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“Analyzing Cultures”
| A | |
| ABDUCTION | term used by CHARLES PEIRCE to designate the form of reasoning whereby a new concept is inferred on the basis of an existing concrete, or already known, concept; abduction is essentially a “hunch” as to what something means or presupposes |
| ABSTRACT CONCEPT | concept that cannot be demonstrated or observed directly |
| ACTANT | unit of narration (a hero, an opponent) that surfaces in all kinds of stories |
| ADDRESSEE | receiver of a message |
| ADDRESSER | sender of a message |
| ADVERTISING | any type or form of public communication designed to indicate the availability or to promote the sale of specific commodities or services |
| AESTHESIA | experience of sensation; in art appreciation it refers to the fact that the senses and feelings are stimulated holistically by art works |
| AESTHETICS | branch of semiotics that studies the meaning and interpretation of art in general |
| ALLITERATION | repetition of the initial consonant sounds or clusters of words |
| ALPHABET | graphic code whereby individual characters stand for individual sounds (or sound combinations) |
| ALPHABETIC WRITING | writing system consisting of conventional symbols known as characters that can be used singly and in combination to make up the words of a language |
| ANALOGY | structural relation whereby a form replaces another that is similar in form, function, or use |
| ANIMISM | philosophical and religious view that objects possess a life force |
| ANNOTATION | personal meanings associated with a sign |
| ANTHROPOLOGY | field studying human cultures |
| ANTHROPOSEMIOSIS | human semiosis |
| ANTICLIMAX | rhetorical technique by which ideas are sequenced in abruptly diminishing importance, generally for satirical effect |
| ANTITHESIS | rhetorical technique by which two words, phrases, clauses, or sentences are opposed in meaning in such a way as to give emphasis to contrasting ideas |
| ANTONYMY | relation by which different words, phrases, sentences, etc. stand in a discernible oppositeness of meaning to each other |
| APHASIA | partial or total loss of speech due to a disorder in any one of the brain’s language centers |
| APOSTROPHE | rhetorical technique by which an actor turns from the audience, or a writer from h/er readers, to address a person who usually is absent or deceased, an inanimate object, or an abstract idea |
| ARCHEOLOGY | field studying the material remains of past human cultures, so as to reconstruct the cultures |
| ARCHETYPE | term coined by psychoanalyst Carl Jung to designate any unconscious image that manifests itself in dreams, myths, art forms, and performances across cultures |
| ARCHITECTEME | minimal unit of an architectural code (a column, a rood shape, etc.) |
| ARCHITECTURE | art and science of designing and erecting buildings |
| ARGUMENT | in Peircean theory, the interpretant of a legisign (symbol) |
| ART | disciplined expressive activity that provides the people who produce it and the community that observes it with a range of experiences that might be aesthetic, emotional, intellectual, or a combination of these |
| ARTIFACT | object produced or shaped by human craft, especially a tool, a weapon, or an ornament, that is of archaeological or historical interest |
| ARTIFACTUAL TRANSMISSION | transmission of messages through artifactual means such as books and letters |
| ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | branch of computer science concerned with the development of machines having the ability to perform human mental functions |
| AUSTRALOPITHECUS | genus of Homo discovered at a number of sites in eastern and southern Africa, dating from more than 4 million years ago |
| AXIOM | statement universally accepted as true, and therefore accepted without proof |
| B | |
| BALLET | classical dance form characterized by grace and precision of movement and elaborate formal technique |
| BASIC LEVEL CONCEPT | concept that has a typological (classificatory) function |
| BAUHAUS SCHOOL | twentieth-century school of architectural design which invented the skyscraper and high-rise apartment building form |
| BILATERAL KINSHIP SYSTEM | kinship system which assigns membership to kin through both the maternal and paternal lines |
| BIOSEMIOSIS | semiosis in all living things |
| BIOSEMIOTICS | branch of semiotics studying semiosis in all life forms |
| BIPEDALISM | walking upright on two feet |
| BIRTH AND REBIRTH MYTH | myth informing people about how life can be renewed or about the coming of an ideal society or savior |
| BRAND IMAGE | creation of a personality for a product through naming, packaging, and pricing |
| C | |
| CEREBRAL DOMINANCE | theory that posits the left hemisphere of the brain as the dominant one in all the higher mental functions |
| CHANNEL | physical means by which a signal or message is transmitted |
| CHARACTER | person portrayed in an artistic piece, such as a drama or novel |
| CINEMA | visual narrative art form that encompasses the utilization of verbal and nonverbal codes |
| CIVILIZATION | complex society, or group of societies, whose institutions are grounded in the signifying order of a mainstream culture, but which can encompass more than one culture |
