Semiotica

doi: 10.1515/sem-2015-frontmatter204pmid: N/A

Wells, Michael B.; Engman, Jonas; Sarkadi, Anna

doi: 10.1515/sem-2014-0046pmid: N/A

Abstract Aims. The aim of this study is to investigate the level of gender equality within the Swedish child health centers' (CHCs) waiting rooms. Methods. A total of 31 CHCs waiting rooms were analyzed using semiotic visual analysis to explore who the waiting rooms represented by coding the pictures, brochures, and magazines by gender using a manifest analysis, where the researchers coded what the pictures physically entailed, and a latent analysis, where the meaning of those pictures was discerned. In addition, 281 parental observations were completed at 25 of the CHCs by two observers. Inter-rater reliability was established and consensus was reached by using prescribed definitions of the waiting rooms. Results: Only 8 CHCs were categorized as Family-Centered, while 12 were Mother-Child Centered, 6 Child-Centered, 2 Women-Centered, and 3 were Neutral environments. The different designs between the categorized waiting rooms affected fathers', but not the mothers' involvement with respect to playing with their child and reading the posted information. When analyzing within one categorized environment, fathers were more likely to play with their child compared to mothers. Conclusions: CHCs should consciously redesign their environments to also be inclusive of fathers so that they more habitually participate in their child's health.

Lee, Yunhee

doi: 10.1515/sem-2014-0058pmid: N/A

Abstract This paper investigates a writing activity for therapeutic effect by means of self-regulation through which emotion and thinking are welded to discover the self and other. This activity is undertaken with a Peircean semiotic approach. Accordingly, a feeling of emotion as a material quality of thought-sign is observed as to how it develops into higher psychological processes by virtue of object of thinking, friendship, and love, as external stimulus. This is found in Michel de Montaigne who arrives at a feeling of unity between nature and culture by way of gravity of narrative as a remedial method in narrative mind.

Troqe, Rovena

doi: 10.1515/sem-2014-0045pmid: N/A

Abstract This article outlines some representative epistemological attitudes in translation studies and presents a model for defining translation. Basing our reflection on the work of translation scholars, we identify approaches that avoid the problem and others that claim to deal with it but fail to do so. The article is guided by the following questions: Is there a need to define the object of study when studying translation? If so, what are the origins and consequences of such a definition? How might this affect certain beliefs in the translation theories? Drawing on a Greimassian semiotic approach, we present a new model for defining the concept of Translation.

Khan, Amarah Niazi; Staiano-Ross, Kathryn

doi: 10.1515/sem-2014-0057pmid: N/A

Abstract We all construct models of the world by which we make sense of the phenomena we encounter. But rarely is the model of the women who wear the burqa considered. We hold that the world must be perceived through the body of the other before meaning can be assessed. We argue that the burqa is not an object, but a set of human relationships. It has no singular interpretant by which it can be understood. It is a highly nuanced semiosic phenomenon that we believe can best be understood by placing the burqa within a specific human umwelt.

Tsohatzidis, Savas L.

doi: 10.1515/sem-2014-0091pmid: N/A

Abstract The most distinctive, and probably the most striking, assumption of Donald Davidson's well known ‘paratactic’ analysis of the logical form of saying ascriptions is that the “that”-clause that, in such an ascription, specifies the content of the ascribed act of saying, is neither syntactically nor semantically part of the sentence effecting the ascription. The present paper identifies a neglected problem that this assumption engenders for the Davidsonian analysis. The problem arises in connection with instances of saying ascriptions that are both self-verifying and self-referential, and consists in the fact that, given the Davidsonian assumption, these ascriptions must be assigned logical forms that misrepresent their logically relevant properties.

Bailin, Alan

doi: 10.1515/sem-2014-0087pmid: N/A

Abstract During the last forty years there have been a number of attempts to understand verbal irony in relation to specific kinds of speech acts (negating, echoing, pretending, alluding). This article argues that these theories can account for certain subsets of ironic phenomena but not others precisely because of their focus on substantive kinds of speech acts rather than more general relational semiotic properties. The article proposes two conditions based on relational semiotic properties. These conditions, it is argued, allow for a unified account of ironic phenomena and a better understanding of irony in relation to other tropes.

Frobenius, Maximiliane; Harper, Richard

doi: 10.1515/sem-2014-0081pmid: N/A

Abstract This study investigates the organization of interaction through comments on the social networking site Facebook. Facebook offers a range of affordances that allow communication between users. These include written language in various settings (messaging, commenting, posting), as well as a range of non-verbal resources, such as uploading photos, sharing links, the “like”-button. Our analysis focuses on the post+commenting section, which users treat as a quasi-conversational space. Much as conversation is organized through the sequential unfolding of turns through time, the interaction in the comments section is organized according to a pattern that lets users “make sense” of the communication as a coherent exchange. This comment organizing mechanism, which is enacted through tying practices, operates on written language rather than spoken, and so needs to accommodate different affordances than turn-taking does: it has to be able to co-ordinate contributions not just through time, but through space as well. The theoretical significance of this research then is its exploration of a complex mechanism that is used by humans to maintain social order through writing and reading practices. In particular, it takes into account how the context of the website shapes people's communication through the resources made available.

Lick, Erhard

doi: 10.1515/sem-2014-0084pmid: N/A

Abstract The aim of this study was to reveal whether French and English Canadian print advertisements show different functional connections between headlines and visuals. For that purpose, a content analysis was conducted on advertisements drawn from two Canadian women's magazines. As theoretical construct, Rentel's (2005) typology of logical-semantic connections between visuals and headlines of advertisements was chosen. The results showed that the strategies of visual-verbal analogy and hyperbole were used more frequently in the French than in the English advertisements analyzed. Hence, French advertisements appear to stimulate a higher level of cognitive elaboration on the part of the recipients.

Petrilli, Susan

doi: 10.1515/sem-2014-0092pmid: N/A

Abstract The main topics in this essay are reported in the section titles: Moving towards global semiotics; Encounters; Terminological issues and semiotic horizons; On biosemiotics and its recent history; Signs and life, the Gaia hypothesis; Signs and non-signs; Icon, index and symbol; Speech, language, and modelling; Communication and speech; Communication among others; Homologies and analogies in zoosemiosis; Totality and otherness; Otherness and nomination; Semiosis with language and semiosis without language. This theoretical excursus concludes with an interview with Professor Sebeok from the mid-1980s, here published in English for the first time.