Advances in Semiotics – serie

"This is an important book: original, erudite, useful and ambitious." —Quarterly Journal of Speech"A remarkable book . . . sure to be of lasting interest . . . to be reckoned with by all rhetorical theorists." —ChoiceThis is the first contemporary attempt at a holistic theory of rhetoric, well grounded in the context of cultural and social history. Arguing that rhetoric has always been an independent, objective, essential factor in human interaction, Valesio views it as coextensive with human speech in use.

" . . . not merely interesting and novel, but also exceedingly provocative and heuristically fertile." —The Review of Metaphysics" . . . essential reading for anyone interesting in . . . the new reader-centered forms of criticism." —Library JournalIn this erudite and imaginative book, Umberto Eco sets forth a dialectic between 'open' and 'closed' texts.

" . . . fifteen texts which are essential reading for anyone interested in semiotics . . . This collection will surely become a standard text for those who teach semiotics, aesthetics or philosophy of language." —International Philosophical QuarterlyThis volume presents the classic statements in semiotics and touches on a vast set of problems and themes—philosophical, aesthetic, literary, cultural, biological, and anthropological.

"Eco wittily and enchantingly develops themes often touched on in his previous works, but he delves deeper into their complex nature . . . this collection can be read with pleasure by those unversed in semiotic theory." —Times Literary Supplement

" . . . fascinating throughout. . . . the book is recreative in the highest sense." —Arthur C. Danto, The New Republic"A gem for Holmes fans and armchair detectives with a penchant for logical reflection, and Peirce scholars." —Library Journal

" . . . an excellent collection . . . " —Journal of Language & Social PsychologyAn important collection of original essays by well-known scholars debating the questions of logical versus psychologically-based interpretations of language.

"Eco's essays read like letters from a friend, trying to share something he loves with someone he likes. . . . Read this brilliant, enjoyable, and possibly revolutionary book." —George J. Leonard, San Francisco Review of Books" . . . a wealth of insight and instruction." —J. O. Tate, National Review"If anyone can make [semiotics] clear, it's Professor Eco. . . . Professor Eco's theme deserves respect; language should be used to communicate more easily without literary border guards." —The New York Times"The limits of interpretation mark the limits of our world. Umberto Eco's new collection of essays touches deftly on such matters." —Times Literary Supplement"It is a careful and challenging collection of essays that broach topics rarely considered with any seriousness by literary theorists." —DiacriticsUmberto Eco focuses here on what he once called "the cancer of uncontrolled interpretation"—that is, the belief that many interpreters have gone too far in their domination of texts, thereby destroying meaning and the basis for communication.

Designed for classroom use in a number of disciplines, this comprehensive introduction to cultural semiotics is also an easy-to-use reference for those who would like a better understanding of the topic. No other text provides this kind of practical framework for the classroom study of semiotics. Each of the 12 chapters is clearly written and self-contained.

"I had heard about this book for years. The person who put the word out, at least in lay circles, was probably Luigi Barzini, in The Italians (1964). Praising his countrymen's gift for talking with their hands, Barzini lamented that so little had been written on this subject. To his knowledge, only one person—Andrea de Jorio, a Neapolitan priest—had attempted a lexicon of Italian hand gestures, in an 1832 volume entitled La Mimica degli antichi investigata nel gestire napoletano. . . . Barzini offered a little sample . . . . Upon reading [it], you felt that if you could not get hold of de Jorio's book immediately, you would bite your elbows. . . . [N]ot until this year was de Jorio's treatise brought out in English. The translation, the copious notes, and the long, helpful introduction . . . [are] a source of wisdom and delight." —Joan Acocella, New York Review of Books"The twentieth century found little time for de Jorio's pioneering work until recently, when the rise of semiotics combined with an interest among art historians in gesture to invest his achievement with an importance that not even he could have imagined. Even so, this book has been more often cited than read. In view of its immense relevance to contemporary studies of gesture in the context of language and culture, it is surprising that we have had to wait so long for a translation into English. Adam Kendon has now given us the first complete, annotated rendering of [de Jorio's book]. Kendon himself is an established leader in the new scientific approach to the study of gesture." —G.W. Bowersock, The New RepublicAndrea de Jorio's La mimica degli antichi investigata nel gestire napoletano ('Gestural Expression of the Ancients in the light of Neapolitan gesturing'), was first published in Naples in 1832. It soon became famous for its descriptions and depictions of Neapolitan gestures, but it is only with the recent expansion of scholarly interest in gesture that its true importance has come to be recognized. It is the first book ever written which presents what is, in effect, an ethnographic study of gesture. Treating gesture as a culturally established communicative code, analogous to language, the book sets out to describe, with reference to an explicitly defined cultural group, the gestural expressions of ordinary people as these are used in everyday life. It also deals with numerous issues important for any semiotics of gesture, such as the question of the relationship between physical form and meaning, the problem of how to present a description of the gestural repertoire of a community in a consistent manner, the importance of context for the interpretation of gesture, how gestures may be combined, how they develop as metaphorical expressions, among many others.Andrea de Jorio (1769-1851) was a cleric and a Canon of the Cathedral of Naples, but he was also an archaeologist and a curator at the Royal Borbonic Museum (today the National Archaeological Museum) in that city. He was an expert on Greek vases and intimately involved in all aspects of archaeology then developing in relation to the excavations at Herculaneum, Pompeii, Pozzuoli, Cuma and other sites within the district of Naples. He believed that the ordinary people of Naples had preserved in their culture the traditions of the ancient Greek founders of the city. For this reason he supposed that an understanding of contemporary gestural expression would be useful in interpreting the gestures and bodily postures depicted in the frescoes, mosaics, sculptures, and painted vases of Greco-Roman antiquity that had come to light from the excavations near Naples and elsewhere. Thus he was led to describe the gesturing of contemporary Neapolitans as fully as possible.