| CLIMAX | rhetorical technique by which ideas are sequenced in abruptly increasing importance, from the least to the most forcible |
| CLOSED TEXT | text with a singular or fairly limited range of meaning (e.g. a map) |
| CLOTHING | apparel to cover the body |
| CODE | system in which signs are organized and which determines how they relate to each other |
| COEVOLUTION | sociobiological theory that genes and culture are evolving in tandem |
| COGNATIC KINSHIP SYSTEM | kinship system which assigns social importance to the relatives of both sexes with little formal distinction between them |
| COGNITIVE COMPRESSION EFFECT | term used in this book to refer to the fact that TV presents personages, events, and information globally and instantly, leaving little time for reflection on the topics, implications, words, etc. contained in a TV message, thus leading to a state in which information is desired and understood mainly in a compressed form |
| COGNITIVE SCIENCE | interdisciplinary science studying human consciousness mainly with the techniques of artificial intelligence |
| COGNITIVE STYLE | particular way in which information and knowledge are processed |
| COGNIZING STATE | rudimentary state of knowing things through the senses |
| COMICS | narrative text put together by means of a series of drawings arranged in horizontal lines, strips, or rectangles called panels, and read from left to right |
| COMMEDIA DELL’ARTE | improvised comedic theater, with stock characters and recurring story-lines adapted to fit the preferences of specific audiences, that arose in sixteenth-century Italy and spread throughout Europe |
| COMMUNAL KNOWING | knowing that derives from living in a cultural setting |
| COMMUNICATION | production and exchange of messages and meanings |
| COMMUNICATION SCIENCE | science studying all the technical aspects of communication. |
| CONATIVE FUNCTION | effect of a message on the addressee |
| CONCEIT | elaborate, often extravagant, metaphor or simile that makes an association between things that are normally perceived to be totally dissimilar |
| CONCEPT | general thought connection or pattern made by the human mind (within cultural contexts) through association, induction, deduction, and/or abduction |
| CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR | generalized metaphorical formula that defines a specific abstraction |
| CONCEPTUAL METONYM | generalized metonymical formula that defines a specific abstraction |
| CONCRETE CONCEPT | concept that is demonstrable and observable in a direct way |
| CONDITIONED RESPONSE | response that has been elicited by some experimental factor |
| CONDITIONING | process of causing someone to become accustomed to something |
| CONNOTATION | extended or secondary meaning of a sign |
| CONNOTATIVE SEQUENCE | sequence of connotations suggested by a text |
| CONSCIOUSNESS | awareness of one’s environment and one’s own existence, sensations, and thoughts |
| CONTACT | physical channel employed in communication and the psychological connections between addresser and addressee |
| CONTEXT | environment (physical and social) in which signs are produced and messages generated |
| CONVENTIONAL SIGN | sign that has no apparent connection to any perceivable feature of its referent |
| COSMOGONIC MYTH | myth explaining how the world came into being |
| CRITICAL PERIOD HYPOTHESIS | hypothesis formulated by linguist Eric Lenneberg which claims that there is a fixed period of time, from birth to around puberty, during which the brain organizes its division of labor, especially the localization of language to the language centers of the left hemisphere |
| CRO-MAGNON | early genus of Homo sapiens sapiens who lived in western and southern Europe during the last glacial age |
| CUISINE | term meant to emphasize the difference between the biological and cultural orders in human life in the area of eating; food pertains to the biological order, cuisine to the cultural order |
| CULTURAL MODEL | constant juxtaposition of conceptual metaphors that leads to a complex abstract model of a concept |
| CULTURAL SEMIOTICS | branch of semiotics studying culture |
| CULTURE | interconnected system of daily living that is held together by the signifying order (signs, codes, texts) |
| CULTURE HERO MYTH | myth describing beings who discover a cultural artifact or technological process that radically changes the course of history |
| CUNEIFORM WRITING | writing code consisting of wedge-shaped symbols used in ancient Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian writing |
| D | |
| DANCE | art of moving rhythmically, usually to music, using prescribed or improvised steps and gestures |
| DECODING | process of deciphering the message formed in terms of a specific code |
| DEDUCTION | reasoning and concept-formation which unfolds by the application of a general concept or line of reasoning to a specific occurrence |
| DEIXIS | process of locating beings, objects, and events in time, space, or relation to each other |
| DENOTATION | primary, intensional meaning of a sign |
| DIACHRONY | study of change in signs and codes over time |
| DICISIGN | in Peircean theory, interpretant of a sinsign |
