EXTERNALIZING INPUTS WITH OSTENSION SCHEMES

Author(s): TOM WERNER / Language(s): English / Issue: 19/2020

In this paper, I explore theoretical foundations for an instrument I have developed for the monolingual elicitation of natural language and for its ostension, allowing me to approach core issues in linguistic and the philosophy of language in practical and concrete terms (Werner and Olesova, 2015; Werner, 2017). Monolingual elicitation of natural language, as well as its ostension, necessarily couples linguistic utterances with information flow, given the arbitrariness of the linguistic sign. The instrument I have been developing for these purposes, the ostension scheme, couples sentences from a target language with information flow along multiple channels. Ostension schemes are matrices, with each row (introduced by a picture) representing a channel of information and each column (headed by an elicited sentence) representing information shared across channels. Each column therefore externalizes the input for the sentence which heads it. Linguistic meaning is what connects forms within the sentence with information in the input, rendering the basic sentence as the unit of information in language. Because ostension schemes externalize the input of an utterance, the meaning of the utterance can be recovered. Similar sentences can be compared, helping to identify individual parts and their meaning. The account of interaction between information and linguistic meaning generalizes to an explanation of veridical sentences and fictitious ones. These sentence varieties will be argued to have similar inputs, the difference in status coming down to the value assigned to a source variable in the input. The source variable is constrained by the linguistic forms. If that variable has an actual value, the sentence is rendered true or false. If the value is virtual, the sentence is merely fictitious. With no value for the source variable at all, the sentence appears under mention. Sentences elicited for ostension schemes are a special case of sentences under mention, made especially transparent given their placement within the scheme. In this way, the practical issues of monolingual elicitation and ostension of natural language offer new perspectives on certain longstanding foundational issues.

Fairy tales between transformation and repetition: How audiences rethink the big romantic myth through Disney princess stories

Author(s): Tatjana Menise / Language(s): English / Issue: 3-4/2019

One of the ways in which culture becomes enriched is through reconsideration and reinterpretation of well-known stories, and classic fairy tales provide promising material for investigation of the nature of this complex process. The Walt Disney Company is among the most powerful tellers of classic tales, its line of princess animations being an example of simultaneous development and preservation of the fairy-tale phenomenon in a changing cultural context. We analyse the dialogue among classic and modern princess stories and the discussions that these stories give rise to in English-language academic criticism and English-based participatory culture. We focus on the interaction among authors, texts and readers, showing how traditional tales balance between mythological and non-mythological consciousness, between innovative and canonical art. The diversity of fans’ practices may be seen as a key to possible explanation of why fairy tales exist in culture as a complex, constantly growing web, not as a limited number of selected final versions. Amateur authors demonstrate their interest in the mythopoetics of classic fairy tale plots. They are attracted by the old romantic myth that stands behind princess stories, participate in the creation of the romantic anti-myth that is supported by the professional critics, and expect the appearance of new modern myths that might be generated by the new productions of Disney. New fairy tales appear, but this does not result in the disappearance of the old ones. Not only the interests towards the plots themselves, but also discussions and conflict around classic stories keep them topical for contemporary heterogeneous audiences.

FORMA KAO ZNAČENJE U DJELU KENNETHA BURKEA

Author(s): Dunja Jutronjić-Tihomirović / Language(s): Croatian / Issue: 282-283/1982

Što je to forma i kako je analizirati, pitanje je koje sebi postavljaju i lingvisti i kritičari.

