An imaginative new theory of likeness that ranges widely across history and subjects, from physics and evolution to psychology, language, and art A butterfly is like another butterfly. A butterfly is also like a leaf and at the same time like a paper airplane, an owl's face, a scholar flying from book to book. The most disparate things approach one another in a butterfly, the sort of dense nodule of likeness that Roger Caillois once proposed calling a "bizarre-privileged item." In response, critical theorist Paul North proposes a spiritual exercise: imagine a universe made up solely of likenesses. There are no things, only traits acting according to the law of series, here and there a thick overlap that appears "bizarre." Centuries of thought have fixated on the concept of difference. This book offers a theory that begins from likeness, where, at any instant, a vast array of series proliferates and remote regions come into contact. Bizarre-Privileged Items in the Universe follows likenesses as they traverse physics and the physical universe; evolution and evolutionary theory; psychology and the psyche; sociality, language, and art. Divergent sources from an eccentric history help give shape to a new trans-science, "homeotics."

Translation scholars have for a long time been arguing in favor of a shift in paradigms to redefine the relationship between translation and the spreading of knowledge. Although a substantial share of worldwide knowledge is conveyed thanks to translation, the effects of this state of affairs upon the ways in which knowledge is actually built are all too rarely taken into account. This is particularly the case in the humanities. The papers presented in this volume fall into three thematic categories - cultural transfer, terminology and literature. The authors are all scholars in the humanities, and some of them are also translators. They analyze the effects of translation in diverse domains such as the intercultural exchanges among Far Eastern countries, and between Asia and the West; the constitution of terminologies; clinical practices in psychoanalysis; and the impact on the definition of literary genres. Each contribution shows how the act of translation is an integral part of the humanities, producing effects which may often be unforeseen and surprising but are always occasions for innovation. This volume contains contributions in English and French.

What is 'translation'? Even as the scholarly viewpoint of translation studies has expanded over recent years, the notion of 'translation' has remained fixedly defined by its interlinguistic element. However, there are many different contexts and disciplines in which translation takes place for which this definition is entirely unsuitable. Exploring translational aspects in contexts in which scholars do not think about 'translation', this book considers the alternative uses of the term beyond the interlinguistic dimension. Taking our understanding of 'translation' back to its basic semiotic principles, leading experts outline the wide variety of alternative fields of study, practices, applications and contexts in which the term 'translation' is used. Chapters examine 11 different fields of study, exploring what the term 'translation' means, how it is used and what it could contribute to an enlarged understanding of 'translation' as a concept. In this way, the volume argues for a reimagining of what we mean by translation, providing an essential reference for anyone interested in how translation is understood and practiced beyond the narrow perspectives of the field of translation studies itself.

This book offers an innovative approach to analysing written texts, grounded in principles of semiotics. Envisaging whole news media representations as 'signs', and using the real-world example of the BP Deepwater Horizon crisis, the author demonstrates how business crises are constructed through language. Gravells identifies patterns of language which show a progression from one kind of 'current news' representation to a different kind of coverage. This coverage positions the crisis as having symbolic and conventional meaning within varied social contexts, including the arts, business and the environment. Using a wealth of examples from the BP story to illustrate her practical research approach, Gravells draws 'language maps' of different phases of the crisis representation, showing how an early 'iconic' phase of representation moves through an 'indexical' to a 'symbolic' phase, and projects a return to a 'naturalised icon'. This book will be of interest to researchers and students of semiotics, those exploring research methods and linguists with an interest in business and media communications.

Each chapter of this book analyzes the rhetoric of speeches by major British or American politicians and shows how metaphor is used systematically to create political myths of monsters, villains and heroic leaders. Metaphors are shown to interact with other figures of speech to communicate subliminal meanings by drawing on the unconscious emotional association of words. This book is an innovative study of interest to students and researchers in discourse analysis, political communication, journalism and media studies.

What is the relationship between the ideas of the Enlightenment and the culture and ideology of the French Revolution? This book takes up that classic question by concentrating on changing conceptions of language and, especially, signs during the second half of the eighteenth century. The author traces, first, the emergence of a new interest in the possibility of gestural communication within the philosophy, theater, and pedagogy of the last decades of the Old Regime. She then explores the varied uses and significance of a variety of semiotic experiments, including the development of a sign language for the deaf, within the language politics of the Revolution. A Revolution in Language shows not only that many key revolutionary thinkers were unusually preoccupied by questions of language, but also that prevailing assumptions about words and other signs profoundly shaped revolutionaries' efforts to imagine and to institute an ideal polity between 1789 and the start of the new century. This book reveals the links between Enlightenment epistemology and the development of modern French political culture.

