Psychological law of proximity in semiotic and linguistic perspective Cover Image

Psychologiczne prawo bliskości w perspektywie semiotycznej i lingwistycznej
Psychological law of proximity in semiotic and linguistic perspective

Author(s): Aleksander Kilklewicz , Holger Kuße
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Theoretical Linguistics, Applied Linguistics
Published by: Instytut Germanistyki Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego

Summary/Abstract: The authors discuss the possibilities of applying the law of proximity as one of the categories of gestalt psychology to describe the social communication. The first part considers the mutual determinants of sensory and cognitive processes, including the phenomenon of cognitive penetrability and the phenomenon of semantic priming. In the following parts, the authors show how the law of proximity is implemented in various types of discourses. In visual communication (especially in film and photography), the law of proximity is the basis of collage editing. The authors describe the principles by which semantic inference is made in such discourses. The law of proximity also significantly influences the processing of information in speech. In poetic texts, the compactness of the line sequence is based on this principle, i.e. what R. Jakobson defined as the transfer of equiva- lence from the selection axis to the combination axis. In artistic, journalistic or rhetorical texts, the proximity of words in the text contributes to the emergence of semantic implications, i.e. allusive meanings.

  • Issue Year: 2022
  • Issue No: 16
  • Page Range: 89-113
  • Page Count: 25
  • Language: Polish