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Theory change is a slow, tortuous process. Problems associated with how we communicate ideas and how these ideas are received by our peers become catalysts for change in how we ourselves perceive and sanction what the discipline is capable of doing. Some parts of semiotics, and particularly biosemiotics, have come under critical scrutiny because of their heavy commitment to Peircean philosophy, but at the same time, the contributions of Peircean philosophy are almost impossible to discount. The ripples of this situation are quite visible in the emergence of code biology as a post-semiotic research programme. Yet there is a general balance between those who do not put that much stock in Peircean concepts and those who cannot conceive semiotics without these. This paper will ask whether a biosemiotics after Peirce is possible at all in the sense of acknowledging Peirce’s contributions to the field while also taking to heart the criticisms raised by those skeptical of the implications of Peircean semiotics. While the answer is most likely positive, it depends on what background our concept of meaning relies on and how it may bleed into the other areas of semiotics that biosemiotics may claim a stake on. Being able to discuss potential theoretical distinctions across semiotics while also allowing communication between the areas caught in this differentiation will be crucial for the health of the discipline as the gap between theories becomes more profound.
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Folklore establishing considerable part of the culture is a representation field of a people from past to today by its functional and symbolic sides. Transforming socio cultural and socio-economic conditions with modernity brought fast transformation of folkloric culture as well. Linguistics works developing together with modernity took culture in general and folkloric culture particularly to the agenda to be handled as a language system approach. Although these approaches contain differences, they supply a static structure as code. Whereas, folkloric culture can be recognized as layered living organism of past, present and future. Especially representation and foundation of symbolic and functional sides of folkloric culture forms basic axis of these discussions. In folkloric culture, representation can be considered basically in two steps. The first one of them is the side of folkloric culture coming from the past, existing within itself, living today, conserving and saving. The other one is the side of folkloric representation belonging to the past but tried to be reconstructed in present. This second representation case turned upside down the folkloric representation by considering it as a semiotic system which was functionally and symbolically integrated within itself. Symbolic field of folkloric representation is isolated from its content. This abstraction points to the position of upset tool of culture industry by getting forms and symbols to the front. Therefore, approaching methods to folkloric culture studies post 1960 have been investigated by its symbolic, functional and semantic dimensions in this study. Further, how folkloric culture had been realized, worked and dragged to transformation has been discussed in theoretical dimension.
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In this article, information is given about how mythology has taken place in the art of sculpture in the process from past to present and it is still a preferred source of inspiration in today's art. From the past to the present, the works of mythology-themed sculptural art have been mentioned and these works have been examined and interpreted in the context of mythological image use. It is also to clarify how mythology stands in today's art. Looking at the history of art, there are many examples of the relationship between mythology and sculpture. Especially Greek mythology has shown its effect in almost all world arts, especially European art, and it still exists.
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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.
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The notion of the Subaltern has come to have deep roots in understanding postcolonial history. Established by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, it has come to define the essence of global cultural relations, as we perceive them today. However, the origin of this theory could not have been less regional, with a starting point in Calcutta in the first half of the 20th century. The way in which it describes the relations of power between India and the British Empire gives place to a global understanding of a dominant culture took control of subjects in minority. This paper is going to seek to expose the roots of the notion of Subalterns, not refraining from touching upon disparities between genders, nations, and traditions.
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People have tried different methods in their efforts to communicate since their existence. The concept of visuality has an important place in these methods in today's world. The visuality extending to the cave walls of primitive people, including everything that can be seen, is a world of images that are effective in conveying thoughts, where expectations and dreams are together. With the proliferation of mass media since the beginning of the twentieth century, it has become a large part of our lives. Images are detached from time, representing past and present, perceived through senses, playing an important role in conveying a message by being designed in mind; are the parts that are at the basis of visual, perceptual and linguistic processes. Designing is also reviving and thinking of anything in the mind. The sense of creation of the mind activates the imagination by establishing the relations between the necessary images. In creative thinking that stimulates the imagination, it is reproduced using the information available. The ability to create the new that occurs as a result of the use of images stems from the trends that people have had since birth. This ability starts with seeing. Seeing has a privileged place among other senses. In the research; topics such as visual, visual thinking, what and how perceived objects are perceived are combined with related concepts and interpreted by doing a literature review.
