it must still be emphasized, that indicative for the reader, not necessarily for other characters in the universe of the literary work. In 1984 specifically, this condition is alleviated by the existence of Big Brother, which (instead of who) is omnipresent and omniscient.
The psychologist links nonverbal behavior to psychological variables of emotion and personality; the anthropologist is interested in the interactive consequences of behavior. These are generalized positions, of course, and there are many researchers who appear to cross these lines, but if Harrison's observation is correct, the psychologist's departure point is the encounter (sender) while the linguist/anthropologist's departure point is the decoder (receiver). (Koneya 1981: 9)It would appear that semiotics is doomed to not only cross the line but to not recognizing it at all, as the semiotic point of departure is code.
Prominent researchers have challenged attempts to separate nonverbal communication from the total domain of all human communication behavior. For example, Birdwhistell (1968) considered the referents of the term 'nonverbal communication' and objected both to the term itself and to the nonarea to which it appeared to refer. He likened the term to an impossible area of 'noncardiac physiology' that, put figuratively, is like studying the donut's hole apart from the donut that surrounds it. (Koneya 1981: 11)Nonverbal nonarea. I am nonplussed. Birdwhistell studied body-motion communication in video recordings of conversations. His opinions come, at least in part, from his choice of empirical materials.
There is also the position expressed by Dance (1967), that ultimately all human communication is verbal since the nonverbal behavior perceived as external to the person is interpreted by use of words in the thought process within the person. Dance apparently did not deny the appropriateness of labeling external events nonverbal when words are clearly absent, but urged that care be exercised when the internal code is considered. (Koneya 1981: 11)By this merit, everything is verbal. When the distinction between signifier and signified is dissolved, we will live in a verbal world only.
Nonverbal communication, even with the refinements of what is nonverbal and what is communicative and what is indicative, probably should not be regarded as a separate research domain. In the stream of human behavior, verbal and nonverbal communication refer to aspects or dimensions of a single but complex phenomenon: communication. (Koneya 1981: 11)This would in effect dismiss the study of bodily behaviour that occurs outside of conversation.
Kuzar, Ron 2011. The subversive agent: Anatomy of personal ideological change. Semiotica 185(1/4): 223-234.
Every human being produces ideological and political texts; knowingly or unknowingly. Every conversation over family dinner is fraught with political attitudes, ideological premises, and a logic that underlies them. A radical change of political standpoints does not happen every day. However, entire populations do at certain historical junctures undergo a change of hearts. Assuming that social distribution and exchange of opinions may have an effect on processes of change of political-cultural standpoints, it is, then, legitimate to ask what exactly happens inside the person about to undergo the change? What is the anatomy of this change? In this paper, I will concentrate on the individual person, not society at large. (Kuzar 2011: 223)A blanket statement much like Randviir's claim that all sign systems are ideological. I wonder if it would be possible to apply this approach to ideological change on Winston's love-hate relationship with Big Brother.
He believes in objective scientific truth and in the ability of language to faithfully reflect reality, thus serving human progress. (Kuzar 2011: 224)A quality of Rousseau's individual. In 1984, by contrast, language does not faithfully reflect reality. Nor is there any reliable stability in bodily behaviour - a pleasant old man later turns out to be an agent of the thought police. Julia, too, has her body language written out in cursive. In general, there is no truth and no progress, only a boot stamping on the face of humanity and whatnot.
Entirely opposite to this view is the representation of man as subject. In Freud's view, there is nothing unique in the individual person, but rather we are all products of the imprinting of the environment on the psyche. The psyche is universal in its ability to open up to influences. The topology of the soul, the division between the conscious and the subconscious (or unconscious), is a universal property of the human being, constituting him as an incoherent, decentered subject, who is inflicted by internal conflicts and tensions between conscious and subconscious desires. Thus, the psychological subject often acts in an irrational manner, driven by factors he has no control over. The subject may develop some self-awareness, but this ability is limited. The drug addict cannot just begin exercising responsibility and decide to stop consuming drugs. He needs social, familial, and therapeutic intervention in order to create a new equilibrium in his troubled soul. (Kuzar 2011: 225)I'll just throw this into the heap of "only error individualizes", along with some of Peirce's and Bakhtin's thoughts of similar vain. All this would explain why so much French philosophy, and French philosophy -inspired semiotics, deals with the subject, subjectivity, etc. It is because of an antiquated understanding of how the human mind works.
The Freudian view of the psyche was one of the inspirations of Althusser, who brought forth the proposal that ideology is in fact parallel to the subconscious. Just as every person has a subconscious by his very nature as a human being, so also every person is an ideological being by his very nature as such. The process that constitutes a person as an ideological subject - in fact not a diachronic process, but an ongoing dynamic state of affars - was named by him interpellation. In French, this word describes the hailing of a suspect by a police officer, but it also means hailing a cab. Ideology is presented here as a summoning authority. The police hails the individual as a criminal subject, ideology hails him as an ideological subject (Althusser 1977[1970]: 174). (Kuzar 2011: 225)Just as every person has a Soul by his very nature as a human being, so also every person is a fan of Black Dynamite by his very nature as such. This is a score for the theory that you only have a soul if you enjoy Black Dynamite, but otherwise complete bullshit. Oh, I mean, it is the space we are listening to divided as such which gives us the information in comparison with something other that gives us the idea of what the idea that wants to be transmitted wants to be. In any case, it may be interesting to analyze Winston and Julia's arrest in 1984 by subverting Althusser's notion of interpellation.
It should be noted that one of the main discursive strategies of religious writing, e.g., in the Talmud, is a description of a certain law along with an interpretation of one of the sages, accompanied by different challenges by other sages. It is therefore not unusual within this genre to bring up questions in order to resolve the conflicts. (Kuzar 2011: 232)This confirms the procedure which Jon Stewart imitated on his show. Namely, that the Rabbi will speak in the manner "one the one hand...", "but on the other hand..." Scientific discourse is well to follow this procedure so as to not neglect opposing views but to integrate them into the work.
Lanigan, Richard L. 1979. A Semiotic Metatheory of Human Communication. Semiotica 27(4): 293-305.
Such a metatheory, I believe, is both a necessary and sufficient condition for understanding and appreciating the concepts of signifier and signified as constituents of the concept sign. It is the legacy of Saussure which puts these concepts at the center of all communicative behavior that is explained by the process of human expression and perception (Culler 1977; see also Hörmann 1971: 109-123). (Lanigan 1979: 293)Not all, surely. It seems impossible to capture hypersemiotic intersomatic communication with the concepts of signifier and signified. Unless, of course, one is willing to elaborate these further than I am aware of, so as to consider the multiplicity of channels, their interconnections and resulting split-second processes wherein a whole host of primary, secondary and tertiary signifiers stand for other signifiers and only then a generalized signifier. I think it is best to disregard these concepts when it comes to nonverbal communication.
For simplicity, I conceive of each theory as being a sequential complex of three construction rules: (1) message, (2) context, and (3) code. In the case of information theory, (a digital logic), which is logically prior to communication theory, message is defined as 'sign presence', conetxt is defined as 'sign absence', and code is defined as 'either sign presence or sign absence'. The construction rule thereby articulated is that in a closed system only context of choice is established. (Lanigan 1979: 295)What in the world? What even is this?
I am now in a position to suggest my third point, that human communication is best accounted for by communication theory as I have defined it. Four key relations are involved with this hypothesis. First, metaphor and morphogenesis must be viewed as a condition of discontinuity for the signifier, and the relationship of metonymy and homeorhesis as a condition of continuity for the signified. (Lanigan 1979: 298)Did you define something? It seemed like you just threw together a hodgepodge of jargon without really explaining anything. Alternatively, which seems like the more reasonable possibility, I am just too dumb and just got whacked on the head with Saussure. Again.
Metonymy is a relational process of the substitution of an attribute for a substance, usually (but not exclusively) a digit based on difference of kind. Homeorhesis is a process of selection and combination within the given norms of a system; it is a form of morphostasis. In brief, morphostasis is a process of massive redundancy which reduces noise to insignificance and prevents change. It is a condition of instability in a system and a working paradigm is a person, i.e., an egocentric nature/function. (Lanigan 1979: 298)I mean, these do look like definitions... I can't believe I used to like some of Lanigan's writings just a few years ago. Disappointquit.
Lepik, Peeter 2002. The anticulture phenomenon in Soviet culture. Semiotica 138(1/4): 179-203.
In this article, Soviet culture is analyzed on the basis of antithetical self-description. The semiotic aspect of the analysis of anticulture proceeds from the original model of semiosis in culture, formulated by Jurii Lotman and Boris Uspenskii, and Lotman's autocommunication theory. (Lepik 2002: 179)Like how the Ministry of Love tortures people?
Ideology is totalistic, because it attempts to govern, in its spirit of prescription, the entire social and cultural life; ideology is doctrinaire, because it declares itself to have command of the complete political truth, with no exceptions; ideology is alienative, since it distrusts, attacks, and subverts weak institutions; ideology is dualistic and sets as opposites the angel-like 'our' against the satanist 'them': he who is not with me is automatically 'against me' (Shils 1958: 450-480). (Lepik 2002: 180)This includes bodily behaviour, especially, it can be stated, sexuality. E.g. Winston's Julia and the "overthrowing" of culture (civilization) in the sexual act.
There are more than enough examples from Soviet culture. In discussing education, Lenin categorically declares: 'Each word expressed by it [pre-socialist education establishment] was falsified in the interests of the bourgeoisie' (Lenin 1950b[1920]: 256, my emphasis). And elsewhere: 'We ... have now seen in practice that in a period of social revolution, proletarian unity can only be implemented by the extreme revolutionary party of Marxism, this can be done only through a merciless struggle against all other parties' (Lenin 1950a[1920]: 488, my emphasis). (Lepik 2002: 180)So it is that newspeak must replace English. Overall, it is a sign of a weak party if it can only exist when all other parties have been done away with. Ideally, a good party rises to the foreground despite the other parties; because it is better than all the rest, not more violent and dominating than all the rest.
Based on results of biosemiotic research it is even indicated that the identification of 'self' in relation to 'other' is the most ancient and also the first (semiotic) opposition in living organisms in general (Sebeok 1989; Bickerton 1990). (Lepik 2002: 180)J. G. once made this argument but without reference to Sebeok's authority, which made her sound ludicrous. (Most of her statements came without any reliable context.) Here: Sebeok's "The notion 'semiotic self' revisited' and Bickerton's Language and Species.
It could be added that Western political scientists and the Soviet intelligentsia (who were able to decipher precedents) could unerringly interpret the near future of the state on the basis of signs, which had a definite meaning as words do in a dictionary. For example, the order of listing of CPSU Politburo members in an article or the way they were lined up at the Lenin mausoleum during parades unambiguously expressed changes which had occurred (were in the process of occurring) in national politics. Soviet culture ritualized behavior. (Lepik 2002: 183)This aspect is at the forefront of Olev Remsu's Kurbmäng Paabelis, which was influenced by Orwell's 1984, but drew more from the author's life in Soviet Estonia. I wonder how much of this ritualization of behaviour is present in Orwell's 1984.
That's way too subtle. It'd be like impregnating the distinction between non-verbal and nonverbal with significance.Firstly, a few remarks on terms. The concepts and spelling of non-culture (or non-text) and nonculture (or nontext) must be kept separate. The latter pair of terms refers to 'nature', which eo ipso is not culture [text]. (Lotman 1970b: 7)The Tartu-Moscow school semioticians have termed as non-culture the 'sphere' which functionally is a culture but which does not (currently) fulfill its rules (Lotman 1970b: 7). It 'does not seem to exist' and falls outside (is forgotten) or is excluded from (due to low[er] level of authority) the limits of a specific culture. Non-culture is subjectively made equivalent to chaos, entropy (in the system organized - nonorganized). (Lepik 2002: 184)
If the spread of culture to non-culture areas occurs (as already indicated) as the expansion to the anticulture sphere is from the viewpoint of culture only possible as 'victory over lies' (Lotman and Uspenskii 1971: 157). In Theses on the Semiotic Study of Culture it is formulated as follows: 'A difference must be made between culture non-text and anti-text: a statement which is not preserved, and a statement which is destroyed' (Ivanov et al. 1998a[1973]: 4.0.0). (Lepik 2002: 185)I should keep in mind to consider the Theses in my analysis. In 1984, the proletariat represent non-culture while thought-criminals represent anti-culture.
The language of this system does not recognize a non-culture, which is neutral and ruins the symmetry. Non-culture is reduced to either culture or anticulture. Such a black-white reduction in Soviet culture presumed self-conscious 'being on guard', regarding both 'us' and 'them'. Foreign cultural figures were classified as (potential) enemies or 'friends' (ours); in the USSR all letters from foreigners were checked as a rule; all foreigners visiting 'us' were restricted in where they could go, etc. Within the culture, those young people who did not belong to communist youth organizations were called 'nonorganized youth' (Soviet functionaries' slang!) and they had (great) difficulty in being admitted to higher education institutions, and in getting certain jobs. (Lepik 2002: 188)Julia was an organized youth. Part of Winston's thought-crime was not following the prescribed conduct of attending public events and lectures as much as necessary (because he found them trite and boring).
A viewpoint causing mirror symmetry has two important features: an individual looking into a mirror is relating to himself; and he sees that of himself which, without looking in the mirror, he does not see. During self-observation (self-admiration or self-hatred), the 'me' is transformed into the 'other' for oneself. (Lepik 2002: 194)This could be useful in thinking about Winston's look into the mirror after he has been starved, beaten and tortured. The self-admiration of withstanding the torture becomes self-hatred within a blink of an eye, because he sees what has been done to him.
Initially, it may seem that auto-communictaion in the worldview of an individual has an facultative meaning. But proceeding from the presumption of the analogy with the individual and collective intellect, J. Lotman brushes this understanding aside with a simple argument. If, instead of the concept 'individual' we use the concept of the addresser and the addressee, it could be claimed that in describing the communication, within the borders of some national culture, for example, the area covered by the concept of addresser is just about the same as covered by the addressee. But if we observe human culture, then - 'remaining within the limits of the experience which is at least historically real' - the concept of addresser and addressee coincide, and communication must be interpreted, within the limits of human culture, as autocommunication (Lotman 1970d: 15). (Lepik 2002: 194)Thus far, I have concentrated on the level of individual autocommunication (e.g. intrapersonal communication). What Lotman has in mind is collective autocommunication, something like "intracultural autocommunication".
In claiming that a person uses words in order to organize his individuality, J. Lotman emphasizes that in transferring a message to oneself, the 'me' itself is transformed: 'the "me" reorganizes its individuality' (1973b: 228). Here it should be added that also a collective individual could feel the need to look itself in the face, in order to become aware of what it is, for itself and for others. In Soviet culture, such autocommunication became a genre of its own, in the form of party programs, report speeches, slogan issues created for the May and October celebrations, etc. (Lepik 2002: 195)Does a collective (a group or a society) have a face? How would this metaphor work?
Autocommunication encourages the transformation of texts into meta-texts. In the internal speech system 'words and pictures become indices' (Lotman 1970c: 165). This important observation was developed by J. Lotman into the autocommunication secondary code idea, which in summary is as follows (see Lotman 1973b: 232-240). Text, which in autocommunication does not provide us with new infomation, but transforms to a self-picture of 'me', restricted to simply translating the existing information into a new system of meaning, circulating in a functional way as a code, not as a message. For example, if a reader of Anna Karenina cries out (or thinks): 'Anna - that's me', then this makes the text of Tolstoi's novel a model for the re-consideration of the life of the reader. (Lepik 2002: 196)I wonder if Winston's diary be treated as an autocommunicative text. It does transform him from a middle-aged grouch or casual dissenter to a verifiable thought-criminal... Perhaps "I hate Big Brother" can be viewed in terms of cue reduction (here, "indices"). It does play a significant part in the novel, with it's reversal, in the end, to "I love Big Brother".
Lindenfeld, Jacqueline 1971. Verbal and Non-Verbal Elements in Discourse. Semiotica 3(3): 223-233.
It is obvious to all of us that human communication includes many non-verbal elements in addition to verbal elements. It is also obvious, even to the casual observer, that the relation between these two types of elements is anything but simple: an individual's facial expression, to take just one example, may 'agree' with his words, reinforce them, contradict them, or have no apparent relationship with them. If we also consider the fact that non-verbal elements of communication are of many different kinds and have seemingly complex relationships among themselves, it becomes clear that the task of examining the interplay of verbal and non-verbal phenomena in discourse is a formidable one. (Lindenfeld 1971: 223)The matter is indeed complex. It is made more complex, I think, because it goes beyond the relation presented here. Not only are verbal elements of speech related to nonverbal elements of speech, but so are verbal elements themselves related nonverbal elements. This latter relation may include the nonverbal elements in text, as well as the verbal "accessories" of nonverbal phenomena (for example, the relation between a sculpture and it's verbal description). But 1971 seems too early (at least in anglophone literature) to pay attention to these latter aspects.
Kinesic behavior consists of such elements as facial expressions and movements of any part of the body. (Lindenfeld 1971: 223)That's pretty general.
In my analysis I shall consider the linguistic elements as basic and the non-verbal elements as subordinate. In other words I am assuming that language is primary in ordinary multi-channel communication and that kinesic phenomena are of a secondary nature. This assumption is based in part on the fact that linguistic performance appears to be much more complex than kinesic behavior. It is based also on the more complete and self-sufficient character of language as compared to body movements: it is not particularly difficult for two people to achieve satisfactory communication on a purely verbal basis, as on the telephone, whereas a purely gestural conversation is rather strenuous and has its limitations. (Lindenfeld 1971: 224)A common assumption. Keep in mind that appearances can be deceptive. And what is a purely gestural conversation? A conversation in sign language? Otherwise, it's not really a "conversation", as nonverbal interactions commonly do not involve an exchange of ideas (but may, on the other hand, involve an exchange of affect, "a conversation of attitudes", in Meadian parlance, or a subtle exchange of actions which regulate physical activity (such as passing another person on the street and coordinating each other's path so as to not bump into each other).
Other studies deal with relations between kinesics and content; they usually emanate from psychiatrists or psychoanalysts and by-pass semantic structure, going directly from the individual's body movements to his emotions or states of mind. In a paper representative of this category Loeb (1968) studied fist-like movements in a patient during an interview and found them to be regularly associated with contexts characterized by anger. (Lindenfeld 1971: 225)Sadly, this is true today as well. Do body movements even have a semantic structure? Loeb's paper is significant (for me) for an odd reason: its results are prominent in popular books on body language. It's quite difficult to piece together the early research on nonverbal communication which is used in those books because they aren't exactly model writers in terms of citations, but slowly I'm accumulating a host of possible sources. This one is: Loeb, R. 1968. The Microscopic Film Analysis of a Recurrent Behavioral Pattern in a Psychoterapeutic Session. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 147: 605-618.
My initial plan had been to record all types of body movements, excluding only facial expressions. However this became an endless task in the absence of mechanical help. I therefore decided to concentrate on three kinds of motion that are easier to observe than others, being more discrete and countable: postural shifts, leg movements, and foot movements. (Lindenfeld 1971: 226-227)Wow, this is almost anecdotal (it sounds like a joke). I bet I can use this piece in my theoretical portion in relation with the types of behaviours included.
It might be argued that units of movement do not necessarily correspond to MOTION: a person's posture during a period of immobility certainly constitutes a unit of some kind. However, I have chosen here to look only at CHANGES in body position, and I believe that my choice can easily be justified on a purely empirical basis. (Lindenfeld 1971: 227)"A unit of some kind" often seems to be the most exact approximation of what is dealt with in nonverbal communication.
Lotman, Juri M. 1975. Notes on the structure of a literary text. Semiotica 15(3): 199-205.
Scholars working on literary texts are invariably confronted by the same phenomenon: as soon as one establishes a research system and corfirms some type of classification, empirical facts immediately arise which contradict the system. This circumstance often is used both as an argument against one or another specific theory, as well as for the disavowel of the very principle of theoretical interpretation of a literary text, as if such interpretation would 'vitiate' the originality of the text. (Lotman 1975: 199)The exact reason why I would prefer to proceed with "native concepts" of the text itself rather than imposing a theoretical scheme of my own on the material from the get-go. I imagine that I can build a semiotic theory around the material, rather than vice versa.
In describing one or another concrete poetic text, researchers repeatedly find themselves faced with the question: 'What is to be described: some order of the elements actually given in the text and physically tangible, or a different structural order, which seems to enlighten on account of the first series?' (Lotman 1975: 200)In my case, the question goes as follows: do I study the descriptions of bodily behaviour in the given novel or do I aim to uncover an underlying structure to these descriptions?
