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Human beings have constantly told stories, presented events and placed the world into narrative form. This activity suggests a very basic way of looking at the world, yet, this book argues, even the most seemingly simple of stories is embedded in a complex network of relations. Paul Cobley traces these relations, considering the ways in which humans have employed narrative over the centuries to ‘re-present’ time, space and identity. This second, revised and fully updated edition of the successful guidebook to narrative covers a range of narrative forms and their historical development from early oral and literate forms through to contemporary digital media, encompassing Hellenic and Hebraic foundations, the rise of the novel, realist representations, narratives of imperialism, modernism, cinema, postmodernism and new technologies. A final chapter reviews the way that narrative theory in the last decade has re-orientated definitions of narrative. Written in a clear, engaging style and featuring an extensive glossary of terms, this is the essential introduction to the history and theory of narrative.
The book presents dialogues with fourteen highly influential semioticians: Juri Lotman, Vyacheslav Ivanov, Boris Uspenskij, Umberto Eco, Paolo Fabbri, Myrdene Anderson, Winfried Nöth, Gunther Kress, Roland Posner, Stuart Kauffman, Jesper Hoffmeyer, Terrence Deacon, Paul Cobley, and Jaan Valsiner. They have all made a remarkable impact on contemporary research in the Tartu centre of semiotics. As well as these remarkable dialogues, the first part of the volume features an illuminating sequence of chapters on topics including the importance of dialogues, the historical roots and context of semiotics in Tartu since the 19th century, plus the main principles formulated in Jakob von Uexküll’s and Juri Lotman’s works.
"Introducing Semiotics" outlines the development of sign study from its classical precursors to contemporary post-structuralism. Through Paul Cobley's incisive text and Litza Jansz's brilliant illustrations, it identifies the key semioticians and their work and explains the simple concepts behind difficult terms. For anybody who wishes to know why signs are crucial to human existence and how we can begin to study systems of signification, this book is the place to start.
This highly readable book develops a numanistic, and specifically semiotic approach to multiculturalism. It reveals how semiotics provides fresh and valuable insights into multiculturalism: in contrast to the binary logic of dualistic philosophy, semiotic logic does not understand the value of truth in rigid terms of ‘true’ or ‘false’, ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ only. The value of truth resides in meaning, which is a dynamic, evolutionary phenomenon, rooted, nevertheless, in factuality. Drawing on recent developments in biosemiotics, the book presents a theoretical approach to multiculturalism, regarding the lives of people living in multicultural environments. Rather than analyzing ...
In a world of global communication, where each one’s life depends increasingly on signs, language and communication, understanding how we relate and opening ourselves to otherness, to differences in all their forms and aspects is becoming more and more relevant. Today, we often understand the differences in terms of adversity or opposition and forget the value of the similarities. Semiotic approaches can provide a critical point of view and a more general reflection that can redefine some aspects of the discussion about the nature of these semiotic categories, differences and similarities. The dichotomy differences – similarities is fundamental to understanding the meaning-making mechani...
This unique volume offers an overview of the diversity in research on communication, including perspectives from biology, sociality, economics, norms and human development. It includes general social science and humanities approaches to communication, from systems theory to cultural theory, as well as perspectives more specifically related to communication acts, such as linguistics and cognition. The volume also features chapters on the participants and various elements in communication processes, on possible effects and on wider consequences of mediation (with technical media). The scope of the contributions is global, and the volume is relevant to both the empirical and the philosophical traditions in human sciences. Designed as a stand-alone collection to engage undergraduates as well as postgraduates and academics, this is also the first book in, and an introduction to, the De Gruyter Mouton multi-volume Handbooks of Communication Science.
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Given that signs and meanings pervade the world in its different aspects, semiotics is naturally open to interactions with other fields, from the humanities and social sciences to the natural and pure sciences. Open Semiotics aims to explore and expand these interactions, and to facilitate new avenues for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research, providing insights into a redeployment of disciplinary fields. Such an endeavor, which is intended to benefit the entire scientific community, has drawn upon extensive cooperation. This has resulted in 141 chapters authored by 178 scholars from 58 countries spanning all continents, which represent a broad array of trends and approaches as well as numerous and diverse disciplinary crossings. Open Semiotics comprises four volumes: (1) Epistemological and Conceptual Foundations, (2) Culture and Society, (3) Texts, Images, Arts, (4) Life and its Extensions. This book is the first volume of the project.
This volume presents a broad range of topics and current frontline research by leading semioticians. The contributions are representative of the most cutting-edge work in semiotics, but project as well the developments in the near future of the field.
Why study signs? This perennial question of philosophy is answered by the science of semiotics. An animal's cry, poetry, the medical symptom, media messages, language disorders, architecture, marketing, body language - all these, and more, fall within the sphere of semiotics.Introducing Semiotics outlines the development of sign study from its classical precursors to contemporary post-structuralism. Through Paul Cobley's incisive text and Litza Jansz's brilliant illustrations, it identifies the key semioticians and their work and explains the simple concepts behind difficult terms. For anybody who wishes to know why signs are crucial to human existence and how we can begin to study systems of signification, this book is the place to start. It is the perfect companion volume to Introducing Barthes