"La Langue de Bois" et "Le Politiquement Correct" dans le Discours Public Roumain

Author(s): Sorina Şerbănescu / Language(s): French / Issue: 16/2017

Le discours public roumain d’après la Révolution de '89 a gardé des anciennes habitudes langagières communistes dont "la langue de bois". D’autre côté, il a emprunté, comme une conséquence de la synchronisation trop rapide à la modernité, des clichés langagiers qui continuent les tendances agressives et autoritaires héritées du totalitarisme communiste. Notre analyse imbrique la sémantique du discours, la sémiotique, la pragmatique linguistique et la psycholinguistique, se concentrant sur des corpus tirés des discours publics des dernières dix années.

"Matter as effete mind": Peirce's synechistic ideas on the semiotic threshold

Author(s): Lucia Santaella / Language(s): / Issue: 1/2001

Following Peirce's broad concept of semiosis as a foundation of a field of study, the semiotics of physical nature, it is argued that we have to explore the interconnections of Peirce's semiotics with metaphysics. These interconnections will be analyzed in five steps: (1) Peirce's radical antidualism and evolutionism, implied in his synechistic ideas, (2) Peirce's semiotic statement that "all this universe is perfused with signs if it is not composed exclusively of signs" (CP 5.448, n.1), (3) Peirce's bold statement that "matter is effete mind, inveterate habits becoming physical laws" (CP 6.24), (4) his theory of final causation, which can only be properly understood in the light of semiosis, (5) his metaphysics and his methodeutics in relation to semiotics. The laws of nature are discovered by abductive inference revealing an affinity between the human mind and the designs of nature. Hence, the formal laws of thought are not simply laws of our minds but laws of the intelligibility of things.

"Stalin - see on Lenin täna". Juhikultuse deiktiline analüüs

Author(s): Andreas Ventsel / Language(s): Estonian / Issue: 3/2006

The cult of the leader was one of the main characteristics of Soviet culture — it marked its strict hierarchical structure, and more importantly, the head of that structure. In this article the author hopes to elucidate the mechanisms of the cult of leadership from the point of view of language theory. In the first chapter the author focuses on the development of cultural origins of the cult of leadership in Russia. The second chapter, based on the theory of deictics of Émile Benveniste, concentrates on the notion which characterized the cult of leadership of Stalin era — “Stalin, this is Lenin today”. The author claims that the notion “Stalin, this is Lenin today” was in Stalin era equivalent to the notion “Lenin, this is Stalin today” for only Stalin’s act of utterance created the time of the utterance. And the time of Stalin’s utterance determined the conditions of the situation of the utterance — the canonized way that prescribed to “Soviet people” how to view and interpret Lenin. But the totality of Stalin’s “I” makes it very plausible to suggest that in fact there was only one cult of leadership at hand — that of Stalin’s. Accordingly, Stalin’s “I” made it possible to maintain the ideological view of the society as a coherent system of meaning.

A SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS ON PUBLIC SPOT ADVERTISEMENTS PREPARED FOR PREVENTION OF DISCRIMINATION IN EMPLOYMENT PROCESS

Author(s): Ebru Gülbuğ EROL / Language(s): English / Issue: 47/2020

Employment discrimination is a form of discrimination realised by employers with a focus on race, gender, religion, national origin, physical or mental disability and age. Employment discrimination can reduce the productivity of employees, cause them to have negative perceptions of the organization, negatively affect corporate loyalty and even cause work accidents that may cause serious injuries or even deaths in the workplace. In order to prevent such discrimination to a certaian extent public spot advertisements are prepared by official and non-official institutions to prevent discrimination in the workplaces and it is aimed to raise public awareness on employment discrimination. In this study, it was tried to put forward what messages were given and how to form awareness in public spot advertisements prepared in the international field against employment discrimination. In the spots offered by 3 different institutions from Northern European countries, Finland and Denmark, to show the discrimination to the public, attention has been paid to ensure that there are basic points of discrimination such as race, religion, disabled and gender, all of which are the basic general types of discrimination. For this purpose, public spot advertisements of three different institutions determined by using purposive sampling method were examined in light of Swiss Linguist Ferdinand de Saussure's Indicators Model and French Anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss's Binary Contrast Model. In the findings of the study, it was revealed that the sense of sadness was formed for the employees who were discriminated in the workplaces and it was aimed to form sensitivity in the society for the employees with the feeling of sadness.