| DIMENSIONALITY PRINCIPLE | term utilized in this book to refer to the fact that all systems of knowledge and representation manifest a three-dimensional pattern of firstness, secondness, and thirdness |
| DISCOURSE | verbal communication involving an addresser and an addressee |
| DISPLACEMENT | ability to conjure up the things to which signs refer even though these things might not be physically present for the senses to perceive |
| DISTANCE | space that people maintain between themselves during socially meaningful contact or interaction |
| DIVERSIFICATION | formation of languages from one source |
| DRAMA | verbal performing art that involves actors on a stage or platform with the background support of setting and props |
| DRESS | system of clothing (e.g. the dress code for weddings) |
| E | |
| ECHOISM | phonic imitation of sounds heard in the environment |
| ECONOMIC SPHERE | secondary sphere of culture that emerged to institutionalize and regulate the exchange of goods and services among the members of a collectivity |
| EDUCATIONAL SPHERE | secondary sphere of culture that emerged to institutionalize and regulate the transmission of culturally relevant knowledge and skills to subsequent generations |
| EMOTIVE CONNOTATION | connotation that conveys personal perspective |
| EMOTIVE FUNCTION | addresser’s emotional intent in communicating something |
| ENCODING | process of putting together a message in terms of a specific code |
| ENTROPY | term referring to anything that is unpredictable in a message or text |
| ENVIRONMENTALISM | view of human mental functioning and development emphasizing the role of upbringing |
| ESCHATOLOGICAL MYTH | myth describing the end of the world or the coming of death into the world |
| ETHNICITY | term used to designate inclusion in a kinship unit or social collectivity on the basis of genetic and/or ancestral links |
| ETHNOGRAPHY | comparative study of cultures based on field work and observation within the cultures themselves |
| ETHOLOGY | study of animals in their natural habitats |
| ETYMOLOGY | study of the origin and evolution of signs |
| EUPHEMISM | rhetorical technique by which a term or phrase that has coarse, sordid, or other unpleasant associations is replaced by one that is perceived to be more delicate or inoffensive |
| EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY | contemporary school of psychology that sees human behaviors and symbolic phenomena as reflexes of evolution and, thus, as residues of animal mechanisms |
| EVOLUTIONISM | view that cultures result from evolutionary tendencies that are often capable of replacing physical aspects of evolution completely |
| EXCLAMATION | rhetorical technique by which a sudden outcry expressing strong emotion, such as fright, grief, or hatred, is interpolated into a text |
| EXTENSIONAL CONNOTATION | semiosic process by which the intensional meaning of a sign is extended freely to add information, insight, perspective, coloration, etc. to it |
| F | |
| FASHION | prevailing dress style |
| FEATURE | something that is marked as being present or absent in the constitution of a sound, word, etc. |
| FEEDBACK | information, signals, cues issuing from the receiver of a message as detected by the sender, thus allowing h/er to adjust the message to make it clearer, more meaningful, more effective |
| FETISH | object that is believed to have magical or spiritual powers, or which can cause sexual arousal |
| FETISHISM | extreme devotion to objects and desires |
| FICTION | literary work whose content is produced by the imagination and is not necessarily based on fact |
| FIRSTNESS | in Peircean theory, the first level of meaning, derived from bodily and sensory processes |
| FOCAL COLOR | color category that is associated with a universal sequencing of colors |
| FOUNDATION MYTH | myth recounting the founding of cities |
| G | |
| GENDER | sexual identity established in cultural terms |
| GENERAL SEMIOTICS | the general study of signs and sign systems |
| GESTALT | mental form which is extracted from patterns in sensory perception (e.g. circularity, movement, etc.) |
| GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY | school of psychology that studies the effects or influence of forms (Gestalten) on perceptual processes |
| GESTICULANT | gesture unit accompanying speech |
| GESTICULATION | use of gestures to accompany speech |
| GESTURE | semiosis and representation by means of the hand, the arms, and, to a lesser extent, the head |
| GRAMMAR | system of rules that characterize any code |
| GROUND | meaning of a metaphor |
| GUSTEME | minimal unit of taste |
| H | |
| HAPTICS | study of touching patterns during social interaction |
| HEMISPHERICITY | fact that the human brain has two complementary and cooperative hemispheres |
| HERMENEUTICS | study and interpretation of texts |
| HIEROGLYPHIC WRITING | ancient Egyptian system of writing, in which pictorial symbols were used to represent meaning or sounds or a combination of meaning and sound |
| HISTORY FABRICATION EFFECT | term used in this book to refer to the fact that TV both makes and documents historical events |
| HOLOPHRASE | one-word utterance produced by infants |
| HOMO ERECTUS | genus of Homo that lived 700,000 to a million years ago and that expanded, at the close of h/er evolution, into the temperate parts of Asia |
