Pub Date : 2022-12-05DOI: 10.12697/sss.2022.50.2-3.04
Lílian Moreira, João Queiroz
The idea that translation involves revealing and discovery of information from the source has been discussed in a few fields of study, especially creative translation and intersemiotic translation. These operations are fundamentally dependent on iconic properties. An operational criterion detrivializes the common description of the icon as a sign of similarity to define more precisely iconic processes as a sign through which it is possible to discover or reveal new information about its object. This idea becomes particularly interesting when we think about multiple translations of the same source, each revealing such distinct traits that some may consider as opposing one another. As an example to be discussed in our case study, we have selected Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, both of which have been widely translated. Until now there has been no systematic analysis in the field of intersemiotic translation studies of the relationship between one source and multiple targets. We compare two intersemiotic translations of the Alice novels: a 1980 TV episode from The Muppet Show by Jim Henson and the 1988 feature film Něco z Alenky by Jan Švankmajer, both displaying distinct characteristics of their own and revealing different information about the works of Carroll.
{"title":"Revealing Alice in Wonderland through intersemiotic translation","authors":"Lílian Moreira, João Queiroz","doi":"10.12697/sss.2022.50.2-3.04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12697/sss.2022.50.2-3.04","url":null,"abstract":"The idea that translation involves revealing and discovery of information from the source has been discussed in a few fields of study, especially creative translation and intersemiotic translation. These operations are fundamentally dependent on iconic properties. An operational criterion detrivializes the common description of the icon as a sign of similarity to define more precisely iconic processes as a sign through which it is possible to discover or reveal new information about its object. This idea becomes particularly interesting when we think about multiple translations of the same source, each revealing such distinct traits that some may consider as opposing one another. As an example to be discussed in our case study, we have selected Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, both of which have been widely translated. Until now there has been no systematic analysis in the field of intersemiotic translation studies of the relationship between one source and multiple targets. We compare two intersemiotic translations of the Alice novels: a 1980 TV episode from The Muppet Show by Jim Henson and the 1988 feature film Něco z Alenky by Jan Švankmajer, both displaying distinct characteristics of their own and revealing different information about the works of Carroll.","PeriodicalId":44467,"journal":{"name":"Sign Systems Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42228167","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-05DOI: 10.12697/sss.2022.50.2-3.09
A. Ventsel
Review of War and Semiotics: Signs, Communication Systems, and the Preparation, Legitimization, and Commemoration of Collective Mass Violence. (Jacob, Frank, ed.) London, New York: Routledge, 336 pp.
{"title":"On semotics of war","authors":"A. Ventsel","doi":"10.12697/sss.2022.50.2-3.09","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12697/sss.2022.50.2-3.09","url":null,"abstract":"Review of War and Semiotics: Signs, Communication Systems, and the Preparation, Legitimization, and Commemoration of Collective Mass Violence. (Jacob, Frank, ed.) London, New York: Routledge, 336 pp.","PeriodicalId":44467,"journal":{"name":"Sign Systems Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49305338","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-05DOI: 10.12697/sss.2022.50.2-3.08
P. Delahaye
Review of Principia Semiotica: Aux sources du sens by Group μ. Brussels: Les impressions nouvelles, 2015, 581 pp.
《符号学原理综述:意义的来源》,作者:Group μ。布鲁塞尔:新印象,2015,581页。
{"title":"The world, the body and the sign: Group μ at the sources of meaning","authors":"P. Delahaye","doi":"10.12697/sss.2022.50.2-3.08","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12697/sss.2022.50.2-3.08","url":null,"abstract":"Review of Principia Semiotica: Aux sources du sens by Group μ. Brussels: Les impressions nouvelles, 2015, 581 pp.","PeriodicalId":44467,"journal":{"name":"Sign Systems Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44980992","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Saeta (Spanish: ‘arrow’) is nowadays identified as a religious modality of flamenco singing, performed during Holy Week celebrations. The textual fabric of a saeta comprises both melody, manner of singing, and verbal texts, as well as the inherent spatiality of a communicative act. Due to the multifaceted nature of this cultural phenomenon, the semiotic perspective is optimal to capture “a psychosocial connection” through investigated signage. In particular, the analysis will draw on Juri Lotman’s concept of the semiosphere, focusing on its fraction relating to religious experience, namely, the sacrosphere. The results point to transactional tectonics and posit an analytical entity of a vacuous interlocutor as a hieratic proxy, having the status of being in a floating structural position within the posited level of what we shall call here [saeta]2.
