Semiotics of culture and communication © Equipe Sémiotique Cognitive et Nouveaux Médias (Escom) – ParisEscom PETER STOCKINGER Maison des Sciences de lHomme.

Semiotics of culture and communication

© Equipe Sémiotique Cognitive et Nouveaux Médias (Escom) – Paris

PETER STOCKINGER

Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (MSH)Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO)

Signs, culture and communication

European Master in intercultural communication – Institut des Hautes Etudes de Bruxelles, Belgium

september 2004

Design graphique et multimédia : Elisabeth DE PABLO, MSH

http://www.semionet.com/


1st course

Sign, sign systems and culture

Peter Stockinger: Sign, sign systems and culture (Paris, 2004)



In this first course, we will :

1. Introduce and discuss brievely the central notion of a (semiotic) sign as an information loaded object relevant for some actor or agent.

2. Present very globally semiotics as a theory and methodology of studying signs – their internal organization and their function in a communication process.

3. Identify and discuss some typical and very wide spread sign systems composing a culture.

General content & objectives




The main topics of this course are:

1. The sign – definitions and examples.

2. Semiotics – the study of sign systems and processes.

3. Sign systems and the cultural background.

4. The historical nature of sign systems.

Course Topics




1st topic

- The sign: definitions and examples -




1st topic

The sign Very broadly speaking, a sign is any object that signifies something to a cognitive agent (a human, an animal or again an artificial one such as a computer programme)

Examples:

A car may signify to a human « transportation mean », « relative economic wealth », « aesthetic commitment », « emotionality », etc.

A market place may signify to a human « relative diversity of goods », « socio-economic transaction forms », « relative economic wealth », « local specificities in social behaviour » », « local architectural specificities », etc

A photography showing planes bombarding a city may signify to a human « horror of a war »; « pity with the civil population », « suspense of some unexpectable event »; …




1st topic

The sign Sign : any (perceivable or knowable) « information loaded » objet that possesses some (cognitive, pragmatic and also emotional) relevance to an agent

Examples of possible « non-signs »

For a given culture not-perceived or non-perceivable objects (cf. objects that are not perceivable by the means of our biological or technically advanced perceptive apparatus)

For a given culture not-known objects (cf. the case of the history of science, the social history of manners, the history of artistic artefacts, …)

For a given agent (social group) objects without any relevance (cf. objects that only possess a circumscribed and specialised relevance)



1st topic

The sign Objects which are potenially « non-signs » may or may not exist – this is another (ontological) question

For example: Fictitious (fake, imagined, …) objects may constitute information loaded and relevant ones for an agent or a human

Any object constitutes, principally speaking, the support of a diversity of information according to the role or function of the object in the « life » of an agent …

Example:

The object « car » may have an economic meaning, a technical meaning, an emotional meaning, a social meaning, ect.



1st topic

The sign « Signify » means: something (an object) is the support of some relevant information for an agent:

it has an incidence on the normal course of life of an agent; it retains, orients the attention of an agent, it has a meaning.

Example 1:

The (potential) information « economic wealth » (of a market place, a car, a house, a clothing, …) may have an incident on the normal course of life of an agent :

if the agent is confronted with a situation where this kind of information possesses some importance for him (eating needs, confortable transportation needs, investment needs, social distinction needs, …)



1st topic

The sign Example 2:

The information « local social behaviour » (in economic transactions, eating, negotiating, …) may have an incident on the normal course of life of an agent

if the agent is confronted with a situation where this kind of information possesses an importance for him (working with foreigners, visiting peoples form other cultures, …)

Example 3:

The information « attractive good » (of a car, a person, a physical place, …) may have an incident on the normal course of life of an agent

F f the agent is confronted with a situation where this kind of information possesses an importance for him (looking for a partner, deciding where to go for vacation, …)


1st topic

The sign Agent: An agent is a cognitive and intentional entity (i.e. possessing a competence of interpreting and using but also of producing signs and sign systems for communication interaction purposes)

Examples:

A person able to understand and to use existing sign systems and to participate in their production/re-production;

Any social group that possesses its signs and sign systems (that are partially proper to the group partially shared with other groups)

Animal societies that possess (at it seems) more reduced and partially innate sign and sign systems for communicating and interacting

Artificial agents (such as computer programmes) and, finally, imagined intentional and cognitive agents of « possible worlds »




1st topic

The sign Sign and sign systems: a sign is always a part of a sign system called – French – « langage » (« language » broadly speaking)

A sign can be understood as a kind of a mentally formed picture of the relevant information of an object

Such a picture has a content part (called « signifié in French) and an expression part (called signifiant in French)

For instance, and very simply speaking:

the content part of a possible picture of a mediterranean market place is composed by notions (« features » or themes) such as « sociability », « hospitability », « tradition », « familiarity », « local goods », etc.)

the expression part can be concretized in specific drawings, photos, written or oral testimonies, ... highlighting (or trying to highlight) these features …




1st topic

The sign Content and expression part of such a sign (as this in the above quoted example) is not an isolated phenomenon but a part of an encompassing system of signs of signifying acts called language.