| HOMO HABILIS | genus of Homo that lived between 1.5 and 2 million years ago, possessing many traits that linked h/er both with the earlier australopithecines and with later members of the genus Homo |
| HOMO SAPIENS | genus of Homo that lived between 200,000 and 300,000 years ago, with a proportionately larger brain than any of h/er hominid ancestors |
| HOMO SAPIENS SAPIENS | modern humans |
| HOMONYMY | verbal coincidence by which two or more words with distinct meanings are pronounced and/or spelled in the same way |
| HYPERBOLE | rhetorical exaggeration for effect |
| HYPOICON | Peirce’s term for an icon that is shaped by cultural convention but which can nonetheless be figured out by those who are not members of the culture |
| HYPONYMY | semantic relation whereby one concept embraces another |
| I | |
| ICON | sign in which the signifier has a direct (nonarbitrary), simulative connection to its signified or referent |
| ICONICITY | process of representing with iconic signs |
| IDEOGRAPHIC WRITING | type of writing system in which a character, known as an ideograph, may bear some resemblance to its referent, but is also in part a symbolic signifier |
| IMAGE SCHEMA | term used by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson to refer to the recurring structures of, or in, our perceptual interactions, bodily experiences, and cognitive operations that portray locations, movements, shapes, etc. in the mind |
| INDETERMINACY PRINCIPLE | Heisenberg’s notion that observations of natural physical phenomena were indeterminate because of the role played by the observer |
| INDEX | sign in which the signifier has an existential connection to its signified or referent (i.e. the sign indicates that something “exists” somewhere in time and/or space) |
| INDEXICALITY | process of representing with indexical signs |
| INDUCTION | reasoning and concept-formation which unfolds by the extraction of a general pattern from specific facts or instances |
| INFORMATION | any fact or datum that can be stored and retrieved by humans or machines |
| INFORMATION CONTENT | amount of information in a message |
| INNATISM | view of human mental functioning and development emphasizing the role of Nature |
| INTERCONNECTEDNESS PRINCIPLE | view that all signs, texts, and codes in a culture are connected to each other in signifying ways |
| INTERDISCIPLINARITY PRINCIPLE | practice in semiotics of referring to the research and findings in other disciplines in order to carry out meaningful research on signifying orders |
| INTERPRETANT | process of adapting a sign’s meaning to personal and social experiences |
| INTERPRETATION | process of deciphering what a sign or text means |
| INTERTEXTUALITY | allusion within a text to some other text of which the interpreter would normally have knowledge |
| IRONY | use of words to express something different from and often opposite to their literal meaning; use of words in a humorous but often sarcastic way |
| K | |
| KINESICS | study of bodily semiosis |
| KINESTHEME | minimal unit of significant bodily movement |
| KINSHIP SPHERE | primary sphere of culture based on a genetic/ ancestral system of assigning membership |
| L | |
| LANGUAGE | verbal semiosis and representation |
| LANGUE | term used by Saussure to refer to the largely unconscious knowledge that speakers of a language share about what is appropriate in that language |
| LEGAL SPHERE | secondary sphere of culture that emerged to formalize the ways in which the members of a collectivity must relate to each other |
| LEGEND | story derived from folk history that differs from myth in that it tells about what has happened in the world since the period of its creation |
| LEGISIGN | in Peircean theory, a representamen (signifier) that designates something by convention |
| LEXICAL FIELD | set of lexical items (words) related to each other thematically (weather vocabulary, geometrical terms, etc.) |
| LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE | term used by Chomsky to designate the innate, often unconscious knowledge that allows people to produce and understand sentences, many of which they have never heard before |
| LINGUISTIC PERFORMANCE | term used by Chomsky to designate the use of a language in actual situations of speech |
| LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY HYPOTHESIS | claim that language, cognition, and culture are interdependent; also known as the Whorfian hypothesis |
| LINGUISTICS | field studying language, including its uses in cultures |
| LITERACY | learned ability to read and write at some level of proficiency; i.e. acquired technical knowledge of how to decode written or printed signs and verbal texts |
| LITOTES | rhetorical technique involving understatement for enhancing the effect of the ideas expressed |
| LOCALIZATION THEORY | view that specific mental functions have precise locations in specific areas of the brain |
| LOGOGRAPHIC WRITING | highly symbolic writing system in which a character, known as a logograph, resembles its referent only in small part |
| LOVEMAP | mental image of what the ideal mate looks like |
| M | |
| MACROCODE | characterization of culture as an overarching code providing the signifying resources to know, think, learn, etc. |