Formy wiersza jako nośniki znaczeń

Author(s): Teresa Dobrzyńska-Janusz / Language(s): English,Russian,Polish / Publication Year: 0

Investigation of verse forms and their functioning in literary texts leads to the conclusion that they may be employed as bearers of semantic values. The present paper is going to show the richness of this resource. The semantic values of various verse structures are interpreted here in terms of the semiotic categories introduced by Charles Sanders Peirce: as symptoms, symbols, or iconic signs. The basis for this kind of reflection is earlier research in Polish verse structure and a systematic study of various verse forms and their linguistic morphology conducted by a group of Polish and other Slavic researchers (the results of their collaborative work have been published in the “Comparative Slavic Metrics” series („Słowiańska Metryka Porównawcza”); a particular interest to the semantic function of verse forms is a hallmark of the volume (Semantyka form wierszowych (1988)). The semantic function of the rhythmical organization of an utterance may be found even in antiquity and can be noted in many cultures. Rhythmical utterances were treated there as standing in opposition to non-metrical everyday speech and as vehicles of such cultural values as “sacred”, “solemn”, “important for the community”. The semantic value of a metrical structure can be attributed to the fact that verse forms function as filters of various linguistic units and that the metrical organization of a text determines its stylistic characteristics. This stylistic value may be employed and interpreted in many different ways, for instance to represent the social status of the speaker or to differentiate between various literary genres. Many metrical forms perform an iconic function (which depends not only on the rhythmical organization of a text but also on its verbal and conceptual content). Some semantic values are derived from the intertextual relationships of a poem and result from the position of its verse form in the verse form system of a given literature. Verse structure may also be seen as a kind of author’s signature, and it may be employed to perform axiological functions. Many such cases have been illustrated in the paper.

From Intersemiotic Translation to Intersemiotic Aspects of Translation

Author(s): Marta Kaźmierczak / Language(s): English / Issue: Sp. Iss./2018

The paper outlines a distinction between several allied notions related to intersemioticity, polysemioticity and translation, with examples pertaining to the indicated categories. It begins with an overview of how Roman Jakobson’s concept of intersemiotic translation has been re-interpreted and broadened to account for more types of transformations and for new modes of expression. Secondly, the non-identity of referentiality and transmutation is indicated. Next, the notion of intersemiotic complementation is proposed for instances that involve adding a new code to an existing work, rather than changing its code. A distinction is also drawn between intersemiotic translation and intersemiotic aspects or contexts of interlingual translation (of a polysemiotic work or of a verbal text which refers to non-discursive media). It is emphasized that it is this last category that deserves the attention of translation scholars, and some particular areas of interest are enumerated.

General sociolinguistics, social semiotics and semiotics of culture – ex pluribus unum? Forty years after Language as Social Semiotic

Author(s): Suren Zolyan / Language(s): English / Issue: 3-4/2019

The birth of social semiotics is usually associated with the publication of Michael Halliday’s book Language as Social Semiotic (1978). We try to draw attention to possible new developments in social semiotics, which still remain a potential transdisciplinary project for social sciences. In order to do this, we address the interrelation between sociolinguistics, social semiotics and the semiotics of culture. All of these describe mechanisms of meaning production and translation beyond linguistic structures. The differentiation between these workings is based on a distinction between various aspects of meaning production and communication and functional characteristics of goal setting. The complexity of these processes legitimates the complexity of methodology used to describe them. Interconnection between different domains and aspects may create synthetic methods based on the dynamic approach to meaning production and transmission.

Grupiportree kunstiline struktuur ja Velázqueze sacra conversazione “Las Meninas”