Example: language of « exotic » tourism; for interpreting and appropriating the « other » in terms of traditions, knowledge and values propre to a given social group (such as the anglo-saxon tourists in France, in Greece, …)

Content part: typical features or themes; typical narratives, typical rhetorics, …

Expression part: typical perceptive (visual, sound, …) features concretised in typical information products and services

Note:Sign systems are always cultural and historical communication and exchange means (i.e. a « mental picture » presuposes a so called cultural background)




1st topic

The sign Communication: is always and necesarily the selection and more or less appripriate use of signs by agents in order to exchange information and to interact with other agents either of the same group (i.e. referring to the same language) or of other groups (i.e. to some other, more or less closely relatd language)

Intercultural communication, generally speaking, is the « translation » and « appropriation » of signs of one language (the « source language ») in another language (the « target language »).

In this sense, intercultural communication is an extremely common phenomenon that

not only takes place in a bi- or mulitlingual context nor in an « international » context

but also in the daily life as well as in all sorts of (professional, specialised, public, private, …) communication.




1st topic

The sign Natural language (« langue » in French) such as (roughly speaking) English, French, German, … is but only one type of language used for communication and exchange purposes.

It is nevertheless the most central, the most ubiquitous communication and information exchange means

And this, also, because it constitutes the necessary presupposition for the elaboration of most of the other sign systems and languages used by man

In this sense, languages and sign systems build on the basis of the natural language sign system are sometimes called « secondary modelling systems » (Y. Lotman).




2d topic

- Semiotics – the study of sign systems and processes -




2d topic

Semiotics Semiotics is a discipline or, more likely, a set of approaches of styding and understanding sign systems

In this sense, semiotics recovers:

Theories of signs and sign systems;

Methodologies of how to study sign systems;

Empirical studies of specific sign systems;

Practical exploitations of our understanding of sign systems




2d topic

Semiotics

Semiotics is a discipline or, more likely, a set of approaches of styding and understanding sign systems

Different traditions and conceptual frameworks such as:

the semiological tradition coming from the structural linguistics (de Saussure), the structuralism in human sciences (Lévi-Strauss) and different other philosophical contributions (phenomenology, hermeneutics, …)

cultural semiotics of the Tartu school (Lotman) studying the semiosphere (i.e. the symbolic system of mankind)

the sign interpretation theory of the Peirecean semiotics

But there are other approaches/disicplines that have had (and have again) a more or less important influence on semiotics such as :

discours analysis, pragmatics and rhetorics, communication studies and cognitive sciences; etc.



2d topic

Semiotics

Pieces of a theoretical framework:

1) The meaning of a sign or a sign system

Sign or sign system (such as the natural language) has its own internal organization (its « grammar ») that has to be studied in itself.

Example: the study of audiovisual touristic documentaries

Description of « imagined other places »: a « folk geography », a « folk ethnography », a « folk gastronomy », a « folk history », a « folk sexuality », …;

Description of audiovisual means (image montage and flow, sound tracking, narration, special effects);

Description of specific genres of such documentaries.




2d topic

Semiotics

Pieces of a theoretical framework:

2) The communication and interpretation of a sign or a sign system

The « interpretative » aspect of signs : a sign has to be understood in a given (social, cultural and historical) context of communication

Example: the study of audiovisual touristic documentaries

Reception of such documentaries in specific socio-cultural settings;

Appropriation of such documentaries in specific socio-cultural settings

Limits of such documentaries with respect to given socio-cultural settings

Production of new (heterodox) « mental pictures » realized in such documentaries




2d topic

Semiotics

The structural organisation may vary from one type of sign systems to another. In this sense, there exists a broad diversity of specialised semiotic researches and investigations:

Text semiotics;

Visual semiotics;

Socio-semiotics ;

Psycho-semiotics;

Media semiotics;

Semiotics of architecture;

Musical semiotics;

Semiotics of advertising;

Etc.




2d topic

Semiotics

Methodology: the general methodological framework of semiotic studies of signs and sign systems is composed by the following five « pieces »:

1. Technics (methods) of constituting the object of a study : corpus constitution;

2. Technics (methods) of studying sign systems: especially comparative method with respect to a theoretical standard (such as structural semiotics)

3. Technics of studying the communication processes: especially by the means of questionnairies, semi-directed interviews, …

4. Technics of organizing and conducting the study: « project planning and management »

5. Technics of communicating the results of a semiotic inquiry: « project expertise »




3rd topic

- Sign systems and the cultural background -




3rd topic

Sign and culture

Signs and sign systems have to be understood with respect to an agent and his knowledge, values, interests and needs

This means : with respect to a cognitive and axiological reference system called « culture » (cf. the next sections of this course).