It should be noted that both these forms of order in science are often opposed: in some, a tangible reality is seen, but in others - a research fiction. (Lotman 1975: 200)"Concourse" is undoubtedly a research fiction. // Or perhaps one should question (doubt) its status?
Thus, one of the most stable images in the world repertoire of fairly tales 'of the poor orphan triumph over the tribesmen who scorned him' is based on the conflict of two orders - rejection and failure, on the one hand, and recognition and success on the other. (Lotman 1975: 201)What is Harry Potter?
Since it is important 'that signs be differentiated from that which is designated in an objectively registered way, the greater the distinction the more useful the signs', then the text, fixed in our consciousness or in some system of science, is always a text isomorphous with the object, on the one hand, and altered in relation to the object on the other. It is not accidental that one of the basic questions of literary representation of the real world will be the question about the types and regularities of its deformation. There is no need whatsoever to recall that deformation in this case is in no way equivalent to distortion. On the contrary, it is a means and a condition of knowledge. A map, as with any projective model, is a deformation of a relief, if only because it is a projection of a three dimensional space onto a two dimensional space. However, a map is a means of knowledge of the actual relief. (Lotman 1975: 203)Wow. I had not thought of this angle (of deformation). At the moment I can't say that there is much deformation in Orwell's 1984, but there is definitely plenty in Zamjatin's We. Also, note that concourse can similarly thought of as "a means of knowledge" of actual bodily behaviour.
To the same extent art, precisely because it is a cognition of life, is always a deformation of it. This assertion does not entail anything new - it is completely clarified by the well known thesis of the convention of any sign system, of the differentiation of the designator from the designated. It is much more important to determine certain principles of such deformation. (Lotman 1975: 203)This bit sounds somewhat like Susanne Langer in her Feeling and Form (cf. above). It is imaginable that the project of concourse, if taken seriously and applied on a large variety of literary material, may reveal the limitations (or deformations) of literary (verbal) description of bodily behaviour.
The reflection of an object in art in terms of aesthetics, and the recodification of an object into a symbolic text of a literary type, as semiotics defines this phenomenon, can be expounded by a comparison with the mathematical concept of representation. The resemblance of the object and its literary representation is interpreted in this case as isomorphism. For each element of the represented object, which is interpreted as a set, an element of the set of the representation is placed in correspondence. The thus formulated rules of correspondence will present a type of convention inherent in the given text. (Lotman 1975: 203)Lotman makes so much sense. I would be hard-pressed to actually use the concept of "isomorphism" (rather than "isology", for example), but what I'm trying to get at is exactly the "recodification" of nonverbal signs into verbal signs and the conventions that govern this conversion, transposition or recodification.
It is necessary to distinguish the deformation called forth by convention and consequently inherent in every single text from the deformation as the consequence of fantasy. (Lotman 1975: 203)Ermagherd. He even gives a basis for distinguishing concourse on the basis of observed bodily behaviour versus imagined bodily behaviour. (The slight terminological shift here is based on the assumption that all observation follows some convention or other.)
By force of whatever causes, the isomorphic representation of the object in the text can be automatized to such a degree that the conventionality of their correlations ceases to be realized. Both texts begin to be perceived not as two separate definitely correlated entities but as a single whole. In order that a literary text might fulfil its actively cognitive function, it is necessary to reestablish in the consciousness of the collective the rules of correlation, a type of idealization transmuting the object into the text. One of the mechanisms of this reestablishment is the fantastic. (Lotman 1975: 203-204)Astute, just astute. This application of the formalist concept of deformation follows Tynjanov and Jakobson quite closely. The former has a whole theory of literary evolution on it while the latter points it out, at least in his earlier work, in various phenomena - even emotive qualities of language. This referral to "the fantastic" here would be superb for analyzing Zamjatin's We, which does invent a fantastic, mathematical, way of describing facial expressions. Superb.
The original of this article appeared in Trudy po znakovym sistemam [Works on Semiotics] 5 (Tartu, 1971), 281-287. (Lotman 1975: 205)I'm not sure if I'm going to have to add this information to all Soviet translations I use, but I'll record it just in case.
Juri M. Lotman, who is Head of the Department of Russian Literature at the State University of Tartu, was born in Leningrad, in 1922. His research work has focused on Russian literature of the 18th century, the typology of cultures, and the construction of a structural theory of literary texts. He has published numerous works in these and related semiotic domains, including his seminal book, Lekcii po strukturalnoj poetiki. Since 1969, he has served as a member of the Editorial Committee of this journal. (Lotman 1975: 205)Also neat.
Low, David 2008. Dissent and environmental communication: A semiotic approach. Semiotica 172(1/4): 47-64.
To dissent is to feel or think in a way that opposes an accepted viewpoint. (Low 2008: 47)Pffff... But not to act or behave in a way that opposes an accepted viewpoint? It's a good idea to hit all the bases of that quasi-peripathetic triad.
I use the term 'disconnection' in this context because environmental communication should not be concerned with 'solving' or 'fixing' environmental problems. Rather, environmental communication should be a method for enquiring into how we can improve our communication with our environment. (Low 2008: 47)Hug all the trees.
When dissent is taken to represent merely 'disobeyence,' we are concerning ourselves primarily with the formal, analytic, or deductive properties of human communication. In a formal or closed system, dissent is something to be kept out. If this can be achieved, the system will succeed in remaining closed to new ideas. As such, the aplifiative, synthetic, or propositional aspects of dissent are overlooked in favor of determining whether a specific communication coheres with a standardized system of representation. The problem, then, is that this account of the function of dissent does not account for closure in open systems. (Low 2008: 48)Orwell's 1984 is definitely exhibits a closed system in this regard: newspeak is a standardized system in terms of language. It would have to be determined whether there is a ritualized and closed system of behaviour as well.
To recap briefly, I have so far argued that in an enquiry framework for environmental communication, the formal properties of a communication only have relevance because they facilitate the formulation of an assertion about something that is other than the assertion itself. Put another way, 'the other' is not dependent on our construction of it for its being, although our knowledge of its being is constructed through our dialogue with it (cf. Hawes 1999). (Low 2008: 54)I'm sure this quip can be reformulated to suit my discussion of the relationship between verbal and nonverbal sign systems.
This is a fundamental consideration in relation to dissent, for if an environmental communication cannot possibly be false; that is, if the communication and the subject matter of the communication are identical, we are not making an assertion about anything at all, but are instead stating an unquestionable, irrefutable, 'fact.' (Low 2008: 54)Not only. You are also making a metacommunicative assertion.
Now, to translate into semiotic terms my claim that dissent is necessary to effective environmental communication, we first assume that the object of our enquiry is something that is independently capable of expressing dissent. As Latour (2000: 115) put it, we assume that objects are beings that are 'able to object to what is told about them.' In other words, an object is considered something that is capable of being independently of our representation of it, but not independently of representation generally. (Low 2008: 55)Haha, what? Objects that aren't represented don't exist? In that case we live on a slim and fragmented film of Earth surface indeed.
Mandoki, Katya 2004. Power and semiosis. Semiotica 151(1/4): 97-114.
Semiotics has been accused by several authors, particularly Pierre Bourdie, of neglecting the political dimension. He blames it for 'the intellectualist philosophy which treats language as an object of contemplation rather than as an instrument of action and power'. (Mandoki 2004: 97)Bourdiou must have been ignorant of American semiotics, especially Charles Morris.
Undoubtedly, as Thomas A. Sebeok (1996: 22) repeatedly stressed, semiotics is focused upon communication. This fact, however, does not imply it is inevitably apolitical or that emphasizing communication excludes action. Quite the contrary, von Uexküll's (1957, 1982) initial explorations into what has now developed as the field of biosemiotics, points precisely toward this intimate link between perception and action as two sides of the same perceptor-effector cycle. In other words, perception is necessarily action and both are basically semiosic. I may add moreover that action, at any level of semiosis, always involves power, even if it is merely a power to react. (Mandoki 2004: 97)This sounds like a misreading of von Uexküll. I have the impression that he distinguished organs of perception (e.g. eyes, ears, etc.) and organs of effect (hands, legs, paws, wings, etc.). Conflating these two seems odd, although not unthinkable - the hand is used both for touching (perception) and holding (effecting) something. The involvement of power in all action is about as blanket-y a blanket statement you could make, much like Randviir's statement about the involvement of ideology in all sign systems (without elaborating further what he meant0.
Bourdieu himself cannot but speak of 'discursive strategies', 'symbolic power', 'linguistic markets', 'symbolic violence', and 'linguist competence', which are nothing other than semiotic mechanisms or 'semio- techniques' (as Foucault would name them) intimately linked to these processes. (Mandoki 2004: 97)Apparently I'm not familiar with this term because I haven't read Discipline and Punish.
The role of accumulation emerges as an indispensable process to understand this transformation of animal power into its socio-institutional manifestation, since it is erected as a body-other, a collective megabody generating places, capitals, and discourses focused toward the amplified reproduction and naturalization of these effects. (Mandoki 2004: 98)A what? A Leviathan?
Omnipotence-Omnisemiosis (Mandoki 2004: 98)....................
The creation of the world was, for the Judeo-Christian tradition, a linguistic act. To say is to create, but it is also to designate. 'And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called He Seas'. (Mandoki 2004: 98)This sounds like the God of a homo loquens, not the creator of the physical universe. Also, could I possibly relate this "semiopoietic" aspect to newspeak? I know from one of Jakobson's anecdotes that it may have been inspired by the Early experiments of Soviet communism to reform language, but for what reason of when and how exactly, I do not know.
All these illocutionary acts make evident language's tremendous power for transforming reality, and consequently, the power of semiosis. (Mandoki 2004: 98)Does it transform reality, though? Or does it transform our conception of reality? By analogy, there is an anonymous quote to the effect that "If we cannot change reality, let's change the eyes with which we see reality." - which takes no account of the fact that eyes are not the organs that do the seeing. Eyes merely capture light. The brain is what does the seeing. This power conferred to language and semiosis seems similarly misguided.
Evidently, the power of semiosis is not limited to verbal language. When God did not pay attention to Cain's offering as he did to Abel's, a single glance could unchain enough semiotic violence to provoke the first murder. God then established another distinction, not only between heaven and earth or between darkness and light, but between two brothers. (Mandoki 2004: 99)A semiotics of nonverbal communication in Biblical scripture awaits to be written.
Contrary to the common belief, the power of gaze, a word, a scream, or an image is not, however, in the gaze, the word, or the scream themselves; it is also not in whoever sees, speaks, or screams but is generated by the interpreter, including the encounter (as first interpreter) who may or may not signify them as power effects. (Mandoki 2004: 99)Why do we then speak of powerful gazes, powerful words, powerful screams, powerful images, etc. if the effect of power is generated only in the interpreter?
Bourdieu, on the other hand, considers that power is localized in institutions and spaces occupied by particular subjects within social structures. At the same time, he admits that it is by recognition that power effects are produced, but he states that '... agents possess power in proportion to their symbolic capital, i.e. in proportion to the recognition they receive from a group', and laso 'social science must take account of the symbolic efficacy of rites of institution, that is, the power they possess to act on reality by acting on its representation' (Bourdieu 1991: 106, 119; emphasis mine). (Mandoki 2004: 99-100)A recognition concept of power? I could do with that.
I will understand power as an effect of meaning for a specific subject in a specific situation according to a specific code. In other words, power depends on principles similar to how semiotics, and particularly Peirce as well as Sebeok, understood signs. If according to Sebeok (1996: 22) signs can only exist for live beings, so does power. If for Peirce a sign or representamen is something that stands for something to someone in some respect or capacity, we can only speak of power as something that means such to someone in some respect or capacity. It is not an entity or property but a process that mirrors semiosis. (Mandoki 2004: 100)An interesting suggestion, but doomed to throw handfuls of putty unless the meaning of meaning here is accurately or at least serviceably defined.
The problem with the term of 'symbolic power' is that it allows us to suppose that what is exerted it is not real violence with concrete material results affecting the life of real people, but only a metaphorical or imaginary struggle, a mere reflection of real, effective power, i.e. socioeconomic and political. This is why it is worthwhile to substitute it with the term 'semiotic violence', a concept that enables us to encompass all concrete violence exerted by the mediation of signs and of symbols in all registers (acoustic, visual-spatial, corporal, and verbal). (Mandoki 2004: 101-102)And thus we are caught in the never-ending cycle of terminological invention based on simple replacements, from "physical violence" to "symbolic violence" to "semiotic violence" and, why not, to "nonverbal violence". It gets increasingly abstract and amorphous, but at least you can boast a cool term. // Also, compare 'semiotic violence' to semiotic extermination, 'semiocide' (along with 'semiotic freedom').
Social place, in fact, endows the subject with part of what Austin defined as 'felicity conditions' for performative acts. It is not possible to accomplish felicitously an act of, for example, baptizing or excommunicating, except by a subject that has been authorized to perform it in a certain way by occupying a particular place within the institution where that act makes sense. But for occupying such place, the subject had to display certain discursive strategies and acquire a certain competence according to particular rules of the game. There is, consequently, an integration between the strategic and the positional that explains the semiotic production of power effects, and bears witness to this indexical character of those strategies. (Mandoki 2004: 102)"You are a thought-criminal!" says the neighbour's child.
Each person is then positioned in a social topography constituted by proxemic networks that define the range of possible, impossible, probable, and improbable places to be occupied and discourses to be displayed throughout different moments. With each movement, a subject or agent will subsequnetly alter his or her situational map. (Mandoki 2004: 103)Constituted by what? Please elaborate.
It all boils down to the question of whether a place determines discourse or the opposite, discourse determines the place a subject may or not occupy. (Mandoki 2004: 103)Way too logocentric. Discourse has seemingly infinite potential with regards to everything, if you take French philosophy seriously.
For Foucault, power appears to produce itself by the sheer display of institutional disciplinary practices. Moreover, not only does power produce speech as Foucault understood it, but it is also produced by speech. In other words, power is an effect of verbal and non-verbal illocutionary acts, which are always and in every case semiosic. (Mandoki 2004: 106)Nonverbal il-locution? I call oxymoron on this construction.
The semiosis of power upon or by the body can be understood as a somatological process, i.e. an historical inscription of power over the body. Fortunate bodies are exhibited as visual capital by movie stars and fashion models under the supposition that capital is contagious, and consequently all other forms of capital will naturally attach to it. The contemporary cult of the body and the mania of body fitness pretend to exercise powel also over biological time by getting as close as possible to perpetual youth, not at all arbitrary in these accelerated times. (Mandoki 2004: 107)Literally the first I'm hearing of somatology, the anthropological) study of the human body. Is it a somatic or somatological process, though? A pointless quibble, as we commonly use "psychological" when we mean psychic - perhaps because the latter has some connotations of extrasensory perception. Also, I'm not sure that modern interest with bodies and fitness can qualify as a "cult". Again, it's a popular expression, but not at all valid.
Based on primatology, anthropology, and ethology, Sheets-Johnstone asks how it is that the power of optics is capable of generating and optics of power such as Foucault's panopticon or Sartre's 'look'. Her answer is that the power of optics is established the instant when the natural reciprocity of the look is broken in the unequal relations of seeing/being seen. Since the power mechanism must have previously taken place in order to break such reciprocity, her argument is simply circular. Her emphasis on visibility, however, clearly indicates again the need of a mechanism of recognition in every process where power is at stake. (Mandoki 2004: 107-108)Somewhat relevant to my interests due to the Big Brother's omnipresent gaze, but repulsive due to it's connection with French philosophy - I wouldn't want to get into the whole panopticon thing. Books have already been which combine Foucault and Orwell (e.g. Ahlbäck, Pia Maria 2001. Energy, heterotopia, dystopia: George Orwell, Michel Foucault and the twentieth century environmental imagination).
Yet the animal can only sense that he is dominant by the feeling of its physical strength, and above all, by the reaction of other animals, namely by the power effect it is able to create expressed in their submission. Looking away, crouching close to the ground, turning away its head, fleeing and cringing, or presenting its hindquarters are corporeal discursive acts of recognition of a power effect displayed by the leader. (Mandoki 2004: 109)I have to call oxymoron on this one as well. They are just "acts". They are not discursive - animals do not discourse. Nor is it necessary to emphasize corporeality in this case - what alternatives are there for other primates?
Zoosemiosis of power is displayed in the somatic register by the leader through its long and steady stare, pulling back the skin on top of its scalp, drawing back its ears and opening its eyes wide, standing erect, tensing the body and stiffening the fur, taking steps forward, slapping the ground, in addition to the acoustic register of barking, and the visual register of its stronger muscles and its sleek and carefully groomed hair. (Mandoki 2004: 109)In case of primates "register" seems appropriate, because a connection can be drawn with the species' ethogram. Although... are we supposed to draw an analogy with humans here? Because somewhat like slapping the ground, one very strict literature and language teacher I know had a habit of stomping her foot loudly and abruptly to impose order in the classroom. "Register" would be less appropriate in this case, as this is not a universal form of behaviour in humans.
If the more muscular primate occupies the best place in a group, the question worth raising is what attributes will determine which individuals in human groups will occupy the best positions. A stupid, alcoholic, or feeble prince will become king only because of socio-topographical criteria. Yet, one may ask, what transformation occurs so that the body's musculature in primates is substituted by other qualities in human species? What does this qualitative leap in the exercise of power from zoosemiosis to anthroposemiosis precisely consist of?Actually, this is exactly the point I have tried to make against the pick-up artist community. It's not enough to be muscular and look handsome to qualify as an analogue of an "alpha-male" in human society.
The answer lies in accumulation, an eminently human practice: memory, commodities, prestige, money, properties, or knowledge accumulation. (Mandoki 2004: 109)
Both the monkey leader and the human chief display political power, as both are relationally and collectively produced within a group. The difference, however, resides on the type of capitals involved. Animals depend on this purely anatomical capital, whereas humans have developed various forms of capital, partly biological but mostly cultural. Culture has allowed this diversity of capitals to the degree that culture itself can be explained as a result of this need of developing a diversity of capitals. In other words, not only the leap from biopower to cultural power, but also the emergence of culturomes from biomes, has been a result of this process of capital diversification and its semiosic differentiation for the sake of survival. (Mandoki 2004: 110)This "anatomical capital" is about as useful as my own half-baked "nonverbal capital". The diversity of capitals seems to consist in it being a research fiction that can be multiplied to infinity.
In my attempt to counter the generalized, and partly deserved, charge against semiotics as a field completely detached from political and power issues, I revised some of the beginnings of written tradition in Western culture, namely Genesis, to explore the degree in which, historically and mythically, semiosis and power have been linked in social imagination. (Mandoki 2004: 110)It felt like a paper on Bourdieu and Foucault with some few bits of Sebeok sprinkled on it. Not really a representative account of semiotics in general. As a side-note, the ideal research project I was thinking about this morning would involve representations of "body language" in social imagination. It seems more appropriate than in culture, which would demand clarification - which culture, what field, etc. "Social imagination" is too ambiguous to even allow for specification. It would appear that I am not absolutely against abstract nonsense, but against accounts which are nothing but abstract nonsense.
Marling, William 1994. The formal ideologeme. Semiotica 98(3/4): 277-299.
But serious questions have arrested the adoption of the ideologeme as a critical tool. First, what exactly is an ideologeme? Second, recent language theories, especially deconstruction, argue that no such discrete sign of meaning as an ideologeme could exist without reference to an infinite chain of other signs. Third, what is the domain of the ideologeme? Does it apply to narrative but not lyric poetry? Does it apply to characters, to plot, or only to figures of speech? Is it intrinsically Marxist? (Marling 1994: 277)Such questions should be raised against any and all novel terminological inventions, including the endless array of different forms of capital.
In Boethius' De topicis differentiis (ca. 523), however, the tradition of commentary on Aristotle's Topics was reinvigorated by a forceful integration of 'topics', their originary mnemonics (topos had referred to an empty place one could envision filling up, as a memorization aid), dialectics, logic, and rhetoric. What emerged was a grammar of propositional relationships, too complex to summarize here, that schematized the arguments by opposition, by contrary, by proportion, by kind, etc., according to the nature and relation of their 'maximal propositions'. As Eleonore Stumps' translation and exegesis (1978) make clear, this was a dauntingly adaptable apparatus that subsequently influenced not only Abelard's De Dialectica, but the entire medieval practice of rhetoric and argument. (Marling 1994: 278)As in the "Roman room" mnemonic device?