Author(s): Linnar Priimägi / Language(s): Estonian / Issue: 6/2009

There are 3 degrees of likeness in portraiture: (F1) the type (the exponent of a social group — Arturo Martini’s “Sitting boy”), (F2) the character (the exponent of a psychological group — Guido Reni’s “Ecce homo”), (F3) the individuality (the unique person with a proper name — Velázquez’s “Innocent X”). There are 4 degrees of homogeneity of the internal space in the work of art, created by 5 kinds of activity: (H0) individual activities in separate spaces [ill. 1], (H1) parallel activities (human ornament [2, 3]), (H2) distantly combined activities creating loci (event areas) and marked compositions [4–6], (H3) common activities of participants in an integrative atmospheric and compositional locus [7, 13], (H4) joint activities as the mutual situational physical dependence. The group portrait in the European painting developed through spacial association of singular type and character portraits of Christian saints (H1 → H2). The sacra conversazione was the first completed form of it. It is a spacial assemblage of certain religious characters united by some collective parallel psychological activity (Latin conversari means ‘to deal with somebody’) and with vague loci boundaries (H1/H2). The best known example of it is the San Zaccaria altar piece by Giovanni Bellini [ill. 11]. The later development of sacra conversazione resulted in more and more homogeneous pictorial space [12, 13] and — because of the aesthetical antagonism between the portraiture and the grouping — ended in the retreat of individual portrait [F3 → (F2/F1)] in the genre painting [14]. Velázquez’s painting “Las Meninas” highlights the border between the collective loneliness of a sacra conversazione group (H1/H2) and its distantly combined activities in a concrete genre interior, a shared pictorial space (H3) with blurred loci borders in it. The depicted persons also tend to be more characterized than individualized. Thus, the artistic structure of “Las Meninas” could be described as: H3 {[(H1/H2) <> H2] + [F3 > (F2/F1)]}. It is impossible to analyze “Las Meninas” as a genre painting because it is not. It is a splendid example of sacra conversazione in the post-renaissance European art.

ICON AND REPRESENTATION IN VISUAL COMMUNICATION

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Author(s): Cristina Gelan / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2019

Signs and symbols are basic elements in the visual communication process. Through them, multiple and inexhaustible possibilities of meaning are transmitted. Thus, what we recognize as being in accordance with nature, what we have learned to accept as natural is found under the sign of iconicity. In the process of creating icons, the real plays a secondary role. Essential are the various traditions of pre-existing representation, which interpose between real and sign and which act as mediating cognitive schemes, provided by the community in which we have integrated. The identification of visual signs is based on the emotional impact of the visual structures used, and the creation of a visual identity involves the production of a symbolism that is based on the mechanisms of perceptual psychology and produces an emotional association between the art consumer and the creator of meanings. Interaction between those who propose a visual concept and those who receive information in the form of a visual sign only occurs when cultural, social and ideological compatibility exists. For the very association between perception and emotion is based on patterns. We are talking about cultural recognition codes that represent a guarantor of our compliance with the world and they play an essential role in our cultural representations.

Image in Thought Encoding and Explication Processes

Author(s): Olena Snytko / Language(s): English / Issue: 102/2020

The paper explores the image as a form of psychic reflection of reality in thought encoding, objectivation, and perception processes. The image is an element of the universal object code, the basis of thinking, and the underlying structure of language units. Psycholinguistic experiments prove that the semantics of language units can be reduced to a sensory image. In its actual being, the image correlative of the language sign can be compressed to a minimum, which definitely does not exclude its decompression. Apart from individual images, in the linguistic consciousness of a language community, there exist the so-called stereotypical images, serving as social standards in the cognitive process and as summarizing the empirical knowledge of language users. In the production and perception of texts, social images ensure the predictable impact on a person’s consciousness and emotions.

Introspektywny kokon reinterpretans. Kora Ola Ola! – latynoskie polonicum Kory Sipowicz

Author(s): Jakub Jaworski / Language(s): English,Russian,Polish / Publication Year: 0

The subject of the article is the intercultural dialogue which emerges out of the musical undertaking “Kora Ola Ola!” (2003) of the Polish artist Kora Sipowicz. The collection comprises various reinterpretations of the twentieth century Polish lyrical works in a Latin arrangement, accompanied by some other Polish, Spanish and English songs, especially those formerly performed by the very artist herself with the famous Polish band, Maanam. In the composition resound convergent transatlantic echoes of mystical poetry, Graeco-Roman mythology, Christian culture and philosophical reflections. The author attempts to delimit the peculiar amalgam of individual Polish identity in this specific, intertextual and intercultural set-up by means of an interdisciplinary analysis and interpretation of particular poetic works and cultural description of their musical arrangement. Moreover there is proposed an analysis and interpretation of the poet’s language, in which the presence of occasionalisms and deictic expressions bring about deformations of the temporal structure. This kind of “estrangment” (ostranenie) contributes to a deconstruction of linguistic (or cultural) automatisms. In the context of interaction and synergy of many cultural codes imposing contradictory requirements, it may help us get closer to the transcultural condition, in terms of the theory developed by Ewa Łukaszyk.