| MACROSEMIOTIC | characterization of the type of semiotic analysis involved in showing how certain meanings are distributed throughout a signifying order |
| MACROSIGNIFIED | a minimal meaning structure (e.g. up-down, love is a sweetness, etc.) that is distributed across the signifying order, shaping the constitution of certain signifiers and texts that make up the various codes of that order |
| MAP | textual representation of a culturally significant territory or space drawn with a combination of iconic, indexical, and symbolic modes of representation |
| MATRILINEAL KINSHIP SYSTEM | kinship system that assigns membership to kin through the female kinship line only |
| MEANING | concept that anything in existence has a design or purpose beyond its mere occurrence |
| MECHANICAL TRANSMISSION | transmission of messages through such means as radio, television, etc. |
| MEDIATE | characterization of the influencing effect of signs on cognition |
| MEDIUM | technical or physical means by which a message is transmitted |
| MEME | sociobiologist’s Richard Dawkins’ term for replicating patterns of information (tunes, ideas, clothing fashions, etc.) |
| MESSAGE | meaning of a text |
| METALINGUAL FUNCTION | communicative function by which the code being used is identified |
| METAPHOR | signifying process by which two signifying domains (A, B) are connected (A is B) |
| METONYMY | signifying process by which an entity is used to refer to another that is related to it |
| MICROSEMIOTIC | characterization of the type of semiotic analysis involved in showing how specific meanings surface in specific signs and texts |
| MICROSIGNIFIED | a minimal meaning structure (e.g. good vs. evil, major vs. minor, etc.) projected onto a sign or text |
| MODEL | representational form that has been made (or imagined) to stand for an object, event, feeling, etc. or for classes of objects, events, feelings, etc. |
| MODELING SYSTEM | species-specific system that generates models |
| MODERNISM | technique in architecture also known as the Bauhaus school |
| MORPHEME | smallest meaning-bearing unit or form in a language |
| MORPHOLOGY | formal structure of signifiers |
| MUSIC | art form based on the organized movement of sounds (sung or played on an instrument) according to rules of combination and contrast (harmony and melody) |
| MYTH | story of early cultures that aims to explain the origin of life or of the universe in terms of some metaphysical or deistic entity or entities |
| MYTH OF THE CULTURE HERO | myth describing the actions and characters of beings who are responsible for the discovery of a particular cultural artifact or technological process |
| MYTHOLOGIZING EFFECT | term used in this book to refer to the fact that TV imbues its characters with a mythological aura |
| MYTHOLOGY | use and/or evocation of mythic themes in contemporary behaviors and performances; study of myths |
| N | |
| NAME | sign that identifies a person or place |
| NAMING | process by which names are assigned to persons, places, and things |
| NARRATIVE | something told or written, such as an account, story, tale |
| NARRATIVE STRUCTURE | universal patterns of plot, character, and setting in storytelling |
| NARRATIVITY | innate human capacity to produce and comprehend narratives |
| NARRATOLOGY | branch of semiotics that studies narrativity |
| NARRATOR | teller of the narrative |
| NARREME | minimal unit of narrative structure |
| NATION | territory that some collectivity (tribe, race, society, etc.) has gained, inherited, or acquired, identifying it as its own |
| NATURAL SELECTION | theory formulated by biologist Charles Darwin, according to which the young of a species that survive to produce the next generation tend to embody favorable natural variations (however slight the advantage may be), passing these variations on genetically |
| NATURAL SIGN | sign that represents its referent by attempting to imitate in its make-up some perceivable property of the referent |
| NATURAL TRANSMISSION | transmission of messages naturally (through the air channel, through chemical signals, etc.) |
| NEANDERTHAL | genus of Homo, named after the Neander Valley in Germany where one of the earliest skulls was found, which occupied parts of Europe and the Middle East from 100,000 to about 35,000 to 40,000 years ago, after which it disappears from the fossil record |
| NEOTENY | prolonged juvenile stage of brain and skull development in relation to the time required to reach sexual maturity |
| NEUROLINGUISTICS | branch of linguistics studying the relation of language to neural processes |
| NEURON | nerve cell that is the fundamental unit of the nervous system |
| NEUROSCIENCE | field studying how the brain processes information, generates mental processes, and underlies all aspects of behavior |
| NOISE | anything that interferes with the reception of a message |
| NOSTRATIC | original language of humanity |
| NOVEL | fictional prose narrative in which characters and situations are depicted within the framework of a plot |
| O | |
| OBJECT | what a sign refers to |
| OBJECTIFIABLE | perception of a message as separate from the maker of the message |