This is the first volume to deal specifically with the quality of subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing (SDH) in Europe, with contributions from the UK, Spain, Italy, Poland, Denmark, France and Germany. Drawing on the results of the EU-funded project DTV4ALL, the book looks at the issue of quality in the reception of SDH in Europe as a combination of three factors: what viewers think about SDH, how they understand these subtitles and how they view them. The viewers' preferences have been obtained through questionnaires and their comprehension has been analysed with tests, involving clips with SDH and questions. The viewers' perception has been measured with eye-tracking technology, involving the analysis of 71,070 subtitles in what is so far the largest international eye-tracking study on subtitling. With this research, we have sought to obtain both subjective (preferences) and objective (comprehension and perception) data that can inform national guidelines on SDH. The book also introduces the notion of viewing speed and points to the existence of certain universals of SDH and subtitling that can contribute to advance our understanding of how different types of viewers from different nationalities view, process and understand subtitles as a means to access audiovisual content.

An Introduction to Applied Semiotics presents nineteen semiotics tools for text and image analysis. Covering a variety of different schools and approaches, together with the author's own original approach, this is a full and synthetic introduction to semiotics. This book presents general tools that can be used with any semiotic product. Drawing on the work of Fontanille, Genette, Greimas, Hebert, Jakobson, Peirce, Rastier and Zilberberg, the tools deal with the analysis of themes and action, true and false, positive and negative, rhythm narration and other elements. The application of each tool is illustrated with analyses of a wide range of texts and images, from well-known or distinctive literary texts, philosophical or religious texts or images, paintings, advertising and everyday signs and symbols. Each chapter has the same structure - summary, theory and application, making it ideal for course use. Covering both visual and textual objects, this is a key text for all courses in semiotics and textual analysis within linguistics, communication studies, literary theory, design, marketing and related areas.

Why we must learn to tell new stories about our relationship with the earth if we are to avoid climate catastrophe Reading literature in a time of climate emergency can sometimes feel a bit like fiddling while Rome burns. Yet, at this turning point for the planet, scientists, policymakers, and activists have woken up to the power of stories in the fight against global warming. In Literature for a Changing Planet, Martin Puchner ranges across four thousand years of world literature to draw vital lessons about how we put ourselves on the path of climate change-and how we might change paths before it's too late. From the Epic of Gilgamesh and the West African Epic of Sunjata to the Communist Manifesto, Puchner reveals world literature in a new light-as an archive of environmental exploitation and a product of a way of life responsible for climate change. Literature depends on millennia of intensive agriculture, urbanization, and resource extraction, from the clay of ancient tablets to the silicon of e-readers. Yet literature also offers powerful ways to change attitudes toward the environment. Puchner uncovers the ecological thinking behind the idea of world literature since the early nineteenth century, proposes a new way of reading in a warming world, shows how literature can help us recognize our shared humanity, and discusses the possible futures of storytelling. If we are to avoid environmental disaster, we must learn to tell the story of humans as a species responsible for global warming. Filled with important insights about the fundamental relationship between storytelling and the environment, Literature for a Changing Planet is a clarion call for readers and writers who care about the fate of life on the planet.

As signifying creatures, we fear the false creation 'signifying nothing' because, like Macbeth, we think of them as daggers of the mind that raise questions about the reality of our signs, about signs as tools of creation and power, about the dark terrors (and lighter joys) that exist in human desire, and about the signs and the mind. This text argues that signs are, at base, generative things creating as much as they refer.

Roland Barthes remains one of the most influential cultural theorists of the postwar period and Image-Music-Text collects his most influential essays. Ed White provides students with a clear guide to this essential but difficult text. As students are increasingly expected to write across a range of media, Barthes' work can be understood as an early mapping of what we now call interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary study. The book's detailed section-by-section readings makes Barthes' most important writings accessible to undergraduate readers. This book is a perfect companion for teaching and learning Barthes' ideas in cultural studies and literary theory.