" . . . one of the most significant books in the field of theoretical linguistics . . . will become a classic . . . " —Adam Makkai, University of Illinois at Chicago CircleTaking issue with Transformational Grammar Theory, Shaumyan separates language from psychology, arguing that language occupies a different world, that of the semiotic.

Everyone gestures while speaking, in a specific and generally unconscious manner. What are the functions of gestures? What relationship do they have to speech? How do gestures work to create meaning? In this valuable book, Geneviève Calbris undertakes to answer those questions. Based on the author's own extensive experimental research, The Semiotics of French Gestures presents a systematic description and a detailed semiotic analysis of French gestures. The book aims to establish a structual semantics of the set of gestures and facial expressions that accompany or replace spoken language. As this book demonstrates, the study of gesturing is indispensable to a full understanding of a foreign language and its use in real-life situations. The Semiotics of French Gestures will be a valuable source for scholars and students of communication, semiotics, linguistics, and languages.

"The book . . . succeeds at refining elements in the problem that semiotics and theater represent to and for one another." —Choice"The Semiotics of Performance surprisingly retains its revelatory freshness, and actually opens up areas of reseach that could very well supply new incentives for further probing into what semiotics can offer to the study of theatre." —Theatre Survey

"The most thorough, systematic and convincing semiotics of the theater we have. . . . [L]ike those of Eco, it is an important conceptual synthesis, and a bibliographical gold mine." —Modern Language Notes" . . . impresses with its thoroughness and the informed perspective of its author . . . " —Theatre Survey" . . . a classic text . . . " —Theatre Research International"Immediately accessible to readers with some knowledge of theater but not much of semiotics. . . . For anyone with an interest in theater production and performance, or indeed theater history." —Marvin Carlson

Richard Parmentier takes up Ferdinand de Saussure's challenge to study the "life of signs in society" by using semiotic tools proposed by Charles Sanders Peirce. He studies how semiotic theory can illuminate highly complex social and cultural practices.

" . . . excellent example . . . significant contribution . . . an important interdisciplinary work . . . " —Middle East Journal" . . . an important contribution to aspects of Iranian social communication and interpersonal verbal behavior." —LanguageBy showing the reader the intricacies of face-to-face sociolinguistic interaction, William Beeman provides a key to understanding Iranian social and political life. Beeman's study in cross-cultural linguistics will clearly be a model for the study of different languages and cultures.

From reviews for the bestselling Danish edition:" . . . dashing and idiomatic language that is a pleasure to read." —Berlingske Tidende" . . . an appetizer and eye opener . . . Hoffmeyer is a modernistic pioneer in the wide open spaces of the natural sciences . . . " —Politiken" . . . extremely well written and interesting manifesto for a bioanthropology . . . " —Inf."It should be read by anyone who likes to be wiser and at the same time to be challenged in his habitual conception of the relations between culture and nature." —Weekend AvisenOn this tour of the universe of signs, Jesper Hoffmeyer travels back to the Big Bang, visits the tiniest places deep within cells, and ends his journey with us—complex organisms capable of speech and reason. What propels this journey is Hoffmeyer's attempt to discover how nature could come to mean something to someone—by telling the story of how cells, tissue, organs, plants, animals, even entire ecosystems communicate by signs and signals.

"It's the first book which revisits Greek and Latin theories of signs from the point of view of a profound classical scholarship and a paramount knowledge of contemporary semiotics debates." —Umberto EcoAvailable in English for the first time is Professor Manetti's brilliant study of the origin of semiotics and sign theory. He seeks to discover the common thread that runs through the classical world from the very beginning of human thought to the fourth century A.D. In the "classical" tradition he sees a concept of the sign which is significantly different from that currently in use.

