1 WHAT IS CULTURE?

ACTIVITIES

1. Define the following terms in your own words, using illustrations or cases-in-point to show their meaning:

Age of Enlightenment

archetype

Australopithecus

bilateral kinship

bipedalism

civilization

cognatic kinship

collective unconscious

critical period

Cro-Magnons

cultural sphere

culture

evolutionism

gene

Homo erectus

Homo habilis

Homo sapiens

Homo sapiens sapiens

matrilineal kinship

meme

nation

natural selection

Neanderthal

neoteny

paleontology

parallel kinship

patrilineal kinship

psychoanalysis

race

relativism

Shinto

signifying order

society

sociobiology

super-tribe

tribe

unilateral kinship

Worlds 1, 2, 3

2. Look up a definition of the term culture in any contemporary anthropology, sociology, and/or culture theory text. Compare it to the semiotic definition given in this chapter.

3. Summarize the views of both evolutionists and relativists with respect to the raison d’être of culture.

4. Can you cite any other manifestations of the trickster archetype, in addition to the ones mentioned in this chapter?

5. List and discuss the evolutionary antecedents to culture.

6. Do you know of any other examples of tribal practices within modern societies that are similar to those of the Palio of Siena?

7. Explain Popper’s three Worlds in your own words.

8. List the main spheres of culture, defining each one in your own words.

DISCUSSION

9. Do you think that modern humans could live without culture? Explain your answer.

10. Which theory of culture origins do you find the most persuasive? Why?

11. Do you agree with the sociobiological view that the Self is a physical phenomenon? Explain your answer.

12. Do you agree with the idea that modern-day behaviors reverberate with tribal tendencies? Explain your answer.

13. Why do you think the human species is a meaning-seeking species?

14. Do you think that culture shapes human actions and ideas? If so, how is innovation or creativity possible?

2 THE FIELD OF CULTURAL SEMIOTICS

ACTIVITIES

1. Define the following terms in your own words, using illustrations or cases-in-point to show their meaning:

bit

channel

Chinese Room argument

cognitive science

communication

competence

conventional sign

decoding

diachrony

displacement

encoding

environmentalism

evolutionary psychology

feedback

Gestalt psychology

hermeneutics

information content

innatism

langue

medium

morphology

natural sign

noise

parole

phonology

receiver

redundancy

referent

semiology

semiotics

sender

sign

structuralism

symptom

synchrony

syntax

Turing test

Whorfian hypothesis

2. Distinguish between theoretical and cultural semiotics in your own words.

3. What are the three basic questions of semiotic analysis?

4. Analyze each of the following signs using the three basic questions of semiotics.

5. Explain the difference between a concrete and an abstract referent.

6. What is the difference between semiotics and communication science?

7. Can you devise a logical argument rejecting theTuring test, other than Searle’s Chinese Room rebuttal?

8. From what disciplines does cultural semiotics seek insights?

9. List Eco’s five criteria for characterizing semiotics as a science. Discuss the validity of each one.

10. List the working axioms of cultural semiotic analysis, discussing their validity or lack thereof.

DISCUSSION

11. Do you think that the ability to produce and comprehend signs is related to some fundamental need in the human species? Could human beings survive without this ability? Explain your answer.

12. Do you agree with the assertion that the ability to lie with language is a powerful one? Explain your answer.

13. Do you think that the human mind is essentially a type of Turing machine? Explain your answer.

14. Do you think that the specific language a person speaks influences how that person views the world? Explain your answer.

3. THE SIGNIFYING ORDER

ACTIVITIES

1. Define the following terms in your own words, using illustrations or cases-in-point to show their meaning:

analogy

annotation

antonymy

argument

code

connotation

context

deixis

denotation

dicisign

firstness

focal color

homonymy

hypoicon

hyponymy

icon

iconicity

index

indexicality

interpretant

legisign

meaning

object

onomatopoeia

paradigmatic structure

primary modeling system

proportionality

qualisign

recognition

referent

representamen

representation

rheme

secondary modeling system

secondness

semantic differential

semiosis

sensory cognizing

sign

signal

signification

signified

signifier

sinsign

structural effect

structural system

structure

symbol

symbolicity

synonymy

syntagmatic structure

tertiary modeling system

text

thirdness

2. Explain modeling systems theory in your own words.

3. Summarize Saussure’s and Peirce’s views of the sign in your own words. Can the two be synthesized into an integrated theory of the sign? How?

4. Explain the difference between meaning and signification in your own words.

5. Using a vignette of the type used by Hayakawa to define democracy, define:

freedom

friendship

love

nation

respect

slavery

totalitarianism

6. Give examples of:

gustatory iconicity

olfactory iconicity

personal deixis

spatial deixis

visual iconicity

vocal iconicity

tactile iconicity

temporal deixis

7. Explain the dimensionality principle in your own words.

8. Identify the following signs as icons, indexes, or symbols, or a combination of these:

chat erase Ouch! Wow! h x s X⁴ zap zigzag

9. Give the denotative meanings first and then several connotative meanings of the following words and pictorial symbols:

blue, cat, car, life, person

10. List some connotations of the following color terms. Then discuss any annotations (personal meanings) they might elicit.

black

blue

brown

green

orange

purple

white

yellow

11. Give examples of the paradigmatic, syntagmatic, and analogical properties of:

automobile design

clothing

music

the alphabet

the integers

DISCUSSION

12. Do you think that the signifying order shapes worldview? Explain your answer.

13. Explain the interconnection among semiosis, representation, and the signifying order in your own words.

14. Do you think that some animals are capable of producing witting signals? Explain your answer.

15. Discuss the debate on color in your own words. Do you think that color is what language says it is? Explain your answer.