Examples: The possible mental picture of a mediterranean market place:

with respect to the cultural reference system of a tourist;

with respect to the cultural reference system of an inhabitant;

with respect to the cultural reference system of the vendor working in the market place;

with respect to the cultural reference system of a commercial working with vendors in the market place;

etc.




3rd topic

Sign and culture

Signs have different functions and status in a given culture. There is no real typology available. Among others, following functions are regularly quoted:

Sign systems used priorily for communication and information exchange purposes;

Signs and sign systems that fulfill priorily an identity function;

Sign systems that are used priorily for preservation, re-production and historical transmission purposes

Sign systems that are used priorily to delimitate and demarcate a territory (private, public, professional, political, …)

Sign systems used for meta-purposes in the sense of a « culture reflects itself and its identity as well as the accessible possible – imagined - worlds (literature, arts, …)




3rd topic

Sign and culture

Sign systems used priorily for communication and information exchange purposes

Their function can be better understood with the help of a hypothetical general rhetorics of (human) communication:

Example: typical genres of general rhetorics available through specialised sign systems

Information processing (describing, narrating, explaining, …);

Performing;

Counseling and warning;

Advertising;

Testifying;

Praising, …




3rd topic

Sign and culture

Signs and sign systems that fulfill an identity function (« symbols »)

Their function and specificities may be better understood with respect to the particular type of a social actor:

Examples: Sign and sign systems that represent the identity of

a nation or a state (national symbols and rituals, commemorations, symbolic places, specific time agenda …);

a company (logo and slogans, mission statements, dressing, symbolic actions, …);

a supporter club (mascots, songs, flags, journals, symbolic places, happenings, …);

A generation (specialised languages, dressing, music, symbolic places, …);

A family (family archives, housing, leisure, …) A person (personal things, fetishes, symbolic places,

personal time agenda, …) …




3rd topic

Sign and culture

Sign systems that are used for preservation, reproduction and historical transmission purposes

Examples: Sign systems that constitute for a person, a family, any social organisation, a nation, …

a cultural or natural heritage;

decisive (related) experiences

traditions, moralities and manners to be preserved;

references and curtseys;

historical and/or mythical foundations

etc.




3rd topic

Sign and culture

Sign systems that are used to delimitate and demarcate a territory (private, public, professional, political, …)

Every social actor (individual, social group, …) possesses his own « Umwelt » (Uexküll), this means his « territory » and a relevant environnement.

Examples : « Territorial signs » can be physical traces and objects, borders and transitional passages, artefacts (human made objects), etc that carry out different functions such as the

transitional or definitive occupation of a territory;

closure of a territory;

opening of and « invitation to access » a territory;

definition and differenciation of a territory in specialised places;

etc.Peter Stockinger: Sign, sign systems and culture (Paris, 2004)



3rd topic

Sign and culture

Sign systems used for meta-purposes in the sense of a culture reflects itself and its identity (literature, arts, …)

Every culture possesses a sort of cognitive meta-level that enables a culture to reflect and interpret its specificity and identity, its historical (mythical) destinee, the other (i.e. other cultures) and especially possible scenarios of (its) reality called « imagination ».

Specialised sign systems: « secondary modelling systems » (in the sense of Y. Lotman)

Examples of secondary modelling systems:

arts and literature; science; (secularised) ideological systems and elaborations; mythological, religious and para-religious systems; etc.




4th topic

- The (historical) nature of sign systems -




4th topic

Social actor

A human being is necessarily born in a world of sign systems that represent his culture, broadly speaking, or again, that constitute his « semiosphere »

This means that: Sign systems that constitute his semiosphere preexist a human being, are for a human being « natural sign systems ».

Example:

Most evident example is the so-called « natural language » that the human being has to adopt in order to integrate a social actor and to participate in the social life of this actor.

But this is true for all types of sign systems previously discussed




4th topic

Social actor

A human being intending to participate in the social life of a social actor (a family, a school, a professional organisation, a confessional group, …) has to know and to use correctly the relevant signs and sign systems.

This means, that for integrating a social actor, a human being needs an appropriate competence called « semiotic comptence » (Greimas)

A particular semiotic competence is the intercultural competence, i.e. the competence :

to compare two different sign systems and languages, to « translate » between these two systems or language, to appropriate one sign system or langauge within the

realm of the other one and, especially, to « transcend » the differences between

both sign systems and language in the sense to understand their differences and to handle them.