But if Chrétien de Troyes stands near the first formulation, contemporary interest in the ideologeme nonetheless depends heavily on the term's appearance in 1928 in The Formal Method in Literary Scholarship by P. N. Medvedev, a volume now suspected to be the work of M. M. Bakhtin to which Medvedev applied editorial polish. Despite the neutral title, both men were in revolt against the autonomy that Russian Formalism granted texts. For Bakhtin the ideologeme, though never precisely defined, was among the chief means by which the social context was refracted in a text. 'Literature', he wrote, 'so often anticipates developments in philosophy and ethics (ideologemes), admittedly in an undeveloped, unsupported, intuitive form' (1978: 17). He used the phrases 'ethical-philosophical' and 'psychological' repeatedly to approximate what he intended by ideologeme, yet he insisted that ideology borne into the text was almost impossible to separate from thematic and artistic wholeness. (Marling 1994: 278)By extension, this revolt against the autonomy of artistic text can probably be compared to Lotman's text semiotics. If the ideologeme can be used to approach the issue of how social context is "refracted" in a text then it may indeed be useful for my purposes, as Orwell's 1984 partakes of such refraction heavy-handedly.
The case for Bakhtin's modern authorship of the ideologeme is buttressed by his 1935 essay on 'Discourse in the novel', reprinted in The Dialogic Imagination (1981). Out of the polyglossia that was medieval Europe, he argues, arose novelists we deem great because their characters represent coherent, individualized ideologies. 'The speaking person in the novel is always, to one degree or another, an ideologue, and his words are always ideologemes', Bakhtin writes. 'It is precisely as ideologemes that discourse becomes the object of representation in the novel' (1981: 333-335). Thus the ideologeme entered 'dialogism', though in this essay Bakhtin uses a critical vocabulary that includes rhetorical terms and such tools of formalism as tone and irony. (Marling 1994: 279)It may even be possible to abstract the individualized ideologies of Orwell's characters. Winston's naive dissidence, Julia's habitual complacency, O'Brien's pragmatic cruelty, etc. These may be somewhat unrelated qualities, but surely they can be related to "ideologemes"?
Jameson escaped this impasse by drawing on the older, conservative, Bakhtinian sense of ideology. His ideologeme is, variously, the emblem of a 'pseudo-idea', which is a 'conceptual or belief system, an abstract value, an opinion or prejudice', that takes its place in proto-narrative, 'a kind of ultimate class fantasy about the 'collective characters' which are the classes in opposition'. In perhaps his clearest statement, Jameson calls ideologemes 'the smallest intelligible unit of the essentially antagonistic collective discourses of social classes' (1981: 76, 87-88, 115-119). (Marling 1994: 282)If only I knew how to operationalize these concepts. Presently I can't see myself using any of these notions.
Jameson then develops a diachronic quality of Kristeva's ideologeme that he calls sedimentation, which helps him defend the primacy of 'class conflict' against the critique of 'codes, contexts and circumstances'. He writes that, especially in strong genres, ideologemes elicit their own reading directions. They have such a long history of ideological investment that the reader has 'lways, already read' them, even if the context is different, because the figure's interpretation is 'sedimented' in the reading experience. (Marling 1994: 283)I imagine that in 1984, one such ideologeme that conducts the direction of interpretation involves the assumption that Big Brother is bad and you should hate Big Brother, which makes the ultimate outcome of Winston's love for Big Brother somewhat painful. Another could play on the hope that Winston and Julia join the Brotherhood and fight against Big Brother. They don't, they can't. In the end, they are crushed.
Meerzon, Yana 2005. Body and space: Michael Chekhov's notion of atmosphere as the means of creating space in theatre. Semiotica 155(1/4): 259-279.
Atmosphere, a part of Chekhov's acting technique, is an organizing force of theatre space in action. It is created by every individual performer and simultaneously by a group of actors in the circumstances of a particular production. It is a visual and sensory text connecting: a) actors on stage with each other; and b) people on stage and people in the audience. (Meerzon 2005: 260)Oh lord what have I gotten myself into!
Chekhov's atmosphere is a multileveled experience corresponding to the intra- and extra-deigetic spaces of the performance created by actors, where the former translates as the space on stage seen by the audience, and the latter as the space only referred to, existing in the actors' and audience's imagination. Therefore, the first type of atmosphere within the visible space refers to the explicit type of representation, whereas the atmosphere between the stage and the audience occurs within the non-fictional theatre space and may be defined as the implicit type of representation (De Marinis 1993: 152). (Meerzon 2005: 260)Similarly, the body movements of a literary characters may be said to exist in the readers' imagination.
In Chekhov's vocabulary the term atmosphere signifies 'the dominant tone or mood of, amongst other things, a place, a relationship, or an artwork' (Chamberlain 2000: 87). It is a sort of tension, which is 'spread in the air, enveloping people and events, filling the rooms, floating through the landscapes, pervading the life of which it is a part' (Chekhov 2002[1953]: 54). In order to translate Chekhov's at times misleading terminology into the language of contemporary performance studies, it is important to see his atmosphere not as a mystical or mythological experience but as a mode of spatial and temporal relationships between actors on stage, and between the stage and the audience. (Meerzon 2005: 261)This definition of atmosphere is actually serviceable. In a literary work, I would say, it is the description, narration and dissertiation about what is corporeally occurring in that world which constitutes the dominant emotional tone.
The action of the play provides information about the fictional space and makes the new established playing area the sign of sign characterized by its representational function. (Meerzon 2005: 262)Relevant: we know about the "universe" in the "discourse" only what the author has permitted us, as readers, to know.
Atmosphere deals with the visual formation of a stage illusion directed in its referential function to the imaginary fictional locus. This atmosphere acquires the qualities of the indexical sign by creating a fictional reality and linking the stage and the audience, which in Uberfeld's words is 'the point of conjunction of the symbolic and the imaginare, of the symbolism that everyone shares and the imaginary of each individual' (Ubersfeld 1999: 110). (Meerzon 2005: 264)In case of the literary work, the reader's experience is similarly determined by a two-fold relation between shared assumptions about how concourse should be interpreted (what bodily movement a certain phrase signifies) and the cognitive representation borne from personal experience and fantasy.
According to Chekhov, these 'possible worlds' are fully furnished (Eco 1977) with atmospheres, which are to be recognized and reconstructed by the actors through the process of imagining the action, not analyzing it. (Meerzon 2005: 265)The difference between the points of view of a reader and the semiotician boils down to this distinction: the reader merely imagines, seldom analyzes; while the semiotician must not only imagine but also analyze.
I'm completely "misreading" this paper by drawing ideas about theatre into a constellation of ideas about literature, but all this is "for my current purposes". This "practically all" that can be perceived could be the justification for including all nonverbal phenomena, not only body movement. Even the character's relationship with his or her environment must be taken note of. This will become extremely tedious when I begin to analyze descriptions of sitting down, standing up, holding a pen, switching the light on, etc. but it has to be done, I think. It must become apparent later what aspects are more significant, not beforehand.Practically all the aidenece perceives on the stage can serve the purpose of enhancing atmospheres or even creating them anew. (Chekhov 2002[1953]: 52-53)In De Toro's semiotic vocabulary, it is the environmental index that encodes the effective and emotive parts in theatre: 'both music and lighting can indicate sad or happy states of being, or indicate the passage from reality to a dream world, without any linguistic meditation' (De Toro 1995: 83). (Meerzon 2005: 266)
In Chekhov's technique, the actor's body acquires functions of a universal tool consisting of rhythms, movements, gestures, based on collective archetypes and ideal images born in actor's imagination. The body appears as a unity of physical and psychological characteristics. Chekhov believes that the new theatrical language must be composed out of the structures or signs familiar to any spectator of any national origin. Atmosphere is one of them: it is transferable across cultures and sustainable within actor's bodies. (Meerzon 2005: 267)The literary body, on the other hand, is linguistic and semiotic. Both the physical and psychological components are represented, not presented.
By observing or reading the actor's gestures, the audience can understand the character's aims and desires. (Meerzon 2005: 267)Nooooo...
Nadal, José María 1990. Enunciation and narration: World and text. Semiotica 81(3/4): 357-384.
The semiotic phenomena called here narrations (i.e., the explicit or elliptic descriptions an utterance provides of its production, of that which the utterance states explicitly or elliptically is its production) are more often called enunciations. (Nadal 1990: 357)I would have opposed the explicit to the implicit, but elliptic works as well. In fact, it's better, because it enables me to include Jakobson in the discussion.
Fiction arises when there is no credible correspondence - or at least judged as such - between (A) the discursive syntactic and semantic structures of the enunciation's content form and the natural world in which it is produced, and (B) the narration and the part of the utterance which does not describe the narrator's role. The natural world in which enunciation is produced is also known as non-enunciation. (Nadal 1990: 358)This author's definition of enunciation and narration are so weird. Splitting the world into enunciation and non-enunciation is even more bizarre than the distinction between verbal and nonverbal. In any case, I'll just pick and choose ideas for my own work. For example, correspondence may be a useful notion when applied between concourse and nonverbal behaviour.
For the effective enunciatee, the iconicity of a text also depends on a possible intersemioticity between the text and the natural world. To obtain this intersemioticity, the actual enunciator will have to utter his text in accordance with the semantic universe of the enunciatee - i.e., according to how the receiver conceives that the natural world should be enunciated with a certain type of discourse, persuading him to believe that the utterance and his natural world are analogous. (Nadal 1990: 358)Again, how weird is it to postulate intersemioticity as a quality rather than viewing it as a process, e.g. intersemiotic translation (or interpretation). It would appear, from terms like "actant" and "natural world", that this article is Greimasian. I have a feeling I may quit halfway through, especially because it's a long one. (Long pieces of semiologese are the worst.)
The Paris School wrongly makes the implicit enunciator responsible for semiosis, and does not often distinguish between the subject effect created by the text and the subject who created the text. (Nadal 1990: 365)Here I actually get what the author is saying. It's quite difficult to break through his jargon, but he seems to point out - as is clear in Jakobson's case - that the "addresser" of the message is a "verbal person" (here, the subject effect created by the text) while the "sender" is an actual person (here, the subject who created the text).
Since the world is a discourse - as much as any other text - the real problem consists in knowing when a discourse is textual semiotics in the usual restricted sense. A semiotic object may be considered textual semiotics when it is the result of an enunciation. The defining feature of textual semiotics is its metasemiotic nature, as an utterance in another utterance, an utterance in the world. It is also the value of what is being constructed, of what does not belong to the natural world. If the system which produces the objects of textual semiotics is natural (for example, natural language), the products of such systems, textual semiotics, are characterized as being created, whether they be verbal texts, pictorial, etc. (Nadal 1990: 365)My resentment towards the concept of "discourse" is steadily growing.
A drawing or a text of a harangue can create a narrative situation capable of reconstructing its signification, whatever the intentions of the effective enunciators might have been, with whom they might or might not agree, and gree (in the case of the harangue) from the syncretic semiotics (gestures, movements, scents, clothing, and words) in which verbal semiotics are embedded (which will allow the catalysis of an implied enunciator of a higher rank). (Nadal 1990: 366)The weirdness continues. There are syncretic signs and syncretic sign systems. According to this author, these can be generalized as "syncretic semiotics", whatever that may mean.
Man understands the natural world as being meaningful. Its autonomous internal articulation allows us to consider the world as a semiotic object (Greimas and Courtés 1979: 339). The natural world in itself and human behavior not producing textual semiotics are also considered meaningful. Rain, reproduction, the outburst of Spring - these facts are very meaningful to manking. They are often far more defining than many of the articulate meanings produced by a case of textual semiotics. (Nadal 1990: 366-367)I would like to agree, I really would. It's the jargon that's holding me back. I'm not sure I completely or xactly understand what is said here. "Internal articulation"? What is that?
In spite of its proposal, the semiotic theory has hardly started the study of the natural world. Most semioticians confuse the natural world macrosemiotics, or discourse that our conscience builds up about the real world, with the real world itself, and, fearing the substantialism that might exist if they engage themselves with the study of the real world, which is really noncognizable, they put aside the natural world and limit themselves to textual semiotics strictly speaking. (Nadal 1990: 367)It would be wise not to forego the essence of my crude distinction between word-signs, thought-signs and body-signs in favor of indiscriminate "signs" as such. These three types of signs are interrelated and interdependent, but not the same.
Eric Landowski (Greimas and Landowski 1983: 3-4, 9-17; Landowski 1983, 1989) is right when he says that the natural world is but an utterance in a nonverbal language. (Nadal 1990: 368)I won't even protest, because Greimas's definition of "natural world" is, at least at the moment, beyond my comprehension.
Both semiotics, textual and natural, must be immanently studied. Natural-world types an implied intentionality - natural in the former, artificial (oriented) in the latter. (Nadal 1990: 368)Implications.
IN order to describe the relationship between natural-world macrosemiotics and textual semiotics we can imagine a script as follows: let us admit that in a first macrolevel there is (semiotically, beware!) a real narrator We could address him as God by convention. This real narrator would be located in a real statement which would only consist of the real world. There would be a series of original beings in it. The perception those beings might have, as far as original enunciators, of the real world would produce an utterance (or several utterances) which would be considered original. (Nadal 1990: 368-369)How about we don't, though? There is ample possibility of substituting the metaphysical understanding of a world uttered by God with a more scientific understanding of biosemiotics. The "macrolevel of signification" of a projected supernatural being is out of our grasp, while the semiotics of the living world is growing steadfast.
This reminds us once again that in the kind of semiotics we are practicing, we do not care about signs or their form of expression, but about figures belonging to the plane of content (Nadal 1986; 1985b: 537-538; 1985c; 1988a and b). (Nadal 1990: 380)How about caring for both?
Ning, Wang 2008. From linguistic semiotics to cultural semioticS: Semiotic and narrative studies in China. Semiotica 170(1/4): 139-151.
Modern semiotics was introduced in China along with the translation of such Western theorists as Saussure, Piaget, Lotman, Eco, Kristeva, Lacan, Derrida, and Barthes. And narratology in its structural sense was introduced into the Chinese context along with the translation of such theorists as Todorov, Genette, Propp, Bakhtin, Greimas, and Halliday. (Ning 2008: 139)Neat.
As is well known, at the beginning of the twentieth century or, more specifically, during the May Fourth Movement of the late 1910s and early 1920s, China underwent a sort of large-scale translation of Western theoretic trends and literary works. Almost all the well-known literary masters as well as their masterpieces were translated into Chinese, whic his strongly influenced modern Chinese literary creation. A history of modern Chinese literature is almost a sort of history of translated literature, for it was during the May Fourth Movement period that China's cultural modernity was born. The same is true of literary theory and cultural trends. (Ning 2008: 140)No wonder I. A. Richards was so infatuated with China.
Among various modern and postmodern Western cultural trends and literary theories, structuralism and its literary manifestations - semiotics and narratology - were also introduced and translated into the Chinese context after the introduction of the Anglo-American New Criticism, which was chiefly used to fill the gap of close reading and detailed textual analysis lacking in literary criticism. (Ning 2008: 140)I'm in risk of falling into that gap, as I lack any kind of literary criticism.
The author wants to argue that narratology should still be viewed as a sub-branch of literary study, on the border of rhetoric, logic, and grammatology. (Ning 2008: 143)"Body language in literature" seems similarly, at this point, as a sub-branch of semiotics on the border of literary study, nonverbal communication research and cultural semiotics. // Also, I think he meant grammar, not grammatology (which is Derrida's brain-child).
According to Lu Xun, Chinese intellectuals are famous for 'grabbism' - they may 'grab' anything useful to their own writing or research. (Ning 2008: 145)Oh boy.
At present, the pure 'classical' narratology in its structuralist sense seems to be dead, only used by a few literary scholars of a certain linguistic background or for graduate students in their thesis writing. (Ning 2008: 146)A licence to take some liberties on the theoretical plane.
Since a central notion of I Ching is xiang, 'The xiang, understood as sign or sign-function, encompasses the entire field of semiotic phenomena and is not confined to the visual sign or image. It lays the conceptual foundation of a unified approach to semiotics. The theory of signs of Yijing has provided the occasion for reinterpretating the other Classics and by extension all aspects of Chinese culture.' The author here approaches the idea of the 'sign' in I Ching and the later exegetical tradition in four aspects: 1) definition of the sign; 2) typology of signs; 3) hermeneutics of signs; 4) epistemology of signs. (Ning 2008: 148-149)It would be nice to know "sign" in many languages.
Noakes, Susan 1987. Dante and Orwell: The antithetical hypersign as hallmark in literature and politics. Semiotica 63(1/2): 149-161.
It is especially important to 'the Party' to eliminate antithetical thoughts; that is, 'the Party' strives to make it possible to hold, and articulate, only one given concept on a given matter, and impossible to hold or speak an opposite concept.Is newspeak antisemiotic, as this author claims, or omnisemiotic? I think that the centrality of language has already been stressed enough. Perhaps someone should address the centrality of behaviour to political life?
Orwell's satire thus addresses the centrality of language to political life. More broadly, it places semiosis at the center of any attempt to masure the health of a particular political system by suggesting that efforts to limit semiosis are characteristic of bad government. (Noakes 1987: 149)
Well-suited to the study of Dante's masterpiece' and especially of the notion of semiosis it develops, is Maria Corti's (1967) concept of the 'hypersign', the type of sign which she posits as characteristic of literature. As the formation of the term indiactes, the hypersign is not conceived to be different in kind from other (nonliterary) signs. The difference is rather one of degree: the hypersign is more a sign than other signs, in that it is more productive of meaning, more multivalent, than they. (Noakes 1987: 150)Fiordo's hypersemiotics should perhaps be explained in the same way: through it's "productive" and "valence" aspects. But I have doubts whether hypersemiotics and hypersign can be consolidated, as they seem to originate on the basis of very different approaches. And, I would argue to the opposite effect: what makes nonverbal and nonliterary signs more productive of meaning and more multivalent is their "effervescence" (fast temporal dispersion and diffusion, not being fixed) and less possibility for consensus. Although every reader may have his or her ideas about what a given word, passage or chapter meant, it is possible to come together with other readers and hammer out a "final" interpretation (at least theoretically). A body-sign, on the contrary, may be glimpsed by a single person and leave that person to invent his or her own interpretation, which will influence further interpretations if that person decides to ask for second opinion. In other words: in literature, the dynamic interpretant is more prone to become final; while in "real life", the immediate interpretant is more prone to become final.
[...] I will argue that the antithetical literary hypersign, whether intertextual or intratextual, may serve as an heuristic device for examining the structure of nonliterary signs [...] (Noakes 1987: 151)This seems promising.
This is an instance of intertextuality, the creation of text (here, Dante's) or discourse by relation to another text, which is antithetical in structure. Its antitheticality seems gratuitous; that is, it is there for its own sake, not to forward a narrative action. (Noakes 1987: 152)Something similar to this intertextual antitheticality occurs between Orwell's 1984 and Bradbury's Fahrenheit. In 1984 Winston recalls seeing a film in which a fat man is on a boat and riddled with bullets by a plane. In Fahrenheit, the protagonist Guy Montag escapes the police helicopter by diving into water from a boat. I'm not all that sure that these two passages are related at all, but it would be interesting to compare them, if I were to include a wider corpus of dystopian literature.
Aquinas makes clear that no interpretation, whether of Scripture or human event, may be accepted as final until time stops moving: that is, until the Resurrection. (Noakes 1987: 152-153)Dante's Aquinas has a good point. Is any interpretation (or, rather, interpretant) truly final? One would imagine that semiosis ends with death - no consciousness, no sign-processes, no nothing. But when we stick to Peirce's understanding of the syncretic nature of the individual, then no interpretation is truly final until the end-days, when all human consciousness is gone and no further interpretation is possible, for there is no-one to perform interpretation. What a grim perspective.
Thus, Dante creates intertextual episodes, the conspicuous antitheticality of which would tend to teach contemporary lay readers some very important things about literary language: that it is not to be read literally; that it is polyvalent; that it may simultaneously mean two things which are opposites. This important lesson about literary language can then be applied, not only to other intertextual segments, but, more importantly, to the intratextual unit, to the total hypersign, the Comedy as a whole. (Noakes 1987: 155)Here it would appear that Noakes' hypersign is in some sense similar to Mukařovský's semantic gesture.
The same is true, centuries later, of the semiotic model of political life implied (antithetically) by Orwell's satire. Among the major slogans of 'the Party' Orwell (1961: 32) presents is this: 'Who controls the past ... controls the future: who controls the present controls the past'. Orwell's archetype of the sick political system exemplifies suppression of semiosis across time as well as among different individuals or classes, through the attempt to develop 'words of unmistakable meaning ... which rouse the minimum of echoes in the speaker's mind' (Orwell 1961: 253). In such a perverse system, Dante's warning, voiced by Thomas Acquinas (Paradiso xiii, 134-142), that all human interpretation is necessarily provisional would be 'thoughtcrime'. Conversely, the healthy political system would be one acutely aware of sign structure, and particularly of its essential alternativity and temporality. (Noakes 1987: 160)I was wondering when will this paper return to Orwell. It doesn't seem justified to mark Orwell in the paper's title if he's mentioned in the paper only on a few pages. In any case, the suppression of semiosis across time is not only verbal. Winston finds a picture of inner party members that conflicts with the official narrative. He is forced to destroy it. All documents and objects pertaining to the past are to be destroyed.
