Bøger i European Semiotics / Semiotiques Europeennes serien

The book is devoted to the study of the sign-object relation in the semiotics of Charles Peirce. It puts this issue in the context of Peirce's philosophy of knowledge and of reality and individuates the final causality as the foundation of the semiotic relation, which gains its gnoseological reliableness from its underlying teleological tendencies.

A partir des verbes operateurs d'un texte, jusqu'a leur enchainement complet et original en une triple chaine predicative, l'ouvrage construit des scenarios de schemes dans le cadre theorique de la Grammaire Applicative et Cognitive. Il propose une analyse de comparaisons existantes entre le genome et l'alphabet ou le texte, mettant en exergue la necessite de niveaux d'analyse. A travers une serie d'analogies, et une reflexion de ce fait interdisciplinaire, ces structures du langage sont mises en relation avec des structures mathematiques et biologiques : l'ADN, les proteines, la formation de l'embryon, selon des niveaux de comparaison. Construit par ses operateurs qui mettent en A uvre un concept, le texte se deploie a partir de reperes topologiques internes, tel le systeme nerveux puis le corps a la suite des cellules neurales. Une topologie textuelle devient appropriee pour decrire ce processus.

This book - written in collaboration with Rene Doursat, director of the Complex Systems Institute, Paris - adds a new dimension to Cognitive Grammars. It provides a rigorous, operational mathematical foundation, which draws from topology, geometry and dynamical systems to model iconic image-schemas and conceptual archetypes. It defends the thesis that Rene Thom's morphodynamics is especially well suited to the task and allows to transform the morphological structures of perception into Gestalt-like, abstract, proto-linguistic schemas that can act as inputs into higher-level specific linguistic routines. Cognitive Grammars have drawn upon the view that the deep syntactic and semantic structures of language, such as prepositions and case roles, are grounded in perception and action. This study raises difficult problems, which thus far have not been addressed as a mathematical challenge. Cognitive Morphodynamics shows how this gap can be filled.

Partendo dai temi cari e mai completamente risolti della traduttologia, che si potrebbero esemplificare nell¿affermazione per cui la pratica traduttiva è da sempre alla ricerca di una teoria che la spieghi, la modelli e le dia un fondamento scientifico, questo lavoro ha l¿ambizione di fornire, adottando l¿approccio semiotico della scuola di Parigi, una nuova sistematizzazione della traduzione in quanto concetto, pratica e testo. Le relazioni identitarie e veridittive, articolate nel quadrato semiotico, determinano le condizioni ontologiche della traduzione; la schematizzazione narrativa modellizza la pratica traduttiva ed esplicita le competenze del traduttore, gli aspetti manipolativi e le condizioni aletiche ed etiche insiti nella traduzione. L¿analisi si sposta poi su terreni più empirici e la proposta teorica si misura con il testo tradotto; su quest'ultimo si identificano i rapporti identità-alterità, la dimensione assiologica e la prensione timica del traduttore. La prospettiva generativa permette di situarsi in una dimensione epistemica e metodologica più ampia, che al contempo impone una riflessione sulle condizioni di felicità specifiche della traduttologia.

This book is about patterns of development in the history of culture. Bringing together three areas of research: semiotics, cultural history, and evolutionary psychology, it attempts to bridge the gap that still separates the study of culture from the cognitive sciences. The multidisciplinary approach chosen by the contributors derives its impetus from the deep conviction that in order to understand the logic of cultural development, one must take the building blocks of culture, that is, signs and language, as a starting point for research. Central issues related to patterns of cultural evolution are dealt with in contributions on the development of mind and culture, the history of the media, the diversity of sign systems, culture and code, and the dynamics of semiosis. Theoretically oriented contributions alternate with in-depth case studies on such diverging topics as the evolution of language and art in prehistory, ritual as the fountainhead of indirect communication, developments in renaissance painting, the evolution of classification systems in chemistry, changing attitudes toward animal consciousness, and developments in computer technology.

This book provides a cognitive analysis of the poetry of George Herbert (1593-1633). From Herbert's own thinking, recorded in his prose treatises, can be deduced that his poems should serve a specific function: teaching self-knowledge to his readers. The cognitive framework applied here can serve to explain this function.

How are meanings created and further differentiated? Where do they come from? What kind of forces drive their unfolding? How can complex cultural forms be understood based on simple morphodynamic principles? This book deals with these questions.