4th topic

Social actor

But the « naturalness » of a sign system for a human being doesn’t mean that it is « natural » in itself.

A sign system is a historical construction that has gained a collective acceptance and more or less great evidence (« naturaleness ») for those who constitute a social actor (such as a family, a professional group, a political organization, etc.)

This means that sign systems are conventions (broadly speaking) elaborated, used, preserved and learned by people that have common interests, needs and desires (that constitute a « social actor ») in order :

To communicate and interact; To circumscribe their specificity and identity, To preserve and reproduce themselves as a « social body

»; To delimitate their territory To reflect themselves, their destinee and their

possibilities.




4th topic

Social actor

As conventions (broadly speaking), sign systems are submitted to historical changes (they are intrinsically historical – social historical – forms)

But the evolution processes of sign systems depend crucially on :

The evidentiality (« naturaleness ») of a sign system for a social actor;

The power (i.e. the potestive competence) of a social actor to maintain or, contrarily, to change a given sign system;

The « science » (i.e. the cognitive competence) of a social actor to evolve and adapt a sign system to his changing « Umwelt »;

And, finally, the internal resources of a sign system itself to adapt itself to changing historical contextes.




4th topic

Social actor For instance: « language uniformisation » and « language extinction » as one

historical process in language evolution

a natural language is an absolutely evident sign system for communicating within a given linguistic community;

if this linguistic community constitutes also a social group such as a local community or a « modern » state, it is in the general interest of this group to maintain and evolve its linguistic resources;

but if the power of this group is small with respect to its « Umwelt » (to other social actors), it risks to adopt the natural language of a more powerful group and to lose its own natural language

even if the native natural language would have the internal means to take into account an historically changing « Umwelt ».




Annexe

- Course complements -



Complements

to course 1

Any social practice (such as « cinema going », « product advertising », “shopping”, …), any social actor (an individual, a social group, an institution, a company, …) communicates obligatorily with a wide range of diverse “information loaded objects” that constitute the sign system more or less peculiar to a social practice or a social actor.

The figure on the next slide (figure 1) shows a range of types of potential objects composing such a sign system.

It has to be noted that : figure 1 doesn’t exhibit any typology of possible

« information loaded » objects – it’s only a kind of very empirical classification …;

not every semiotic communication system has to be composed of the whole range of such types of objects;

for analytical reasons one has not obligatorily to take into account the whole range of types of objects that compose potentially a sign system …



Complements

to course 1

Figure (figure 1) representing a certain range of empirical types of objects that compose potentially a communication sign system



Complements

to course 1

From a practical point of view, figure 1 can help to better orient and systematize the identification and elicidation of all sorts of objects possibly composing a sign sytem used by a social actoror again in a social practice for communication purposes.

Indeed, in order to understand the communication resources and forms of a social practice or a social actor, one should identify, localise typical representatives of these different types of objects (and possibly other ones …) and, then, in a second phase, try to understand the meaning of these objects (i.e. the underlying language system) …

The analysis of such typical representatives should lead to an understanding of the language(s) (of the special language or languages) that give, attribute a special meaning to the wide range of objects used within a social practice or within a social actor in order to communicate appropriately (figure 2 and figure 3)



Complements

to course 1

Figure (figure 2) representing the specific relationships between sign systems and “underlying” language system



Complements

to course 1

Figure (figure 3) representing a very rough outline of a specific language system, parts of its meaning and some sign elements used by this language …



Complements

to course 1

Finally, in order to exhibit the specific cultural functions of (oral, written, visual, artificial, spatial, temporal, …) signs, one has simply to ask, which of the representative signs used as communication resources in a social practice or by a social actor “embody” the concerned cultural representation and what is their specific meaning; i.e. the meaning of :

how, about what and with whom etc. to communicate …

of the “we” and the “other”, …

of social reproduction and historical transmission …

Figure 4 represents the relationships between language, sign system and special cultural functions of sign systems …



Complements

to course 1

Finally, in order to exhibit the specific cultural functions of (oral, written, visual, artificial, spatial, temporal, …) signs, one has simply to ask, which of the representative signs used as communication resources in a social practice or by a social actor “embody” the concerned cultural representation and what is their specific meaning; i.e. the meaning of :

how, about what and with whom etc. to communicate …

of the “we” and the “other”, …

of social reproduction and historical transmission …



Complements

to course 1

Figure 4 representing the relationships between, language and cultural functions of signs (discussed in this course)


Semiotics of culture and communication © Equipe Sémiotique Cognitive et Nouveaux Médias (Escom) – ParisEscom PETER STOCKINGER Maison des Sciences de lHomme.

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