Poyatos, Fernando 1977. Forms and Functions of Nonverbal Communication in the novel: A New Perspective of the Author-Character-Reader Relationship. Semiotica 21(3/4): 295-337.
1.1 A cursory reading of a page in a novel, where both the writer and his characters speak (they among themselves, he to us), that is, where an interactive conversational encounter takes place alternating with the author's own observations about it, shows that if we were to rely exclusively on what words those characters say - depicted on paper as printed lexemes - and on a few punctuation marks, plus some instances of extralinguistic communicative features, a good part (perhaps the most important one) of the total human message would be simply lost, even though not so in the mind of the novelist. (Poyatos 1977: 295-296)I would not have drawn this distinction, as whatever (observation) comes out of the character's mouth, so to say, is also, by some literary proxy, the author's observation.
(d) eleven descriptions of the kinesic behavior of the three participants in their face-to-face conversation, of which two describe the way Spandrell throws back his head before laughing, and one the way he looks from Mary to Rampion "almost triumphantly"; two more, Rampion's frowning at what is being said, one his "staring into his coffee cup", and one his looking at Spandress "distastefully"; and two Mary's glancing at her husband, once "enquiringly", one her lighting a cigarette, and one her shutting her eyes to think of her youth. (Poyatos 1977: 296)Eleven concursive passages on one page is about an average if it features a conversation.
Another passage might have fed fewer, or more, elements to be broken into. This example will suffice. It was meant simply to show the limited number of devices available to a novelist, and ultimately to a printer, for the readable conveyance of people's physical and intellectual activities, and this we can grasp at first sight.Are these devices really limited in number? This seems like an important point.
A second look at the same page, however, will tell us:
(a) that a substantive part of the printed text is aimed at describing nonverbal activities which are produced either simultaneously with words or alternating with them; (Poyatos 1977: 296)
[...] as I will specify later, the repertoire of nonverbal communication symbols is much more limited than the one symbolizing verbal language, that is, what traditionally - but perhaps not one hundred percent accurately - we call words. (Poyatos 1977: 297)There's your problem right there. The repertoire of nonverbal symbols may indeed be limited, but icons and indices can become symbols through semiosis. Just because the bread aisle in your local supermarket has a fixed size does not mean that there aren't stores of flour or endless fields of grain fields out there.
[...] which are distributed among Vocal-Verbal, Vocal-Nonverbal, and Nonvecal-Nonverbal forms of communication.I'll be dealing primarily with nonvocal-nonverbal forms of communication. What is true literary and intellectual value? And what are false literary and intellectual values?
All bodily activities within those categories are present in narrative fiction, and writers, in greater or lesser degree, try to convey to their readers the perception of blushing and goose flesh, of perspiration and tears, of soft skin and body scents. Naturally, the degree in which bodily phenomena are granted true literary and intellectual values depend entirely on the artistry of the narrator, and this quality plus the activities themselves deserve serious attention. (Poyatos 1977: 297)
As for chronemic behavior, although time - including the duration of silences - plays an important structural function in the interactive encounter being depicted in the text, and on some occasions defines certain social and cultural characteristics, it is not an essential element by which to judge the stylistic and technical qualities of a narrator, as are lanugage, paralanguage, and kinesics. (Poyatos 1977: 298)Again a relevant difference: Poyatos is oriented to nonverbal aspects in a conversation (interactive encounter) while I'm oriented towards nonverbal aspects as such, whether they occur in the context of an interactive encounter or not. For me, the intrapersonal aspect is equally valuable.
I would like to indicate briefly how writers and printers have managed heretofore to represent nonverbal elements, or rather, which ones they have represented, so that later I can discuss how the message is transmitted from the original author, or creator of characters, to the ultimate, but multiple, recreator, the reader. (Poyatos 1977: 298)Nonverbal elements of interactive encounters, not, for example, nonverbal elements of the universe of discourse.
Thus, knowing that both the average letter-writing layman and the professional novelist strive, in different degrees, to achieve a certain paralinguistic realism, and that a few solutions have been used for centuries while others reflect today's concern, I would like to suggest the possible objectives in this endeavor by simply outlining the classification of paralinguistic phenomena I have differentiated. (Poyatos 1977: 300)Hmm. I wonder if I could use the notion of realism in my work? Moreover, could I use Jakobson's early paper on realism to do it?
There is something to be learned here from Poyatos's presentation of the quote: line breaks can be symbolized with /, and ellipsis with - here I would add square brackets to those three points - [...]."You don't know what it is to be a cripple. Of course you don't like me. I can't expect you to." / "Philip, I didn't mean that," she answered quickly, with a sudden break of pity in her voice ... / He was beginning to act now, and his voice was husky and low. (Maugham, HB, LXI, 267 [italics mine])Modifiers: Differentiators: forms and degrees of whispering, of loud voice, of crying, of laughing, etc., when they override words. (Poyatos 1977: 300)
[...] something perspicaciously acknowledged by the more persceptive novelists, who obviously make a point of specifying their characters' communicative behaviors, whether by doing so they succeed in individualizing them or not. (Poyatos 1977: 301)I should look into individualization. At least some literary theory is necessary for my work.
The situation is rather absurd and merits serious investigation, for those sounds, although traditionally regarded as abnormal and nonspeech sounds from the point of view of our western languages, possess a perfectly 'normal' semantic value within our vocal communicative repertoire, form constructs that have as much lexical value as words, and are perfectly encoded and decoded by members of a culture as well as cross-culturally. Therefore, there is no reason to believe that, if they were consistently represented by the existing orthographic signs, complemented by some additional ones, they cold not appear as dictionary entries and be used in literary as well as non-literary writing. (Poyatos 1977: 301)I have noticed myself using a lot of these vocal signifiers, e.g. "Hmm," "Oh," "Mhmh," etc. This blog is riddled with such exclamations. I see no reason why an essayistic or scientific discourse should not make use of these signs.
Extensive research could be done about paralanguage in narrative literature: the voice qualities that seem to appear more often, those associated with specific cultures or specific socioeconomic strata; how far novelists can go in the realistic portrayal of the people they create; and which literary tendencies are apt to give more weight to nonverbal communication. (Poyatos 1977: 303)Oh, yes. Extensive research. How's that going?
3.2 It is true that a written sign symbolizing 'standing', or 'sitting', or 'raised eyebrows', would still need a complementary verbal specification, unless a very refined transcription of kinesic activity were devised. (Poyatos 1977: 304)This specification may include, but is not limited to, inferences of emotion (sensu Ekman & Friesen 1976).
The advantage of using a few basic kinegraphic markers is that the reader would be able to perceive the kinesic behavior of the characters, not before or after their linguistic one, as it happens with the author's descriptions, but actually synchronize with it. (Poyatos 1977: 305)This seems ludicrous. I imagine that if we were to adopt this idea today, it would be something like an audiobook with an accompanying vide which zoomed in on certain facial and hand behaviours. Or something like that. Teenagers already use GIF images to illustrate their emotions. It's hard to tell where this thing will go.
3.3 At any rate, one must concede that whatever kinegraphs one could introduce in a literary text would undoubtedly replace the literary process itself (by which reality can be rendered in subtly varying forms), and that the artistic difference between two writers, based on their individual description and evocation through words, would be seriously curtailed. (Poyatos 1977: 305)"Subtly varying forms" - Poyatos sometimes has a knack for jargon.
In fact, the whole sensorial world which surrounds us in real life is transmitted to us through writing and printing, which in turn will elicit images of it in our intellect, according to the writer's skill. In a novel, acoustic, visual, tactile and kinesthetic, olfactory, and gustatory signs are all reduced to visually perceived ones. This is the limitation and wonder of the writter word. (Poyatos 1977: 306)Word-signs (written words), thought-signs (images in our intellect) and body-signs (visual, tactile and kinesthetic signs).
From a semiotic point of view - not perhaps a literary one, unless the very concept 'literary' is revised - any novel, even a poorly written one, appears as a fascinating display of communicative power and of transmitting devices. (Poyatos 1977: 307)Exactly why I have chosen a corpus of short novels by Estonian authors from the 1920s and 30s rather than lengthy and appreciated masterpieces by international greats. From the standpoint of my research object, the type of literature plays an insignificant role.
Stage 1. The process is initiated when the writer, drawing from his own world of physical and intellectual experiences, begins to decode and select as his material all the signs related to those experiences. (Poyatos 1977: 307)The physical side includes sensorial, lived, sensations; the intellectual side includes selective recreation of directly experienced or read elsewhere.
Stage 2. As that character acquires life in the mind of the narrator through somatic and intellectual features, codified now for the future reader, the second stage of his transmission to the latter takes place. It consists of a channel reduction, made possible only by words, since the whole multisensory and intellectual world directly experienced by the writer is going to be reduced to the morphologico-syntactical representation (supplemented by a few punctuation signs) which is the written text, that is, a visual form of expression. We could say that it is a sign metamorphosis, which the reader will later trigger again so that the inverse may take place in the decoding process of his reading. (Poyatos 1977: 307-308)Exactly the body-sign → thought-sign → word-sign sequence and its reversal as I outlined somewhere above. Notice also that this channel reduction and sign metamorphosis essentially involves transformation from hypersemiotic to hyposemiotic, or vice versa.
We, as readers, find the character's behaviors in two forms:At this point it seems that it is possible to study only the explicit forms. Implicit forms would have to be inferred or invented, which makes them inherently subjective and, for my purposes, useless.
(a) explicit, in other words, the visual printed signs: morphologically and syntactically modified words, verbal descriptions of nonverbal activities, and punctuation marks; and
(b) implicit, not even visually present in the written or printed text, but rather latent 'between lines' and intellectually perceived, in which way they will, in a hidden dimension, complement the author's implicit repertoires, and also enrich the reader's own sensations according to his own sensitivity. (Poyatos 1977: 308)
Besides considering the previous comments as a basis for an elaborate study of certain aspects of realism, as I will discuss later, I would also suggest - as a sort of literary anthropology, or historical social psychology - the systematic investigation of the historical and documentary value; not only of the language, paralanguage, kinesics, and proxemic behavior of other periods of a culture, as described in its older literary works, but of other nonverbal activities, such as body adaptors (clothes, jewelrly, cosmetics), object adaptors (handling of arms, belts, and long disappeared artifacts), or affect-displays (as shown on many occasions by the characters). (Poyatos 1977: 313)Something like this already exists. The Politics of Gesture, edited by M. Braddick, is an example of such scholarly work.
6.3 Even if we concentrate on explicit nonverbal communication as described in a foreign culture's literature, I would offer some tentative suggestions just to explicit scholarly interest as to:I'm considering writing a short appendix for my thesis in which I would compare the most important phrases in English, Estonian and German.
(a) how to foreign reader decodes certain paralinguistic, kinesic, and proxemic behaviors which do not correspond to the behaviors displayed in his own culture in similar situations;
(b) how often he misses certain important nuances of meaning attached to some nonverbal activities, and whether or not these could be clarified by a translator's note when it might cause a gross misunderstanding. (Poyatos 1977: 314-315)
We can, for sure, associate the specification of paralinguistic and kinesic behaviors with the great figures of nineteenth-century realism or with the authenticity of Dreiser's wourld, but it would take a very deep analysis of the most hidden layers of literary, esthetic, and personal characteristics to even attempt anything like a taxonomy of narrative literature based on the use of the representation and description of nonverbal communication. (Poyatos 1977: 315)Way too much work for any single scholar.
Trying to come closer to the understanding of the forms and functions of this tendency, however, I would like to point out that the morphologico-syntactical-orthographical vehicle used by the writer for that purpose can be either poetic, that is, deliberately esthetic (sometimes evoking more than saying), or merely functional, as a significant stripped of any artistic intentions, expressing with the most indispensable elements the physical behaviors of the characters. And yet, because of the writer's basic poetic vein, we may find both forms side by side, giving us a straightforward but aritstic image of the world. (Poyatos 1977: 316)"Merely functional" wouldn't do in a Jakobsonian spectre. It would have to be replaced with something like Mukařovský's "informative function".
Poyatos, Fernando 1980. Interactive functions and limitations of verbal and nonverbal behaviors in natural conversation. Semiotica 30(3/4): 211-244.
I would define natural conversation as the spontaneous communicative exchange of verbal and nonverbal signs between at least two human beings. However, I am deliberately using the term natural throughout this paper, not just to refer to natural languages as opposed to artificial ones, but in terms of natural as opposed to contrived situations in which there is no spontaneity of thought and deliverance. (Poyatos 1980: 212)Isn't the whole point of newspeak to contrive all situations so as to exclude thought-crime?
Words, whether coined and utilized as arbitrary signs ('house'), or echoic signs ('swish'), lack the capacity to carry the whole weight of a conversation; that is, all the messages being exchanged in the course of it, as our verbal lexicons are extremely poor in comparison with the capacity of the human mind for encoding and decoding an infinitely wider gamut of meanings, to which at times we must refer as ineffable. If a natural conversation were to be conducted by means of words only, there would be not only an intermittent series of 'semiotic' (but signless) gaps', but some overriding vacuums as well, which are actualy filled by nonverbal activities, either segmental (i.e., alternants and meaningful silences) or stretching over varying portions of our speech, from single phonemes, to sentences, to a complete conversational turn. (Poyatos 1980: 215)Echoic - iconic. There are a few papers on meaningful silences above.
On the other hand, noncommunicative silence and stillness cannot be said to be limited at both ends by predictable behaviors, nor to support, empdasize, or contradict the verbal and nonverbal messages, nor to show any specific structure or functions, since they happen outside communicative encounters. (Poyatos 1980: 216)I disagree, because communication is not the sole harbinger of structure and function in human behaviour. Winston's silence in his corner crook, outside of the telescreen's field of vision, is quite significant.
The chart 'External Somatic Communication' in Figure 2 offers a comprehensive classification of the various channels and systems operating between sender and receiver - without unnecessarily exhausting the enumeration of body-based sounds, for instance, beyond what may concern the student of face-to-face interaction (cf. Wescott 1967); the various categories to be distinguished in paralanguage, kinesics and proxemics; and a few examples of the different forms of behavior and/or situations corresponding to each system. (Poyatos 1980: 219)After reading Wescott's paper a year ago myself, this is the first reference to him that I have come across.
(d) Re-statement, reported by Duncan (1973: 39) as 'brief restatement', as in the case in which 'the auditor restates in a few words an immediately preceding thought expressed by the speaker'. (Poyatos 1980: 232)I wonder if this includes the case of "verbal interference".
(f) Prompting signals, by means of which listeners can prevent the speaker from saying the wrong thing, or may ask him to introduce someone he was supposed to introduce, or remind him of something he is supposed to say (mainly by gestures, accompanied perhaps by paralinguistic clicks and audible breath intakes). (Poyatos 1980: 232)Game of charades. Also, a frequent occurrence in comedy - an example that comes to mind is a scene in The Campaign (2012), wherein a campaign manages prompts his candidate on the "our father" prayer.
[...] blind cointeractants, for instance, are totally missing the coverbal kinesic behavior (as when a sentence begins verbally, continues with a verbal ellipsis, and is completed kinesically) [...] (Poyatos 1980: 234)Cool. I was in need of a definition of "coverbal".
But we are forced to acknowledge lotions and cosmetics (intimate extensions of body communication) as true body-adaptors with which humans compensate, in gender-specific ways, for their almost total lack of natural controllable olfactory systems, and which can play definite roles in interaction, as they are overriding elements during, for instance, a man-woman encounter, provoking specific changes in that encounter, not only as they become costructured with verbal and nonverbal activities, but even providing an additional important dimension to verbal silences (which may not be kinesic, paralinguistic, or proxemic pauses). (Poyatos 1980: 235)Interesting perspective. Should consider this in treating Winston's musement on his experience with an elderly prostitute and Julia's venture with make-up.
Rules and counterrules are treated differently according to the person's psychological configurations (very extrovert and/or excitable people tend to use simultaneous speech more often than introvert and/or relaxed people), to emotional states (pathological conditions, as in some of Scheflen's reported schizophrenic patients [1973], or in occasional critical states of depression, fear, etc.), or to the proxemics imposed by furniture arrangement (objectual built environment), which may block off subtle paralinguistic cues at an improper far social distance and thus increase the use of some receiver's within-turn behaviors. (Poyatos 1980: 237)Accumulating terminology: In 1948, dissent is treated as a pathological condition. (General statement about the "You are insane, Winston" section.)
I have endeavored to demonstrate that there is much to learn about how our species communicates by microanalyzing natural conversation through the integration of all its components, as well as by isolating each one in search of its communicative properties; but also that unnatural or contrived conversation is the very stuff of a great part of the literatures of all cultures, and that there is a wealth of analytical possibilities in it for a deeper interdisciplinary approach to them. (Poyatos 1980: 238)My microanalysis of nonverbal behaviour in a dystopian novel focuses on (text-) semiotic properties.
Rewar, Walter 1989. On hierarchy, extension, and boundary in the cybernetic modeling of the literary text. Semiotica 75(3/4): 229-255.
A poem, however faithfully paraphrased or translated, will reflect profound changes in its semantic content. For Saussure, langue was a social fact, a totality of rules and conventions, a communal object, which he distinguished from its individual manifestations in parole. Hjelmslev associated Saussure's distinction with the more general and dynamic concepts of process and system, which he set apart even more categorically from the 'form' and 'content' dichotomy: a system, although conceivable in the absence of a process, requires the latter before it can be studied; and a process, in order to be intelligible, presupposes a system (Hjelmslev 1968-1971: 192). (Rewar 1989: 231)Relevant if I wish to use "system" and "process" in my work. Also, "concourse" would be like langue, and the description of nonverbal action in a novel would be parole.
Hierarchic links are formed between phonemes, morphemes, words, and other units of discourse. Hierarchy is manifest, moreover, between classes of elements, such as the classes of all phonemes, morphemes, words, etc. An important feature of hierarchy is that, in some instances, it does not permit linkages to occur, which suggests that all semantic associations are not realized in the interpretive schemes of a given historical practice. (Rewar 1989: 231)It would be interesting to find out whether nonverbal elements in literature could be presented in a hierarchical manner.
Although analog signals must be transformed into digital representations before they can be manipulated at the symbolic level, this does not mean that the analog shuns representation, that it operates beyond the pale of cultural communications, and that its relationship to the digital can be best characterized by means of a dichotomy. Compared to the analog, digital signals hold a clear advantage in syntactic flexibility. When transmitted over long distances, they are resistant to noise and distortion, and they can be periodically regenerated to their original form with a high degree of accuracy. (Rewar 1989: 233)Quite relevant for my purposes. It is difficult to accurately convey nonverbal behaviour, unless you "translate" it (intersemiotically) into verbal symbols. It will lose it's immediacy and a lot of detail, but it will gain "flexibility".
However, pervasive bias favoring the digital (found in the sciences humaines) which associates the digfital to rational processes and symbolic discourse, and uses it as a fromework with which to bind the analog, makes us forget that analog signals exhibit a semantic density which is lost in the digital. This density derives from the fact that its expressivity is not restricted to discrete, pre-selected levels of representation and to grammatically bound syntactic positions. (Rewar 1989: 233-234)"Semantic density" and "expressivity", not immediacy.
Selectivity, as an informing concept, does not have the power either to transform analog representations into digital ones, or indeed to represent them by digital means. Analog differences require tracking, and correct interpretation, through their entire range of values. Digital representations of the analog are created not by selection, but by approximation techniques that ignore all data that happen to fall between the sampling cycles. Consequently, the significance of the resulting representations is related to the complexity and adequacy of the sampling algorithms used to translate the analog signal into digital form. (Rewar 1989: 234)Wow. This has to be translated into more approachable terminology.
The text is an instance of a sign system capable of storing information. It is also a code which organizes a sequence of strings carrying an assumed semantic content. (Rewar 1989: 235)Compare this to early Lotman, especially the "code-text".
Literary systems, and cultural systems in general, when built on the model of natural languages, reveal a specific type of organization which results not from mechanical and purely logical selection and transpositions of elements, but from resolutions (either successful or unsuccessful) of the paradoxes inherent in the translation of analog to digital representations and of relationships which processes establish with their system. (Rewar 1989: 237)In other words, literary and cultural (sign-) systems result from the translation between heterogeneous systems.