{"title":"Vacuous interlocutors as hieratic proxies in the sacrosphere of Andalusian flamenco saeta","authors":"Ventura Salazar-García, Małgorzata Haładewicz-Grzelak","doi":"10.12697/sss.2022.50.2-3.05","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12697/sss.2022.50.2-3.05","url":null,"abstract":"Saeta (Spanish: ‘arrow’) is nowadays identified as a religious modality of flamenco singing, performed during Holy Week celebrations. The textual fabric of a saeta comprises both melody, manner of singing, and verbal texts, as well as the inherent spatiality of a communicative act. Due to the multifaceted nature of this cultural phenomenon, the semiotic perspective is optimal to capture “a psychosocial connection” through investigated signage. In particular, the analysis will draw on Juri Lotman’s concept of the semiosphere, focusing on its fraction relating to religious experience, namely, the sacrosphere. The results point to transactional tectonics and posit an analytical entity of a vacuous interlocutor as a hieratic proxy, having the status of being in a floating structural position within the posited level of what we shall call here [saeta]2.","PeriodicalId":44467,"journal":{"name":"Sign Systems Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42471306","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-05DOI: 10.12697/sss.2022.50.2-3.01
Lona Päll
Place-lore, which has been systematically collected and archived in Estonia since the 19th century, is a part of various national, communal and institutional practices. Until now, Estonian researchers have resorted to conceptualizing place-lore from the perspective of archival texts, and the focus has been on collecting and archiving the material. At the same time, theoretical study of place-lore has remained in the background. In the article I approach place-lore from the perspective of ecosemiotics and suggest a new definition of place-lore that is based on semiotic relations these narratives have with the environment they represent. Outlining different ways of how vernacular tradition and the environment it represents are semiotically related, and analysing the ways in which these relations are expressed in place-related folklore allows seeing how place-lore can be defined through (1) localizability, (2) representation of the characteristics of a place, and (3) manifestation of place experience. Defining place-lore and presenting the preliminary conceptual tools is much needed in practical collection work and archiving and serves as an important prerequisite for studying the placerelated folklore in the context of contemporary challenges, such as changing textual practices, cultural disruptions, and environmental crisis. Examples are drawn from folklore associated with mires, specifically from narratives about the Kakerdaja Bog in northern Estonia.
{"title":"An ecosemiotic dimension of folklore: Reframing the concept of place-lore","authors":"Lona Päll","doi":"10.12697/sss.2022.50.2-3.01","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12697/sss.2022.50.2-3.01","url":null,"abstract":"Place-lore, which has been systematically collected and archived in Estonia since the 19th century, is a part of various national, communal and institutional practices. Until now, Estonian researchers have resorted to conceptualizing place-lore from the perspective of archival texts, and the focus has been on collecting and archiving the material. At the same time, theoretical study of place-lore has remained in the background. In the article I approach place-lore from the perspective of ecosemiotics and suggest a new definition of place-lore that is based on semiotic relations these narratives have with the environment they represent. Outlining different ways of how vernacular tradition and the environment it represents are semiotically related, and analysing the ways in which these relations are expressed in place-related folklore allows seeing how place-lore can be defined through (1) localizability, (2) representation of the characteristics of a place, and (3) manifestation of place experience. Defining place-lore and presenting the preliminary conceptual tools is much needed in practical collection work and archiving and serves as an important prerequisite for studying the placerelated folklore in the context of contemporary challenges, such as changing textual practices, cultural disruptions, and environmental crisis. Examples are drawn from folklore associated with mires, specifically from narratives about the Kakerdaja Bog in northern Estonia.","PeriodicalId":44467,"journal":{"name":"Sign Systems Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43006918","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-05DOI: 10.12697/sss.2022.50.2-3.02
Konstantin Mochalov
How do arbitrary signs occur? The article suggests that the basis of arbitrariness is the liberation of the signified from a rigid connection with the signifier. An important role is played by the psychological present. The psychological present is not one-dimensional but is represented by dimensions of sequence, simultaneity, and duration. Non-arbitrary signs are as if one-dimensional: the signifier and the signified are in undifferentiated unity – in one dimension of the present time. When forming arbitrary signs, the signified and the signifier are separated from each other and are embodied in different dimensions – the levels of the psychological present tense, invariant and variable. At the same time, the signified occupies an invariant level, and the signifier is variable so that the signified remains constant with any change in the signifier. Therefore, different signifiers can be applied to the same object at will, and the content of the designated object does not change. The signified thus becomes relatively independent and free from the signifier.
