Martin Krampen – författare

This book is designed to usher the reader into the realm of semiotic studies. It analyzes the most important approaches to semiotics as they have developed over the last hundred years out of philosophy, linguistics, psychology, and biology. As a science of sign processes, semiotics investigates all types of com­ munication and information exchange among human beings, animals, plants, internal systems of organisms, and machines. Thus it encompasses most of the subject areas of the arts and the social sciences, as well as those of biology and medicine. Semiotic inquiry into the conditions, functions, and structures of sign processes is older than anyone scientific discipline. As a result, it is able to make the underlying unity of these disciplines apparent once again without impairing their function as specializations. Semiotics is, above all, research into the theoretical foundations of sign­ oriented disciplines: that is, it is General Semiotics. Under the name of Zei­ chenlehre, it has been pursued in the German-speaking countries since the age of the Enlightenment. During the nineteenth century, the systematic inquiry into the functioning of signs was superseded by historical investigations into the origins of signs. This opposition was overcome in the first half of the twentieth century by American Semiotic as well as by various directions of European structuralism working in the tradition of Semiology. Present-day General Semiot­ ics builds on all these developments.

This book is dedicated to all those who love children and their wonderful, often surprising, drawings. This means it addresses all those interested in their devel­ oping capacity to produce "iconic" signs: parents, teachers, child psychologists, artists, architects (since building drawings are treated here), and semioticians at large-to name but a few potential readers. Because of the broad audience, I tried to keep scientific jargon to a minimum. Whenever this was unavoidable, I tried to explain the terms in such a way that even beginners in psychology could understand my arguments. I received the first impulse to think about a book like this from the Interna­ tional Year of the Child declared by the UN in 1979. In a first phase of the project, I obtained drawings of the six different building types treated in this book from more than 100 children aged 3-12 years in Turkey during a stay there as part of the faculty of Architecture of the Karadeniz Technical University in Trabzon under the auspices of the UN­ ESCO/UNDP program TUR/75/012. My special thanks go to Dr. Erdem Aksoy, then president of the university, and Dr. Ozgontil Aksoy, then dean of the faculty of Architecture and Civil Engineering, for their encouragement to carry out the project. I would also like to thank Dr. Kutzal Oztlirk, Sevinc Erttirk, Ali Ozbilen, Hasan Saltik, together with all the teachers in nursery and elementary schools in and around Trabzon who helped to collect the drawings.

Originally published in 1988, reissued now with a new series introduction, Environmental Perspectives was the first in a trilogy of books to open the series Ethnoscapes: Current Challenges in the Environmental Social Sciences. These three titles brought together specially commissioned contributions that cover much of the range of topics that the series as a whole would cover. Although the following volumes would not have the same format, the opening trilogy gave an overview of what was to come, while also providing a broad base for the future authors to build upon.The first of these volumes focuses, essentially, on theory. It brings together papers covering our growing understanding of the ways in which human actions are integrated within our knowledge of the places in which those actions occur. The contributors also explore the social historical antecedents that give meaning to our everyday surroundings, as well as the psychological underpinnings to aesthetic experience.

Originally published in 1988, reissued now with a new series introduction, Environmental Perspectives was the first in a trilogy of books to open the series Ethnoscapes: Current Challenges in the Environmental Social Sciences. These three titles brought together specially commissioned contributions that cover much of the range of topics that the series as a whole would cover. Although the following volumes would not have the same format, the opening trilogy gave an overview of what was to come, while also providing a broad base for the future authors to build upon.The first of these volumes focuses, essentially, on theory. It brings together papers covering our growing understanding of the ways in which human actions are integrated within our knowledge of the places in which those actions occur. The contributors also explore the social historical antecedents that give meaning to our everyday surroundings, as well as the psychological underpinnings to aesthetic experience.

Originally published in 1988, reissued now with a new series introduction, Environmental Policy, Assessment and Communication, was the second in a trilogy of books to open the series Ethnoscapes: Current Challenges in the Environmental Social Sciences. These three titles brought together specially commissioned contributions that cover much of the range of topics that the series as a whole would cover. Although the following volumes would not have the same format, the opening trilogy gave an overview of what was to come, while also providing a broad base for the future authors to build upon.This volume has a practical orientation. Its contributions deal directly with research on those environmental matters on which government agencies and other organisations formulate policies or develop design strategies. This therefore covers the assessment and evaluation of designs and design proposals as well as background research to policy issues.

Originally published in 1988, reissued now with a new series introduction, Environmental Policy, Assessment and Communication, was the second in a trilogy of books to open the series Ethnoscapes: Current Challenges in the Environmental Social Sciences. These three titles brought together specially commissioned contributions that cover much of the range of topics that the series as a whole would cover. Although the following volumes would not have the same format, the opening trilogy gave an overview of what was to come, while also providing a broad base for the future authors to build upon.This volume has a practical orientation. Its contributions deal directly with research on those environmental matters on which government agencies and other organisations formulate policies or develop design strategies. This therefore covers the assessment and evaluation of designs and design proposals as well as background research to policy issues.

Originally published in 1988, reissued now with a new series introduction, New Directions in Environmental Participation was the third in a trilogy of books to open the series Ethnoscapes: Current Challenges in the Environmental Social Sciences. These three titles brought together specially commissioned contributions that cover much of the range of topics that the series as a whole would cover. Although the following volumes would not have the same format, the opening trilogy gave an overview of what was to come, while also providing a broad base for the future authors to build upon.For this volume the editors chose to deal directly with current developments in environmental participation. This brings together contributions that range from studies of hands-on user participation to explorations on a much broader scale of the role we all play in shaping our environment. The role of communication, education and research in the participation process is a motif that is apparent throughout the contributions.

Originally published in 1988, reissued now with a new series introduction, New Directions in Environmental Participation was the third in a trilogy of books to open the series Ethnoscapes: Current Challenges in the Environmental Social Sciences. These three titles brought together specially commissioned contributions that cover much of the range of topics that the series as a whole would cover. Although the following volumes would not have the same format, the opening trilogy gave an overview of what was to come, while also providing a broad base for the future authors to build upon.For this volume the editors chose to deal directly with current developments in environmental participation. This brings together contributions that range from studies of hands-on user participation to explorations on a much broader scale of the role we all play in shaping our environment. The role of communication, education and research in the participation process is a motif that is apparent throughout the contributions.

In a first phase of the project, I obtained drawings of the six different building types treated in this book from more than 100 children aged 3-12 years in Turkey during a stay there as part of the faculty of Architecture of the Karadeniz Technical University in Trabzon under the auspices of the UN­ ESCO/UNDP program TUR/75/012.