| OBJECTIFICATION | process by which interconnected meanings are projected into the objects of a culture, thus creating the perception that they form an integrated system |
| OBJECTIVITY | perception of knowledge as independent of knowledge making |
| OCULAREME | minimal unit of eye signaling or contact |
| ONOMASTICS | study of names |
| ONOMATOPOEIA | vocal iconicity |
| ONTOGENESIS | development of all semiosic abilities during childhood |
| OPEN TEXT | text with an (in theory) unlimited range of meanings (e.g. a poem) |
| OPPOSITION | process by which signs are differentiated through a minimal change in their form (signifier) |
| OTHELLO EFFECT | lying in order to emphasize the truth |
| OXYMORON | rhetorical technique by which two seemingly contradictory or incongruous words are combined |
| P | |
| PALEONTOLOGY | field that studies and interprets fossils |
| PANTOMIME | dramatic representation by means of facial expressions and bodily movements rather than words |
| PARADIGM | structural relation between signs that keeps them distinct and therefore recognizable |
| PARADOX | statement that appears contradictory or inconsistent |
| PARALLEL KINSHIP SYSTEM | kinship system by which both males and females trace their ancestry through their own sex |
| PARALLELISM | repetition of linguistic patterns |
| PARAMETER | term used by Chomsky to designate the kinds of constraints imposed by culture on the universal primciples of the speech faculty |
| PAROLE | term used by Saussure to designate the actual use of language in speech |
| PATRILINEAL KINSHIP SYSTEM | kinship system which assigns membership to kin through the male kinship line only |
| PERCEPT | unit of perception; stimulus that has been received and recognized; immediate unit of knowing derived from sensation or feeling |
| PERFORMANCE | representation and communication of some text, framed in a special way and put on display for an audience |
| PERSONA | Self that one presents in specific social situations |
| PERSONIFICATION | rhetorical technique whereby inanimate objects or abstract ideas are portrayed as living beings |
| PERSPECTIVE | technique of representing three-dimensional objects and depth relationships on a two-dimensional surface |
| PHATIC FUNCTION | communicative function by which contact between addresser and addressee is established |
| PHILOLOGY | field that studies written texts to determine their meaning and relevance to a specific stage of a culture |
| PHONEME | minimal unit of sound in a language that allows its users to differentiate meanings |
| PHONETICS | description and classification of sounds in language |
| PHONOLOGY | study of sound systems in language |
| PHYLOGENESIS | evolution of all semiosic abilities in the human species |
| PHYSICALISM | view that human cognition and culture are the result of genetic processes |
| PlCTOGRAPHIC WRITING | type of writing system in which a character, known as a pictograph, bears pictorial resemblance to its referent |
| PlCTOREME | minimal unit of visual representation |
| PLOT | plan of events or main story in a narrative or drama |
| POETIC FUNCTION | communicative function based on poetic language |
| POETRY | verbal art based on the acoustic, rhythmic, and imagistic properties of words |
| POLITICAL SPHERE | secondary sphere of culture that emerged to formalize, through some governing system, the overall organization, goals, and aspirations of a society |
| POP ART | art form that utilizes themes and images taken from mass technological culture |
| POP CULTURE | form of culture, characteristic of twentieth-century technological societies, that emphasizes the trivial and the routine in its art and in various other forms of representation |
| POSITIONING | placing or targeting of a product for the right people |
| POSTMODERNISM | contemporary state of mind which believes that all knowledge is relative and human-made, and that there is no purpose to life beyond the immediate and the present |
| PRIMARY MODELING SYSTEM | modeling system based on the sensory properties of the body |
| PRIMARY SPHERE | the kinship and religious spheres of a culture that precede the advent of other spheres in tne history of the culture |
| PROPAGANDA | any systematic dissemination of doctrines, views, etc. reflecting specific interests and ideologies (political, social, and so on) |
| PROPORTIONALITY | the meaning of words or forms on the basis of binary features or components which keep them distinct |
| PROTO-LANGUAGE | mother language of a family of languages |
| PROXEME | minimal unit of space between persons; minimal unit of bodily orientation |
| PROXEMICS | branch of semiotics that studies the symbolic structure of the physical space maintained between people in social contexts |
| PSYCHOANALYSIS | field studying unconscious mental processes |
| PSYCHOLINGUISTICS | branch of linguistics concerned with such topics as language acquisition by children, speech perception, aphasia, and others that involve psychological aspects of language |
| PSYCHOLOGY | field studying human thinking, behavior, experience, development, and learning |
| PUBLIC RELATIONS | activities and techniques used by organizations and individuals to establish favorable attitudes and responses to them on the part of the general public or of special groups |
