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Designing a semiotic-based approach to intercultural training

Designing a semiotic-based approach to intercultural training

Author(s): Roger Parent,Stanley Varnhagen / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2011

This exploratory enquiry seeks to examine the largely unexplored potential of semiotics for intercultural training and education. The proposed threepart discussion describes the process by which semiotic theoretical principles were selected and progressively refined into an applied model which was then piloted through a 2007 research initiative entitled Tools for Cultural Development. The case study involved six groups of French and Australian trainees from both the academic and professional sectors, in collaboration with university, government and community partners. The first part of the article summarizes a review of the literature on approaches to cultural competence training. The study then outlines the transcoding process by which the stated objectives of intercultural education were reformulated in semiotic terms, particularly in reference to cultural semiotics on which the theoretical core of the applied model was subsequently based. Relevant principles from other semiotic schools as well as similar theoretical and methodological stances in the social sciences reinforced the established body of theory for the training design. The third part of the study discusses the process by which semiotic principles were further defined as skill-based outcomes and goals for workshop implementation. This pragmatic defining process facilitated development of questionnaires and surveys, thereby allowing participants to evaluate the training experience by examining their perceptions about the workshop outcomes at the beginning and end of the sessions. This article presents the quantitative results of the evaluation and, in discussing the gains and limits of data obtained, provides the context for a follow-up article on the qualitative findings of the study.

Language in social reproduction: Sociolinguistics and sociosemiotics

Language in social reproduction: Sociolinguistics and sociosemiotics

Author(s): Patrizia Calefato / Language(s): English / Issue: 1-2/2009

This paper focuses on the semiotic foundations of sociolinguistics. Starting from the definition of “sociolinguistics” given by the philosopher Adam Schaff, the paper examines in particular the notion of “critical sociolinguistics” as theorized by the Italian semiotician Ferruccio Rossi-Landi. The basis of the social dimension of language are to be found in what Rossi-Landi calls “social reproduction” which regards both verbal and non-verbal signs. Saussure’s notion of langue can be considered in this way, with reference not only to his Course of General Linguistics, but also to his Harvard Manuscripts. The paper goes on trying also to understand Roland Barthes’s provocative definition of semiology as a part of linguistics (and not vice-versa) as well as developing the notion of communication-production in this perspective. Some articles of Roman Jakobson of the sixties allow us to reflect in a manner which we now call “socio-semiotic” on the processes of transformation of the “organic” signs into signs of a new type, which articulate the relationship between organic and instrumental. In this sense, socio-linguistics is intended as being sociosemiotics, without prejudice to the fact that the reference area must be human, since semiotics also has the prerogative of referring to the world of non-human vital signs. Socio-linguistics as socio-semiotics assumes the role of a “frontier” science, in the dual sense that it is not only on the border between science of language and the anthropological and social sciences, but also that it can be constructed in a movement of continual “crossing frontiers” and of “contamination” between languages and disciplinary environments.

OLD HISTORY OF CULTURE AND NEW CULTURAL HISTORY

SENOJI KULTŪROS ISTORIJA IR NAUJOJI KULTŪRINĖ ISTORIJA

Author(s): Zenonas Norkus / Language(s): Lithuanian / Issue: 15/2005

The article compares two epochs in the history of the Western cultural history writing, with main attention paid to their theoretical assumptions: that of the late 19th – early 20th century (called in the article „old history of culture“) and that of the late 20th – early 21th century (known as „new cultural history“). Both of them emerged as challengers: the old history of culture was conceived as the alternative to the once dominant political history, and the new cultural history challenged the social history that dominated in the Western history writing since 1960s. However, the theoretical sources of their respective concepts of culture are very different. The old history of culture shares its psychologistic, holistic, organicist and essentialist ideas of culture with the philosophy of culture of the late 19th – early 20th century. New cultural history uses analytical concept of culture peculiar for the contemporary social science as its theoretical point of reference, and considers the methods of field research in the cultural anthropology as its methodical paradigm. From the analytical point of view (T. Parsons, C. Geertz), culture is an aspect of the social reality, represented by the authoritative patterns for action and symbols. This idea of culture invites an historian to consider culture not as a specific set of social phenomena that are concentrated in the particular „cultural institutions“ or segment of society, but the aspect which can be detected in any social phenomena. This idea of culture opens the prospect of the cultural history of politics, cultural history of economy and so on.