Some writers have transposed Lévi-Strauss's single-level, combinational understanding of representation and language to the center of their own commentaries, stating, for example, that 'there is no marked difference between a theory of human action and a theory of the narrative', concluding that 'there is no theory of human actions which is not first a theory of the narrative, and vice-versa' (Blanchart 1977: 2). (Rewar 1989: 239)I would object. But I would first have to delve into action theories, which I curiously have not done yet. Blanchart, M. 1977. Searching for narrative structures. Diarcitics 7(1): 2-17.
In addition to common codes, senders and receivers possess a set of rules, stored in memory and addressable by the communicational process, with which to correlate information in order to make it significant. The exchange of information in a text/audience interaction does not involve a passive convergence of intentionalities. It is an instance when an author's language engages the language of his readers, who must invoke rules of translation adequate to maintain the comprehensibility of the artistic communication. The model of literary communication proposed by Lotman (1974: 301; 1983: 15-30) holds that senders and receivers do not use only one code. Even in the simplest case they rely on at least two codes, which intersect in some way, guaranteeing in this fashion the selectivity required to generate information. (Rewar 1989: 244)Should I approach the problem of reception from a Lotmanian standpoint? What alternatives do I have?
Communication between the analog and the digital assumes a boundary that not only consumes information, but translates it in both directions, from one environment to the other. In Lévi-Strauss, the transformation of the methodological tension between the analog and the digital into a digital distinction separates representations from their real-life context. All representations are treated as if they were of the same type. The complexity of new syntactic combinations they create fails to compensate for the semantic reduction and the reduction in semiotic freedom that follow. Representations are created by the combination of elements which make up other representations. By acting only on themselves, they lose their ability to act in the world, and they can no longer affect the structure of other systems (Lévi-Strauss 1971: 540). (Rewar 1989: 245)If I wish to delineate concourse, it would appear that I need to argue against this contention and point out that there are various forms of representations. How deep into issues of representation do I wish to delve?
Writers of the Tartu Circle attempted a summary classification of systems by pointing out that biological processes are already complex. Systems simpler than the biological can be assigned to a class of elementary systems. Systems that relate to language and culture belong to a class of ultracomplex systems; consequently, the literary text may be looked upon as an example of an ultracomplex cybernetic structure (Trudy po Znakovym Sistemam 1966: 5-6). (Rewar 1989: 247)Concourse would be an ultracomplex system in this sense, although I don't exactly see the value of designating it as such at the moment.
The text, as an event from the level of parole, combines systemic (linguistic) and non-systemic (historical, economic, psychological, esthetic) elements. (Rewar 1989: 251)I am inclined to dismiss Saussurean jargon, but not the truistic statement itself.
The binding effect, which creates the sign, depends on codes and the translating capabilities of boundaries to exchange information with other (analog/digital) systems. Because translation between systems is tied to the transformation of relatively discrete, similar or dissimilar elements, and an author's text is developed at the boundary of other texts and systems, a text realizes, through intertextuality, relations that bind together both linguistic and non-linguistic systems. (Rewar 1989: 252)Almost exactly the stuff that I'm trying to get at. How does this "binding" occur? Are some signs "pre-bound"?
Culture may be defined as a pattern of representations inscribed in social memory, and a hierarchy of texts constrained by variously structured channels of communication, in which the literary text performs both semiotic and modeling functions. (Rewar 1989: 252)It is important to add "social imagination" to "social memory".
Although it is difficult to define the point at which analog signals are transformed into digital ones, social practice has tended to develop the means to punctuate and transform differences of analog representations into discrete elements, which upon binding function as signs that permit them to articulate social meanings. The process of emergence, in other words, not only crosses boundaries, but also creates them, together with their potential semantic contents. It also contributes to the formation of new codes, which may evolve both from the basis of older ones and from others, more abstract. (Rewar 1989: 252)Pfff. Good stuff. Good article.
The text's semantic content derives not from a 'transposition' of elements taken from other texts, but from a translation of information from other systems, and other classes of systems, into own its unique system of representations. (Rewar 1989: 254)It's all very systemic.
Scollon, Ron 1998. Reading as social interaction: The empirical grounding of reading. Semiotica 118(3/4): 281-294.
In the fifties, the poet Dylan Thomas satirized shallow intellectuals by suggestig that they were more concerned with being seen to be readers of Kiergegaard than with doing any reading. In a recent episode of the American television sitcom Roseanne, Roseanne's daughter retreats to her room where she is shown holding, but not reading, J. D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye. She suggests to her aunt that if she would like to read, there is 'some Vonnegut' ove non the shelf. Times, titles, and authors have changed, but this use of the act of reading to display something about oneself to others has not. (Scollon 1998: 281)This is something I'm at fault with. My blog, this blog, is a database of almost everything significant that I have read during the past four and a half years or so. I imagine that other students do quite a bit more reading than I do, but because I keep track of my readings so pedantically, I may appear more well read.
Perhaps the act of displaying one's reading matter for others to see would be analogous to driving the latest prestigious car or living at the right address, not as the capital in itself, but as the display to others that one does, in fact, have access to such riches. (Scollon 1998: 281)Look at me, I have enough cognitive capital, or whatever, to read scientific articles.
I have taken this strategy, which has shown itself to be effective in the study of face-to-face (and largely symmetrically interactive) situations, and have begun to apply it to situations in which the social interaction polarizes between one person or group of people who are largely watchers of the activities or poses of other individuals or groups, including situations in which the posing is accomplished through such media as television, radio, and, in this case, print. I call these situations 'watches' on analogy with Goffman's withs and define a watch asCompare this to Ruesch and Bateson's "communication system". The "watch" has some implications on people-watching. And it would appear that Bühler's organon model is essentially a "watch" - both subject and addressee are giving their primary attention to the outside stimulus.any person or group of people who are perceived to have attention to some spectacle as the central focus of their (social) activity. The spectacle together with its watchers constitute the watch. (Scollon 1996)By this definition, football players, referees, and spectators form a watch; a university lecturer and his or her students form a watch; a television news broadcast and the viewer at home form a watch; a police officer sorting out an automobile accident along with the injured parties and the spectators who have stopped to observe form a watch, and a person riding along on an underground train reading a book or newspaper forms a watch. In each case there is what I have called the spectacle, that is, the focus of observation - which may be ongoing action as in a football game, or in a fixed form as in a text - and the watcher, that is, the observer or group of observers who are giving over their primary attention to the spectacle. (Scollon 1998: 284-285)
Not only that, by grabbing the chin we can see a direct disruption of the primary view-sign, the axis of gaze between Master Gao's eyes and the text he is reading. (Scollon 1998: 286)A primary what?
Based upon the reader's claim to non-interference and upon the nested frames by which concentrated reading is claimed, it is understood that a person reading a book is fully occupide socially and, therefore, is not, in fact, a single as a person alone in public would be if not immediately interacting with another person. Thus people (perhaps more women than men) who find themselves alone in public, such as when they are traveling on planes or sitting in waiting rooms, may strategize to avoid being accosted in unwanted ways by making a display of reading. Having a book in had allows one to temporarily close the snap frame of actually attending to the text to look up and say to a potential intruder, 'Excuse me, but I must finish this before this afternoon'. Without the book it is much more difficult to say, 'Excuse me, but I must stay alone during the next 30 minutes'. (Scollon 1998: 288)This is my strategy, although being intruded is not a great threat in Estonia. I just find that the train ride to hometown or back goes much quicker when I'm reading a book.
[...] Jones (1995) has described a television commercial (API) in which we see, from behind, a heterosexual couple holding hands on an MTR (Mass Transit Railway) station platform in Hong Kong. Across the tracks in front of them is a large, lighted advertising box with an AIDS awareness announcement. We only see this announcement for a quick second on the screen but are given to understand that we are watching the couple as a watch who are focused upon this announcement. We then see the couple momentarily squeeze each other's hands. Thus the tie-sign of this with is transformed into a view-sign by which we are to infer that they are seeing and interpreting the announcement before them. (Scollon 1998: 289)Alas, a view-sign is a sign of viewing.
Seaford, Henry W. Jr. 1978. Maximizing Replicability in Describing Facial Behavior. Semiotica 24(1/2): 1-32.
Whatever the question, one is always faced with the corrollary problem: how can facial behavior be best described? One answer to this question is the focus on this paper: viz., that description is most felicitously accomplished with reference to the contractions of the various muscles, a view which is by no means unique. By way of approaching this subject, a cursory review of some studies of the face will be made. In addition to artists, anatomists, and physiologists, the face has been studied by anthropologists, biologists (ethologists), and psychologists - each with a preference for how facial behavior should be described. (Seaford 1978: 1-2)"With reference to muscles" is indeed not surprising in the least bit. I'd like to know about how artists would describe it.
In 1936, Goldstein pointed out that, with all the voluminous, anthropologically-related literature on human growth, there had been relatively little on the face to that date. He summarized what there was. As early as 1866, Weckler had studied the development of the head and face. Hrdlicka (1900) and Connolly (1928) made interracial surveys. Boas (1911) studied morphological changes in immigrants. Hellman (1927, 1935) made important contributions. Schultz (1920) and Schaeffer (1935) wrote on ontogeny; Krogman (1930, 1931a, b, c.) on phylogeny.
Loth (1949 studied facial variation in the structure of facial muscles, and concluded there were differences between Caucasoids and Negroids, a conclusion that had been reached earlier by Huber (1931). (Seaford 1978: 2)
- Goldstein, Marcus S. 1936. Changes in Dimensions and Form of the Face and Head with Age. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 22: 37-89.
- Hrdlicka, Ales 1900. Anthropological Investigation on 1000 White and Colored Children of Both Sexes. Anthropological Report. New York: Juven Asylum.
- Connolly, C. J. 193. Growth of Face in Different Races. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 12: 197.
- Boas, Franz 1911. Changes in Bodily Form of Descendants of Immigrants. Washington: Government Printing Office.
- Hellman, Milo 1927. Changes in the Human Face Brought About by Development. International Journal of Orthodontics, Oral Surgery and Radiography 20: 475.
- Hellman, Milo 19354. The Face in its Developmental Career. In: The Human Face: A Symposium. Philadelphia: The Dental Cosmos.
- Schulz, A. H. 1920. The Development of the External Nose in Whites and Negroes. Contributions to Embryology ix: 173. Washington: Carnegie Institution.
- Schaeffer, J. P. 1935. The Ontogenetic Development of the Human Face. In: The Human Face: A Symposium. Philadelphia: The Dental Cosmos.
- Krogman, W. M. 1930. The Problem of Growth Changes in the Face and Skull as Viewed from a Comparative Study of Anthropoids and Man. Dental Cosmos (June), 624.
- Loth, Edward 1949. Anthropological Studies of Muscles of Living Uganda Negroes. Yearbook of Physical Anthropology 5.
- Huber, Ernst 1931. Evolution of Facial Musculature and Facial Expression. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.
Moreover a facial expression of emotion so-called can be quite affectless:I was just thinking that this "contrivance" sounds a lot like Ekman & Friesen's "masking".By turning these natural processes to account, men contrive to a certain extent to put on particular physical expressions, frowning or smiling for instance, in order to simulate the emotions which would naturally produce such expressions, or merely to convey the thought of such emotions to others. ([Tylor] 1871: 165)Altohugh Tylor seems to give preeminence to culture in the molding of expressions of emotion - "a certain action of our physical machinery shows symptoms which we have learnt by experience to refer to a mental cause" - his comments also suggest Exman's concept of "display rules" (Ekman, Friesen, and Ellsworth 1972: 23). (Seaford 1978: 3)
As for the objection that describing facial behavior in terms of specific muscle contractions on the grounds that it would be unscientific, since one is never quite sure whether the job is being done by the muscle which is supposed to do it or another, it is my contention that this is far out-weighed by the gain in observer replicability-potential. That is, if I know what usually happens when a particular muscle contracts, and so state that such a muscle is contracting, any future observer will know precisely what movement I describe. Moreover, my guess is that the muscle described as doing the contracting would be actually doing it most of the time. (Seaford 1978: 6)As opposed to "inferences", as Ekman called them, which are patently not replicable.
After quoting Darwing's comment about Duchenne that "no one has more carefully studied the contractions of each separate muscle and the consequent furrows produced on the skin", these authors opt for description by "furrows" rather than contractions".Is that why so many today overemphasize wrinkles? E.g. the "crow's feet" around the outer corners of the eyes and the forehead wrinkles (one blogger claimed that people with marked forehead wrinkles are the mark of an "open person").Initial attempts to describe facial behavior in terms of muscle movement srevealed that it was often quite difficult to determine which muscles had moved by looking at the face. A decision was made to describe the appearance of the face primarily in terms of wrinkles, ... ([Ekman, Friesen and Tomkins] 1971: 40)If, indeed, Duchenne's procedure was to be followed, and if the "wrinkles" referred to are the result of muscle contraction, why not go to the source rather than to the consequence? (Seaford 1978: 7)
Hjortsjö (1970) has recently provided a thorough treatment of facial muscle contractions. Although emphasizing expressions of emotion, that author follows the unabashed, detailed description of muscle contraction after the traditional manner of Duchenne (1862), Virchow (1908), Lightoller (1925, 1928), and Huber (1931), inter alia. The uninformed readers with whom Blurton Jones is concerned would never be the same after studying this little book. (Seaford 1978: 8)
- Virchow, H. 190. Gesichtsmuskeln und Gesichtsausdruck. Archiv fur Anatomie und Physiologie, Anatomische Abteilung, S. 371, 371-436.
- Lightoller, G. S. 1925. Facial Muscles. Journal of Anatomy 60, 1.
- Lightoller, G. S. 1928. The Action of the M. Mentalis in the Expression of the Emotion of Distress. Journal of Anatomy 62, 319.
Concerning "the scalp being drawn forward" Hjortsjö (1970: 50) does mention this contraction, but Duchenne (in Tomkins 1962: 239) and Grap (1959: 415) refer only to the backward motion of the occipitofrontalis. It is this upward contraction which couses horizontal wrinkles. Moreover, the mesial action of corrugators causing barely perceptible vertical wrinkles is not mentioned at all. (Seaford 1978: 11)I personally have found that there is a "frontward" motion of the occipitofrontalis when it is relaxed. "Mesial" means directed towards the middle line of the body. Like adduction, but in relation with the "meridian" of the body.
One other matter involving in observing human facial expression is the presence or absence of speech. Bilabial stops and nasal, for example, necessitate clamped lips, while high central or back vowels call for orbicular contractions. Failure to take these behaviors into account can cause ambiguities in description, a case of which occurs in a recent book on primate behavior. The 37th president of the United States is depicted displaying an "open-mouth threat" (Jolly 1972: 161). Although the photograph appears to match the label eminently, the possibility of the presidential mandible's being dropped to articulate a low-front or central vowel cannot be overlooked. If this be the case, the main purpose of the mouth's being open is simply phonetic. (Seaford 1978: 11)Anecdotal. In: Jolly, Alison 1972. The Evolution of Primate Behavior. New York: Macmillan.
Selg, Peeter and Andreas Ventsel 2010. An outline for a semiotic theory of hegemony. Semiotica 182(1/4): 443-474.
QSince the so called "linguistic" or "discursive turn" in the social sciences, usually associated with the works of the later Wittgenstein, Foucault, the "post-structuralist" and psychoanalytic conceptions of language and signs, the question of power in political analysis tends more and more to be addressed in terms of "meaning-generation" rather than in the classical liberalist framework of "means of repression," "rights," "decision-making" or "influence." (Selg & Ventsel 2010: 443)In my opinion all the four other terms can be reformulated in terms of meaning-generation, semiopoiesis or semiosis.
And last, but not least, we can point to a monograph dealing with the issue of totalisation and de-totalisation in semiotics, politics and philosophy (Monticelly 2008), and to one that sees as its purpose the development of semiotic conception of society, where a special chapter is dedicated to the problem of power (Heiskala 1997: ch. 13). (Selg & Ventsel 2010: 444)So, maybe I should (finally) read Monticelli's Wholeness and its remainders and take a loot at Heiskala's Society as semiosis.
The socio-semiotic discourse analysis inscribes other semiotic systems (besides the linguistic ones) into the discourse as well. According to the most eminent representative of this approach, Theo van Leeuwen (2008: 6), discourses are "social cognitions," "socially specific ways of knowing social practices" that "can be, and are used as resources for representing social practices in texts." Besides that, discourses always represent action, because action is the foundation of knowing, and social practices are foundations of discourses (van Leeuwen 2008). (Selg & Ventsel 2010: 446)It really is possible to make "discourses" out to be anything one desires. Discourse is the body and blood of Christ.
According to the definition given by an introduction to a volume of political analysis from the Essex school (Howart hand Stavrakakis 2000a), the term discourse analysis "refers to the practice of analyzing empirical raw materials and information as discursive forms. This means that discourse analysts treat a wide range of linguistic and non-linguistic data - speeches, reports, manifestoes, historical events, interviews, policies, ideas, even organizations and institutions as "texts" or "writing" (in the Derridean sense that "there is nothing outside the text")" (Howarth and Stravrakakis 2000b: 4). (Selg & Ventsel 2010: 447)But there is, though. Doesn't it negate the usefulness of "discourse" or "text" if these are universal signs, like "being"? God do I detest textual essentialism.
It seems efficient to start this with juxtaposing discourse analysis with behavioral, rationalist and positivist approaches that discourse theory completely rejects. Behavioralism presumes a crude separation of socially constructed meanings and interpretations on the one hand, and objective behavior and action on the other. Drawing from the general hermeneutic critique of such separation and "following the writings of Weber, Taylor, Winch, and Wittgenstein, discourse theory stresses that meanings, interpretations and practices are always inextricably linked" (Howarth and Stravrakakis 2000b: 6). (Selg & Ventsel 2010: 448)And I seem to like this "crude separation". There were facial expressions and hand gestures before the evolutionary advent of language which attached "socially constructed meanings and interpretations" to these actions. And still, not all actions are "meaningful", nor are all "meaningful" actions always significant.
Every society and identity is strictly speaking an impossibility, a never-ending attempt to fully constitute itself (see Laclau 1990b). (Selg & Ventsel 2010: 450)"Whether in actual fact the policy of the boot-on-the-face can go on indefinitely seems doubtful." (Huxley to Orwell, October 1949)
For Laclau, nothing is constituted outside the discourse. Yet this has nothing to do with the debate between realists and idealists. Laclau does not deny that earthquakes and other physical phenomena exist. But whether an earthquake is constituted in terms of the "wrath of God" or in terms of "natural disaster" depends on discursive structurations (Laclau and Mouffe 1985: 108). So the problem of the constitution of social and political reality becomes for Laclau the problem of the constitution of discourse. (Selg & Ventsel 2010: 451)This is one of the few instances in this discussion with which I can get on board with, because concourse can similarly be thought of as a "duscirsive structuration" which determines the "meaning" of a nonverbal behaviour.
Returning to the example above, we could paraphrase it in the following manner: whether an earthquake is constituted in terms of the "wrath of God" or in terms of "natural disaster" depends of discursive structurations or semiotization, and the latter in turn depends on the "intrusion" of the earthquake into the sphere of those structurations. (Selg & Ventsel 2010: 458)This is much more agreeable for me, especially because I intend to use the point about regulation in Theses in some form or another anyway.
Now, we can summarize from this reasoning a very important point concerning the semiosphere or culture: ultimately they are built up around an exclusion of disorganization or "extra-semiotic" and that those excluded forms: a) are created by culture or semiosphere itself "as its ideal anti-structure"; and b) their exclusion is not a non-directional and final act, but a constant and potentially never-ending dialogue between the "excluded" and the "excluder." (Selg & Ventsel 2010: 458)In 1984 this actually makes sense, as "thought-criminals" are produced by the party itself, minimally, by way of entrapment (it is O'Brien who gives Winston the Brotherhood book).
Every meaningful structure consists "of (minimally) two semiotic mechanisms (languages), which are mutually untranslatable and yet similar to each other, since each models, with its own means, the same extra-semiotic reality [in the sense elaborated above]" (Lotman 2000b[1989]: 641). Therefore, every meaningful totality is at least bilingual and this also implies that semiotic meanings do not get their full constitution through correspondence to some monolirgually graspable "reality." Lotman defines language as "every system whose end is to establish communication between two or more individuals" (Lotman 1977[1971]: 7). (Selg & Ventsel 2010: 456)Concourse actually fits into this mold. It is bilingual in the sense of being concurrently verbal and nonverbal. Although it would have to be added that not "nonverbal" in the sense of "some monolingually graspable 'reality'" but in the curious sense of "nonverbal communication systems". This move introduces a "filter" (or sign system) between nonverbal communication and nonverbal behaviour, given that communication is at least in part (sign-) systemic while behaviour itself not necessarily.