A Semiotic Approach to Language Ideologies: Modelling the Changing Icelandic Languagescape

Author(s): Stephen Pax Leonard / Language(s): English / Issue: 2-4/2020

Attempts have been made to examine how speakers frame linguistic varieties by employing social semiotic models. Using ethnographic data collected over many years, this article applies such a model to Iceland, once described as the ‘e-coli of linguistics’ – its size, historical isolation and relative linguistic homogeneity create conditions akin to a sociolinguistic laboratory. This semiotic model of language ideologies problematizes the prevailing discourse of linguistic purism at a time of sociolinguistic upheaval. The analysis shows how an essentializing scheme at the heart of Icelandic language policy ensured that linguistic “anomalies” such as “dative disease” and “genitive phobia” indexed essential differences. “Impure” language was indicative of un-Icelandicness. Once monolingual (indeed monodialectal), the Icelandic speech community is increasingly characterized by innovative linguistic transgressions which thus far have not been instrumentalized by language policy makers. It is shown how a semiotic model can help us analyse the function of language ideologies more generally.

A strawberry, an animal cry and a human subject: Where existential semiotics, biosemiotics and relational metaphysics seem to meet one another

Author(s): Katarzyna Machtyl / Language(s): English / Issue: 3-4/2019

The article discusses some semiotic approaches to the relation between nature and culture. Starting with outlining the structuralistic approach to this issue, especially the ideas of Juri Lotman and Algirdas Julien Greimas, the author finds parallels between different views on the relation between the natural world and human beings. First, the juxtaposition of Eero Tarasti’s existential semiotics with selected concepts of biosemiotics is discussed. The following part of the paper is dedicated to Bruno Latour’s ideas on nature–culture relation, hybrids and mediations. Then the author refers to Lotman’s notion of the semiosphere as the common space for all living and inanimate elements. Closing the paper with a return to biosemiotics, the author comes back to Tarasti’s ideas and compares these with some ideas in biosemiotics, paying special attention to the concepts of unpredictability, choice and dynamics. The comparison shows that some intuitions, assumptions and theses of these different scholars turn out to be surprisingly convergent. The author believes that the outlined parallels between Tarasti’s view, Latour’s and Lotman’s concepts, and biosemiotics may be promising for further research, inviting detailed study.

Afirmacja zmiany. Uwagi o wpływie technologii cyfrowych na literaturoznawstwo

Author(s): Marek Kaźmierczak / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 1/2020

In this is the review of Ewa Szczęsna’s book Digital Semiopoetics Kaźmierczak focuses on key themes such as the digital sign, text and discourse. He also refers to the new discipline called “digital semiopoetics”.

ANADISS

Frequency: 2 issues / Country: Romania

The academic journal ANADISS is a biannual publication which comes out at Suceava University Press. On the initiative of the members of the "Discourse Analysis" Research Centre founded in 2005 within the Faculty of Letters and Communication Sciences from "Stefan cel Mare" University, Suceava, the articles and their abstracts are written in French, English, German, Spanish or Italian.

One of the fundamental components of the human existence's dimension is the linguistic one. Language defines the human presence as intensely as the human becoming stabilizes and affirms the language. In the contemporary world, this equilibrium is often fragile.

The present publication proposes the presentation of such contributions, which can sustain the aggrandizement and the establishment of the human-language relation. To this end, our journal's preoccupations gravitate around themes such as: political discourse, text and discursiveness, discourse and didacticism, inter-text - inter-discourse, discourse and society, linguistic imaginary and language dynamics, production and capture of specialty discourses, discursive perspectives and various cultural contexts, knowledge and discourse: discursive and non-discursive practices, inter-text and inter-speech, discourse and society, linguistic imaginary and language dynamics, discourse and identity. We illustrate through these the Saussurian principal according to which "la langue n'est faite qu'en vue du discours", without ignoring its materialization within the text.

Journal Policy: ANADISS is an international journal that accepts for publication reviewed original papers, short communications, reviews and conference proceedings on a broad range of topics of interest for Discourse Analysis, particularly, for Linguistics in general. There are no article processing charges (APC) or article submission charge.

Author's Ownership and Rights: The journal allows the author(s) to hold the copyright and to retain publishing rights on their materials.

Open Access Policy: ANADISS Journal offers „open access” to published literature. ANADISS Journal assures has free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. ANADISS Journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. Open access enables authors to reach a much broader audience, which has the potential to increase the impact of their research. The ANADISS issues are available online for free, without any charge to download or print each article.

Analele Universității ”Dunărea de Jos din Galați, Lexic comun / Lexic specializat

Frequency: 2 issues / Country: Romania

Annals of “Dunărea de Jos” University of Galati, Fascicle XXIV General Lexicon / Specialized Lexicon is a refereed academic journal of humanities, focused on linguistics, language history, vocabulary and culture, language studies, philology, translation studies, communication studies, cultural history, cultural anthropology, terminology and didactics. The first issue of the journal was published in 2008 by the Faculty of Letters, “Dunărea de Jos” University of Galati. The journal also publishes the scientific papers which are communicated at the international conference Lexic comun / lexic specializat. General Lexicon / Specialized Lexicon. Lexique commun / Lexique spécialisé which has been hosted by the Faculty of Letters, “Dunărea de Jos” University of Galati ever since 2008. Even if we are a Romanian journal of linguistics, the editorial board has a wide perspective towards the lexical level of any language, the interest in the movement of ideas in the field of lexicology and lexicography, as well the in the international promotion of the Romanian contributions. For this purpose the paper publication languages should mainly be Romanian, English, French, but contributions in Spanish, German or Italian are also accepted.

