A New Semiotics: An Introductory Guide for Students

Cover
Endorsement
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
Preface
Acknowledgements
Reading this Book
1 Introduction: What Is Semiotics?
The Semiotic Point of View
Revoking the Curse
Occam’s Razor
Imperialist Invasions
Grand Schemes Are Misguided
A Craft Tradition
The ‘Scientific’ Approach Is Flawed
Semiotics as Curating
Craft and People Matter
A Paradigm Shift
Notes On Reading this Text
Pronouns
God
Message Or Text?
References
2 Semantics, Syntactics, Pragmatics, and Rules
Charles Morris
The Secondary Status of Pragmatics
We Say Pragmatics Rules!
Three Arguments Against a Powerful Proposition
1. Unobservable Semantics Or Syntactics
Observing the Unobservable
Inflation and Deflation
Postmodernist Semantics: Art, Not Science
Current Syntactics: Craft, Not Science
For Example, Games
For Example, Language
Language Games
2. No Mechanism for Semantic Or Syntactic Rules
3. No Explanation for Change
Three Observations
1. No Accurate Predictions of Behaviour
2. No Distinction Between Invention and Discovery
3. Observation From Practice
What Follows?
Languaging
Communication as Performance
Memory as Performance
On Rules
Philosophy of Language
Wittgenstein: the Meaning of a Word Is in the Way It’s Used
Philosophers Take the Words Out of Context
Where Do Rules Come From?
Rules Seem to Be Independent of Practice
Shared Social Practices
Articulated Social Practices
Importance of Collaboration
Created Languages
From Language to Creation, Invention, and Art
Testing the Rules
A Final Word On Rules
Naive Realism
Pragmatics Rules!
Summary
Note
References
3 Perception and Perceiving
Introduction
Direct Perception
Indirect Perception
The Presocratics
After Socrates
Plato and Aristotle
Modern Philosophy On Perception
Descartes and the Rationalist View
John Locke and the Empiricist View
George Berkeley: There’s Only Mind and God
David Hume: You Can’t Be Certain About Anything
Common Features of These Theories
The Passive Reception of Sensory Data
Introducing Psychology
Experimental Psychology
Behaviourism
Cognitive Psychology and Information Processing
A Rat-Pie Argument
Perceiving
Creating the Illusion of Reality in European Art
Artists Discover Techniques and Tricks
Giotto and the Renaissance
Manet’s Vision
What Makes a Painting Realistic to the Perceiver?
Summary
Notes
References
4 Affordances
Before Darwin
Perceiving After Darwin
The Inter-Relationship Between Perceivers and Habitats
Gibson’s Affordances
All Creatures Actively Search
Selecting and Attending
‘Affordances’ Has Been Given Another Meaning
Affordances and Semiosis
The Prerequisite for Semiosis
Summary
References
5 Projecting and Meaning
Abercrombie and Gombrich
The Beholder’s Share
Projecting
An Experiment: What Are You Projecting?
A Strange Change
Objectifying
Projecting Is Perceiving
An Important Note On Meaning
Is Meaning in the Mind?
Or Is Meaning Located in Things?
Meaning Is in the Relationship Between Person and Object
Summary
References
6 The Stand-For Relation—letness
Moving Closer to a New Semiotics
An Intricate Web
Making Something Stand for Something Else
Example 1: Tallying Up
Example 2: Representation and Art
Example 3: Acting and Pretending
When You Let Something Stand for Something Else, the Two Must Differ
Letness
A New Word for a New Concept
1. Active—this Is So Important It Will Often Be Reiterated
2. Fundamentally Anarchic
3. Irreducible
The Salient Characteristics of Letness
A Necessary a Priori-Like Concept
A Logical Hierarchy
1. Letness
2. The Stand-For Relation
3. Semiosis
4. Semiotics
The Constituents of Semiosis
Magic!
More History: Aristotle to Bains
Constituents of Semiotics: Peirce’s Sign, Referent, and Interpretant
Peirce’s Legacy
Semiology: When Is Saussure Not Saussure? When It’s ‘Saussure’
Sign, Signified, and Signifier
‘x Stands for Y’—but That’s Not the End of the Story
Flaw #1: The Missing Ingredient
Flaw #2: Too Narrow
Summary
Notes
References
7 Letness and Metaphors
Metaphors Are Letness at Play
Metaphors Old and New
Metaphors We Live By
Beware Snakes
Abstract Nouns
Abstract Nouns . Concrete Things
Is the Use of Metaphor Unscientific?
Reification: a Category Mistake
Two Essential Points About Metaphors
1. Gain and Loss
2. Using a Metaphor in a Different Context
Deep and Surface: Literal to Metaphorical
Deep and Surface in Newton and Einstein: Productive Outcomes
Where Does Letness Fit In?
If the Universe Is a Text, Who Wrote It?
How the Metaphor Is Productive
How the Metaphor Can Be Misleading
Deep and Surface in Descartes
Deep and Surface in Freud and Chomsky
Deep and Surface in Behaviour Theory
Why Is this Metaphor So Pervasive?
Summary
Notes
References
Interlude 1 The Journey So Far: Chapters 1–7
8 The Boundary of Communication: The Reader’s Position
Everybody Is a Participant
What Does ‘Participating in the Making of Texts’ Involve?
The Reader’s Position
Is There an Author?
A Message From an Alien?
A Message From the Old Testament God?
A Message From a Stranger?
Context and Letness
Question: Is It a Text?