İşitme ve Konuşma Engelli Bireyler için İşaret Tanıma Sistemi Geliştirme

Author(s): Bora Oktekin,Nadire Çavuş / Language(s): Turkish / Issue: 97-1/2019

Sign language is the movements of the hand, the movements of the fingers, the arms or the movement of the body simultaneously with the face expressions to convey the ideas of the speaker. In recent years, the sign language is in the eyes of all researchers. It is possible to recognize the movements made with the help of sensors. However, it is of great importance to transfer the motion data to computer systems. As a result of the field study, it was determined that the studies conducted in this field were not sufficient at all. It was also found that the studies conducted were mainly in the field of the American Sign Language, the English Sign Language and the Arab Sign Language, and sufficient studies were not done in Turkish Sign Language. In this study, an intelligent system has been developed to facilitate the communication of hearing and speech impaired individuals with other individuals. The work done in this field is thought to help to remove the lack of information in this field. In the intelligent system developed in this Thesis, 33 basic signs in the Turkish Sign Language, which are called as sound informatics are taken as a basis in the study. The developed system uses the Microsoft Kinect v2 sensor to identify the signals. C# programming language and MongoDB are used in the developed system. As a result of the case study, 85% of the 33 basic signs were correctly recognized by the developed system. It is considered that the developed Sign Language recognition system should help both the hearing and speech impaired individuals, and also other individuals, and hopefully solve the problems of communication between these individuals.

Japoncada “Nesne (Taishō「対象」)” Algısının Dilde Yansıması

Author(s): Nagehan Avdan / Language(s): Turkish / Publication Year: 0

“Nesne”, Antikçağdan bu yana üzerine çokça düşünülegelen konulardan biridir. Aristoteles’te “özneden bağımsız, kendinde var olma” niteliğinde olan nesne, 17. yüzyılda deneycilik akımıyla birlikte Locke, Hume ve Berkeley’de görüldüğü üzere “kendinde var olma” özelliğini yitirerek yerini yavaş yavaş özneye bırakmış ve nihayetinde Kant’ta “insan zihninin bir kategorisi” olarak karşımıza çıkmaktadır. Öte yandan Japoncada “nesne (taishō「対象」)” yi etimolojik açıdan incelediğimizde, Japonca Sözlük (Kokugo Jiten 「国語辞典」)’te birinci anlam olarak “eylemin ya da zihinsel faaliyetin yöneldiği şey”, “görülen, duyulan ve düşünülen şey” biçiminde tanımlandığı görülmektedir. İşaret etme eylemi ile nesne arasındaki ilişki açısından bakıldığında, nesne algısının kendini gösterdiği alanlardan birinin işaret sözcüklerinin kullanım alanı olduğu söylenebilir. Türkçede işaret adılı, önadı ve belirteçleri diye adlandırılan sözcükler Japoncada “işaret sözcükleri (ko, so, a)” çatısı altında ele alınmaktadır. Bu çalışmada, “nesne” algısının felsefe tarihi boyunca gelişimi incelenerek, Japoncada nesne algısı ele alınacak ve Japoncada nesne algısının öğretim düzleminde öğreniciye veriliş biçimi üzerinde durulacaktır.

KA AUTENTIČNOJ ARHITEKTURI

Author(s): Christian Norberg-Schulz / Language(s): Serbian / Issue: 280-281/1982

Razne struje i pravci koji zasnivaju »postmodernu« arhitekturu imaju zajedničku tačku: traženje značenja.

