Monika Weronika Kopytowska - Böcker

This volume draws on issues and cases from more than 20 countries to provide empirical evidence and theoretical insights into why discourse matters. Covering a wide range of concepts and topical issues, contributors from media studies, journalism, and linguistics address the following key questions: Why and how does discourse matter pertaining to identity in a mediatized world? Who makes discourse and identity matter, for what reason, in what way, and with what consequences?The volume provokes a new proposition that it is necessary to go beyond the safe havens of disciplinary strongholds with familiar terminology, methodology, and questions to address future inquiries into discourse and identity from a combination of linguistics and journalistic media studies.

This unique book, inspired by the work of Umberto Eco - one of the greatest semioticians of all times - provides a compelling overview of current developments in semiotic research, bringing together various academic voices and critical reflections on the nature and function of signs, signification, and communication. Contributors, including Eco himself, discuss the status quo of the discipline, its scope, theoretical orientations, and methodological approaches, shedding light on the cognitive and philosophical complexity of the meaning-making process and form–meaning interfaces. The book is an outcome of the SIVO Signum-Idea-Verbum-Opus project initiated by Umberto Eco’s keynote address during his visit at the University of Łódź in 2015. More theoretical insights and further explorations into contemporary semiosphere can be found in Current Perspectives in Semiotics: Texts, Genres, and Representations, published simultaneously by Peter Lang.