Now that we have explained that, it is time, however to ask a crucial question: what is for Laclau the purpose of this category of empty signifier for political analysis? Answer could be framed easily: it is the most fundamental tool for conceptualizing hegemonic relations. Namely, from the researcher's point of view, a hegemonic relation is nothing other than the situation where a particular signifier has assumed the status of an empty signifier. (Selg & Ventsel 2010: 459)This must be kept in mind so as to not sully the concept of "empty signifier" by applying it willy-nilly outside of political semiotics.
In the context of artistic text - that could in principle be generalised to texts in general - we could refer to Lotman's observation that 'the extra-textual bonds of a work can be described as the relations between the set of elements fixed in the text and the set of elements from which any given element in the text is selected" (Lotman 1977[1971]: 50). (Selg & Ventsel 2010: 454)This sounds like a take on langue (here "the set of elements from which any given element in the text is selected") and parole (here "the set of elements fixed in the text").
The article by Heinz Valk in which he ascribed the label "Singing revolution" to the night song festivals ultimately converged around it the meaning of many preceding as well as succeeding events in the Estonian cultural history. We can detect a primary translation here that consists in giving a verbal name to a nonverbal phenomenon. From the Lotmanian point of view it can be typologized as "external recoding" where "equivalence is established between two chain-structures of different type, and between their individual elements" (Lotman 1977[1971]: 36). (Selg & Ventsel 2010: 468)That is a primary translation? I'll take it.
It is especially relevant to emphasize in this context an observation by Lotman that although every text is unique, ad hoc construction of a unified sign for expressing a specific meaning, it is possible for it in further communication to become a part of the coding language (Lotman 1977[1971]: 51-53). It functions then as an element of language through which it is possible to construct or deconstruct new texts (or political discourses). (Selg & Ventsel 2010: 468)I'll take this too, and will try to translate this into a theory of concourse.
Siefkes, Martin 2010. Power in society, economy, and mentality: Towards a semiotic theory of power. Semiotica 181(1/4): 225-261.
Power has to do wit signs; this is nothing now. In fact, in thinking about power we can be struck by the two-fold shape in which we encounter it: On the one hand it manifests itself as quite corporeal (all too real for the victims) when it is enforced as violence - e.g., a death sentence carried out. At the same time, it demonstrates its subtlety as a sign relation when, for example, this same death sentence becomes valid through the application of a stamp or is stayed when the stamp is missing. (Siefkes 2010: 225)A power-related dichotomy between physical and semiotic reality.
Semiotics can help us here. Though it is often just called the "study of signs," semiotics is the study of sign processes and sign users as well. It is in this broader sense that it gains the ability to describe the society, economy, and spiritual state (mentality) of a particular culture; these tasks are taken up by cultural semiotics. Semiotics thus is the first science that offers the necessary concepts and descriptive models for explaining power both in its aspect as sign process and in its aspect as social phenomenon shaping human relations, thereby illuminating the two-fold nature in which power manifests itself. (Siefkes 2010: 226)It's emphasis on "sign users" is rare, though. Semiotic approaches to human relations, on the other hand, are quite available (e.g. Ruesch 1972).
If a bank robber threatens a teller with a pistor, does he only have power over the teller if he then demands money? Or, even only if he actually receives mony? Both seem implausible. The mere fact that he has a pistol and is holding it to the teller's head creates a power situation. This can be seen, for example, in that the teller could begin to open the register even before an explicit demand was made to do so; despite this, no court would find him guilty of disloyalty. (Siefkes 2010: 228)By analogy, Big Brother has power over all of Oceania because everyone is in his "view" (in the above quasi-Goffmanian sense). The part about an explicit demand concerns, quite distantly but still, self-censure.
The advantage of this method - giving a semiotic description of power on the basis of a semiotic approach to culture - lies in the fact that now phenomena of power can be described systematically, building up from a few clear-cut concepts, whereas at first sight they seemed too diverse for an in-depth analysis (see the examples in the introduction). (Siefkes 2010: 233)Could I do the same with conation, regulation, sign-control and other such concepts?
In Orwell's 1984 there is an opposite trend: it is forbidden to "dig up" and distribute old codes.Def: "Power of interpretation" is defined as the sum of opportunities of a sign user of a particular culture to define and/or distribute mentifacts as a part of that culture's mentality.Power of interpretation is located in the area of mental culture.
The qualification "as a part of that culture's mentality" is of importance. The capacity to define new codes depends to a great extent on education, intelligence, and talent of the individual; in itself, it is not yet a variety of power. It is, however, a prerequisite for the development of power of interpretation. Its creation depends on various factors that enable the distribution of new codes. (Siefkes 2010: 233)
The production of mentifacts. The production of mentifacts takes place in various areas of society. In modern Western societies two areas are especially noteworthy: one is the universities; the other is the area which, in Germany, is traditionally designated as Kultur ["culture"} in a more narrow sense (for example when a newspaper has a Kultur section which includes art, literature, theatre, etc.), the area of artistic activity of individuals and institutions which in English typically is called "the arts." (Siefkes 2010: 237)In this sense semioticians, or at least people who get a semiotic education in Tartu, are mainly producers of mentifacts - either pursuing a career in science (university) or becoming museum curators, artists, writers, poets, etc. in the arena of culture.
Imagine a university that uses only available mentifacts (codes or conventional signs; see 3.3), failing to develop any new ones; it would probably be called "unscientific" and its status as a university might be disputed. For a high school, on the contrary, no development of mentifacts would be expected. In Germany, at college level traditionally the Fachhochschule was thought to provide a rapid, discipline-specific and effective academic education, whereas the Universität in the tradition of Wilhelm von Humboldt was meant to combine a "universal," interdisciplinary education with a focus on research and creativity. Due to university reforms of the past years, however, a rapid convergence is taking place. (Siefkes 2010: 237)I like this definition. It hints that "the demon of terminological invention" is endemic to universities.
Since, however, these business signs (trademarks) have become of fundamental importance for the culture of a capitalist society, artists especially find these restrictions to be a massive threat to "artistic freedom," which in their opinion has to include the free use of all signs relevant to a particular society. Other people feel that everyone who is the addressee of a sign should have the right to be its sender, too. Special forms of protest have therefore developed against trademark authority, for which there are even specific publications. (Siefkes 2010: 237-238)"Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like it with total impunity. Fuck that. Any advert in public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not... Is yours. It's yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission... Don't even start asking for theirs." (Zen Pencils - 155. Banksy: Taking the piss)
A clarification is therefore in order: In fact, statements in and of themselves don't belong at all to the category of mentifacts; they are texts and thus belong to the area of material culture. To draw the distinction precisely is not easy. What is certain, though, is that the interpretation of the world that shows itself in most statements of opinion lies in the sphere of mentifacts. An example may be illuminating: When someone is invited to give their opinion on a socially relevant question, the utterance itself, its diction, its imprint on an audio recording, or its notation in a book, all belong to the area of texts. The political, economic, or aesthetic interpretations expressed in the utterance, however, are mentifacts, since they are codes of a particular culture that assigns particular signifieds (namely, the intirpretations) to particular signifiers (namely, the phenomena, events or other topics spoken about). (Siefkes 2010: 239)Approximately my crude distinction between word-signs and thought-signs. Also, such a conception of mentifact would suggest yet another link between Peirce's interpretant and Lotman's code.
E.g. O'Brien can turn of the telescreen.Def: "Individual power of position" is defined as the sum of opportunities a member of a specific institution has to attain his/her goals within that institution. "Institutional power of position" is defined as the sum of opportunities an institution has to attain its goals in a society.Power of position is located in the area of social culture.
But how does a position give its holder influence on society as a whole? According to Thompson, people, through their positions in institutions, gain access to "resources" which they can use in pursuing their goals; we might call them means of power. (Siefkes 2010: 244)
That some people are more dominant than others, have more social skills or are more outspoken is not, in our sense, a question of power. However, in many groups there are structural asymmetries, they already start out with different roles assigned to different people. In companies or factories, people have different assignments; in a group of friends, some might have a car, etc. So in practice, power structures crop up in most groups. (Siefkes 2010: 251-252)This is why research on nonverbal dominance displays are somewhat useless when it comes to questions of social power. Power implies structural asymmetries, not only individual differences.
Staiano-Ross, Kathryn 2005. Losing myself: Body as icon/body as object(s). Semiotica 154(1/4): 57-94.
Our bodies can never be fully under our control, for each body narrates a social and biological history of humankind and possesses the capacity to generate utterly unique signs. It is, in this first instance, iconic, standing as a representation of all bodies past and present. Most bodies are alike in this respect, and it is in their ability to stand for all other bodies that they gain their power. Deformity and illness in the individual must be treated because the token occurrence stands for the potential disruption of the social collectivity. Even a single incidence of illness further threatens our beliefs in the capacity of our biotechnologies. Ironically, when the body lacks iconicity, when it has lost its power to represent other bodies, and when it contains the possibility of producing never before seen signs, it is at its most dangerous. This non-iconic body is a threat to the sense of order that scientific, legal, and social discourses have worked diligently to produce. (Staiano-Ross 2005: 57-58)This kind of "iconicity" seems like a subversion of the definition of icon. Is the individual body a representation of all human bodies? t's primary function certainly is not representational. So this is a weird level from which to approach the matter. A similar technique was applied in a poem by Tyler Fugazzie: if "human body" is represented by a standing "iconman" then the sitting body is no longer a human body. On the other hand I agree wholeheartedly with the statement that the body produces "utterly unique signs" - the concept of "type" is quite fuzzy when it comes to nonverbal behaviour. And "different" bodies seem to be dangerous in the same vague sense that a "stranger" is dangerous. It is again a second-order (or even third-order) danger, as the diseased or deformed body can make us think of normal bodies and see weirdness in that. For example, seeing a heavily burned body with open wounds full of tissues of various colours may remind one that "fat" is not an abstract concept, but refers to yellow tissue beneath our skin.
In an article first published more than 25 years ago, Thomas Sebeok challenged us to think of the body as an iconic sign and each body as a more or less iconic representation of a 'perfect body' (Sebeok 1976). (Staiano-Ross 2005: 58)I'd hate to argue against Sebeok, who I otherwise regard very highly, but I'll go with anatomy textbooks on this one - there is no ideal body; every body is different in some respect or other.
The fantasized perfect body remains the body by which all others are measured. 'Every great culture', says Alphonso Lingis, 'marked by distinctive intellectual, artistic, and moral production, has also set up a distinctive icon of bodily perfection" (1994: 32). (Staiano-Ross 2005: 58)Oh, I get it. This is about body-image. Yet another discourse I have given my best to avoid.
As long as a body gives evvidence of an acceptable degree of iconicity (which varies among social collectivities), it is considered to have agency, to be in control of itself and able to control the actions of others to some degree. But as iconicity dissolves, we are no longer cultural/political agents with substantial being. (Staiano-Ross 2005: 59)This is a mighty convoluted way to approach the question of normalcy and social acceptability.
Alzheimer's patients are frequently relegated to nursing facilities wheret heir imprudent and unacceptable non-human-like behaviors can be monitored and controlled. (Staiano-Ross 2005: 62)I wonder if there is a newspeak word for "unnormal behaviour".
Commenting on the historical development of the concept of body as machine, a notion that is still with us at least in the fitness industry, Andrew Kimbrell notes:Somewhat interesting in that I've wondered about the expectation that a proper man has six-pack abs. Having such abs on the other hand implies a body-fat percentage that's unhealthy for Estonian climate, for example.Our association of the body with 'efficient machines' ... has created a modern body type in the machine's image - what one commentator has called 'techno-body'. The techno-body ideal for men, and increasingly for women, is the 'lean, mean machine', a hairless, overly muscled body, occasionally oiled, which very much resembles a machine. (Kimbrell 1993: 249)We are intent on achieving ever more remarkable levels of fitness at a time when extreme fitness may be irrelevant to a society increasingly operated by computers and machines. (Staiano-Ross 2005: 63)
If there were, as some might argue, no culturally or scientifically determined notion of such a thing as an iconic body, how could cosmetic and restorative surgeons set about their work? (Staiano-Ross 2005: 63)In these cases there actually is an iconic body - a representation of a body that is being modelled through cosmetic and restorative surgery. But to argue that a body must stand for other bodies as such seems egregious.
The brain too can be remade to more closely approximate the iconic, to return us to our meant-to-be condition as rational humans, devoid of sadness, anxiety, paranoia, or hallucinations so that we may fully participate in 'normal' society. (Staiano-Ross 2005: 64)Yeah, I'm not buying it. This is a matter of appropriate behaviour (especially expression of emotions), not "iconic" brain chemistry.
Now scientists tell us they are on the verge of being able to correct genetic defects themselves through gene therapy. (Staiano-Ross 2005: 64)What? Which scientists? Where? Who? Aren't you a kind of scientist yourself? What am I even reading here, Cosmopolitan? Did some scientists in white lab coats come to your middle school to do a presentation and tell you about gene therapy? I swear, this must be the first instance of this "scientists say" trope in an academic paper that I've come across. This paper is too long and too much not to my liking to continue. Although it may make for a casual read some other time, right now I quit.
Tantam, Digby 1986. A semiotic model of nonverbal communication. Semiotica 58(1/2): 41-57.
Accordingly, a very broad definition of nonverbal communication as 'behavior, other than symbolization, which is meaningful' will be adopted here.In a literary study it would be erroneous to omit non-audiovisual behaviour. The same goes for environmental factors, setting, or "atmosphere".
This definition covers an enormous field from which behavior that is not sensed audio-visually, or occurs over broad spans of time or space, is commonly omitted (Harper et al. 1978), possibly because these behaviors are less easily observed. This leaves behavior which Knopp (1972) lists as follows: body motion or kinesic behavior, facial expression, physical characteristics, eye behavior, touching behavior, paralanguage, proxemics, artifacts, and environmental factors. The last three types of behavior are determined by the setting as well as the communicants, and will not be considered further; otherwise the rist spans the range of behavior that will be termed nonverbal communication in this paper. (Tantam 1986: 42)
When studied in this way, that is ethologically, nonverbal messages show this fundamental property of segmentation. But they also show another fundamental property not shared by utterances. That is, messages are transmitted in more than one mode. Another way of putting it is that an act may be transmitted along many channels, including gaze, tone of voice, hand movements, posture, and so on. (Tantam 1986: 43)This fundamental property could be designated with Fiordo's "hypersemiotic".
Wiener and Mehrabian (1968: 51) define 'channel' as follows: 'any set of behaviours in a communication which has been systematically denoted by an observer and which is consiered by that observer to carry information which can be studied (in principle at least) independently of any other co-occurring behaviours'. (Tantam 1986: 43)How is a "set of behaviours" a channel? And is this where the collation of channel and code in various nonverbal studies comes from? I'm especially troubled by the want to study certain behaviours "independently of any other co-occurring behaviours", which tries to break hypersemiotic phenomena into hyposemiotic terms.
The meaning of a communication is an important part of its content, so much so that the two are sometimes considered synonymous. 'Meaning' is difficult to define, but, in its most restrictive sense, which will be termed 'matter' here, it is the relationship between one set of signifiers and another set of signifiers with the same signified. In the case of a nonverbal message its meaning will be defined as whatever verbal utterance can be substituted for it without a change of content. The attempt to translate nonverbal messages into words in this way has fascinated popular writers, but there are many reasons for supposing that only a small subset of nonverbal sigs - those that are symbols or 'emblems' - can be put into correspondence with words. (Tantam 1986: 44)Some meager support for the idea that studying concourse is like studying "the meaning of" nonverbal communication. Although I wouldn't call my project a "nonverbal semiotics", preferring the more lax "nonverbalistic semiotics" (I'll have to define "nonverbalism" accordingly).
A wider use of meaning is reflected in expressions like, 'What is the meaning of this?', in which meaning includes 'purpose' as well as 'matter'. In fact, the content of nonverbal communication often appears to be 'emptied' of its matter. This also occurs in so-called phatic speech. An example is the expression, 'How are you?' whose matter is, 'What is the state of your health?', but whose purpose, in favor of which the matter is largely disregarded, is to cement a social relationship in a greeting. An example from nonverbal communication is the eyebrow flash, when both eyebrows are momentarily raised. As a component of facial expression, the eyedrow flash is interpreted as signifying surprise (Ekman and Friesen 1975), but this is 'swallowed up' in its use as widely recognized greeting (Eibl-Eibesfeldt 1974). (Tantam 1986: 45)Now this I don't like. Jakobson's definition of "phatic" is not a good starting point for almost anything. I get that the referential function also "lapses" in much of nonverbal communication, but nonverbal communication rarely seems to fulful a strictly phatic function of continuing the interaction merely for the sake of continuing the interaction. There is an inverse relationship at play: we assume that verbal utterances have reference (is "cognitive" or "about something") most of the time, which makes phatic utterances stand out as an exception; while nonverbal communication mostly isn't "about" anything specific, which makes it exceptional when it is about something specific (like pointing or coverbal gestures).
However, different channels are particularly well adapted for different pragmatic purposes. Speech is, for example, especially well suited to the communication of facts, gaze to the regulation of interaction, head movements to the punctuation of messages, and posture to attitude towards other interactants. (Tantam 1986: 49)Very concise. Should keep in mind and see if these modalities perform these exact functions in my concursive data from 1984.
Most acts will be open to both kinds of external feedback but some channels are more accessible to one or the other type. The direction of gaze, the facial expression, even voice intonations are monitored very carefully by internal feedback but cannot be sensed 'from without' except through the reaction of another interactant or artificially by use of a videotape, as in social skills training. Self-manipulation by the hands, or foot movements on the leg or other foot, in contrast, are experienced almost entirely by the sender but 'from without'. It is plausible to suppose, therefore, that it is these latter channels that are particularly likely to carry those parts of the message which are a 'self-commentary', whilst the former channels are most likely to be sensed as being commentary on the interaction and therefore to carry those parts of the message most directed 'to the other'. (Tantam 1986: 50)Autocommunication. This is an interesting discussion because introduces some distinctions between external and internal forms, but it's couched in some very outdated communication theory.
Discussions of nonverbal communication have generally included some reference to the instrumental goals to which behavior is directed at the same time it communicates. Generally the reference has been to units of behavior distinct from the communicative elements as, for instance, in Pike's concept of 'actones'. This does not reflect the true state of affairs since every piece of behavior is shaped by some instrumental goal even if this is only keeping the organism upright and in some particular orientation. (Tantam 1986: 50)More reasons to read Kenneth Pike's lengthy book.
Nonverbal messages are generated by the body as a whole, and therefore have to be integrated into every other kind of activity, not least that of postural maintenance. As a result there are many more excluded combinations of successive movements and also movements in different channels. Sometimes these realistic constraints are overridden, leading to communicative catastrophes. A whole humor has developed of these, for example the man changing on the beach who raises his hat to a lady and in consequence drops the towel round his waist which is his only clothing. (Tantam 1986: 52)Which is why instrumental activities cannot be excluded from the purview of nonverbal behaviour.
Even the smallest elements of nonverbal communication correspond to phrases rather than words when they can be translated. The gestures of 'come here' or 'he's mad' are examples. Similarly a child who has some facility in nonverbal communication, but is just acquiring speech, uses single words as if they were sentences, like 'wazzat' or 'more' (for I want more). (Tantam 1986: 52)Thus it may be possible after all to deduce some theoretical insight from the concept of holophrase for the study of nonverbal signification.
The synchronic form of the communicational structure is also of great interest. Two important organizational principles operate. The first is physical resemblance, or 'isomorphism'. The transmission of the message along different channels may be yoked together by the isomorphism of one channel to another. This may occur by a process of spread into and recruitment of other channels, and may act as an emphasizer, as previously discussed. An example is the elevation of the outstretched palms and the eyebrows which might accompany elevating the shoulders in an emphatic shoulder shrug. Isomorphism between two interactants is a powerful binding force. Charny considers that postural congruence, for example, is related to therapeutic factors in psychotherapy (Charny 1966), and it may be a prerequisite for identification by literally 'putting yourself in someone else's shoes' (Kagan 1958). (Tantam 1986: 53)Huh. Another "first" - meeting isomorphism somewhere other than the writings of Juri Lotman (or Roman Jakobson). Though I think this passage pertains more to isopraxism than isomorphism.
Vaina, Lucia 1980. Fuzzy sets in the semiotic of text. Semiotica 31(3/4): 261-272.