SOCIAL CONTOURS OF RISK IN MEDIA: ANALYSIS OF TELEVISION NEWS MESSAGES

Socialiniai rizikos kontūrai žiniasklaidoje: televizijos naujienų pranešimų analizė

Author(s): Eimantė Zolubienė / Language(s): Lithuanian / Issue: 67/2014

The aim of this article is to identify social contours of risk presented in media. They are revealed referring not to the atomistic, but holistic approach. The idea of this article is based on the data of empirical research, whose purpose is to find out what kinds of risk and how are presented in TV news. The study implementation is based on the grounded theory, which enables to present the complex evaluation of the research object. Identifying risk sources, victims and governing entities (i. g. individuals or institutions, which are responsible for risk prevention and elimination of consequences). This article also presents visualization of the research data on the symbolic map of risks representations. It provides a systematic explanation of risks, which were represented in the analyzed television news messages. The results showed that a wide range of risks and threats were presented in television news, for example social, economic, political, cultural, environmental ones etc. Various risks representations create a common information flow, which makes people familiarized with hypothetical and real risks. The study results revealed a necessity of a new, wider coverage research.

Opposition theory in mathematical modeling

Opposition theory in mathematical modeling

Author(s): Marcel Danesi,Mariana Bockarova / Language(s): English / Issue: 14/2014

Keywords: Opposition theory; mathematical modeling;

In the previous chapter we discussed the crucial role that oppositional thinking plays in the formation of basic number concepts and systems: even-versusodd, prime-versus-composite, integer-versus-fraction, and so on. This suggests that the classificatory structure of the mathematical code is fundamentally oppositional (Danesi 2008). And this raises several fundamental questions about mathematics, such as: Are basic mathematical concepts necessarily oppositional? How is markedness assigned to mathematical concepts? Does markedness guide the learning and sequence of mathematical development, as some relevant research in psychology is beginning to show (for example, Cho, Procter 2007; Van der Schoot et al. 2009)? Clearly, in order to answer such questions a basic, rudimentary oppositional analysis of mathematical structure must be carried out beforehand.

Untimely Meditations on the Revolution of 1848 in France

Untimely Meditations on the Revolution of 1848 in France

Author(s): Edward Castleton / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2018

Keywords: Historiography; France; Revolution 1848; slavery; Gareth Stedman Jones

This article examines current discussions of the European Revolutions of 1848 in light of the larger evolution of Anglo-American and French historiography since the second half of the twentieth century. Although focusing in particular on French history, the article suggests why some knowledge of the trends driving this evolution is necessary for improving our understanding of 1848's political and social importance.

Propositions for a Biocultural Semiotics

Propositions for a Biocultural Semiotics

Author(s): Kathryn Staiano-Ross / Language(s): English / Issue: 2-4/2020

Keywords: biocultural semiotics; biosemiotics; ethnosemiotics; semiotics of culture; umwelt;

The author has used the term ‘biocultural semiotics’ in her previous work, but has never defined this field. She presents twelve propositions that describe and motivate a biocultural semiotics. The author draws on thirty years of field work in Belize and her previous research in cultural and bio-semiotics in support of each of the propositions. Propositions include: biology and culture are so bound as to make a discussion of either without inclusion of the other impossible; both umwelt and the sign are central; every sign is an act of communication; every sign has many interpretant(s); perception is influenced by our physical and cultural umwelt; self is critical to our vision of our place in this umwelt; epigenetic phenomena influence how genes are expressed and effect/affect both phenotype and behaviour; body boundaries are cultural and political creations; the body is a political body and its ownership is always contested; disease and its congeners are cultural constructs; sickness and its signs are created as part of an ongoing personal, social, and political narrative; today we face both uncertainty and opportunity in the natural and cultural sciences. She argues that semiotics possesses the language and methodologies to achieve an understanding of the biological/cultural relationship.