KANLI KOCA OĞLU KAN TURALI KARİKATÜR BANDININ GÖSTERGEBİLİMSEL BİR ÇÖZÜMLEMESİ

Author(s): Hatice Kübra Uygur,Gülden Altintop Taş / Language(s): Turkish / Issue: 30/2020

In this study, the story of “Kanlı Koca oğlu Kan Turalı”, one of Dede Korkut tribes, and its comic strip published in the 2015/3 issue of the Naber magazine by Umut Sarıkaya is addressed with a semiotic approach. The epic story in the sixth place of the Dresden copy of Dede Korkut stories has been moved from the verbal culture to the written culture and then to the comic strip dimension. A comparison is made based on the narration of the text through caricaturization in a new context and on the transformation of the text into a humor text, and then the semiotic method is applied to the text. In the article, the transformation of “Kanlı Koca oğlu Kan Turalı” within the humorous context is also addressed. In order to understand the humor of the caricature text, the importance of knowing the main text and having cultural codes is evaluated. Based on the argument that the transformations experienced in the transfer of the narrative sensure continuity, the changes in the text in the comic strip are explored within the semiotic context. Drawing on the argument that Dede Korkut tribes are one of the most important works of the Turkish nation with cultural codes, a semiotic reading of the text will reveal many explicit and implicit meanings and functions of culture. For this reason, it is of great significance to make interpretations based on cultural codes in the analyses to be made. Given the significance of the comic strip for Turkish culture and literature, their importance of reading the changes in humor in the text structure using the semiotic method will become apparent.

Keepers as social companions: Tactile communication and social enrichment for captive apes

Author(s): Mirko Cerrone / Language(s): English / Issue: 3-4/2019

The article addresses the topic of great ape–keeper tactile communication. The aim of this paper is to understand whether direct physical contact can be considered a source of enrichment for captive apes and whether it could be used to enhance animal welfare in zoos. We make use of a multispecies perspective provided by umwelt theory in an attempt to determine the role of touch in zoological gardens. By referring to Konrad Lorenz, we describe keeper–animal relationships as a special case of companionship, highlighting the role of keepers in apes’ social behaviour. The paper considers social touch as the primary means used by social animals to create and maintain increasingly complex relationships. Since tactile communication in interspecific contexts has been underestimated previously, our theoretical framework allows for a better understanding of physical contact in zoological gardens without assuming an anthropocentric point of view. Our hypothesis is that physical contact with keepers may provide enriching opportunities for social animals and help strengthen the bond between animals and their keepers. We emphasize that ape–animal interactions in zoos need to involve keeper–animal physical contact as a possible means for enhancing the apes’ welfare.

KÖL TİGİN (K 10) YAZITINDAKİ ÖD T(E)NRİ RSY KİŞİ OGLI KOOP ÖLG(E)Lİ TÖRİM(İ)Ş CÜMLESİ ÜZERİNE

Author(s): Eyup Sertaç Ayaz / Language(s): Turkish / Issue: 7/2020

It was observed that the word RSY (ysr) in the 10th line of the northern facade of Köl Tigin inscription was read in different ways as „yaşar‟, „yasar‟ and „aysar‟. Due to these reading differences, different meanings are given to the sentence in which the word takes. Studies presenting the copy of the inscriptions are in agreement for the signs in the word RSY (ysr). It is understood that the reason of the differences in reading is not related to the differences in signs, it is related to the preferences in meaning. There is also no unity in the meaning of the expression „öd täŋri‟ at the beginning of the same sentence. For the correct understanding of the sentence in the inscription, the subject should be examined in detail in the light of the Turkish religious history. Bilge Kaghan, the Turkish kaghan, who took the source of his political power and domination from Tanrı, made a determination summarizing the Turkish belief system with this sentence. In this article, the word RSY (ysr) is re-examined based on the belief system shaped on the basis of Gök Tanrı, by examining the previous reading and interpretation proposals.