This book considers the work and influence of Charles Sanders Peirce, showing how the concepts and ideas he developed continue to impact and shape contemporary research issues. Written by a team of leading international scholars of semiotics, linguistics and philosophy, this Companion examines the growing impact of Peirce's thought and semiotic theories on a range of different fields. Discussing topics such as narrative, architecture, design, aesthetics and linguistics, the book furthers understanding of the contemporary pertinence of Peircean concepts in theoretical and empirical fashion. The Bloomsbury Companion to Contemporary Peircean Semiotics is the definitive guide to the enduring legacy of one of the world's greatest semioticians.

Barthes investigation into the meaning of photographs is a seminal work of twentieth-century critical theory. This is a special Vintage Design Edition, with fold-out cover and stunning photography throughout. Examining themes of presence and absence, these reflections on photography begin as an investigation into the nature of photographs - their content, their pull on the viewer, their intimacy. Then, as Barthes contemplates a photograph of his mother as a child, the book becomes an exposition of his own mind. He was grieving for his mother at the time of writing. Strikingly personal, yet one of the most important early academic works on photography, Camera Lucida remains essential reading for anyone interested in the power of images. 'Effortlessly, as if in passing, his reflections on photography raise questions and doubts which will permanently affect the vision of the reader' Guardian

This introductory textbook familiarizes students with ideas of key thinkers and perspectives related to postmodern thought and everyday life. The book is unique in that it offers selections from key passages of works of important thinkers as well as from some of the author's own publications that serve as examples of how to interpret various aspects of culture. The book draws in readers with its engaging and conversational style and use of cases, illustrations and photographs, including fun discussions on everyday life under pandemic restrictions. This is a must read for students taking courses in sociology, cultural anthropology, culture and media studies, linguistics, social philosophy, and for specific courses on postmodernism.

From a leading figure in comparative literature, a major new survey of the field that points the way forward for a discipline undergoing rapid changes Literary studies are being transformed today by the expansive and disruptive forces of globalization. More works than ever circulate worldwide in English and in translation, and even national traditions are increasingly seen in transnational terms. To encompass this expanding literary universe, scholars and teachers need to increase their linguistic and cultural resources, rethink their methods and training, and reconceive the place of literature and criticism in the world. In Comparing the Literatures, David Damrosch integrates comparative, postcolonial, and world-literary perspectives to offer a comprehensive overview of comparative studies and its prospects in a time of great upheaval and great opportunity. Comparing the Literatures looks both at institutional forces and at key episodes in the life and work of comparatists who have struggled to define and redefine the terms of literary analysis over the past two centuries, from Johann Gottfried Herder and Germaine de Stael to Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, Franco Moretti, and Emily Apter. With literary examples ranging from Ovid and Kalidasa to James Joyce, Yoko Tawada, and the internet artists Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, Damrosch shows how the main strands of comparison-philology, literary theory, colonial and postcolonial studies, and the study of world literature-have long been intertwined. A deeper understanding of comparative literature's achievements, persistent contradictions, and even failures can help comparatists in literature and other fields develop creative responses to today's most important questions and debates. Amid a multitude of challenges and new possibilities for comparative literature, Comparing the Literatures provides an important road map for the discipline's revitalization.

A landmark work of literary criticism Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism is the magnum opus of one of the most important and influential literary theorists of the twentieth century. Breaking with the practice of close reading of individual texts, Frye seeks to describe a common basis for understanding the full range of literary forms by examining archetypes, genres, poetic language, and the relations among the text, the reader, and society. Using a dazzling array of examples, he argues that understanding "the structure of literature as a total form" also allows us to see the profoundly liberating effect literature can have.

The study of argumentation has primarily focused on logical and dialectical approaches, with minimal attention given to the rhetorical facets of argument. Rhetorical Argumentation: Principles of Theory and Practice approaches argumentation from a rhetorical point of view and demonstrates how logical and dialectical considerations depend on the rhetorical features of the argumentative situation. Throughout this text, author Christopher W. Tindale identifies how argumentation as a communicative practice can best be understood by its rhetorical features. Rhetorical Argumentation uniquely presents argumentation through the idea of an invitational rhetoric by encouraging readers to think about the ways in which they encounter arguments. The book explores the processes involved in the argumentative exchanges between arguers and audiences-thus, emphasizing the collaborative nature of the arguer-audience relationship in the argumentative situation. That is, argument is presented not as a set of ideas imposed upon a passive audience, but rather as a dynamic exchange wherein the audience is involved in self-persuasion. Key Features: Explores the ancient foundations of rhetoric, from Aristotle to the relatively contemporary works of Perelman and Olbrechts-Tytecta, Toulmin, and Bakhtin Includes numerous examples illustrating the ways in which the reasoning within arguments involves the audience from premise through to conclusion Presents the idea of "dialogism" drawn from the theories of Mikhail Bakhtin to create a more dynamic and interactive sense of the argumentative context Examines current theory as well as the historical relationship between argument and rhetoric Provides detailed discussions of topics such as nature of the dialogical, rhetorical context, audiences, and standards of appraisal. Rhetorical Argumentation is designed to provide advanced undergraduate and graduate students with a clear understanding of the rhetorical view of argumentation and how it can be effective in contemporary society. The book is an ideal text for courses in Communication, Rhetoric, Argumentation, Informal Logic, Critical Thinking, and Conflict Resolution.