The aim of this paper is to propose a semiotic approach to the problem of the coherence of texts. Informally, by the coherence of a text I mean the conditions under which one can speak about the text as a whole and not as a conglomeration of sentences. (Vaina 1980: 261)So something along the lines of Mukařovský's "semantic gesture"?
This approach to the text, or to the artistic object in general, is aimed at studying the problem of the coherence: (1) of the real object - the object of art, the text, (2) of the sign - a reading of the real object, and (3) of the immediate object - the percept of the real object. (Vaina 1980: 261)Surely there must be a simpler way to formulate this. It would appear that (1) is some kind of "transcendental" meaning - e.g. what the text signifies in itself, without any subject "reading" it and breaking it down into signs (of the real object). Or is the text itself the "real object"? What?
Remark. Semiotics deals only with those objects that may participate in a 'semiosis'. In order to have an act of semiosis, we must guarantee (1) the existence of the 'dynamic object' that is 'the object in itself' (4.536), an 'artistic object' (the text), and (2) the human receiver. (Vaina 1980: 261-262)This is tough, because it seems to confer semiotics to a curious meta-position wherein it can study only that which has already been put into signs. In other words, semiotics, in the strict sense of semiosis given here, can never study nonverbal communication. It can only (meta-)theorize about what is found out about nonverbal communication in other fields which don't care about the "pre-givenness to human mind" deal, or it can say something about what has already been said about nonverbal communication. In both cases semiotics becomes little more than a fancy play of metalanguage.
Bernsteyn (1927) shows that the work of art is characterized by wholeness to such an extent that it cannot be split into parts. The work can be considered as an external sign of an emotional-dynamic system of nonperceptible emotions. The aesthetic object to which the external sign refers is reconstructed by the receiver in the reception of that sign. The work of art, argues Bernsteyn, can only function as a sign because of its structure. (Vaina 1980: 262)This seems reasonable enough, aside from the fact that I don't know what are "nonperceptible emotions". What makes the emotions in a work of art "nonperceptible"?
Let us note by R the real objective world; T is the set of subsets of R. It is obvious that T is a partly ordered set with respect to inclusion. (Vaina 1980: 262)No, let R be the real objective external non-living extra-semiotic world.
The conditions (1) and (2) say that, in an object of art, the greater the contribution of the artist, the smaller the portion of reality represented. (Vaina 1980: 262)An odd assumption. It is as if the objective reality can represent itself in the artistic work. I would have thought that the fact of representation is still a contribution of the artist and high realism is quite an achievement, or "contribution".
These conditions do not imply lack of creativity in the portion of the reality not modified by the artist. Speaking about his poetry, Goethe (1939) says that 'all that's here is me, and if it is taken from the reality, or from the book, it is the same. What is important is only the fact that I used it well.' (Vaina 1980: 263)Goethe gets it.
So E contains almost all the significations of the text that a receiver picks up. (Vaina 1980: 263)Yes, because aesthetic reception sure is a quantitative process with strict equivalences. How many significations did you pick up from the text? Give it to me in numbers, boy!
So, the work of art is situated in the center of the world, like another sun, 'the perfection of its organization' offering a model of harmony to the whole universe or, following T. Vianu (1971), 'the whole process of the world tends to the perfection of the art', the work of art being 'a shrine programme of the spiritual life'. The philosophical signification of the art is fully realized if we understand that its harmony is the configuration of the spiritual destiny. As opposed to Leibniz, who considers the real world 'the best of possible worlds', T. Vianu says that the world is not perfect, but the work of art must be so, in order to constitute itself as a model of life. (Vaina 1980: 264)Wow. I sure hope 1984 is not "perfect" in this sense. I just remembered the correct shorthand for "I quit, I quit, lalala, I quit". It's DNF ("Did Not Finish").
van Poecke, Luc 1988. Denotation/connotation and verbal/nonverbal communication. Semiotica 71(1/2): 125-151.
In the literature on nonverbal communication, one of the classic themes is the range of functions that nonverbal processes can fulfill in interaction, either independently of the verbal processes or in conjunction with them. One function that is constantly cited derives from the argument that there is a task division between verbal (natural language) and nonverbal communication - in other words, 'that NVC and Verbal Communication normally play two contrasted roles' (Argyle 1972: 253). Natural language, it is argued, is more suited to conveying explicit cognitive information or meaning. The nonverbal is better suited to conveying implictly one's inner reality (feelings, affects, attitudes, evaluations, etcetera), one's personality, or the way in which the interactants evaluate each other ('interpersonal attitudes' - cf., Argyle 1972 and 1975). This notion of task division is often accompanied by the argument that nonverbal communication in this respect plays the same role in human and animal behavior. (van Poecke 1988: 125)Huh. I just invoked this "task division" a few papers ago (above). Is there something wrong with this division? I get that it's not absolute, because you can perform most (if not all) those nonverbal tasks with natural language and nonverbal communication is not completely "non-cognitive" (non-referential).
This point of view is explicit in what I will call the Ruesch-Bateson-Watzlawick tradition - that is, the system-theory approach to communication and communication therapy. However, the notion of a task division is also found in Goffman (1959: 2, 1963: 13-14), among others. (van Poecke 1988: 125)Thus it's no wonder that I'm so friendly with this division.
The intention of the present paper is to demonstrate that the denotation/connotation opposition as it is used in structural semiotics can be fruitful in this regard. My central idea is that there is indeed a 'task division', but that this task division is between denotative and connotative processes, rather than between natural language and nonverbal codes. The 'explicit cognitive information' is here denotative information (or, in semiotic terms, denotative meaning), while the 'implicit information' (or meaning) is the result of a connotative process. Both verbal and nonverbal processes can connote. (van Poecke 1988: 125)But this is where it all goes wrong. Denotation and connotation have quite a complex history. If you choose to neglect it and go with the definitions of Roland Barthes or Umberto Eco, you may come to find that you're using these terms in the opposite sense than what they were originally conceived for or used elsewhere. The original distinction by John S. Mill applied to names. Susanne Langer, for example, uses them in the opposite sense to the one given here: connotation is the conception (e.g. explicit cognitive information) a sign conveys, while denotation is the relationship between the object and its name. It's not at all about explicitness or implicitness or cognitive or non-cognitive. For Peirce, similarly, denotation is a symbol's direct reference to its object (in Mill's words, "a correct index") and connotation the symbol's reference to its ground through characteristics it has in common with other objects. All this is quite complex. To ignore it and replace it with more simple distinctions is erroneous.
I will begin with a discussion of the position I am challenging - which, for the rest, is losing ground - in the formulation that Watzlawick, Beavin, and Jackson (1968) have given it. There is a good reason for selecting their thematization: Kendon (1981a, 1982) has pointed out that the Ruesch-Bateson-Watzlawick tradition has played an important role in profiling the study field of nonverbal communication. This tradition draws its concepts, terminology, anda pproach from the cluster formed by computer and telecommunications technology, mathematical information theory, and cybernetics. From this point of view, communication becomes exchange of information by means of all forms of behavior, not merely the verbal. Because of the major influence this approach has had, it is not surprising that the axioms formulated by Watzlawick et al. (1968) often determined the definition of the function division between verbal and nonverbal processes. (van Poecke 1988: 126)This is what the Ruesch-Bateson-Watzlawick tradition has in common with the Tartu-Moscow school of cultural semiotics. In fact, I see many points of correspondence (e.g. the semiosphere vs the communication system) which would indicate towards a productive intermeshing, which sadly there is too little of (Richard Lanigan has suggested that this intermeshing should take place, but sadly I haven't seen it happened yet). It is also the case that I have yet to read Watzlawick. It may turn out that I'll have to take up combining this tradition with Tartu semiotics myself some day. Since it's a very real possibility that I'll be leaving academia soon and will have to think of projects to do alongside working for minimum wage, I'll designate this as a valid option. In short: #todo
1. All forms of behavior in an interactional system are communicative. In other words, one cannot not communicate in the presence of another person. This axiom fits perfectly in the line of disciplines such as mathematical information theory and cybernetics, which consider such concepts as 'intentionality' and 'awareness' irrelevant to communication. The importance of this point of view for the study of nonverbal messages - of which it is said that many are sent and/or received not consciously and unintentionally - is, therefore, obvious. (van Poecke 1988: 126)Commonly the rest of that sentence is left out, yielding only "you cannot not communicate" as if it's a universal dictum. This axiom here pertains only to a communication system - Ruesch, for example, does indeed hold that any action in a communication system can become a message. But, it is also the case that at least Ruesch and Bateson (I cannot vouch for Watzlawick) account for mutual awareness and influence (the latter should include intentionality, but I'm not sure). So this first axiom is at least in part a straw-man. // It turns out that the sentence ends with "one cannot not communicate" in the original. I'll have to present a blockquote:
2.2 The Impossibility of Not CommunicatingThere are quite a few problems with this. The opposite of action is inaction. Just because "nonbehaviour" is not a common term does not mean that silence and stillness does not exist. One can also "not behave" in the sense of not behaving appropriately ("Behave yourself!" implies that one is currently not behaving ... appropriately). Next, not everything in an interaction has message value. Everything in an interaction has potential message value, but actually becoming a message is limited by a myriad of factors, including sensory gating, attention span and interference. The man who looks straight ahead or closes his eyes is not "communicating" with these actions, unless the context indicates that this is the case, but is merely performing these actions and others can observe these actions and infer that the man is not communicating and perhaps actively trying not to communicate. In other words, it is an informational semiosis, not a communicative semiosis. And lastly, it is not as much of an "interchange" as an animated discussion because there is no exchange of signs. The man who exhibits his disinterest in communication may notice that he is indeed not bothered by others, but to paint these inferences as communication is way too loose. Otherwise a sunny day "communicates" that it isn't raining.
2.21 First of all, there is a property of behavior that could hardly be more basic and is, therefore, often overlooked: behavior has no opposite. In other words, there is no such thing as nonbehavior or, to put it even more simply: one cannot not behave. Now, if it is accepted that all behavior in an interactional situation has message value, i.e., is communication, it follows that no matter how one may try, one cannot not communicate. Activity or inactivity, words or silence all have message value: they influence and these others, in turn, cannot not respond to these communications and are thus themselves communicating. It should be clearly understood that the mere absence of of talking or of taking notice of each other is no exception to what has just been asserted. The man at the crowded lunch counter who looks straight ahead, or the airplane passenger who sits with his eyes closed, are both communicating that they do not want to speak to anybody or be spoken to, and their neighbors usually "get the message" and respond appropriately by leaving them alone. This, obviously, is just as much an interchange of communication as an animated discussion. (Watzlawick, Beavin & Jackson 2011[1967]: 29-30)
2. Every communication process has not only a content aspect (report), but also a relationship aspect (command). The latter means that in interaction, information is also given on the relationship between the interactants and on the way in which the content ('what is said') must be conceived on the basis of this relationship. This kind of information has been given the unfortunate name of 'metacommunication' (see n. 7 below). Clarification of this point may be found in computer theory: 'A computer needs information (data) and information about this information (instructions' (Watzlawick et al. 1968: 52). (van Poecke 1988: 126-127)Why is "metacommunication" unfortunate? The conflation of relational (essentially phatic) and commanding (conative) aspects seems weird, but not unwarranted. Will have to consider in terms of regulative function. I'll also note that information about data is not called instructions these days. It is termed metadata.
All this is neatly summarized in the following statement by Bateson (1968: 388) on nonverbal communication:It's starting to feel sometimes that too much emphasis is put on defining nonverbal communication against natural language. It is as if body-motion communication can't be studied on its own terms. In other words, emphasis should be put on the functions that nonverbal communication performs, not merely the functions that verbal language is unsuited to perform.our iconic communication serves functions totally different from those of language and, indeed, performs functions which verbal language is unsuited to perform. ... It seems that the discourse of non-verbal communication is precisely concerned with matters of relationship - love, hate, respect, fear, dependency, etc. - between self and vis-à-vis or between self and environment. (quoted in Kendon 1981a: 6)Let us first examine the distinction between verbal and nonverbal processes. (van Poecke 1988: 127)
There are the same characteristics that the Ruesch-Bateson-Watzlawick tradition ascribes to digital codes (for example, the principle of binarism and discontinuity: either/or, yes/no, 1/0). These codes are then contrasted to analogic codes, which include the nonverbal codes. Nonverbal signs are here seen as being much less independent of the reality that is referred to (for example, a tense bodily posture as a sign of inner tension), and can thus be called motivated; nonverbal codes work with continuous units - that is, not on the basis of an 'either/or' logic of asolute differences, but on the basis of a 'more/less' logic of gradated differences (a more or less tense posture as a sign of more or less inner tension). A syntax, as found in natural language, is, finally, lacking. (van Poecke 1988: 128)"Physiological motivation"? The "gradated differences" can actually be combined with Jakobson's insight into the "grading gamut" of emotive qualities (of language elements, but why not also nonverbal elements).
I would argue that the characteristics ascribed to 'natural language' describe language only in its denotative system. (van Poecke 1988: 128)You would argue that your straw-man tradition exhibits characteristics prone to a reductionism that you yourself introduced? Both natural language and nonverbal behaviour demonstrate both denotative and connotative capabilities. Your argument is invalid from the get-go.
The nonverbal can, with the exception of the class of 'gestures', only connote. (van Poecke 1988: 129)False. Although hand gesture is the modality most thickly populated with "emblems", facial expressions, postures and various other body movements exhibit a direct or exact name or label. I argue this frequently although I have yet to demonstrate this on empirical material. (Hopefully my "verbal concourse" will ultimately lead to something like the "visual concourse" which I have also posited several times without thinking through its viability.) Essentially, I believe that it can be shown that there are body movements and -postures which are autosemantic, having definite origin and meaning which can be translated or described in natural language. Hitler's (Roman) salute is an excellent example, although it's a gesture (and here gestures are excluded). Obama's "not bad" is an excellent example, although it may be argued that it's a "facial gesture" (and here gestures are not specified as "hand gestures"). So, I don't know. Denotation and connotation are still, I think, too vague.
As is often argued polemically against linguistics, the meaning of the text is context-bound: it is from the conetxt that the text must be understood. In other words, the fact that the speaking subject says one thing and not another, uses these words and not others, produces this syntactic structure and not another is determined by and refers to the fact that the speaking subject is, for example, a woman, or a bureaucrat, or that the speaker is angry with or hostile to the conversational partner, and so one. This I call connotation. Thus the text contains elements (connotative signifiers) that evoke in the receiver an idea, a concept (connotative signified) of the factors that determined the appearance of the text in its specific structure. Thus, in the text, by choice and combination, something is said, something is talked about; that I call denotation. (van Poecke 1988: 129)Thus, this author understands denotation as autosemantic meaning (reference) and connotation as synsemantic meaning (context).
Again according to Kendon (1983: 32-33), gesticulations are complementary to spoken language in the sense that their function cannot be exercised in the absence of the verbal denotation process. (van Poecke 1988: 141)I'm not so sure about the absoluteness of this statement. For example, I enjoy gesticulating to the rhythm and movements of music, even instrumental music (e.g. dancing with my hands along to Long Arm's The Branches).
Veivo, Harri 2007. The new literary semiotics. Semiotica 165(1/4): 41-55.
Literary semiotics as it was practiced two or three decades ago was based on the structural understanding of signs and sign-systems. Although the movement was much more diverse than is often acknowledged - with enviably talented scholars like Jan Mukařovský, Juri Lotman, and A. J. Greimas gaining considerable insights - it was nevertheless shaped by the dogmas of structuralism. These dogmas work with oppositions, choosing always one pole as the worthwhile, scientific object and neglecting the other: langue over parole, systematic over singular, competence over performance, synchrony over diachrony, discourse over style, arbitrariness over motivation, signification over reference, and so on. (Veivo 2007: 42)I don't recall preference for any of these oppositions in Mukařovský, Jakobson and Lotman. This seems like a straw-man argument.
Unfortunately poststructuralism, whether of Barthesian, Kristevan, or Derridean variety, failed to leave behind the Saussurean vision of language and sign. It surely criticized and reconceptualized its basic aspects, but this was done only from the inside there was no effort to find a new matrix on which to develop the very ideas of sign, language, and literature. (Veivo 2007: 42-43)Which is part of the reason why I haven't paid any significant attention to any of these authors.
As a general frame theory of semiosis, the action of signs, Peirce's thinking leads to a reasonable and balanced understanding of one subfield of semiosis, literature. This understanding may lack the appealing and neat arrogance of (post)structuralism; its rhetoric is based on 'also' and 'on the one hand ... on the other hand' rather than on Barthesian 'ne ... que.' The pragmatic approach is less a revolution than a return to issues that have been central in reading and writing all the time, but which have been overshadowed by methodologically powerful and politically combative theories that have dominated the field. (Veivo 2007: 43)A derogatory compliment.
I consider three aspects in Peirce's theory central in this respect. They are all exemplified in the following citation where Peirce analyzes how to identify an item in the world (a house in this case) by means of words:Very useful. Concourse "concatenates" verbal text with nonverbal behaviour.It is not the language alone, with its mere associations of similarity, but the language taken in connection with the auditor's own experiential associations of contiguity, which determines for him what house is meant. It is requisite then, in order to show what we are talking or writing about, to put the hearer's or reader's mind into real, active connection with the concatenation of experience or of fiction with which we are dealing, and, further, to draw his attention to, and identify, a certain number of particular points in such a concatenation. (CP 3.419)First, Peirce's argument on language is clear: language is not an autonomous system, but functions in contact with experience. If there would be no connection between the addressee's cognitive capacity and bodily being-in-the-world, language would not be able to convey information. (Veivo 2007: 43)
Semiosis necessitates a connection between language and experience, and this experience can be derived either from contact with brute material facts or from cultural representations. (Veivo 2007: 44)E.g. personal experience vs cultural representations. One involves a higher degree of creativity, the other is like "borrowing".
I deliberately chose not to introduce Peirce with one of his sign definitions, since they seem not only to be difficult to grasp but also direct discussions to superficial and unfruitful directions, such as the too long repeated opposition of the triadic sign model (Peirce) against the binary (Saussure). (Veivo 2007: 44)This author is quite sensible. There are way too many papers with almost only contact with semiotics being an obligatory quote of one of Peirce's sign-definitions (e.g. that paper about types of textures, above).
Within the pragmatic framework, the relationship between literary texts, or literature, and the world can be analyzed in two ways. One can focus either on how the world represented by the text is related to the world known through experience, or on how readers use knowledge and information derived form experience in reading and interpretation. The first path leads to questions of realism, mimesis, and representation, hotly contested in (post)structuralism and coolly defended in possible worlds theory. The second leads to issues of reading and imagination, recently put forward in cognitive studies. The two directions are not exclusive, but rather the former presupposes the latter. In both, the pragmatic theory avoids some of the pitfalls encountered in other approaches. (Veivo 2007: 45)In cultural semiotics these two seem inextricably combined (e.g. Lotman's model of textual communication). The difference amounts to focuses on the relationships between: (a) the text and it's context; (b) the reader and the text.
In his groundbreaking work, Fictional Worlds (1986), Thomas Pavel presents the theory of possible worlds as a remedy against this shortcoming. Drawing on a large selection of philosophical and literary critical works, Pavel argues that literary texts are referential and that their referents may be located either in the factual world or in a fictional world that exists only as a result of cultural sign production (not only literature and art, but religion and myths as well). Understanding this referential function necessitates a flexible ontology and, above all, attention both for the structure of texts and for the uses of literature. (Veivo 2007: 45-46)Good stuff, but not without precedence. Look up Jakobson's referential function in relation with the discussion on "universe of discourse".
The theory of fictional or possible worlds is parallel to Peirce's basic theory of semiosis. Peirce defined two objects for the sign: the dynamical one, which is the actual existing thing that has influence on the sign, and the immediate object, which is the object as the sign represents it. The latter is always fictional, since 'made' by the sign, and in the same sense it is always possible. The former, on the other hand, may be fictional or factual. (Veivo 2007: 46)Most concise and useful explanation of these terms I've met thus far. I may even use them in my work after this. (Although I should read more about them before doing so.)
What this means is that the question of representation in literature is not, first and foremost, an ontological one but epistemological in the specific sense semiotics gives to the notion. Literary texts offer 'semiotic mediation' for the observation of fictional and factual worlds and 'semiotic means' for their trasmission and storage (Doležel 1988: 485, 489). What literary semiotics is interested in is not the difference between true, false, and fictional knowledge, but on how the readers' conception of the world represented by the text is developed in the first place in this act of mediation. Judgments on the factuality or fictionality of the world represented and on false and correct assumptions about it arise only as a consequence of this first step. (Veivo 2007: 46-47)The stuff of "concursive comprehension". I may have to elaborate my own (cultural) semiotic notion of epistemology, probably on the basis of Lotman's quasi-cybernetics.