| PUBLICITY | craft of disseminating any information that concerns a person, group, event, or product through some form of public media |
| Q | |
| QUALISIGN | in Peircean theory, the representamen (signifier) that refers to a quality |
| R | |
| RACE | term designating a collectivity of people who share a greater degree of common genetic ancestry among themselves than they do with the members of other collectivities |
| RECEIVER | person to whom a message or text is directed |
| RECOGNIZING STATE | cognitive state whereby a referent is recalled |
| REDUNDANCY | that which is predictable or conventional in a message or text, thus helping to counteract the potential interference effects of noise |
| REFERENT | what is referred to (any object, being, idea, or event) |
| REFERENTIAL DOMAIN | specific range of meanings to which signs refer |
| REFERENTIAL FUNCTION | communicative act in which there is a straightforward connection between the act and what it refers to, or communicative function by which a straightforward transmission is intended |
| REFLEX SYSTEM | term referring to the conversion of meanings into grammatical forms and categories |
| RELATIVISM | view that an individual’s actions and behaviors are shaped primarily in relation to the culture in which s/he has been raised |
| RELATIVITY PRINCIPLE | in documenting and explaining signifying orders, principle which asserts that the semiotician should keep in mind that signs, codes, and texts have structural effects on individuals |
| RELIGIOUS SPHERE | primary sphere of culture anchored in the universal belief of early peoples that there is a supernatural or deistic source to existence |
| REPRESENTAMEN | in Peircean theory, the physical part of a sign |
| REPRESENTATION | process by which referents are captured by signs or texts |
| RHEME | in Peircean theory, the interpretant of a qualisign (icon) |
| RHETORIC | branch of philosophy and semiotics studying the various verbal techniques used in all kinds of discourses, from common conversation to poetry |
| RHETORICAL QUESTION | rhetorical technique whereby a question is asked not to gain information, but to assert more emphatically the obvious answer to what is asked |
| RITUAL | performance, ceremony, set of actions or procedures to symbolize some event that bears great meaning |
| S | |
| SCHOOL SYSTEM | system of transmission of knowledge set up to guarantee the continuation of a signifying order |
| SCIENCE | discipline based on the collection of facts and their explanation in some generalizable way |
| SECONDARY MODELING SYSTEM | modeling system based on verbal semiosis |
| SECONDARY SPHERE | cultural sphere that emerges after the primary ones (kinship, religion) |
| SECONDNESS | in Peircean theory, the second level of meaning, derived from verbal processes |
| SEMANTIC DIFFERENTIAL | experimental technique developed by Osgood, Suci, and Tannenbaum which aims to assess the emotional connotations or annotations evoked by words |
| SEMANTICS | study of meaning in language |
| SEMIOLOGY | Saussure’s term for the study of signs, now restricted to the study of verbal signs |
| SEMIOSIS | comprehension and production of signs |
| SEMIOTICS | science or doctrine that studies signs and their uses in representation |
| SENDER | transmitter of a message or text |
| SENSE RATIO | McLuhan’s term for the degree to which a physical sense is used in processing information |
| SENSORY COGNIZING | knowing an object through the senses |
| SENSORY KNOWING | initial form of knowing something through the senses |
| SETTING | place and conditions in which a narrative takes place |
| SEX | classification of an organism as female or male on the basis of its reproductive organs and functions |
| SEXUALITY | behavior associated with sex |
| SHELTER | material covering or structure that can be deployed or built to provide protection from weather changes and security against any predator, invader, or aggressor |
| SIGN | something that stands for something or someone else in some capacity |
| SIGN LANGUAGE | language code based on gestures and grammatical rules that share some common points with spoken language |
| SIGNAL | an emission or movement that naturally or conventionally triggers some reaction on the part of a receiver |
| SIGNIFICATION | process of generating meaning through the use of signs |
| SIGNIFICATION PRINCIPLE | principle asserting that signifying orders are built on the same signifying properties (iconicity, indexicality, etc.) and that these manifest themselves in different ways according to culture, where they cohere into a specific system of signification |
| SIGNIFIED | that part of a sign that is referred to |
| SIGNIFIER | that part of a sign that does the referring; the physical part of a sign |
| SIGNIFYING ORDER | interconnection of signs, codes, and texts that makes up a culture |
| SIMILE | rhetorical technique by which two ideas are compared explicitly with the word like or as |
| SINSIGN | in Peircean theory, a representamen (signifier) that draws attention to, or singles out, a particular object in time-space |
| SOCIAL TEXT | text which underlies a signifying order and thus regulates communal sense-making |
| SOCIETY | collectivity of individuals who share a mainstream culture |
