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______________________________________________________________________ The "Zeitschrift für
Semiotik": Abstracts ______________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________ Otto Keller Luis J. Prieto Otto Keller Heinz Hafner Mario Andreotti Alexander Schwarz Claude Calame Jean Widmer Enclosure Catherine Péquegnat Denis Apothéloz Luis Vélez-Serrano Pierre Pellegrino, François Tran Interview Survey Subject and decision. The role of norm and taste in symbolic survival Luis J. Prieto, University of Geneva In memory of David Libermans Summary. Everything that is conscious of its numerical identity, i.e., that
acknowledges itself as one, is a subject. The subject attains this consciousness and, in
so doing, constitutes itself as a subject when it discovers its capacity of decision. A
decision is a transformation or a nontransformation of the subject's body which results
from its numerical identity, i.e., from the fact that it is the body of this subject.
Positive decisions, which consist in the transformation of the subject's body, are less
demonstrative of its own numerical identity than negative ones, which consist in the
refusal of transforming it. The norms and taste of a subject are considered to be
determined by those negative decisions by means of which it succeeds in constituting
itself as a subject.
The criticised discourse. Brecht's "Buckow
Elegies" Summary. As is shown through a semiotic analysis of four examples, Brecht's
"Buckow Elegies" critically reflect the literary discourse of classicism, which
is still prevalent in the 20th century. By responding to this discourse on the level of
deep structure, the Elegies subtly draw the reader's attention to the epistemological
basis of bourgeois value systems and their ways of mediation. With their subversive
character, these poetic texts embody their own unmistakable type of lyrical
discourse.
Figure constellations and portrayal structure. Musil's "The Confusion of Törleß the Pupil" Heinz Hafner, University of Zürich
The collectivised figure. Dürrenmatt's "The Old Lady's Visit" as a modern text Mario Andreotti, Eggersriet Summary. The characters Ill and Claire Zachanassian in Dürrenmatt's "tragic
comedy" are analyzed with respect to their role within the structure of the drama.
They prove not to be autonomous moral personalities in the style of classical heroes who
subject themselves to the principle of guilt and atonement, but ambivalent, antimimetic
and antinomical characters who simultaneously fulfil contradictory "actantial"
functions in the plot. It is the gestural action of a collective of citizens that gives
the drama its unity, thereby making it an antimythical modern text.
Cross sign processes in Otfrid von Weißenburg Alexander Schwarz, University of Zürich Summary. The author uses St. Augustine's sign conception to decode three chapters in
the Old High German Evangelic text of Otfrid von Weißenburg, which had previously
presented obstacles to interpretation. As is shown, it is with increasing perspicuity that
Otfrid turns Christ's death on the cross into a sign with which God reveals his grace to
mankind. Whereas St. Augustine seems to have conceived of sign relations as statically
given, Otfrid produces them step by step in his text; the metamorphosis of the cross from
res to signum is effected through beneficial prayer. Ancient Greek girls' names. The anthroponym as a narrative expression Claude Calame, University of Lausanne Summary. Ancient Greek proper names are morphologically complex and thus induce Greek
poets to play upon them in various ways. Analyzing the structure and use of ancient Greek
girl's names, the author shows that these manipulations have an important function in
poetic discourse. Proceeding either from the traditional plot of the myth in question or
from a more or less arbitrary etymology of the name, significations are produced which
confirm the allegedly essential properties of the name bearer. Greek proper names thus
double the narrative statements and contribute to the constitution of the narrative
characters. The study shows on what grounds Plato could claim in his "Kratylos"
that "to know a name is to know the thing".
Literal meaning and reflexive meaning Summary. As stated in Searle (1980), the meaning of an utterance is produced on the
basis of background knowledge which is not fully explicable. Combining this analysis with
ethnomethodological findings, the author describes how background knowledge functions in
verbal communication. He argues that specific interpretative processes are involved
through which the meanings of the relevant elements are submitted to reflexive
determination. The elements concerned include not only the verbal items of an utterance,
but also its position in a text and the communicative relationship between its sender and
addressee. As the study shows, the language system, language use, and the production of
meaning have complementary roles in verbal communication.