Deliberative Legal Education. Reflection on the Relationship Between the University and Legal Culture

Deliberatywna edukacja prawnicza - refleksja nad związkami uniwersytetu i kultury prawnej

Author(s): Aneta Jakubiak-Mirończuk / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 4/2021

Keywords: filozofia deliberatywna; edukacja prawnicza; kultura prawna

Uniwersytet jako wspólnota intelektualna i przestrzeń badań, edukacji oraz rozwoju kształtuje kulturę akademicką. Celem kształcenia jest przekazanie absolwentom prawa wiedzy - bez wątpienia kluczowej dla wykonywania zawodu, ale również kompetencji i umiejętności umożliwiających uczestniczenie w kulturze prawa. Deliberacja jest procesem, w którym poprzez świadome, odpowiedzialne oraz ukierunkowane na poznanie działanie, możliwa jest racjonalna, ale również refleksyjna zmiana, uwzględniająca zarówno preferencje podmiotów jak i jednocześnie dynamikę zmiany otaczającego ich świata. Organizacja uniwersytetu w oparciu o filozofię deliberacji wpisuje się w tradycję akademicką, opartą o autonomię poznawczą, rozumianą jako podmiotowe prawo badaczy i studentów do wolności nauki i nauczania.

On the Sociological Imagination of the Ethics And Spinoza’s Influences in Sociology

Etika’nın Sosyolojik Tahayyülü ve Spinoza’nın Sosyolojiye Etkileri Üzerine

Author(s): Ömer KÜÇÜK / Language(s): Turkish / Issue: 18/2021

Keywords: emotions; sociological imagination; sociology of body; friendship; relationalism;

Here I examine various relationships between sociological theory and Spinoza and try to show that at the center of Spinoza’s philosophy lies a sociological imagination. The sociological imagination of the Ethics is manifested in the idea that the solution of individual/psychological trouble can be achieved in the social field and through a collective effort. “Adequate ideas” or “common notions” that enable individuals to overcome sorrowful passions can be constructed within social relationships. According to the sociological imagination of the Ethics, social relations create “emergent properties” that cannot be reduced to their constituent parts, namely individuals; in this respect, Spinoza also provides a philosophical basis for the relational sociology. I suggest relations of friendship as a possible model for this kind of emergent relationships. Finally, through the works of Althusser and Bourdieu, I try to reveal that Spinoza also has a significant influence in the introduction of body to social thought.

An overview of candidate and doctoral dissertations in the field of Russian Byzantine studies. Part II (year MMXVII)

Przegląd tematyczny opracowań kandydackich i doktorskich bizantynologii rosyjskiej. Część II (rok MMXVII)

Author(s): Błażej Cecota / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 1/2020

Keywords: Russian historiography; Byzantine Empire; Russian byzantinology; History of Byzantium;

The article is an effect of observing the phenomenon of omission of Byzantine scientific literature in Russian language in the works of Polish researchers, especially the younger generation. Due to the need for sharing the basic findings of Russian Byzantine scientists to a wider group of Polish readers I decided to commit this text, which was planned as part of the cycle including the analysis of Russian candidate and doctoral dissertations available in free access, owing to a well-developed database of such studies in Russia. Subjects of papers included in my article relate primarily to literary and philosophical issues, history of art, as well as military, historical and political issues of the Byzantine Empire.

The Occupied Body, Differentiating Human and Body Apocalypse: A Study from a Multiculturalist Perspective on “The Host”

İşgal Edilen Beden, Farklılaşan İnsan Ve Beden Kıyametleri: “The Host” Filmi Üzerine Çokkültürcülük Perspektifinden Bir İnceleme

Author(s): Mikail Boz / Language(s): Turkish / Issue: Sp. Iss./2021

Keywords: Body apocalypse; Self; Difference; atomism; holism; multiculturalism; engagement;