This book analyses the Youth Justice Conferencing Program in New South Wales, Australia. Exploring this form of diversionary justice from the perspectives of functional linguistics and performance studies, the authors combine close textual analysis with ethnographic research methodologies. They examine how participants use the discourse semantic resources available to them to achieve such outcomes as reparation for the victim, reintegration of the offender into the community, and reconciliation between the various parties. This uniquely-researched work is sure to be of interest to students and scholars of applied linguistics, sociolinguistics and discourse analysis.

Dating back to antiquity, semiotics is both a "technique" and a "science" that aims to understand the nature of meaning. An academic discipline in its own right, semiotics uses signs, such as words and symbols, to think, communicate, reflect, transmit, and preserve knowledge. Since the initial publication of The Quest for Meaning in 2007, the world has changed dramatically with the advent of online culture, new technologies, and new ways of making signs and symbols. Updated to reflect these many changes, the second edition includes a comprehensive chapter on the use of semiotics in the Internet age. Written in a student-friendly style, featuring examples from everyday life, the book explains what semiotics is all about and why it is so important for gaining insights into our elusive and mysterious human nature.

This book provides an extended exploration of the multimodal analysis of spatial (three-dimensional) texts of the built environment, culminating in a holistic approach termed Spatial Discourse Analysis (SpDA). Based on existing frameworks of multimodal analysis, this book applies, adapts, and extends these frameworks to spatial texts. The authors argue that choices in spatial design create meanings about what we perceive and how we can or should behave within spatial texts, influence how we feel in and about those spaces, and enable these texts to function as coherent wholes. Importantly, a spatial text, once built, is also a resource which is then used, and an essential aspect of understanding these texts is to consider what users themselves contribute to the meaning potential of these texts. The book takes the metafunctional approach familiar from Systemic-Functional Linguistics (SFL) and foregrounds each metafunction in turn (textual, interpersonal, experiential, and logical), in relation to the detailed analysis of a particular spatial text.

Warning signs are all around us. In ancient Egypt, tombs were lavishly adorned with signs and symbols warning of the dire consequences that would befall any robbers and thieves. And yet these signs were often read as provocations and challenges. Why was this? And how could we more effectively communicate dangers from our world, such as toxic waste, to future civilizations? This book examines and evaluates the kinds of signs, symbols, narratives and other semiotic strategies humans have used across time to communicate the sense of danger. From paleolithic cave art and ancient monuments to the dangers of nuclear waste, carbon emissions and other pollution, Marcel Danesi explores how danger has been encoded in language, discourse, and symbolism. At the same time, the book puts forward a plan for a more effective 'semiotising' of risk and peril, calling on linguists, semioticians and agencies to face up our collective responsibilities, and work together to more clearly communicate vitally important warnings about the dangers we've left behind to civilizations beyond the semiotic gap.

Symbol theories exist where the concept of symbol is applied. This concept of symbol is referred to in different theoretical contexts: in language theory, cognitive theory, art historical theory, semiotics, awareness theory, and sociological theory. The book addresses 38 different approaches. The description covers theorists from Aristotle to Searle.

The book outlines a new approach to the study of motivation in language, which is firmly rooted in the paradigm of cognitive linguistics, but it is developed in critical (and constructive) dialogue with classical theories in semiotics: Ferdinand de Saussure's structural linguistics and Charles S. Peirce's model of the sign. The author's proposal hinges upon the Peircean distinction between iconic, indexical, and symbolic signs, but the classical typology is reinterpreted within the framework of cognitive linguistics. The approach does not seek to "categorize" different linguistic expressions into one of the three Peircean types, but attempts to capture the dynamicity of meanings in terms of iconicity, indexicality, and conventionality. The book presents an analysis of selected vocabulary and morphosyntactic structures of English.