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Review article Medical semiotics: Redefining an ancient craft* KATHRYN VANCE STAIANO In the last decade, semioticians have begun the task of charting a territory I shall refer to as medical semiotics.1 Yet the translation and interpretation of the physiological, behavioral, and linguistic signs that indicate health and illness is founded on a tradition at least as ancient as semiotics itself (Sebeok 1976; Baer forthcoming). The list of contributors to this task grows according to the length of our historical account. Many whose pursuits now define this field might fail to recognize the term; yet the concept of the sign is central to the work of each and it is the multimodal, polysemous nature of the illness sign, its special 'communicative powers' (Baer forthcoming), its mythical and metaphorical qualities, that most intrigue and provoke. David Locker's Symptoms and Illness: The Cognitive Organization of Disorder is the most recent of these 'archeological' explorations and an extremely important addition to the growing body of literature that provides form and content to this medical semiotics. In the statement that follows I discuss, first, Locker's explication of the illness sign and the interpretive process whereby such signs gain significance, and, second, the configuration
Semiotica - Journal of the International Association for Semiotic Studies / Revue de l'Association Internationale de Sémiotique – de Gruyter
Published: Jan 1, 1982
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