赵毅衡英文专著Semiotics: Principles & Problems出版

 

 

 

 

 

01

内容介绍

 

 

This book attempts to build semiotics on a new foundation, which is “meaning-making”. At the very beginning, the central terms of signs and semiotics are redefined, as the old definition for sign (one thing standing for another) is far from satisfactory. Sign is a perception that is regarded as carrying meaning. In this way, semiotics, now built on the foundation of meaning-making and meaning-cognition, is a science of meaning. All the principles are now under the scrutiny of the new definition, and many issues are answered more succinctly. Therefore, the new definition is extended to the new fields of cultural activities in human society, and a series of problems arise.

This book intends to discuss and explore these questions, such as the “middle reclining” in the cultural markedness, the sliding of motivation in art, the difficult distinction between falsehood and untruthfulness, and the driving force of modernization in China.

 

 

02

作者简介

 

 

Yiheng Zhao is Professor of Semiotics & Narratology, Sichuan University, and Director of the Institute of Semiotics & Media Studies (ISMS). Born in 1943, he did his M.A. in 1981, and Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley. He started teaching at the University of London in 1988 and resettled in the Sichuan University in 2005. He is Member of the Collegium of the International Association of Semiotic Studies and Chair of the Academic Committee of the Chinese Association of Semiotics & Communication Studies. He has written and edited around 30 books, including his “Three Books on Meanings”: Semiotics Principles & Problems, A General Narratology, and Philosophical Semiotics. He has won numerous awards including Fulbright Award for Research in the USA (1981), Foreign Literature Study Award(1984),Comparative Literature Association Award (1986), Sichuan Social Sciences and Philosophy Honorary Award (2015), Chinese University Press Award (2018), Ministry of Education Award (2020), among others.

 

 

03

目录

 

 

1 Introduction 

1.1 What Is a Sign: A New Definition 

1.2 Symbol and/or Sign

1.3 Redefining Semiotics

1.4 What Is the Use of Semiotics?

1.5 Fate of Semiotics in China 

References

2 Composition of Sign 

2.1 Sign Vehicle and Blank Sign

2.2 The Object-Sign-Art Triad 

2.3 The Reduction of Signs: Reification 

2.4 Semiotization

2.5 Partialization

2.6 Text

References 

3 Semiosis and Incomplete Signs

3.1 Absence of Meaning

3.2 A Sign Must Mean

3.3 Any Interpretation Counts 

3.4 Signal

3.5 No-Sender Signs

3.6 Potential Signs

References

4 Co-Texts 

4.1 Definition of Co-text

4.2 Explicit Co-texts: Paratext and Archi-text

4.3 Generative Co-texts: Pre-text and Synchro-text

4.4 Interpretive Co-texts: Meta-text, Link Text, and Succession-text

4.5 Universality of Co-texts and Intertextuality

4.6 Co-textual Obsession

References

5 Coordination of Two Axes 

5.1 Syntagmatic/Paradigmatic 

5.2 Broad Width and Narrow Width 

5.3 Studium and Punctum

References

6 Semiotic Rhetoric 

6.1 Rise of Semiotic Rhetoric 

6.2 Semiotic Metaphor 

6.3 Variants of Semiotic Metaphor 

6.4 Confusion Between Symbol and Sign

6.5 Symbolization

6.6 Linguistic and Semiotic Irony

6.7 Irony and Paradox

6.8 Large-Scale Irony

References

7 Code and Metalanguage 

7.1 Codes

7.2 Metalanguage and Meaning

7.3 Composition of Metalanguage

7.4 Distributive Metalingual Conflict

7.5 Vortex of Interpretations 

7.6 Meta-metalanguage and Vortex of Evaluations 

References 

8 Motivation and Its Sliding 

8.1 Occasional Motivation

8.2 Universal Pragmatic Motivation

8.3 Rising and Falling of Motivation

8.4 Abrupt Rising After Falling of Motivation

8.5 Pragmatic Motivation

8.6 The Ubiquitousness of Pragmatic Motivation

References

9 Semiotic Veridiction 

9.1 Sign, Truth, and Lie

9.2 Principle of Acceptance

9.3 Types of Acceptance 

9.4 Types of Refusal to Accept

9.5 Veridiction Within Fabrication

References 

10 Markedness

10.1 Binary Opposition and Tripartite Dynamics 

10.2 The Marked Term Vs the Unmarked Bloc 

10.3 Ancient Eastern Sages on Markedness 

10.4 Art in Markedness

References 

11 Semiotics of Art 

11.1 The Failure of Proceduralism 

11.2 A Functional Attempt to Redefine Art

11.3 Qualia

11.4 Rhematization 

11.5 Peirce’s Ten Principal Classes

11.6 Neo-sensualism in Semiotic Aesthetics Today

References 

12 The Double Forces of Modernization 

12.1 History and Semiotic Forces 

12.2 Driving and Braking Forces 

12.3 “Chinese Learning as Substance, Western Learning for Application”

12.4 Metalingual Totality in New Confucianism

References