Essays On Significs

Significs is one of those (by no means exclusively) sign theoretically relevant movements which arose at the turn of the century. It established a philosophical tradition which, from its very inception, was interlaced with widely varying movements ranging, for example, from Breal's semantics to Carnap's and Neurath's logical empiricism. In this volume, an international group of well-known scholars from various disciplines undertakes a broad re-evaluation of significs and its development which promises also to yield a better knowledge of research approaches in linguistics, semiotics, philosophy, and psychology with which significs was related or vied for acceptance. Contributions deal with Lady Welby's biography and socio-cultural background, the intellectual context of the signific movement at the turn of the century and the relationships between Welby's semiotic and philosophical ideas on the one hand and those of her contemporaries (Breal, Peirce, Schiller, Vailati etc.) and followers (Ogden, Van Eeden, Mannoury etc.) on the other. Descriptions of the historiographically most important archive materials, a bibliography of publications on Lady Welby and her significs and an index of names conclude the volume.

The theory of signifying (significs), formulated and introduced by Victoria Welby for the first time in 1890s, is at the basis of much of twentieth-century linguistics, as well as in other language and communication sciences such as sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, translation theory and semiotics. Indirectly, the origins of approaches, methods and categories elaborated by analytical philosophy, Wittgenstein himself, Anglo-American speech act theory, and pragmatics are largely found with Victoria Lady Welby. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say, in addition, that Welby is the "founding mother" of semiotics. Some of Peirce's most innovative writings – for example, those on existential graphs – are effectively letters to Lady Welby. She was an esteemed correspondent of scholars such as Bertrand Russell, Charles K. Ogden, Herbert G. Wells, Ferdinand S. C. Schiller, Michel Bréal, André Lalande, the brothers Henry and William James, and Peirce, as well as Frederik van Eeden, Mary Everst Boole, Ferdinand Tönnies, and Giovanni Vailati. Her writings directly inspired the Signific Movement in the Netherlands, important for psycholinguistics, linguistics and semantics and inaugurated by van Eeden and developed by such authors as Gerrit Mannoury. This volume, containing introductions and commentaries, presents a selection from Welby's published and unpublished writings delineating the whole course of her research through to developments with the Significs Movement in the Netherlands and still other ramifications, contemporary and subsequent to her. A selection of essays by first-generation significians contributing to the Signific Movement in the Netherlands completes the collection, testifying to the progress of significs after Welby and even independently from her. This volume contributes to the reconstruction on both the historical and theoretical levels of an important period in the history of ideas. The aim of the volume is to convey a sense of the theoretical topicality of significs and its developments, especially in semiotics, and in particular its thematization of the question of values and the connection with signs, meaning, and understanding, therefore with human verbal and nonverbal behavior, language and communication.

This book provides an extensive overview and analysis of current work on semiotics that is being pursued globally in the areas of literature, the visual arts, cultural studies, media, the humanities, natural sciences and social sciences. Semiotics—also known as structuralism—is one of the major theoretical movements of the 20th century and its influence as a way to conduct analyses of cultural products and human practices has been immense. This is a comprehensive volume that brings together many otherwise fragmented academic disciplines and currents, uniting them in the framework of semiotics. Addressing a longstanding need, it provides a global perspective on recent and ongoing semiotic research across a broad range of disciplines. The handbook is intended for all researchers interested in applying semiotics as a critical lens for inquiry across diverse disciplines.

Victoria Welby (1837–1912) dedicated her research to the relationship between signs and values. She exchanged ideas with important exponents of the language and sign sciences, such as Charles S. Peirce and Charles S. Ogden. She examined themes she believed crucially important both in the use of signs and in reflection on signs. But Welby's research can also be understood in ideal dialogue with authors she could never have met in real life, such as Mikhail Bakhtin, Susanne Langer, and Genevieve Vaughan. Welby contends that signifying cannot be constrained to any one system, type of sign, language, field of discourse, or area of experience. On the contrary, it is ever more developed, enhanced, and rigorous, the more it develops across different fields, disciplines, and areas of experience. For example, to understand meaning, Welby evidences the advantage of translating it into another word even from the same language or resorting to metaphor to express what would otherwise be difficult to conceive. Welby aims for full awareness of the expressive potential of signifying resources. Her reflections make an important contribution to problems connected with communication, expression, interpretation, translation, and creativity.

This book examines the issues surrounding the problematic perpetuation of dominant sign systems through the framework of ‘semioethics’. Semioethics is concerned with using semiotics as a powerful tool to critique the status quo and move beyond the reproduction of the dominant order of communication. The aim is to present semioethics as a method to engage semiotics in an active rethink of our ability as humans to affect change.

The Semiotic Web 1987 (Approaches to Semiotics).

Lexicon Grammaticorum is a biographical and bibliographical reference work on the history of all the world's traditions of linguistics. Each article consists of a short definition, details of the life, work and influence of the subject and a primary and secondary bibliography. The authors include some of the most renowned linguistic scholars alive today. For the second edition, twenty co-editors were commissioned to propose articles and authors for their areas of expertise. Thus this edition contains some 500 new articles by more than 400 authors from 25 countries in addition to the completely revised 1.500 articles from the first edition. Attention has been paid to making the articles more reader-friendly, in particular by resolving abbreviations in the textual sections. Key features: essential reference book for linguists worldwide 500 new articles over 400 contributors of 25 countries

No detailed description available for "Signs of Humanity / L'homme et ses signes".