{"title":"Liberation of the signified from a rigid connection with the signifier as one of the conditions of the arbitrary nature of the sign","authors":"Konstantin Mochalov","doi":"10.12697/sss.2022.50.2-3.02","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12697/sss.2022.50.2-3.02","url":null,"abstract":"How do arbitrary signs occur? The article suggests that the basis of arbitrariness is the liberation of the signified from a rigid connection with the signifier. An important role is played by the psychological present. The psychological present is not one-dimensional but is represented by dimensions of sequence, simultaneity, and duration. Non-arbitrary signs are as if one-dimensional: the signifier and the signified are in undifferentiated unity – in one dimension of the present time. When forming arbitrary signs, the signified and the signifier are separated from each other and are embodied in different dimensions – the levels of the psychological present tense, invariant and variable. At the same time, the signified occupies an invariant level, and the signifier is variable so that the signified remains constant with any change in the signifier. Therefore, different signifiers can be applied to the same object at will, and the content of the designated object does not change. The signified thus becomes relatively independent and free from the signifier.","PeriodicalId":44467,"journal":{"name":"Sign Systems Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48938750","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-05DOI: 10.12697/sss.2022.50.2-3.06
F. Nuessel, Ott Puumeister
Semiotics 2021: The year in review
符号学2021:回顾的一年
{"title":"Semiotics 2021: The year in review","authors":"F. Nuessel, Ott Puumeister","doi":"10.12697/sss.2022.50.2-3.06","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12697/sss.2022.50.2-3.06","url":null,"abstract":"Semiotics 2021: The year in review","PeriodicalId":44467,"journal":{"name":"Sign Systems Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45526494","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-06-01DOI: 10.12697/sss.2022.50.1.07
Daria Zalesskaya
Didactics and semiotics are two fields that have been interconnected for a long time. Russian language teaching in France in the 20th century, especially in its first half, had several interesting didactic features closely related to the understanding of Ferdinand de Saussure’s theoretical conceptions. Through the works of influential Slavist professor Paul Boyer (1864–1949), some of Ferdinand de Saussure’s ideas became reflected in French didactics in a particular way, providing the basis for a new method of teaching Russian as a foreign language. The article offers an analysis of the textbook Manuel pour l’étude de la langue russe by Boyer and Nicolas Spéransky, as well as of the teaching method “language-in-itself ”, with the objective to identify the references to the Course in General Linguistics and to consider their reflection in didactics.
教学法和符号学是长期以来相互联系的两个领域。20世纪法国的俄语教学,特别是上半叶的俄语教学有几个有趣的教学特点,这与对费迪南德·索绪尔理论概念的理解密切相关。通过有影响力的斯拉夫主义教授Paul Boyer(1864-1949)的著作,Ferdinand de Saussure的一些思想以一种特殊的方式反映在法语教学法中,为外语教学俄语的新方法提供了基础。本文分析了Boyer和Nicolas Spéransky的教科书Manuel pour l’étude de la languagee russe,以及“语言本身”的教学方法,目的是找出对《普通语言学教程》的参考文献,并考虑它们在教学中的反映。
{"title":"Language as an “independent unit”: Ferdinand de Saussure vs. Paul Boyer","authors":"Daria Zalesskaya","doi":"10.12697/sss.2022.50.1.07","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12697/sss.2022.50.1.07","url":null,"abstract":"Didactics and semiotics are two fields that have been interconnected for a long time. Russian language teaching in France in the 20th century, especially in its first half, had several interesting didactic features closely related to the understanding of Ferdinand de Saussure’s theoretical conceptions. Through the works of influential Slavist professor Paul Boyer (1864–1949), some of Ferdinand de Saussure’s ideas became reflected in French didactics in a particular way, providing the basis for a new method of teaching Russian as a foreign language. The article offers an analysis of the textbook Manuel pour l’étude de la langue russe by Boyer and Nicolas Spéransky, as well as of the teaching method “language-in-itself ”, with the objective to identify the references to the Course in General Linguistics and to consider their reflection in didactics.","PeriodicalId":44467,"journal":{"name":"Sign Systems Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42306351","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-06-01DOI: 10.12697/sss.2022.50.1.03
Alain Perusset
Saussure’s proposals on the sign, formulated more than a century ago in 1916, continue to exert an undisputed authority on linguistics and social sciences. In semiotics, the dyadic model of the sign is continuously used, even in the context of reflections on non-linguistic objects. The tendency in semiotics has been to adopt the Saussurean theory of the sign and enhance it with Hjelmslev’s findings, which has led to Hjelmslev becoming as significant as Saussure in the field of semiotics. In particular, it is to Hjelmslev that we owe the notions of denotation and connotation, which the present article aims at clarifying. Indeed, a misunderstanding still exists regarding the sense of these two concepts, that is to say, some forms of denotation are often – and wrongly – considered as connotations. Hence, this paper deals with Saussure’s legacy; his legacy in Hjelmslev, as well as Barthes, since I shall refer to the propositions formulated by the latter in his Mythologies (1957) to clarify the distinction between denotation and connotation.
