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The "Zeitschrift für Semiotik": Abstracts  ______________________________________________________________________ 
 
 
 

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Alexandros Ph. Lagopoulos 
The possiblity of materialistic socio-semiotics 

Mark Gottdiner 
Economy, ideology and semiotics 

Martin Krampen 
The ideology of sign concepts 

Augusto Ponzio  
From the semiotics of a fair deal to the criticism of sign processes 

Jeff Bernard, Gloria Withalm 
Triadic dialectics 

Alex Demirovic 
Ideology, discourse and hegemony 

Per Aage Brandt  
Society as discourse or: the semiotic development of the world 

Massimo Bonfantini  
Semiotics and history: a synthesis the other side of Marxism 
 
 


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The possiblity of materialistic socio-semiotics 

Alexandros Ph. Lagopoulos, University of Theassaloniki 

Summary. The epistemological paradigms underlying historical materialism and semiotics are examined and contrasted in this paper. From the perspective of historical materialism, culture and ideology are historical processes produced by material practices, although they retain a relative autonomy. Semiotics and structuralism are, however, based on positivist and/or idealist premisses, which has led to the isolation of semiotics from social processes and the social sciences. Nevertheless, a combination of semiotics and marxism seems possible if the semiotic approach is critically reconstructed and integrated into a comprehensive marxist context. On this basis some fundamental sign-theoretic concepts are discussed. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

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Economy, ideology and semiotics 

Mark Gottdiner, University of California at Riverside 
 
Summary. Ideology is transmitted by sign systems. This fact is not only important for the description of a "superstructure" but also for the analysis of basic economic processes, their functioning and reproduction. The author indicates three problems in the critique of political economy, where semiotic analysis can complement Marxist description. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

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The ideology of sign concepts  

Martin Krampen, Berlin Academy for the Arts HdK 

Summary. Sign concepts with an unary, binary, triadic, and tetradic structure are examined under the aspect of their ideological implications. Prieto’s binary concept of signs turns out to be the most useful instrument for the description of sign processes. This conclusion is based on two observations: (1) concepts of cognitive psychology as well as concepts of the social sciences can be integrated into this semiotic approach. (2) Binary sign concepts facilitate a critique of signs in their relation to other social practices. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

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From the semiotics of a fair deal to the criticism of sign processes  

Augusto Ponzio, University of Bari 

Summary. Saussure’s "semiotics of equal exchange" developed under the influence of the economic theories of the School of Lausanne, leads to a static sign-conception. It does not take into account the materiality, the dialogical structure, the multiple relationality of signs, nor the openness and the interactive and social nature of the process of interpretation. Marx’ "Critique of Political Economy" has shown up social relations, where only individuals and objects were seen before. Semiotics should arrive at comparable results as far as signs are concerned. Under this premise, the author presents ten theses for the development of an alternative sign conception. 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

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Triadic dialectics  

Jeff Bernard, Institute for Social Design, Vienna 
Gloria Withalm, University of Applied Arts, Vienna 
 
Summary. Instead of comparing the discourse of semiotics and Marxism with their various ramifications, the authors examine the basic models used by semiotics in the description of sign processes and by Marxism in the description of material production. They argue that the triadic model of the sign process and the dialectic model of historical development have the same structure. This is explained by the fact that human work leading to the transformation of nature into culture is governed by a triadic dialectic, which controls the production und reproduction of society as well as the production and reproduction of signs. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

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Ideology, discourse and hegemony 

Alex Demirovic, Frankfurt 
 
Summary. Ideology is a symbolic system that structures awareness of the world and supplies individuals with orientation for their behavior and actions. Signs are a material realization of ideology. Sense is generated in a material practice based on signs, in discourse. These are premises that have been important for many conceptions of discourse analysis. Preceeding from a critique of Michel Pecheux’s approach the author offers a modified conception for the analysis of idealogy and discourse. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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Society as discourse or: the semiotic development of the world 

Per Aage Brandt, University of Aarhus 

Summary. Marxist approaches identify reality with meaning and truth. This premise has led to an underestimation of the logical power of language. Semiotics recognizes language as a structure of ist own and as precondition of reflection. From a socio-semiotic perspective society is a relatively stable formation of discourses, structured by and organized in four main discourses. Such a conception accounts for the cultural diversity of society which cannot be analysed under marxist premises. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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Semiotics and history: a synthesis the other side of marxism  

Massimo Bonfantini, University of Naples 

Summary. This paper analyzes the relation between the dynamics of events and the logic of action and inquires into the sense of history. Desire, semiosis, and poesis are identified as sense-generating human faculties, whose role in the dialectics of need, cognition, and production is then investigated. Of the three forms of semiosis described by Peirce, abduction is taken to be the basis of social innovation. According to the kinds of abduction, various types of innovation are distinguished and discussed with respect to their capacity to change human needs and means of production. The paper closes with a presentation and defense of a hypothesis concerning the course of history: After the predominance of deductive semiosis and nature-conserving means of production in the archaic era and a predominance of inductive semiosis and accumulating means of production in modern times, a predominance of abductive semiosis and regenerative means of production can be expected to follow in the future, giving rise to a collective pursuit of sense and the senses, of sensibility. 

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