When words reason. Remarks on non formal conclusions Catherine Péquegnat, University of Neuchâtel Summary. Argumentation in the discourse of the humanities is investigated here from the perspective of natural logic. A text is taken to be a concatenation of utterances which serve the reader to construct objects of discourse and to set up relations among them. Insofar as argumentation does not adhere to the rules of formal logic, it is a process inviting a certain interpretation for one of the objects of discourse. Arguments are utterances that reduce the set of possible interpretations to a single one. The reperformance of an argumentation process during the perusal of a text is controlled by linguistic means such as comments and questions. This conception is developed here on the basis of an analysis of a passage from a history book. Denis Apothéloz, University of Neuchâtel Summary. This contribution begins by distinguishing between the prevalent meanings
ascribed to the term "value" in scientific texts and then reconstructs some
variants of the notion of value from a semiological and pragmatic perspective. On the
basis of the concepts "cultural preconstruct", "axiological category",
"consistency", "subjective, social, and absolute truth", as well as
"pragmatic function", the acts of subscribing to an evaluation, evaluating, and
imputing an evaluation are explicated. In conclusion, it is shown how evaluations which
are implicit in a text can be made explicit.
The function of closed spaces. Analysis of a García Márquez novel Luis Vélez-Serrano, University of Freiburg Summary. Closed spaces can be delineated (e.g., as a room or a house) and combined with each other (e.g., into appartments or cities); they specify restrictions for ways of behavior and their interpretation (e.g., at home or in public); they even contribute to a reinterpretation of given modes of social behavior (e.g., as "exaggerated" or "ironic"). The first statement concerns the relation space - space and is treated within syntactics; the second statement concerns the relation space - signified and is treated within semantics; the third statement concerns the relation space - subject and is treated within pragmatics. This article presents the syntactics, semantics, and pragmatics of closed spaces in the novel Autumn of the Patriarch by García Márquez. As is shown, not only the actions but also the characters described in the novel are fundamentally determined by the spaces surrounding them. This goes so far that the human relationships in which the Patriarch is involved can be characterized with respect to the closed spaces in which they are pursued. From the social dimension of architectural language Pierre Pellegrino, François Tran, University of Geneva Summary. Semiotics, seen as the investigation of structures of meaning, and semiology,
seen as the investigation of meaning production, are here applied to architecture. Since
architecture controls, and is controlled by, human forms of perception and modalities of
cultural interaction, it has to be analyzed not only from a functional, but also from a
social and historical perspective. The realization of given historical, social, and
functional requirements through varying techniques of construction can, in special local
contexts, engender new architectural codes. This is shown by the Lyonese citizen's house
of the 19th Century, which was built from tiles like a worker's house but furnished with a
facade of (imitated) natural stone like a palace. The Saussurean conception of the
relationship between signifier and signified and Hjelmslev's concept of connotation are
used to clarify the various approaches to the description of meaning production developed
in the theory of architecture. In this way, an explication is given of the functionalist,
the emblematic, the communication-oriented, the modernist, and the post-modernist
approaches.
Switzerland, semiotics and film: from Saussure to Godard Brenda Bollag, University of Geneva Summary. Is there a relationship between Saussure's semiological explorations of the early part of the century and the intensely self-questioning, auto-analytical tendency of the New Swiss Cinema of the 1960's and 70's? According to the author, both may be tied to the plurilinguistic and pluricultural nature of the Swiss nation itself and the latter can be seen as an important contribution to our understanding of how the cinema functions as a communication system. Seeking to provide a more truthful alternative to the cinematographic image of Switzerland as a "perfectly-functioning little land of cheese, chocolate and breathtaking scenery", filmmakers such as Alain Tanner, Daniel Schmid, Kurt Gloor, and Yves Yersin have attempted through various means to clarify the way in which verbal, photographic, and other non-cinematographic signs are represented on the screen. It is, however, the work of Jean-Luc Godard which is seen as the most important and successful of these attempts at on-screen analysis of the film as a sign system. The films from his most recent period - i.e. those made since his return to Switzerland - are shown to be both the most accessible and the most theoretically coherent of his long series of inquiries into the ways in which meaning is constructed through the assemblage of filmic sounds and images. |
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