Astrology-Emblematic-Heraldry. On Comets, Moons and Stars in the Book of Arms by Szymon Okolski

Author(s): Magdalena Piskała / Language(s): English / Issue: Sp. Iss. 1/2019

The article examines the presence of astrology in the heraldic work Orbis Polonus by Szymon Okolski dating from the mid-1600s. While due to a growing fascination with Neoplatonism and hermetic writings, astrology had enjoyed popularity since the Renaissance, in Okolski’s case its influence came mostly through early modern books of emblems and compendia of symbols. It is, therefore, important not only to track down astrological motifs in the works of Alciatus, Cesare Ripa, Giulio Cesare Capaccio, Julius Wilhelm Zincgref, and Diego de Saavedra to compare them with those found in Orbis Polonus but also to recognise the fact that emblematics had a great impact on how Okolski perceived the import of his heraldic work as such. The novelty of Okolski’s project consisted in treating armorial bearings as universal symbols and interpreting them not only in accordance with the rules of heraldry but also through a wide range of cultural sources, trends and traditions. In order to make the symbolic significance hidden in coats of arms more apparent, the author tried to organise the heraldic entries in a new way. Apart from the usual parts describing the coat of arms (delineatio), its origins (origo) and the family that used it (linea familiae), he introduced subchapters dealing with its symbolic meaning. He called them “considerations,” “precautions,” or “omens” depending on which aspect of the symbolic explanation he wanted to emphasise. Especially the third of these dovetails with astrology because the symbolism of the coat of arms, including motifs derived from, or related to, astrology, is presented as the best path that should be taken by a family bearing a particular coat of arms. All the while, however, these auguries are made based on symbols as such and not on careful observation of stars, planets or comets, and Okolski is not concerned with the destiny of individual people but with more general tendencies that affect the virtue of noble families, and virtue is for Okolski the foundation of nobility.

Audio Description Landscape in Russia and Greece

Author(s): Elena Aleksandrova,Christos STAVROU / Language(s): English / Issue: 25 (1)/2020

The article provides an overview of audio description landscape in Russia and Greece. It dwells upon the legal issues of providing audio description, comparing national legislation on media accessibility and Declaration on the Rights of Disabled Persons, and their impact on the development of media accessibility services in these countries. Special attention is focused on describers’ training both as degree training and further education courses. It also highlights insufficient financial support of accessibility services as one of the reasons for the slow development of Audio Description in Russia and Greece. The article analyzes the new opportunities for providing media accessibility, such as mobile applications and voluntary projects. It also presents an example of a service which can be viewed as a best practice to be shared and spread across other countries – an application Искусство.Вслух (Art.Vocally) with audio descriptions of theatre plays voiced by prominent actors and actresses, that was funded by one of the biggest banks of Russia. The article concludes by listing the possible solutions which might spur the development of Russian and Greek audio description

Bilježenje naglasaka u hrvatskome i dvoznakovni sustav

Author(s): Josip Užarević / Language(s): Croatian / Issue: 4/2012

This paper is devoted to the study of the sign systems of accents in Croatian. Until the mid-19th century most Croatian grammarians and lexicographers (Bartol Kašić and others) used three signs, taken over from Ancient Greek: the acute accent (´), the grave accent (`) and the circumflex ( ̑ ). From the mid 19th century onwards a four-sign (or five-sign) system was established by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić and Đuro Daničić ( ̏, ̑, ´, `, ̄ ); this system has been used in Croatian accentology until today. However, there is also a two-sign notational system ( ', ̄ ) developed and used by Bulcsú László.

Body Ground Red – Integrating Peirce, Kristeva and Greimas

Author(s): Herman Tamminen / Language(s): English / Issue: 2-4/2020

Ground (Charles Peirce’s concept) – regardless whether it be taken as motivation or abstractness – affords the proposition that some abstract categories of meaning have acquired their qualities via bodily experience. In order to show this to be the case, the concept of ground will be drawn together with the division (according to Julia Kristeva) between the symbolic and the semiotic, the semiotic chora will be shown to function as an axiologizing thymic category as regard reception of perception (following Algirdas Greimas), and finally it will be proposed that it is this foundation that enables the coherence and inevitability of culture as a whole, being responsible for its stereoscopic quality as well. This procedure will further the haply sacrilegious march towards the emergence of modal semiotics, which allows us to dispense of signs in order to gain an anachronistically novel understanding of our own being.