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Our eye, which performs the act of seeing, is our organ through which we come into contact with the outside world. We make the most of our connections with our environment through vision. The action of vision and perception depends on the figure-ground relationship, which varies according to the Gestalt principles. The eye, which is our vision organ, has been the subject of myths in the context of sight and seeing throughout human history and has even been used in the symbols that have attributed meanings by loading a mystical (mysterious in other words) mission. The all-seeing eye has existed in every culture and period. It is a symbol of vigilance and God's protective power in general. The evil eye is a kind of sinister that is used to counter this danger in the places where culture is common. The belief in the evil eye is particularly associated with eyesight. The evil eye talisman is one of the examples in this class. The all-seeing eye that protects the bearer from Evil, The Eye of Horus in Ancient Egypt, the Third Eye of Buddha in India, The Hand of mother Fatima, which is widely used in Turkey, Greece, North Africa, the Middle East and India, and the Blue evil eye talismans have been charged with the mission of protecting against evil eye. The image of the eye, which has become such a visual icon, has also been an important source of inspiration in Turkish ceramic art. In this article, the use of the symbolic meaning of the eye and the phenomenon of gaze in Turkish ceramic art has been examined and evaluated by examining the works of various artists. Recent ceramic artists studied in this study have used the eye symbol and the phenomenon of gaze referring to the evil eye, good luck, protection from evil; in other world, talismans, perception of the world and the sense of being gazed.
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Graphic designing is a considerably contemporary field of visual communication which is related to the visualization of the intended messages and transferring them to the target group as well as designing this communication process and it is doubtless that its significance will gradually increase. During the process of transforming messages into visual designing, the process of codifying the meaning into the elements of visual designing is worth-stressing. For that reason, the designer should have a brilliant knowledge of the structural characteristics and grammar of the visual language so that he can satisfy the needs of the field of graphic designing. Every image transfers either an idea or a message; communicates with target group. Reading images is a common activity of human brain when there is a product to be interpreted. The stages of this activity can be listed as; perception, recording and interpreting. Our perception of messages depends on their meaning and the factor of learned perception and culture they recall as well as the system they exist in. To put it simply, most of the things in social life is shaped on the pattern of meaning which is the base of communication. As for the designer who conducts production, the process of portraying the messages through images and transforming them into meaningful sequences and recognizing its stages will provide positive contributions into designing. It is understood that seeing is an important element in designing visual communication as an activity of mind. Every visual creation is the reflection of knowledge, skills and mind. Within this context, it can be stated that the process of transforming the messages into visual designing is an important stage of graphic designing. For that reason, the process of understanding and interpreting through the sense of seeing should be considered from the perspective of both graphic designers which codify the messages and the receiver. In this study, following questions were discussed in detail; how were the messages/meanings produced through connecting to the indicators which reflect or analyzing them, the ways of transferring them into the target groups, the problems related to them and their solutions, the principles and process of qualified indicator.
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We have to try to understand the position, the value and the purpose of arts and designs in our daily lives. The main purpose behind the birth of arts is the need of humanity to communicate. If we take a look at the history and go through the hieroglyphes and murals we can easily see that they are all there for to communicate. We have to know the fact that if we do not value art, our lives will be meaningless. Arts and design can be considered as an exposition of our emotions, feelings and experiences. Illustrations in graphic design is a form of art and like all graphic arts its main purpose is to deliver a specific message or messages to a society. Illustration is a branch of graphic design which has a strong correlation with the culture phenomenon. An illustration which can bond with many cultures and manages to become inter-cultural can be considered as successful and effective. We can say that graphic design is a fundamental fact and form of art in which we shape through our senses and experiences in daily life.
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It is observed that artistic creations have started before the ages of history, whilst refreshing themselves throughout the ages and eras via cultural and societal innovations and not compromising from their core principles at the same. Art, which embraces change and alteration, has made its prevailing presence known through a society’s lifestyle, geography, time and faith at all times. Shaping of art through these concepts has laid the groundwork for acquiring an identity for art which could be used as a common language between different cultures. It is possible that the act greeting, a cultural action, can happen with different rituals in many countries and cultures. The meanings of Greeting and hand-kissing rituals in different cultures has . The focus of this paper is on the meaning of the rituals of greetings and hand-kissing and how they are touted in different cultures in a semiotic aspect. A comparison is showcased between greetings in the French artist, who was raised in a western culture, Gustave Courbet’s “Greeting-Good Moring Mr. Courbet” and the hand-kissing the eastern culture, which is a showcase of respect and love. In this work, the concepts of Kissing, Indicators, Semiotics and Culture’s historical process is emphasized through the greetings ritual in Gustave Courbet’s “Meeting” and the culture of Hand Kissing in Eastern Culture. Certain images are added to emphasize and support this paper. This paper lines up with similar works that has come before it in terms of content, at the same time, it shall be a guide to studies that are going to come after it.