One of the prominent subjects in science fiction cinema is the “invasion” films that make visible the efforts to destroy the self and identity of individuals in the society by an alien. These films, which gained intensity after the Second World War, stem from various ideological fears and highlight the destructive and threatening body invasions from outside the world. Films of this type, which can be expressed as the “body apocalypse” or “host-apocalypse”, provide an important reference in terms of imagining the other as well as establishing one’s own self and identity. In this study, this kind of body apocalypse motif was examined through The Host (2013) movie directed by Andrew Niccol. The film is based on the dichotomy of “self” / “other” and “atomism”, “holism”, one of the prominent approaches in social sciences, has been criticized through the film. The possibilities of a dialectical interaction between the self and the other that Brian Fay’s “interactionism” and “engagement” approaches put forward were questioned through the film narrative and images. Although the film reveals phenomena such as marginalization in the cultural universe of the occupier and the occupied, it denies utopia because it is not “fun”. Aliens are accepted as long as they act anthropocentrically, that is, they change sides and join human resistance and give up their will for radical difference from the dominant cultural values of humanity. In this context, being the other and being different is basically associated with a suppression process.

Surrealism in The Graphic Design: Inception Movie Poster Example

Grafik Tasarimda Sürrealizm: Inception Film Afişi Örneği

Author(s): Levent Mercin,Cihan Tikit / Language(s): Turkish / Issue: 64/2021

Keywords: Surrealism; graphic design; semiotic analysis; intertextuality;

The scientific, social and political developments of the 20th century, which resulted in wars, were reflected in the field of art as the formation of movements based on the rejection of tradition. One of these art movements is Surrealism. Surrealism, which turns towards the reality and artistic expression of the subconscious by opposing rationalism and traditional way of thinking, continues its effect on many art fields such as literature, painting, sculpture, photography, graphic design. In this study, the influence of the Surrealism movement on graphic design and the graphic design works of the leading Surrealists were examined. The posters used in the movie ‘Inception’ were analyzed using the semiotic analysis method. According to the data obtained, the plot of the film is the adventures of a team who steal secrets and ideas from dreams, on a different mission. In terms of semiotics, it is referred to the transformation complexity in the perception of reality and reality with a vague transition from a realistic space to an unrealistic space in the foreground of the movie poster. This regulation, which has surrealist effects, can be interpreted as contrasts such as reality and fiction, reality and dream, reality and illusion, life and death. It can be stated that the written and visual elements in the posters examined are used in a way to create an aesthetic integrity and reflect the movie content to the audience, and the elements on the poster are successful in attracting attention, so the poster design has achieved its purpose. When the plot of the movie is examined in the context of intertextuality, it is understood that the movie ties in with very old doctrines.

Introducing a study of second chance school teachers from the self-reflection perspective of discourse analysis and ethnomethodology

Wstęp do kształcenia nauczycieli w ramach edukacji drugiej szansy z autorefleksyjnej perspektywy analizy dyskursywnej i etnometodologii

Author(s): Eva Bolfíková,Ivana Pirohová / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2021

Keywords: second chance education; teacher in second chance education; reflectivity; self-reflective methods; discourse; discourse analysis; ethnomethodology

The importance of studying the specific features of the educational environment at second chance schools is supported by the effort to create more effective tools used to introduce marginalised groups into the labour market and, in this way, make sure their socio-economic situation improves. Teachers involved in second chance education at primary and secondary schools take a role they have not been, in the course of their education or existing teaching experience, trained for and which requires that the framework of their competences is re-evaluated. The paper is aimed at suggesting a possible theoretical-methodological perspective in the studies of the teachers involved in second chance education, towards an understanding of their work in the current environment, from their viewpoint, by means of self-reflective tools, especially diaries that mirror their everyday life in educational practice. The present discourse analysis and ethnomethodology is a highly effective approach to sharing a way of constructing identification frameworks and practices in self-cognition and managing the process of education with regard to the specifics of its participants and the delicate nature of the unique and exceptional nature of individual potentials and the continuity of complex dynamics, development, and changes. The presented model of the role of a second chance teacher consists of five levels: 1) self-identification, 2) self-determination, 3) self-interpretation, 4) self-correction, and 5) self-inspiration. Individual dimensions work as discrete fields with their own life and dynamics but, at the same time, do not exclude inter-connectivity.