| SOCIOBIOLOGY | study of biological evolution in terms of its codependency with social and cultural evolution in all species |
| SOCIOLINGUISTICS | branch of linguistics studying how language functions in society |
| SOUND SYMBOLISM | process by which referents are represented through some form of vocal iconicity in speech |
| SOURCE DOMAIN | class of vehicles that deliver a conceptual metaphor |
| SPEECH | vocalized or articulated language |
| STRUCTURAL EFFECT | effect on perception and worldview produced by the specific meanings of signs, texts, and codes |
| STRUCTURALISM | view that all human signifying systems, including culture, manifest regularity, systematicity, patterning, and predictability, keeping them differentiated |
| STRUCTURE | any repeatable, systematic, patterned, or predictable aspect of signs, codes, texts |
| SUBJECTIVE KNOWING | knowing that is specific to an individual, rather than to a group |
| SUBORDINATE LEVEL | level on which a concept has a detailing function |
| SUBTEXT | text (message) hidden within a text |
| SUPERORDINATE LEVEL | level on which a concept has a highly general classificatory function |
| SYLLABARY | writing system based on characters representing syllables |
| SYLLABLE | word or part of a word pronounced with a single, uninterrupted sounding of the voice (usually a vowel) and generally one or more sounds of lesser sonority (usually consonants) |
| SYMBOL | sign that represents a referent through cultural convention |
| SYMBOLICITY | process of representing with symbolic signs |
| SYMPTOM | bodily sign that stands for some ailment, physical condition, disease |
| SYNAPSE | junction point of two neurons, across which a nerve impulse passes |
| SYNCHRONY | study of signs, codes, texts as they exist at a specific point in time |
| SYNECDOCHE | signifying process by which a part stands for the whole, the whole for a part, the species for the genus, etc. |
| SYNESTHESIA | juxtaposition of signs so as to evoke different sense modalities simultaneously |
| SYNONYMY | relation by which the meanings of different signs overlap |
| SYNTAGM | structural relation that combines signs in code-specific ways |
| SYNTAX | syntagmatic structure in language |
| T | |
| TACTEME | minimal unit of touch |
| TAG | word, phrase, or clause added to a sentence to emphasize a point, to seek approval, to ascertain some reaction |
| TARGET DOMAIN | topic of a conceptual metaphor |
| TECHNOLOGY | system of objects made by humans |
| TENOR | subject of a metaphor (topic) |
| TERRITORIALITY | mechanism by which animals seek out territories for survival |
| TERTIARY MODELING SYSTEM | modeling system based on a signifying order |
| TEXT | a message put together in terms of a specific code |
| THEATER | reenactment of some event in nature, in life, in society in some carefully scripted way, involving actors and a spatial location, such as a raised stage, around which an audience can view and/or hear the performance |
| THEORETICAL SEMIOTICS | study of signs and sign systems; also called general semiotics |
| THIRDNESS | in Peircean theory, the third level of meaning derived from symbolic processes |
| TONE | vocal or musical sound; pitch or modulation of the voice that expresses a particular meaning or feeling; manner of speaking or writing that shows a certain attitude on the part of the speaker or writer; quality or value of color; relative height of pitch with which a syllable or word is pronounced; any one of the full intervals of a diatonic scale |
| TOPIC | subject of a metaphor (tenor) |
| TOPONYM | name referring to a place |
| TRANSMISSION | physical process of sending messages or texts to a receiver |
| TRIBE | collectivity of human beings sharing a signifying order, a territory, and a history grounded in the primary spheres |
| TROPE | figure of speech |
| TURING MACHINE | computer program |
| TURING TEST | hypothetical test devised by mathematician Alan Turing to show that one could program a computer in such a way that it would be virtually impossible to discriminate between its answers and those contrived by a human being |
| U | |
| UNCONSCIOUS | in psychoanalytic theory, a hypothetical region of the mind containing wishes, memories, fears, feelings, and ideas that are prevented from expression in conscious awareness |
| UNILATERAL KINSHIP SYSTEM | kinship system which assigns membership to kin through either the maternal or the paternal kinship line |
| UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR | Chomsky’s notion that the brain has a set of innate principles that undergird the development of specific languages |
| UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLES | view that certain features of language are universal, being part of a purported human “language organ” |
| V | |
| VEHICLE | part of a metaphor to which a tenor is connected |
| VISEME | minimal unit of visual representation |
| W | |
| WHORFIAN HYPOTHESIS | view elaborated by Benjamin Lee Whorf that the language one speaks shapes h/er worldview |
| WRITING | process of representing speech with characters |
| Z | |
| ZOOSEMIOTICS | branch of semiotics studying semiosis in and across species |
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