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The article seeks to answer the question what it is about the place which is called home in John McGahern’s novel That They May Face the Rising Sun (2002), i.e. what it is that substantiates it and being in it and a return to it. It argues that the homeplace in the narrative of the novel is defined by two symbolic planes: home is not only a physical and material and social place/ space within a certain geography in the novel, but also is of the ontological structure which is the meeting point of two trajectories that cross over: one of them is the vertical − the sacred, the other is the horizontal − the profane. The sacred puts into communication the three placial / spatial geographies in the narrative − heaven, earth and underworld; the profane marks the historical and the linear. It is within the homeplace in the narrative of the novel that existential being opens up through the tensions between the sacred and the profane. To build the argument, the paper draws on Mircea Eliade’s hermeneutics in The Sacred and the Profane (1959), Cosmos and History: The Myth of the Eternal Return (1954), and Images and Symbols: Studies in Religious Symbolism (1961).
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In this study, the use of cartoons for propaganda purposes by the three big Axis Powers (Germany, Italy and Japan) in World War II was tried to be revealed.For this purpose, in the study ,1940 German made Der Störenfried, 1941 Italian made Il Dottor Churkill (Doctor Churkill) and 1943 Japan made cartoons Momotarō no Umiwashi (Momotaro’s Sea Eagles) were analyzed using the semiotics analysis method in qualitative research methods. Cartoons in the study were analyzed within the framework of the semiotics concept Swiss Language Scientist Ferdinand de Saussure. In the light of the findings, it was seen that the Allied States were presented as enemies trying to invade the world in the propaganda films made by the Axis Powers and in this way, the public opinion was tried to build hate speech against the Axis Powers. On the other hand, it was revealed in the cartoons that the Axis Powers started a great struggle for peace of the world against the Allied Powers which tried to occupy the world. Thus, it was concluded that the Axis Powers tried to legitimize the war through cartoons and tried to find public support against the Allied Powers.
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Poster design is a medium which transmits the required information for the product or service to be promoted to the audience. Illustration is a word derived from French and means to figure an idea by drawings. Today illustration has enabled target messages to be transmitted more effective when it unites with poster medium. In this context, the purpose of this study is to analyse poster designs, one of the print ads media including illustration in terms of creative idea, audience, problem status and graphic design regarding the impact of illustration on the audience. The study is a qualitative research and screening model was applied. A literature review was conducted. An analysis form was prepared within the framework of the collected data and expert opinion. Finally, 5 poster designs including illustration were analysed and interpreted..
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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.
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This introduction to the special section on Poland’s wars of symbols analyzes the symbolic contestation that has characterized the country in recent years, studying a range of phenomena including nation, gender, memory, and religious symbolism within the overall framework of political conflict. In doing so, it offers a multidisciplinary view on political fractures that have resonated throughout Europe and the “West.” Overall, the four case studies in this section study ways in which national symbols, topoi, and narratives have been deployed as tools in drawing and redrawing boundaries within society, polarizing and mobilizing the political camps as well as contesting and resisting power. These studies enable us to situate recent political events in a historical perspective, mapping the rise of populism in Poland against the background of legacies specific to the East-Central European region.
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Review of: Katarzyna Łeńska - Bąk, Magdalena Sztandara (red.), Głód. Skojarzenia, metafory, refleksje…, Stromata Anthropologica 9, Opole: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Opolskiego 2014, ss. 351, ISSN 1897-5666. Review by: Magdalena Brandt
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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.
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The aim of this paper is an indication that some of the problems experienced by Stanisław Chołoniewski (1791—1846) — slogans of age and salon and anti-salon — may be useful in describing the current reality. The concept of slogans of ages is an original representation of catchwords which affect people remarkably, as the cnocept engages it’s audience and enduce strong emotions. Chołoniewski characterizes these slogans, examines their origins and the manner of their action. The following issue described is the relation between two social groups: salon and anti-salon, who compete for influence over society. This competition, except outside manifestations, takes place also within the individuals as a conflict of values. Both of these questions are indirectly related to the Idea of Progress, which was analyzed by Chołoniewski from a Catholic point of view. A juxtaposition of these three elements completes the understanding of each of them. This analysis concerns 19th century and may also explain some of the important social questions that society is faced with today.
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