Before sight there were touch and smell, both in our evolutionary and developmental past. Scant attention has been paid, though, to tactile, gustatory, and olfactory information in the semiotic literature. By contrast, visual and acoustic communication has attracted much research, and the meanings which images and sounds convey have been extensively discussed. This situation reflects [...]
There is an abundant literature, in philosophy and psychology, which addresses literacy and numeracy from the restricted point of view of alphabetic cultures. There are also comparative studies involving other advanced societies which do not foster the alphabet as the literacy tool of reference. The prime concern of all these studies is how the semiotic [...]
The Anatomy of Meaning: Speech, Gesture, and Composite Utterances. By N. J. Enfield. Cambridge University Press, 2009 (252 pages). It would be enlightening for the reader of this book to first peruse Nick Enfield’s brief review of two recent works on language (Science, vol.329, 24 September 2010, p.1600-1601) in order to appreciate the approach which [...]
Methods Semiotics as it stands now is bloated with philosophical speculations that indulge in worn-out grand narratives but it is sorely short on methods which could sustain the bold scientific agenda of its earlier pioneers. Current semiotics is heavy in wordy interpretations which do not advance human knowledge. Far from being a discovery process, semiotics [...]
From Interaction to Symbol: A Systems View of the Evolution of Signs and Communication. By Piotr Sadowski. John Benjamins Publishing Co, 2009 (300 p.). Rather than conceiving the dynamic of signs as an abstract philosophical notion such as semiosis or dialogism, the author confronts head on in this volume the emergence of signs as an evolutionary [...]