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______________________________________________________________________ The "Zeitschrift für
Semiotik": Abstracts ______________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________ Hardarik Blühdorn Gerard J. van den Broek Robert E. Dewar Klaus Frerichs Jørgen Dines Johansen Sabine Kowal, Daniel O’Connell and Roland Posner Martin Krampen Eike von Savigny Dagmar Schmauks Romuald von Tomkewitsch Vilmos Voigt Car stickers: facial expression on the bodywork Hardarik Blühdorn, University of São Paulo Summary. This contribution investigates car stickers as a means of communication in
road traffic from an economic, technological and semiotic perspective. Road traffic
involves first-order participants (people) directing second-order participants (e.g.,
cars) within third-order participants (e.g., convoys), and this structure generates
typical constraints on communication, which are overcome by the use of order-specific
surface, gestural and postural signs. Car stickers are treated as second-order surface
signs which serve to diversify traffic communication. Here, the central themes, ways of
presentation and communicative functions of such signs are analyzed. Pedestrians in the urban sign jungle Gerard J. van den Broek, De Voetgangersvereniging, The Hague Summary. The number and frequency of traffic signs on which humans are depicted in the
form of 'featherless bipeds' is considerable, and this suggests the conclusion that there
are reliable regulations for guiding and protecting this slowest and most vulnerable
participant in traffic. Nothing could be less true. Featherless bipeds by the hundreds
fall victim to the man-eating moloch which is the road. The present contribution analyzes
the ways in which the currently valid traffic signs refer to pedestrians and proposes
better solutions so that pedestrians can reach their destination safely without risk of
injury or death.
Traffic signs: research development and improvement possibilities Robert E. Dewar, University of Calgary Summary. Drivers on today’s busy, complex, high-speed roads often fail to read and
understand traffic sign information in time to act on the information safely. In order for
a traffic sign message to communicate effectively it must be easily detected, attract
attention, be legible when seen only briefly and from the appropriate distance, and must
be easily and quickly understood. Many signs fail to meet these criteria. Shape and color
codes are widely used on traffic signs to convey information beyond the specific sign
message (e.g., red and white triangular warning signs in Europe; rectangular green guide
signs in North America), but many drivers do not understand the codes. The use of
pictographs is also prevalent throughout the world. They have advantages over word signs
– they are more legible at a distance und under poor visibility conditions, they are
understood more quickly and by drivers who do not read the local language. However,
research has shown that many are poorly designed and not well understood. Some of the
methods for designing and evaluating traffic signs are described. Current issues of
concern in traffic sign research include the need for more scientific sign evaluation
techniques, the limitations of the older driver, and the need to know more about driver
information processing limitations as they relate to traffic sign design and use. The indicator and indicating: a sign phenomenological passage in Martin Heidegger's "Being and Time" Klaus Frerichs, Research Center for Semiotics Berlin, Buxtehude Summary. Direction indications were not given by drivers at first. Increased road
congestion led to the occasional use of hand signals, which were replaced by metal
indicators at the beginning of the 20th century. These were in turn replaced by blinkers
around mid-century. The present contribution discusses the phenomenological analysis of
direction indicators given in Heidegger’s "Being and Time" (1927).