The Pulsar Example
Context and Framing: Gregory Bateson
Examples of Bateson’s Meta-Messaging
Context and Framing: Erving Goffman
The Wink/twitch
Answer to ‘Is It a Text/Message?’
The Reader’s Point of View
The Constructed Author
Summary
Notes
References
9 Controlling Meaning
Some Theories and Approaches
Structuralism
Postmodernism
Poststructuralism/deconstruction
Phenomenology
Hermeneutics
Reading Texts
Turning an Object Into a Text
The Meaning of a Sanitary Fitting
The New Meaning of Art Galleries
Cultural Studies and the Dominant Ideology
The Dominant Ideology Theory
Cultural Studies and Marxism
Letness and Projection
Reading Something as If It Were a Text
Texts in Cultural Studies: Structuralism—Barthes and Foucault
Barthes
Foucault
Surface and Deep—Foucault
The Semiotician/artist as Illusionist
The Trick Works!
Texts in Cultural Studies: Deconstruction—Derrida
Has Derrida Been Misunderstood?
Endless Semiosis
Cultural Studies the Journal—researching the Postmodernists
Summary
References
10 Controlling Meaning?
So Who Controls the Meanings?
Assumption: the Author Controls the Meaning
Language and Thought
Which Is to Be Master?
But How Much Control Does a Controller Have?
The Active Audience
Forms: Institutional Attempts to Control You
The Design of Forms
Forms of Control
Changing the Monologue to Dialogue
Lobbying for Change
Being Nice to People Became Obligatory
Failing to Control
Making Life Easier for You
The Rot Sets in
Australia’s Robo-Debt Scandal
Projecting Images (Schemata) On Forms
Contradictory Schemata
Humpty’s Limited Control
Locus of Meaning (Again)
Summary
Notes
References
11 Authortext, Readertext (These Are Not Misprints!)
The Death of the Author
Authors and Texts, Readers and Texts
Some Examples
The Anxious Gardener
Three Profound Insights
Two Texts?
Authortext and Readertext
The Two Realms of Semiotic Inquiry
Within the Systems of Communication
Caught in the Bocage
Socialised in Your Communicative Environment
Language in Context
Playing Language Games
Nobody Is an Observer, Everyone Is a Participant
When You Let X Stand for Y, X Must Differ From Y (Again)
Two Principles of Semiotic Research
The Pattern of Semiosis
Principle 1
Principle 1 Demonstrated
That Ubiquitous Belief About Meaning
Principle 2
The Reader in Context
Principle 2
The Core of the Semiotic Universe
Semiosis Is Something You Do (Again)
Summary
Note
References
Interlude 2 The Journey Continues: Chapters 8–11
12 Communication Landscapes
Metaphor: Communication as a Landscape
Advantages of this Metaphor
Landscape 1: the Uneven Semiotic Terrain
Soldier Ants On Social Media
Landscape 2: the Elastic Semiotic Landscape
Communication Is Non-Predictable
Summary
Note
References
13 The Author’s Position
The Anxious Gardener Again
Assumptions? What Do You Mean, Assumptions!
The Constructed Reader
Two False Assumptions
A Text Does Not Have an Independent Existence
You Cannot Control Readings
As Author You Must Construct a Reader
Utopian Ideals
Assumed Author-Reader Power Relations
Projection (Again)
Utopian Ideals
Lying and Semiotics
Projected Readers and Authors
Summary
References
14 The Significance of Position
Where We Agree
Where We Differ
The Significance of Position
Summarising Position
Public Language and Shared Meanings
Meanings Are Commonly Understood—or Are They? A Contradiction
Resolving the Contradiction
Projecting and Position
You Perceive What You Expect to Perceive
What You Expect May Not Be What You Get
We Are Communicating With You, Our Assumed Reader
Talking About Our Ideas
Another Example: Survey Research
Science Or Semiotics
Projecting Assumptions Onto Survey Questionnaires
Summary
Three General Propositions
References
15 Letness, Chaos, and Communicating
The Edge of Chaos
The Old Paradigm
Assumption 1: Communication Has Predictable Effects
From Magic Spells to Aristotle’s Rhetoric
The Conduit Model of Communication
Getting Your Message Across
Modern Conduits
Where Are These Effects?
Audience Research
Science Communication
Mass Communication
Sustaining the Conduit Metaphor: Behaviourism
Stimulus-response Theory
Sustaining the Conduit Metaphor: Shannon & Weaver
Information Theory
Shannon’s ‘Information’
Weaver’s Contribution
The Sender-Message-Receiver (SMR) Model
Why the Paradigm Is Inadequate
Many Reasons
(i) Are You Really Comparable in Any Way to an Electronic Device?
(ii) Active/passive
(iii) Inside and Outside Shannon’s Model
Rethinking Systems Thinking
Sustaining the Conduit Metaphor: Information Processing
Assumption 2: Communication Depends On Shared Meanings
Structuralism and Sharing
Cultural Hegemony
Consulting the Dictionary in Your Head
Summary
References
16 Beyond Babel
A Faulty Tower Myth
Avoiding Hubris
Hubris Has Not Been Avoided
Sharing Is Not a Given
Beginning Anew
New and Simple?
Letness at Work
Semiotics Is Not a Science
Authortext and Readertext
Semiotics as Art and Craft
Semantics as Art
Barthes the Magician
Foucault the Inventor
Semantics as Performance
Reimagining Syntactics as Craft
The Syntactic Craft of Information Design
Living in a Pragmatic Incomplete World
Note
Index