An Analysis of Fragment: Literature, Hysteria, Bisexuality

Analiza Fragmenta: književnost, histerija, biseksualnost

Author(s): Mirela Dakić / Language(s): Croatian / Issue: 1-2/2021

Keywords: hysteria; literature; feminist criticism; bisexuality; politics;

The essay starts with Freud’s Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria, relating its discordant lines of argumentation with the psychoanalytic concept of (bi)sexuality, as it was developed from Studies on Hysteria to Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, the latter of which was published in same year as the “Dora case”. We consider the aspects in which Freud’s contradictory analysis of the case becomes central to the feminist debate on hysteria in Hélène Cixous’s and Catherine Clément’s classic The Newly Born Woman. The analysis points to the constitutive relation of the authors’ disagreement on hysteria and different conceptions of literature and politics presented in their study and the subsequent polemical discussions. We further approach the dissent about the political and methodological framework of feminist criticism in the Anglo-American reception of the French authors, wherein gynocritics Elaine Showalter and Sandra M. Gilbert renounce the question of hysteria. Alternatively, deconstructive critical reading by Peggy Kamuf is grounded in Derrida’s approach to literature. Kamuf traces the main misunderstandings in Cixous’s reception, by interpreting her oeuvre as emblematic of so-called semi-theory and semi-politics, trying to deconstruct oppositions between a theoretical, political, and poetical text. Through the lens of semi-theory, the relation between Cixous’s semi-concept of a woman, as a reference without a referent, and the psychoanalytic understanding of bisexuality and hysteria, has far-reaching consequences on the reading of psychoanalytic text as literary and hysterical, as it compulsively repeats the very fragmentary pattern it tries to interpret.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF INNER DIALOGUE: FROM THE SOCRATIC SEMEION DAIMONION TO EXISTENTIALISM

LA FILOSOFÍA DEL DIÁLOGO INTERIOR: DESDE EL SEMEION DAIMONION SOCRÁTICO HASTA EL EXISTENCIALISMO

Author(s): Daniel MARTÍN SÁEZ / Language(s): Spanish / Issue: 47/2021

Keywords: Inner Speech; Internal Dialogue; Silence; Platonic City; Semeion Daimonion;

In this article we analyze the idea of «inner speech» from a philosophical perspective. To do this, we start with the psychological category as a tertium quid between the ideas of thought and language. We will show that philosophers has always put inner speach in the center of their interests, from the socratic semeion daimonion to the existentialist «call of conscience», from the musical exhortation of Phaedon to the myth of the inner city, the Christian theology of prayer and confession, Cartesian introspection, German idealism and Gandhi’s inner voice, among other episodes. The notion of inner speech serves us to illuminate important moments in the history of philosophy and religion, as well as helping us to understand the versatility of the phenomenon beyond the psychological category, which ranges from the negativity of criticism and retraction to the positive character of Christian life, from non-transferable speech to a universal language linked to silence.

From the Inverted Alter Ego to the Chimera-Self. Mélusine, André Breton and Armenia

De l’alter ego inversé au moi-chimère. Mélusine, André Breton et l’Arménie

Author(s): Stéphane Cermakian / Language(s): French / Issue: 29/2022

Keywords: Armenia; fairy Mélusine; alter ego; chimera-self;

The poet's quest for identity is realized in André Breton’s works through a projection on a female figure which takes the form of the fairy Mélusine in the poetic story Arcane 17. However, his rewriting of the myth is part of an Armenian constellation which is constituting itself in the life of the poet at the same time. The search for the inverted alter ego leads to the chimera-self through which we can hear the echo of the founder of Lusignan’s kingdom.

Instance (real / fictional), distance (aesthetic) and essence (identity) in Milan Kundera's novels

Instanța (reală/ fictivă), distanța (estetică) și esența (identitară) în romanele lui Milan Kundera

Author(s): Ramona Zăvoianu-Petrovici / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 3/2016

Keywords: Milan Kundera; author; narrator; narrator with interpretative function;

Among Milan Kundera’s exegetes, the relation between author and narrator has remained the subject of obvious divergent perspectives. Our research aims at tackling this matter starting with a theoretical gap pointed out by the Romanian literary critic Nicolae Manolescu which we attempt to fill with the aid of Jaap Lintvelt’s view and ideas.

