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______________________________________________________________________ The "Zeitschrift für
Semiotik": Abstracts ______________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________ Hans Scherer Wilhelm Köller Gunther Weimann, Klaus Boehnke, Peter Noack Enclosure Study Interpretation as life practice. Types of experience from and with literature Werner Ingendahl, Wuppertal Polytechnic Summary. Following K. Chvatik's typology of human attitudes towards the world (cf. Zeitschrift für Semiotik 5, 1983: 229-242) the author distinguishes four modes of acquiring knowledge, (1) the practical mode: knowledge gained in use-oriented action, (2) the theoretical mode: knowledge gained through reflection, (3) the aesthetic mode: knowledge gained through experience, play, and imagination, and (4) the ethical-political mode: evaluative weighing of the consequences of practical action. These four modes are applied to the interpretation of Brecht's poem "The Wheel Change" in order to demonstrate their specific hermeneutic capacities. As it turns out, each of the four modes provides a specific kind of knowledge. When jointly applied within a didactic framework, they permit the integration of literary interpretation into the various practices of everyday life. Short forms as indicators of cultural change Hans Scherer, Aachen Technical University Summary. In the present period, verbalization is taking a turn away from
impressionistic formulations and towards a precise reference to the objects that the
language user has in mind. In the course of the increasing fixation and differentiation of
concepts, an immense technical vocabulary is being created, in which acronyms play a
prominent role. Their high communicative value is based on the fact that the collocation
of word initials in acronyms facilitates the memorizing of the original constituent words
so that a maximum of well-defined information can be conveyed with a minimum of effort.
Even where the communication partners do not know the original constituents of a given
acronym, they can often infer them with the help of the words used in its context. In many
cases, however, this process is not called for since hermetism is a precondition for the
sigle to become used as an ordinary word form or as a supranational lexeme.
Dimensions of the metaphor problem Wilhelm Köller, Kassel Polytechnic Summary. The nature of metaphors, a key problem in attempts at understanding the nature
of language, has been the object of theoretical enquiry for more than 2000 years. However,
a conclusive theory of metaphorical language is as unlikely to emerge as a conclusive
theory of language in general. Because of its complexity, the problem can be approached
from many angles. My aim is to distinguish between different aspects of the problem which
come to light when it is examined from the viewpoints of such different disciplines as
methodology, logic, semiotics, epistemology, anthropology, theory of action, and
aesthetics.
Youth symbols: function of wearing badges Gunther Weimann, Klaus Boehnke and Peter Noack, Berlin Summary. This paper examines meanings and functions of badges in youth culture. Part 1
presents a conceptual framework for the semiotic analysis of these verbal and nonverbal
visual signs. Combining Morris's division of semiotics into syntactics, semantics, and
pragmatics and Jakobson's pragmatic approach to the functions of language use, the authors
describe the referential, emotive, conative, phatic, metacodal, and poetic functions of
button wearing. In Part 2, seven assumptions about button wearing are formulated and
discussed with respect to the functions of language use. In Part 3, an interview study
designed to produce evidence about the subjective importance of badge wearing is
presented. It is shown that adolescent badge wearing does not correspond to any generally
accepted hierarchy of functions. Only the phatic function stands out as being of high
importance for all adolescents. Although badge wearing is characteristic of present-day
Western youth culture as a whole, the exact functions of the buttons seem to be dependent
on group affiliation.
Enclosure Michail Bilinkis and Alexej Turowski, Moscow Summary. The authors interpret a fairy tale from an 18th century alchemistic book by correlating each event with a chemical process. The translation of the alchemistic narrative into the language of modern chemistry proves to be a difficult but not impossible task. |
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