[Note: Picture of Peirce available]Charles S. Peirce's Philosophy of SignsEssays in Comparative SemioticsGérard DeledallePeirce's semiotics and metaphysics compared to the thought of other leading philosophers. "This is essential reading for anyone who wants to find common ground between the best of American semiotics and better-known European theories. Deledalle has done more than anyone else to introduce Peirce to European audiences, and now he sends Peirce home with some new flare."—Nathan Houser, Director, Peirce Edition ProjectCharles S. Peirce's Philosophy of Signs examines Peirce's philosophy and semiotic thought from a European perspective, comparing the American's unique views with a wide variety of work by thinkers from the ancients to moderns. Parts I and II deal with the philosophical paradigms which are at the root of Peirce's new theory of signs, pragmatic and social. The main concepts analyzed are those of "sign" and "semiosis" and their respective trichotomies; formally in the case of "sign," in time in the case of semiosis. Part III is devoted to comparing Peirce's theory of semiotics as a form of logic to the work of other philosophers, including Bertrand Russell, Wittgenstein, Frege, Philodemus, Lady Welby, Saussure, Morris, Jakobson, and Marshall McLuhan. Part IV compares Peirce's "scientific metaphysics" with European metaphysics.Gérard Deledalle holds the Doctorate in Philosophy from the Sorbonne. A research scholar at Columbia University and Attaché at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, he has also been Professor of Philosophy and Head of the Philosophy Department of the universities of Tunis, Perpignan, and Libreville. In 1990 he received the Herbert W. Schneider Award "for distinguished contributions to the understanding and development of American philosophy. In 2001, he was appointed vice-president of the Charles S. Peirce Society.ContentsIntroduction—Peirce Compared: Directions for UsePart I—Semeiotic as PhilosophyPeirce's New Philosophical ParadigmsPeirce's Philosophy of SemeioticPeirce's First Pragmatic Papers (1877-1878)The Postscriptum of 1893Part II—Semeiotic as SemioticsSign: Semiosis and Representamen—Semiosis and TimeSign: The Concept and Its Use—Reading as TranslationPart III—Comparative SemioticsSemiotics and Logic: A Reply to Jerzy PelcSemeiotic and Greek Logic: Peirce and PhilodemusSemeiotic and Significs: Peirce and Lady WelbySemeiotic and Semiology: Peirce and SaussureSemeiotic and Semiotics: Peirce and MorrisSemeiotic and Linguistics: Peirce and JakobsonSemeiotic and Communication: Peirce and McLuhanSemeiotic and Epistemology: Peirce, Frege, and WittgensteinPart IV—Comparative MetaphysicsGnoseology—Perceiving and Knowing: Peirce, Wittgenstein, and GestalttheorieOntology—Transcendentals "of" or "without" Being: Peirce versus Aristotle and Thomas AquinasCosmology—Chaos and Chance within Order and Continuity: Peirce between Plato and DarwinTheology—The Reality of God: Peirce's Triune God and the Church's TrinityConclusion—Peirce: A Lateral View

"Semioticians began by looking at literature but have gradually applied their techniques to other disciplines, including music. The late Naomi Cumming . . . based this consideration of the sources of musical expression on her experiences as a performer—with interesting, if rarely surprising, results." —ChoiceUsing classical violin music as her principal laboratory, the author examines how a performance incorporates distinctive features not only of the work, but of the performer as well—and how the listener goes about interpreting not only the composer's work and the performer's rendering of the work, but also of the performer's and listener's identities. A richly interdisciplinary approach to a very common, yet persistently mysterious, part of our lives.

Breaking away from the traditional "neo-Aristotelian" view of metaphor, Liselotte Gumpel's ambitious study offers a new, "non-Aristotelian" approach based on the phenomenological semantics of Roman Ingarden and the semiotics of Charles S. Peirce. The author seeks to grasp the meaning of metaphor through an exhaustive exploration of meaning in language, from its acquisition by young speakers to its repeated origination in sound when spoken and in the visual sign when written. She identifies the fundamental semantic operations that differentiate literal from literary use of language. Next, metaphor is examined in all of its semantic idiosyncrasies. Gumpel's theory culminates in the development of a functional or structural metaphor that can neither disappear nor "die." Applying the theory, Gumpel presents several textual analyses, relating the categories of argument, dicent and rheme to the use of metaphor by Brecht, Dickinson, and Celan. A final section provides an incisive critique of theories of metaphor from Aristotle to the present.

The study of semiotics underwent a gradual but radical paradigm shift during the past century, from a glottocentric (language-centered) enterprise to one that encompasses the whole terrestrial biosphere. In this collection of 17 essays, Thomas A. Sebeok, one of the seminal thinkers in the field, shows how this progression took place. His wide-ranging discussion of the evolution of the field covers many facets, including discussions of biosemiotics, semiotics as a bridge between the humanities and natural sciences, semiosis, nonverbal communication, cat and horse behavior, the semiotic self, and women in semiotics. This thorough account will appeal to seasoned scholars and neophytes alike.

" . . . the details of Saint-Martin's argument contain a wealth of penetrating observations from which anyone with a serious interest in visual communication will profit." —Journal of CommunicationSaint-Martin elucidates a syntax of visual language that sheds new light on nonverbal language as a form of representation and communication. She describes the evolution of this language in the visual arts as well as its multiple uses in contemporary media. The result is a completely new approach for scholars and practitioners of the visual arts eager to decode the many forms of visual communication.