Itinerarium mentis in Monstrum. Essay on Juan Rodolfo Wilcock

Itinerarium mentis in Monstrum. Saggio su Juan Rodolfo Wilcock

Author(s): Giuseppe Crivella / Language(s): Italian / Issue: 29/2022

Keywords: Wilcock; Monstrous; Décorporation; Parasitology; Canguilhem;

The text focuses on the narrative production of the writer Juan Rodolfo Wilcock, analyzed within a critical perspective that finds its thematic center in the notion and figure of the monstrous. Starting from his first collection of short stories – Il caos – up to the last text – Il libro dei mostri – our reflections will not be limited to examining the development of Wilcock’s universe but, after having seen the particular importance that the transversal genre of paradoxography assumes in it, we will use some important studies by Tzvetan Todorov, Georges Canguilhem and Jean-Clet Martin, to examine in detail the three specific processes that govern the declination of the teratological dimension: décorporation, parasitology, vacuum formarum. The reflections on these three notions will therefore allow us to see how the conceptual horizon of the monstrous represents within Wilcock’s writing a transversal hermeneutic pole capable of connecting numerous thematic nuclei that keep returning throughout his rich, multifaceted and heterogeneous production.

Toward “Erotics of Art” in Film Criticism: Videographic Criticism and Haptic Visuality

Film Eleştirisinde “Sanat Erotikası”na Doğru: Videografik Eleştiri ve Haptik Bakış

Author(s): İpek Gürkan / Language(s): Turkish / Issue: 13/2022

Keywords: Film criticism; film form and content; hermeneutics; haptic visuality; videographic criticism;

This study aims to understand the sentence, “In place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art” that Susan Sontag suggested in the last sentence of her essay named “Against Interpretation”. Although this sentence only takes place at the end of the essay like a mystical expression having no return, this text does not trace its roots to decode its hidden meanings or it does not directly seek clues about the trace of this sentence in the author’s own work. Instead, it turns to thinkers from different historical periods who hold critical thoughts close to Sontag herself, with a view that preserves the film itself and its form. From the point where Sontag’s “erotics of art” suggestion points out the experimental sensual aspect of criticism, The Skin of the Film of Laura Marks has resorted and the tactual/haptic potential of the same suggestion is attempted to be questioned over the videographic criticism. We think that the concept of film criticism resists representative analyses somewhere on the surface of videos and we implicitly see that one way or another, film studies have almost compulsorily turned to philosophy as the latter allows a certain amount of time to understand, to embody, and most importantly, to think as digital film criticism allows us to think in “slow-motion” somehow.

‘ONLY THOSE WHO HAVE SHOWN IN DEED THAT THEY ARE IN FAVOR OF SOCIALIST SELFGOVERNANCE CAN ENGAGE IN WRITING AND TEACHING OF HISTORY’ – THE RISE AND FALL OF ‘VOJVODINIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY’ (1968-1993)

‘ONLY THOSE WHO HAVE SHOWN IN DEED THAT THEY ARE IN FAVOR OF SOCIALIST SELFGOVERNANCE CAN ENGAGE IN WRITING AND TEACHING OF HISTORY’ – THE RISE AND FALL OF ‘VOJVODINIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY’ (1968-1993)

Author(s): Mihael T. Antolović / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2022

Keywords: ‘Vojvodinian historiography’; Communism; Vojvodina; Marxism; Ideology

This study examines the phenomenon of the so-called ‘Vojvodinian historiography’ which flourished in the Socialist Autonomous Province of Vojvodina from the late 1960s until the early 1990s as a special kind of party historiography. The paper focuses on the ‘Vojvodinian historiography’s’ institutional framework, theoretical and methodological features and general ideological profile as well as its outcomes. As a result of its close ties with the ruling Communist League of Vojvodina, the political collapse of the Vojvodinian communists marked the disappearance of this extremely ideological kind of historiography.