Komiks ako znakový systém

Vybrané kompozičné aspekty semiotiky komiksu

Author(s): Peter Karpinský / Language(s): Slovak / Issue: 41-42/2020

This paper challenges the prevailing approach to semiotics of comics that only deals with visual representation. Instead, it suggests that comics, as a picto-verbal art form, presents a far more complicated and complex problem from the point of view of semiotics. In the analysis of K. Saudek’s Tieň na hranici času (Shadow on the Border of Time), the paper focuses mainly on one aspect of the language of comics – on its compositional component, which, from the point of view of its semioticity (that is its substitutive function), is understood as a certain type of index and symbol, drawing on logical, temporal or cause-and-effect relations affecting the ordering of picture panels, but also on the convention of reading linear texts from left to right. In the static, two-dimensional picto-verbal art form, this compositional component is claimed to stand for time and movement in space, but also for the three-dimensional space itself.

Language and Systems Theory: Critical Remarks on the Luhmannian Conception

Author(s): Santiago Gabriel Calise / Language(s): English / Issue: 3/2020

Language and Systems Theory: Critical Remarks on the Luhmannian Conception. This paper assesses Luhmann’s conception of language as structural coupling. Luhmann treated language as a medium, but also tried to incorporate the Saussurean concept of sign. The paper will deal with three conflictive points. The first one is the erasure of all psychic reference that Luhmann performs. The second issue is Luhmann’s refusal to consider language as a system. The third point poses the question about the ontological bases of language, in comparison to those of the autopoietic systems.

Learning and knowing as semiosis: Extending the conceptual apparatus of semiotics

Author(s): Cary Campbell,Alin Olteanu,Kalevi Kull / Language(s): English / Issue: 3-4/2019

If all knowing comes from semiosis, more concepts should be added to the semiotic toolbox. However, semiotic concepts must be defined via other semiotic concepts. We observe an opportunity to advance the state-of-the-art in semiotics by defining concepts of cognitive processes and phenomena via semiotic terms. In particular, we focus on concepts of relevance for theory of knowledge, such as learning, knowing, affordance, scaffolding, resources, competence, memory, and a few others. For these, we provide preliminary definitions from a semiotic perspective, which also explicates their interrelatedness. Redefining these terms this way helps to avoid both physicalism and psychologism, showcasing the epistemological dimensions of environmental situatedness through the semiotic understanding of organisms’ fittedness with their environments. Following our review and presentation of each concept, we briefly discuss the significance of our embedded redefinitions in contributing to a semiotic theory of knowing that has relevance to both the humanities and the life sciences, while not forgetting their relevance to education and psychology, but also social semiotic and multimodality studies.

Lemmas in the Old-Polish Armorial Poetry as a Manifestation of Genre Hybridization

Author(s): Bartłomiej Czarski / Language(s): English / Issue: Sp. Iss. 1/2019

One of the most popular panegyrical forms in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was the so-called “stemmata”. Similar to emblems, these visual works consisted of an illustrated coat of arms and an epigram, often attached to the front matter of printed texts during the old-Polish period. This paper discusses select cases in which, influenced by emblems, lemma are incorporated into the stemma’s structure. The text explains how the lemma is introduced to the stemma and how it affects the latter’s meaning. Particular attention has been paid to cases in which mottos are treated as the title of a combination of a coat of arms and a poem. The text also analyses “academic stemmata”, a sub-genre of a heraldic poem that consists of several features characteristic of emblems. The presence of lemma in the structure of stemmata is recognized as the consequence of a trend to liven up this visual form. Making the emblem more attractive was a way to draw the attention of readers, increasing the producer’s chance of communicating a panegyrical message. Not only the authors of stemma, but also their powerful patrons came to require this effect. The presence of lemma in the structure of heraldic poems also relates to the role of mottos in the Jesuit educational system. Mottos and verba aurea were treated by teachers from the Society of Jesus as a very useful medium for presenting moral and parenetic subjects and it was fairly easy for authors of stemmata to use them for panegyric purposes. The lemma’s role within the stemma’s structure was twofold; it created a special connection between the stemma and the main text and simultaneously linked the fictional word of literature with the real one. The popularity of “classic stemmata” in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth led to the creation and popularisation of other hybrid forms composed of a coat of arms and other textual elements.