Heidegger distinguishes between general equipment (Zeug), signaling equipment (Zeigzeug)
und driving equipment (vehicle; Fahrzeug); he shows that the semiotic function of the
metal arrow as a turn signal is a context-dependent specialization of the function of the
outstretched arm, and he demonstrated that the coding of metal arrows (and blinkers) as
signaling devices was only possible in the framework of their relationship to vehicle,
road and manner of driving. Traffic lights: paradigma and test case of sign theory Jørgen Dines Johansen, University of Odense Summary. The author outlines and discusses Hjelmslev’s classical structuralist
analysis of traffic lights as a restricted code which exhibits the basic structure of any
language. He criticizes Hjelmslev’s approach for its excessive abstraction and
re-introduces the purpose of the traffic lights which determines the modality of their
messages; their presupposed sender and the actual traffic authorities; their presupposed
addressees and the actual road users; their presupposed objects and the actual messages;
their logical interpretants and the drivers’ real actions; their cotexts in a system
of traffic lights at a road crossing; their context space and the road section where they
must be obeyed; as well as their historical development and the perspectives for change in
the future. These factors are taken as arguments for replacing Hjelmslev’s
theoretical framework with that of Peirce and for dealing with the traffic lights as an
example of cultural semiosis designed for collective communication. The prototypical pedestrian: human representation on official traffic signs Sabine Kowal, Daniel O’Connell and Roland Posner, Technical University Berlin and Georgetown University Summary. Traffic communication makes use of pictorial signs in order to transmit
information regarding various roles people play in traffic situations (e.g., as
pedestrians, riders, road workers). However, pictorial representations of humans, even
though quite schematic, may carry additional information about characteristics such as
sex, age, and temperament. An experiment was conducted with the aim to test empirically
the existence of such connotations. Four slides of European (Austria, former Yugoslawia,
Italy, and France) traffic signs of pedestrians were shown to German and American
subjects. As hypothesized, the degree of schematization of the pedestrian sign was related
to reports of connotative meaning. The prototypical or unmarked pedestrian is reported to
be a middle-class male between the ages 21 and 40. The history of official traffic signs Martin Krampen, Berlin Acadeny for the Arts (HdK) Summary. The present system of European traffic signs is an elaborate visual code that
emerged in the course of just one century. Its history was determined by external factors
such as the technical evolution of motor vehicles and the construction of highways as well
as internal factors such as increasing semiotization, iconization, schematization, and
differentiation. In the present article, the stages of this development are described on
the basis of the five international conventions on traffic signs that took place between
1909 and 1968. Car driver signs: function, system, autonomy Eike von Savigny, University of Bielefeld Summary. In Germany, people participating in road traffic use a system of non-verbal
communication. Its function is to achive smoother and safer traffic under circumstances in
which road traffic regulations do not exclusively determine drivers’ manoevres. The
signs and meanings of this communication system have evolved within a natural process, and
they are learned like a natural language, i.e., through use. The semantic and pragmatic
rules can be described completely, and this description explains why the expressive power
of the system is so enormous in spite of the very small number of basic signs. New needs
in communication are more likely to be met by further development of the rule system than
by attempts to promote new signs; the rigidity of the system in face of efforts to
regularize it from without is considerable. The semiotic structure of train composition in German railway stations Dagmar Schmauks, University of the Saarland, Saarbrücken Summary. This contribution analyzes the sign system used by the German railway
authorities to indicate the composition (number, type and equipment of cars) of its
trains. The structure of the railway station with its main hall and the various platforms,
which are in turn subdivided into different areas, and the search for a specified reserved
seat in a given car confront the traveler with a set of complicated orientation tasks.
These can only be fulfilled on the basis of a general media competence and highly
elaborate knowledge about the possible division of labor between iconic, indexical and
symbolic signs in topographical diagrams. Such knowledge is presented here in
detail. Individual dynamic traffic management: function, tasks and uses Romuald von Tomkewitsch, Siemens AG, Munich Summary. Through the process of evolution, human beings have been provided with the ability to perceive their surroundings and orientate themselves in them, a capacity which is sufficient for moving through woods and fields as a jogger or rider, but not for safely driving fast vehicles through overcrowded networks. Traffic signs, traffic signal systems and direction signs serve to maintain traffic safety, but can only provide incomplete orientation and are easily overlooked. Individual guidance systems are therefore needed to complement them. These must be seen as components in a universal traffic management system which would minimize pollution and the consumption of energy, space and time. In-vehicle traffic data acquisition and three-dimensional route optimization in a control center (with daytime as the third dimension) are required to permit adaptation to quickly changing traffic situations. Road pricing as a part of universal traffic management can also be developed into an effective means to avert the threatening traffic crisis, reduce costs in local freight transport and shift local individual traffic to public transport. Comparative traffic semiotics: the history of the analysis of communication in road traffic Vilmos Voigt, Loránd-Eötvös-University, Budapest Summary. This final contribution gives an outline of the history of semiotic traffic
research, based on the theory-driven studies of Hjelmslev, Jakobson, Zaliznjak, Prieto,
Mounin, Studnicki, Zawadowski, Krampen and von Savigny. It is argued in favor of a more
strictly comparative and historically oriented semiotic traffic research, which could take
better account of the enormous complexity of communication in road traffic. The
functioning of the official traffic signs is also shown to be explained best by studying
it as embedded in the semiosphere of any given culture in its entirity. |
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