Fisette's work puts forward the readers' imaginative participation in the construction of meaning. To have a conception of the world represented, she or he has to act, to bring in bits of knowledge acquired elsewhere, either in real-world events or in cultural texts in the large sense of the world. Within the new literary semiotics, signification in literature - and in language - is, in this sense, defined as heterosemiotic, since it depends on bodily mediated connections between linguistic expressions and experiences that are not linguistic (Veivo 2001: 82-114; Ruthrof 1997; Johansen 1988; also Eco's encyclopedia model 1977 and 1984). (Veivo 2007: 47-48)Is concourse not heterosemiotic in this exact sense?
- Veivo, Harri 2001. The Written Space. Semiotic Analysis of the Representation of Space and its Rhetorical Functions in Literature. Acta Semiotica Fennica 10. Imatra: International Semiotics Institute.
- Ruthrof, Horst 1997. Semantics and the Body: Meaning from Frege to the Postmodern. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
- Johansen, Jorgen Dines 1988. The distinction between icon, index, and symbol in the study of literature. In: Herzfeld, Michael and Lucio Melazzo (eds.), Semiotic Theory and Practice. Proceedings of the Third International Congress of the IASS Palermo 1984. Vol 1. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 497-504.
In classic literary semiotics of structural inspiration, literary texts were considered as relying on cultural codes that were not limited to literature or language alone, but had, for the reading subject, their origin in experience. (Veivo 2007: 48)For my purposes it is important to elucidate whether the concept of "nonverbal code" (or "nonverbal sign system") is viable.
Literary texts are about the world we live in. Factual texts seek to tighten this relationship, but it is not absent from fiction either. To represent even the most improbable event or character, texts call forth experiences acquired in factual circumstances. (Veivo 2007: 52)E.g. Orwell's newspeak as an echo of actual linguistic experiments in the early days of the Soviet revolution and telescreens as an echo of the constant background buzz of propaganda in public places in Soviet society.
Veron, Eliseo 1971. Ideology and Social Sciences: A Communicational Approach. Semiotica 3(1): 59-76.
Pragmatics begins when this whole set of rules is considered as a body of norms of procedure that a given user of the system applies under certain empirical conditions of communication. In any particular situation, the emission (construction) and reception (consumption) of a body of signs require the application of some of these rules. (Veron 1971: 60)Odd synonyms for sending and receiving.
As everybody knows, the decisions underlying the production of any set of signs aimed at a 'scientific' description of reality imply a complex system of operations: selection of concepts; formulation of hypotheses; operationalization; model construction; building of instruments for collecting evidence; data analysis according to rules with different degrees of standardization; and so on. The study of the empirical conditions under which these decisions take place correspond to the pragmatics of science. (Veron 1971: 60)Steps to keep in mind when writing my thesis.
In what follows, we shall be concerned with linguistic discourse produced and consumed with a predominantly REFERENTIAL function, i.e., linguistic material that is supposed to describe in a certain way the extralinguistic universe of realitya. Scientific discourse belongs to a subtype of this class of messages. (Veron 1971: 62)As if the referent has to be a thing, an extralinguistic object. The referent can also be a concept, an idea - e.g. the case of the unicorn.
(d) There [in a science-fiction world inhabited by intelligent beings with a communication system such that the pragmatic analysis of their communications would be uninteresting] would have to be no body language of any kind. (Veron 1971: 63)"Body language" already in 1971? Catchy buzzword that is.
For all practical purposes, the messages would have only a denotative function; connotation would not exist or would be reduced to a minimum. In human communication, of course, this does not happen: the meaning of a message goes far beyond its denotative function. All human messages denote at one level, and connote at other levels. Thanks to this, no doubt, we live in a world much less boring than the one we have described or - what amounts to the same - we live in a much more complex and ambiguous communication universe. (Veron 1971: 64)In this science-fiction universe (where, among other aspects, there is no "body language") the signs mean only what they "really" mean (they denote) and no such thing as "what you think" something means (e.g. no guesswork, no abduction). In this regard it may be the case that in 1984 there is only connotation - nothing "really" means anything (because only the Party can say what is true and what is false).
The connotative meaning of the message, i.e., its metacommunicational dimension, depends then on the selective and combinatory options at the disposal of communicators. (Veron 1971: 64)How in the world are connotation and metacommunication related (or equivalent)? In these last few papers "connotation" has gradually become as vague and universal as "discourse".
Just as in interpersonal relationships communicators transmit through metacommunication the 'image' they have with regard to the ongoing relationship and its norms, so the social mass-messages always metacommunicate a certain 'image' of society, a certain conception of social reality, the way of organizing it, and the way of understanding its different aspects. As this image and these ways of conceiving and understanding social reality are not the only possible ones, and as they are transmitted through metacommunication, i.e., at an implicit level of meaning, the term IDEOLOGICAL COMMUNICATION seems fairly adequate. (Veron 1971: 68)Actually something useful. Although metacommunication is, in Ruesch's approach, a function of communication, it can certainly also be viewed in terms of levels of communication. In fact, the self-description of a culture can be thought of as metacommunication on the societal level.
If we define ideology as a level of meaning of messages manifestly centered in the referential function, PROPAGANDA may be distinguished from ideology as the discourse centered in the conative function. On the functions of linguistic messages, see Jakobson, Essais de linguistique générale (Paris, Éditions de Minuit), chapter 11. (Veron 1971: 68; footnote 12)Why, though? In the Althusserian frame, the "interpellation" of ideology is precisely conative. How is propaganda conative?
SCIENTIFIC LANGUAGE MAY BE DEFINED AS THE CONSTANT AND UNINTERRUPTED STRUGGLE AGAINST CONNOTATION. In the empirical sciences, this struggle manifests itself in many ways. The most important one is the effort toward a neutralization of connotative meanings BY MAKING EXPLICIT THE DECISIONS THAT GENERATE THEM. The scientific character of the construction of a descriptive and explanatory language about reality expresses itself through the introduction of elements DENOTING THE OPERATIONS THEMSELVES WHICH HAVE BEEN CARRIED OUT BY THE SENDER. This does not eliminate the ideological nature of the dicisions made, but neutralizes its 'ideological effect' in communication process. On many occasions the scientist, like the ideologist, makes a selection of certain concepts referred to social reality that cannot be based either on logical-methodological or empirical criteria; but the scinetist, unlike the ideologist, tries to make explicit the very fact of having made a selection under these conditions. (Veron 1971: 70-71)Which is why I'll have to write a whole chapter about why "concourse" and not something other. It will be arduous, as I'll have to go through numerous possible definitions from "action put into language" to discussions of syncreticism between sign systems.
From the point of view of communication theory, ideology is a level of meaning, and this implies that it is A STRUCTURAL CONDITION OF PRODUCTION OF MESSAGES WITHIN A HUMAN LANGUAGE SYSTEM, INCLUDING SCIENTIFIC COMMUNICATION. (Veron 1971: 74)Compare this to the definition of power as systematic asymmetry (or something like that, above).
Vávra, Vlastimil 1977. The Self and Body Movement Behavior. Semiotica 21(1/2): 1-22.
Man's fascination with self-reflection and the resulting self-experience has led to a distinction between the Ego - the Self, the Self as Knower - the Self as Known, I - Me, etc. The problems which accompany this duality have always been numerous. (Vávra 1977: 1)Sadly, Estonian language doesn't discriminate between these senses. There is only mina ("I").
During the investigation of this sample, I paid attention to body movement behavior of the persons speaking, especially when these persons were using verbal forms of the first and second person singular. The most striking differences were found (a) in the movement of the head and (b) in the formation of the face around the eyes.Odd stuff. Definitely an interesting aspect of autocommunication, but very marginal. My own conception of nonverbal self-communication doesn't necessarily involve speech.
Some people, especially when using the verbal form of the first person singular, but also the verbal form of the second person singular, bend their heads backwards and simultaneously either half-close or entirely close their eyelids. When they reopened their eyes I often saw that their eyes were still turning in an upward direction, as if attempting to look in the direction where I-Claparède most intensively felt that Me-Claparède resided. (Vávra 1977: 4-5)
Other questions naturally followed these. Are we not, as exemplified by the backward bending of the head and closing of the eyes, dealing with a concentration effort to exclude vision? And regarding the testee's intensive gazing at the space in front of him, and the accompanying contraction of the eyebrows, are we not dealing with a concentrated effort to use the eyes? And are not the collision patterns 1.1 to 4.2 a balancing between the use and non-use of the eyes? (Vávra 1977: 10)To reduce interference?
For what pvrpose?
A number of scholars have attempted to study the Self - for instance, Boshier (1968a, 1968b) - by investigating whether a person is satisfied or dissatisfied with his or her own name. To what extent does behavior change when names are abbreviated or replaced by a nickname? (Vávra 1977: 16)Relevant for me personally.
- Boshier, R. 1968a. Self-Esteem and First Name in Children. Psychol. Reports 22: 762.
- Boshier, R. 1968. Attitude toward Self and One's Proper Name. J. of Individual Psychol. 24: 63-66.
At the conclusion of detective stories we often see a reconstruction of the criminal act. Someone usually stands in the space where the crime took place and describes each move of the crime. This situation has often been described as in the sentence: 'So-and-so turned his eyes and head to the left, so as to better recall the complex situation.' Turning the eyes and head to the left in such situations is even more explicit in films or on the TV screen (from the point of view of the camera, the movement is in the opposite direction, from left to right. (Vávra 1977: 17)This is surprisingly... concursive.
Winner, Irene Portis 1983. Some comments on the concept of the human sign: Visual and verbal components, and applications to ethnic research (A wonderful father). Semiotica 46(2/4): 263-285.
If we understand the self in this cultural and semiotic way, then self-identity and group or cultural identity are isomorphic constructs. Each construct assumes self-awareness because of differences based on oppositions between self/other and my group/other grou. In this sense cultural performances, myths, rituals, gestures, or, in a broad sense, all culturally coded and organized behavior may become, at some level, stories about the individual self or about the group self and provide, in addition to referential and other kinds of information, also self-commentary or metainformation. (Winner 1983: 263)In another paper by Winner, "Some Fundamental Concepts Leading to a Semiotics of Culture," this aspect is treated, after Bogatyrev, in terms of "the function of the structure of functions", e.g. metafunctions. In other words, culturally coded and organized behaviour functions culturally, but on another level these functions themselves take on the "boundary" function (paraphrasing from Lotman's theory of semiosphere) that distinguishes self/other or my group/other grou (Russian svoi and chusoi).
For the aesthetic function, by focusing upon the object itself through the manipulation of all types of parallelism, also heightens the contrast between the particular culture bearers with whom the object may be identified, and others. Thus there may be an intertwining of the aesthetic function with what I call the metafunction of self- and ethnic commentary that provides individual and cultural identity. (Winner 1983: 264)This is not far off from Lotman's theory of cultural self-description.
Lotman sees culture as a broad system of information where the concept of culture is related to our understanding of mental processes that integrate the diverse facts perceived into communication models, which recalls Peirce. For Lotman, culture is analogous to memory of the individual, since it is a mechanism for storage and processing of information, but culture is also dynamic since it implies both fixation of past experiences and instructions for creating new texts (Theses 1973: 6.0.0). (Winner 1983: 265)Inching towards a semiotic epistemology.
Furthermore, like Bogatyrev, Lotman holds that a culture is always defined by its relation to other cultural systems and a culture itself is composed of numerous correlated pairs of semiotic systems. A minimum culture would require a pair of semiotic systems, the most fundamental of which are the two basic types of sign systems, visual and verbal (Theses: 6.13), which often not only confront each other but, by their confrontation, bring about new syntheses, thereby giving rise to new meanings. (Winner 1983: 265)Do they have to "correlate"? That "minimal culture" is a theoretical construct. In my own theory-building, at point, there are at least three systems: body-signs, thought-signs and word-signs.
Peirce implied that the human is also a social, and we might say a culture, sign since the notion of reality involves the notion of community. Only eventual community acceptance can distinguish idiosyncratic illusion from social reality. In other words, only those cognitions that the community continues to reaffirm are true and real (CP 5: 311). (Winner 1983: 265-266)The implication for my current work is that the question whether "concourse" is an idiosyncratic illusion or actually valuable concept can and will be decided by it's consequent use, disuse or misuse by others who study the relations between nonverbal communication and literature.
To Peirce it is clear that, since man is conscious, thinks, and is aware of his own identity, all his thoughs are signs, and in this sense all thoughs are external to himself. Thus, Peirce says, man is an external sign, for man and the external sign are identical, for man is the thought; and the organism is only an instrument of thought (CP 5: 314). (Winner 1983: 266)Am I this blog?
Yet Peirce does not consider the human organism as part of the sign, as we have pointed out. Clearly this is only a beginning in the search for the material qualities of the human sign. (Winner 1983: 266)But what about that quote about how "the body of man is a wonderful mechanism, that of the word nothing but a line of chalk"? (cf. CP 7.583) - Although I really should look up its context before using it in any way.
Lotman holds that in transmitting the message to himself the addressor internally restructures his essence, as far as it is possible to treat the essence of a personality as an individual composition of socially significant codes, a composition that changes in the process of the communicative act (Lotman 1973: 229). (Winner 1983: 267)I'll place emphasis on the word "composition", which elsewhere (in Estonian translations) is variously a "set" or "bundle" or even "knot".
We shall show that confrontations between verbal and visual signs create montages that give rise to new meanings, changing the character both of iconic signs, making them more conventional, and of arbitrary or conventional signs, making them more iconic, as shall be demonstrated in the examination of a specific human sign as an ethnic text. (Winner 1983: 268-269)The confrontation and collaboration (in general, concourse) between verbal and nonverbal is a double edged sword. A behaviour that gains a verbal label becomes more concrete and repeatable while the verbal label becomes more fixed in "social imagination" with said form of behaviour.
The ethnic function implies a metafunction, since it comments upon the nature of the ethnic sign itself, whether it is identified with the individual sender or the group. (Winner 1983: 269)In a bifurcated world such as the Soviet society or its fictional mirror in Orwell's 1984 presents numerous possibilities for applying the concept of "metafunction". Even the mere fact of speaking newspeak carries a metafunction. "You're a thoughtcriminal!" says the little girl, explicitly identifying Winston.
A primary mechanism that creates this kind of foregrounding in an ethnic text is the juxtaposition of elements of texts from more than one cultural or subcultural sytem. The result is the creation of a new and more heterogeneous text. (Winner 1983: 270)On the metalevel, one would guess that "grabbism" can be understood positively: juxtaposing elements of several semiotic approaches could result in a new and heterogeneous approach. Although "inter- and transdisciplinarity" probably fares better in these parts than "grabbism".
But Father used to say, 'If you want to be praised you gotta die. Or if you want them to talk about you, get married, but if you want them to praise you, die.' And that was how the problem of jealousy was handled. (Winner 1983: 283)Goffman. Merleau-Ponty. Zilberman. Orwell. 2Pac.
Young, Katharine 2000. Gestures and the phenomenology of emotion in narrative. Semiotica 131(1/2): 79-112.
How are narratives inflected with emotion? Some narrators imbue their stories with emotion effects intended to arouse a response in their recipients (Warhol 1992: 116-120). (Young 2000: 79)An odd notion. I'd understand that narrators insert phrases or motives which elicit emotion(al) effects in the reader, but "emotion effect" sounds like cause and effect got mixed.
Emotion is constructed by and for the narrative in the course of which it appears. This brings into question, as Warhol points out, 'traditional criticism's assumption that some feelings are "genuine" or authentic and others are not', and puts us in the postmodern 'position of being able to sak, Is not all interior exprience to some degree socially or culturally constructed?' (1992: 104). On my argument, narrative evocations are not derivative or second-order emotions but authentic originary instances of emotion. Emotions aren ot being represented here; they are being occasioned. (Young 2000: 80)This Robyn Warhol sounds like a typical late 80s social-construction-of-emotion kind of theoretician. The bit about occasioning emotions instead of representing sounds a lot like Susanne Langer and her discussion of feeling and form - how artists, essentially, craft their art so as to evoke something that is more universally human (emotions).
Theories of the storage of emotion in the past or the unconscious are implicitly humoral. Emotion is conceived as an ethereal substance, kept in the body under pressure until either it bursts out onto the surface in a single explosion or is let off in puffs of steam. This conception the philosopher, Robert Solomon, calls the hydraulic theory of emotion (Solomon 1976; in Lutz 1988: 6). (Young 2000: 80)Yeah, no, this philosopher was late in the game. Jurgen Ruesch is credited for his 1964 classification of psycho-thermodynamics (energy analogies), psychohydraulics (pressure analogies) and psychoelectronics (machine analogies).
When emotions are seen to be occasioned, not merely represented, it becomes apparent that tehy are not a single monothetic effusion of substance; they are inflected ongoing over the course of their production. (Young 2000: 80)define:monothetic - Pertaining to or based on a single basic idea or principle. / Describing a classification that is defined by the presence of all of a set of attributes.
Emotion is neither in the body nor the world. Fear is experienced as an intense aletrness at the rim of my auditory, visual, and tactile field. It can of course be felt in, or rather as, body but that does not mean that it can be translated into a physiochemistry of the ear, eye, or skin. I do not experience fear in those sites, still less in the brain. Fear is out there, where my senses reach for terror. As Paul Ricoeur remarks, fear is not an internal state; it is a world to be shunned (1966: 271). (Young 2000: 81)Epigraph-worthy. In fact, if I'd dedicate a chapter to fear of surveillance, I could very well use this as an epigraph.
Ray Birdwhistell regards 'terms such as "gesture", "posture", "facial expression", and so forth, as folk labels for outstanding, highly noticeable "peaks" of body motion' (Kendon 1998: 247; Birdwhistell 1970: 220). These peaks are here described as gestures. (Young 2000: 81)So when someone above mentioned something like "folk labels" this is what was meant? It does pose an interesting question for concourse: if these terms are "folk labels" then what would be the scientific terms for these "peaks"? Also, when I purport to use "native concepts" in my analysis (e.g. the concepts that are present in the text itself), can there really be anything other than "native concepts" in a broad sense?
In order to retrieve aural but nonlinguistic phenomena like coughs, pauses, speech intonations, and the like into a verbal stream, the sociolinguist Muchael Moerman proposed the category 'audible communication'. (Young 2000: 82)It already had a name - paralanguage. Or, if you will, vocalics. Or even if you mean strictly sounds produced by the body, then Wescott (1966Q 350) already gave it a name - strepital communication (and concomitantly a field, strepitistics). Ain't nothing new under the sun. Reference, just in case: Moerman, Michael and Masaichi Nomura (eds.) 1990. Culture Embodied. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology.
Nor is thought itself prior to words; rather they are dialogically related. Lev Vygotsky writes, 'The relation of thought to word is not a thing but a process, a continual movement back and forth from thought to word and from word to thought ... Thought is not merely expressed in words; it comes into existence with them' (1986: 218). (Young 2000: 82)In what I call concourse words, thought and bodies correlate. Words that refer or describe bodily behaviour call forth thoughts (cognitive representations) about bodily behaviours. Abstracting these into steps (as I've done before) is a typological venture. The process itself probably doesn't lend itself to segmentation.
With respect to gestures affiliated with narrative, McNeill, taking up the work of several linguists, proposes an elegant distinction between iconic and metaphoric gestures (1992). Iconic gestures conjure up the concrete object narrative mentions, like wrapping one hand above the other round an imaginary haft and moving the hands across the body, maintaining the apposition, to prepresent swinging an axe. Metaphoric gestures treat narrative as if it were concrete, for instance, a series of rapid flicks of the wrist slicing up the speech stream into staccato bits, accompanying the remark that someone talked rapidly (Kendon, in Moermann and Nomura [eds.] 1990: 57-58). The first is a visualization of what does not happen to be visible on the storytelling occasion; the second, a visualization of the inherently invisible, the difference between invoking and, as it were, inventing an object. Both are what McNeill calls 'pictorial', but iconic gestures, he writes, 'bear a close formal relationship to the semantic content of speech' (McNeill 1992: 12) whereas metaphoric gestures 'present an abstract idea rather than a concrete object or event. (Young 2000: 83)This is a pretty nifty use of abstract and concrete reference.
The realm is seen from another space and time by a perceiver who has unrestricted access to its space and times. This perspective has been called in literary theory the omniscient narrator or the bird's eye or God's eye view. The external perspective is associated with omniscience, detachment, and objectivity. (Young 2000: 88)Is the Big Brother an omniscient narrator? Could 1984 not be a diary of lowly Winston but a thought police report?