{"title":"Posterity of Saussure’s sign in the study of cultural meanings: A dialogue between Barthes and Hjelmslev","authors":"Alain Perusset","doi":"10.12697/sss.2022.50.1.03","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12697/sss.2022.50.1.03","url":null,"abstract":"Saussure’s proposals on the sign, formulated more than a century ago in 1916, continue to exert an undisputed authority on linguistics and social sciences. In semiotics, the dyadic model of the sign is continuously used, even in the context of reflections on non-linguistic objects. The tendency in semiotics has been to adopt the Saussurean theory of the sign and enhance it with Hjelmslev’s findings, which has led to Hjelmslev becoming as significant as Saussure in the field of semiotics. In particular, it is to Hjelmslev that we owe the notions of denotation and connotation, which the present article aims at clarifying. Indeed, a misunderstanding still exists regarding the sense of these two concepts, that is to say, some forms of denotation are often – and wrongly – considered as connotations. Hence, this paper deals with Saussure’s legacy; his legacy in Hjelmslev, as well as Barthes, since I shall refer to the propositions formulated by the latter in his Mythologies (1957) to clarify the distinction between denotation and connotation.","PeriodicalId":44467,"journal":{"name":"Sign Systems Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41579660","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-06-01DOI: 10.12697/sss.2022.50.1.08
Patrick Sériot
This paper strives to pursue two goals at the same time: how can one get to know in depth the intellectual life of the USSR in the 1930s–1950s; and, what can the virulent anti-Saussurean criticism in Russia at that time tell us about the specificity of the Marxist-Leninist theory of signs? We propose the following angle of attack: the recurring theme of this criticism, namely that Saussure’s Cours presents a “theory of hieroglyphics”, therefore a type of “bourgeois idealist” theory that Lenin assailed in his 1909 book Materialism and Empiriocriticism about Ernst Mach. Yet thinking about hieroglyphics is based on much older controversies, dating back to the 17th century and concerning the deciphering of Egyptian writing. The issue which arises here is semiotic in nature: it is the scalar opposition between transparency and opacity of the sign that is at stake. Does the sign hide or reveal? The Soviet discourse on language and signs in the 1930s–1950s seems to be based on an interrogation of the sign/referent, language/ thought, form/content relationship. A part of the history of semiotics can thus be discovered from the critique of the “hieroglyphic theory”, a little-known episode in a debate on the interpretation of Saussurism.
{"title":"Is language a system of signs? Lenin, Saussure and the theory of hieroglyphics","authors":"Patrick Sériot","doi":"10.12697/sss.2022.50.1.08","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12697/sss.2022.50.1.08","url":null,"abstract":"This paper strives to pursue two goals at the same time: how can one get to know in depth the intellectual life of the USSR in the 1930s–1950s; and, what can the virulent anti-Saussurean criticism in Russia at that time tell us about the specificity of the Marxist-Leninist theory of signs? \u0000We propose the following angle of attack: the recurring theme of this criticism, namely that Saussure’s Cours presents a “theory of hieroglyphics”, therefore a type of “bourgeois idealist” theory that Lenin assailed in his 1909 book Materialism and Empiriocriticism about Ernst Mach. Yet thinking about hieroglyphics is based on much older controversies, dating back to the 17th century and concerning the deciphering of Egyptian writing. The issue which arises here is semiotic in nature: it is the scalar opposition between transparency and opacity of the sign that is at stake. Does the sign hide or reveal? The Soviet discourse on language and signs in the 1930s–1950s seems to be based on an interrogation of the sign/referent, language/ thought, form/content relationship. A part of the history of semiotics can thus be discovered from the critique of the “hieroglyphic theory”, a little-known episode in a debate on the interpretation of Saussurism.","PeriodicalId":44467,"journal":{"name":"Sign Systems Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43524876","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}