Book review

Knospe, Sebastian, Onysko, Alexander & Goth, Maik (eds.). (2016). Crossing Languages to Play with Words: Multidisciplinary Perspectives. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter.

Author(s): Marianthi Georgalidou / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2021

Book review

Book review

Manuel Jobert & Sandrine Sorline (eds.) 2018. The Pragmatics of Irony and Banter. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Author(s): Aleksandar Takovski / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2020

Buletinul Științific al Universității Tehnice de Construcții București Seria: Limbi Străine și Comunicare

Frequency: 2 issues / Country: Romania

The Scientific Journal of the Technical University of Civil Engineering Bucharest Series: Foreign Languages and Communication is published by the Department of Foreign Languages and Communication from the Technical University of Civil Engineering in Bucharest, Romania.

Since its beginnings in 2008, and especially with its New Series starting from 2011, the Scientific Journal has gradually grown in popularity among specialists involved in foreign language teaching and research in various areas such as

new trends in translation studies,

specialized translation,

teaching languages for specific purposes (LSP),

teaching methodology,

linguistics,

cultural studies and

intercultural communication.

Contributions focusing on new, cutting-edge topics in close relationship with the constant development of science and technology (such as localization, transcreation, the relationship between the industry and translation, new theoretical trends mirroring these new trends, etc.) are welcome.

Cartographies of the mind: Generalization and relevance in cognitive landscapes

Author(s): Sergio Rodríguez Gómez / Language(s): English / Issue: 3-4/2019

The problem of relevance, at individual agent scale – or how we decide what is adequate for our interpretation of the signs we encounter in the world – is a question that keeps reappearing in semiotics and other disciplines concerned with meaning. In this article I propose an approximation on relevance that conceives meaning as a trajectory across a cognitive landscape. Unlike conventional accounts on relevance, which presuppose mental processes built on feature-based representations, my proposal suggests conceiving cognition as a fluid and emergent field of attractors basins that become specified and modified when experiences appear, and conceiving meaning as a trajectory across the cognitive field. Consequently, I suggest that when cognitive landscapes better fit world experience, agents’ categorizations will be more relevant. My proposal is mainly supported by two approaches: the enactivist notion of structural coupling and the theories of dynamic neural populations of Walter Freeman III.

Chatting with Chatbots: Sign Making in Text-based Human-computer Interaction

Author(s): Dorthe Duncker / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2020

This paper investigates the kind of sign making that goes on in text-based human–computer interaction, between human users and chatbots, from the point of view of integrational linguistics. A chatbot serves as a “conversational” user interface, allowing users to control computer programs in “natural language”. From the user’s perspective, the interaction is a case of semiologically integrated activity, but even if the textual traces of a chat may look like a written conversation between two humans the correspondence is not one-to-one. It is argued that chatbots cannot engage in communication processes, although they may display communicative behaviour. They presuppose a (second-order) language model, they can only communicate at the level of sentences, not utterances, and they implement communicational sequels by selecting from an inventory of executable skills. Instead of seeing them as interlocutors in silico, chatbots should be seen as powerful devices for humans to make signs with.

Claudia Elena Stoian: The Discourse of Tourism and National Heritage: A Contrastive Study from a Cultural Perspective

Author(s): Daniel Dejica / Language(s): English / Issue: 3/2020

Using a modern, structural, and functional approach, Claudia Elena Stoian puts forward a contrastive study of the discourse of tourism and national heritage from a cultural perspective. The author successfully combines semiotics, text linguistics, semantics, intercultural communication, cultural studies, and, of course, discourse analysis to offer some very useful tools and models for the analysis of websites. It is worthwhile mentioning that unlike other research conducted in the field, which is mainly based on the Systemic Functional Theory (see, for instance, Djonov 2005), Claudia Elena Stoian takes the analysis to a further dimension, that of culture, and attempts to show the differences in the communicative acts, which may be rooted in the culture of a country, namely in the way language and image are used to depict people, places, and circumstances, to present social interactions or to compose a meaningful multimodal act.

Clifford Geertz: writing and interpretation

Author(s): Aleksandar Bošković / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2002

The paper examines the scope and influence of Clifford Geertz, one of the most influential social scientists in the 20th century. Geertz is associated with the "interpretative," "postmodern" or "literary" turn in anthropology, although he would not necessarily put himself in any of these categories. The concepts of the "culture as text" and the "semiotic concept of culture" have influenced generations of scholars. They have also been criticized, but I point to inadequacies of some of these criticisms. The paper traces this "interpretative" thread of Geertzís work, along with its methodological implications for the relativistic, plural perspectives, up to his writings in the 1990s, when he seems to adopt a position that there actually can be one interpretation, a specific "master narrative" according to which "the world" we live in can be understood. The conclusion is that this latest phase of Geertzís work might be impossible to reconcile with a kind of methodological pluralism implied in his earlier works.