4 THE BODY

ACTIVITIES

1. Define the following terms in your own words, using illustrations or cases-in-point to show their meaning:

adaptor

affect display

ballet

clothing

dance

dress

emblem

gender

gesticulant

gesture

haptics

illustrator

interpersonal zone

kinesic code

kinestheme

lovemap

nudity

oculareme

proxeme

proxemic code

regulator

sex

sexuality

sign language

tacteme

tactile code

viseme

2. Give examples of:

adaptors

affect displays

beat gesticulants

cohesive gesticulants

deictic gesticulants

emblems

iconic gesticulants

iconic gestures

indexical gestures

metaphoric gesticulants

regulators

symbolic gestures

3. Discuss the differences among the notions of sex, sexuality, and gender.

4. Give examples of how grooming and appearance codes influence how we currently prepare the face for social presentation according to gender and age.

5. What visemes convey the following emotions?

happiness

hate

love

6. Find expressions in addition to those used in this chapter showing how we perceive the face (e.g. He’s just another pretty face).

7. Summarize in your own words what eye contact patterns are and then give examples (if you know any) of how ours differ from those found in other cultures.

8. Give examples of gestures for:

“good-bye”

“hello”

“stop”

anger

intelligence

love

sureness

surprise

uncertainty

9. Explain the difference between clothing and dress in terms of the dimensionality principle.

10. Give a summary of the reasons for, and functions of, dancing in the human species.

11. Using the typologies of communication features described in this chapter, compare the following communication systems with human language: bird calls, dog barking, the gestures of many primates.

12. Describe the proxemic patterns involved in shaking hands with the following people:

a friend you haven’t seen in a while

a stranger of the opposite sex

a prospective employer

a stranger from a foreign country

13. Describe the tactile patterns, if any, to be employed when interacting with these people in your culture:

a child

a parent

a friend

an acquaintance

a stranger

DISCUSSION

14. Do you think that it will ever be possible to communicate with other species? If so, in what ways?

15. Do you think that gesture is or is not a more rudimentary form of communication than vocal language? Explain your answer.

16. Do you think that the Self is understood primarily as a sign? Explain your answer. How would you define your Self in semiotic terms?

17. Do you see any evolutionary significance in the phenomenon of interpersonal zones? Explain your answer.

18. Do you agree that the face is perceived as a persona? Give reasons to support your answer.

19. Do you think that the gender-coded gazing pattern whereby the male is the gazer and the female the one looked at has changed in the last few years? If not, explain why it has not. If so, explain why it has.

20. Do you think that what is obscene is a matter of cultural decisions?

21. Why do you think dancing originated in human life?

5 LANGUAGE

ACTIVITIES

1. Define the following terms in your own words, using illustrations or cases-in-point to show their meaning:

addressee

addresser

aesthesia

alphabet

code

conative

contact

cuneiform writing

discourse

diversification

echoism

emotive

hieroglyphic

holophrase

ideograph

language

literacy

logograph

message

metalingual

name

phatic

phoneme

pictograph

poetry

proto-language

referential

sound symbolism

speech

syllabary

synesthesia

taboo

tag question

Universal grammar

Whorfian hypothesis

word magic

writing

2. Give examples of:

alliteration

current teen slang

echoic words

lengthening sounds for emphasis

onomatopoeia

sound symbolism in English

sound-modeling

the use of intonation for emphasis

3. Summarize in your own words the discussion of:

language origin

teenage discourse

the iconic reflex system

the indexical reflex system

4. Give the meanings of each of the following verbal signs, discussing how each signifier represents its referent(s):

bang

bow-wow

hi

ouch

ping-pong

slide

slow

try

whack

5. Draw up a list of the main sources of name-giving cited in this chapter, adding any others you may know of.

6. What is the source of your name? Why do you think you were given that name? What name would you have given yourself? Why?

7. Bring to class your favorite poem, reading it out loud. Then discuss:

what it means

why it means this

what synesthetic and aesthetic effects it produces and how it does this

8. Give examples of your own of each of Jakobson’s constituents and functions. Do you think that these categories apply to nonverbal forms of communication? How so?

9. Explain the relationship between vocal speech and writing in your own words.

10. Explain the Whorfian hypothesis in your own words. Give examples that would seem to corroborate it anecdotally. Give examples that would seem to disconfirm it anecdotally.

11. Give a summary in your own words of the social uses of discourse.

DISCUSSION

12. Why do you think vocal language developed in the human species?

13. Why do you think we give names?

14. Do you think that males speak differently than females? If you think that they do, then why is it that they speak differently? Give examples of gender-based differences in discourse.

15. Do you think that communication is a means of presenting a persona? Explain your answer.

16. Why do you think children respond to poetry like that of Dr. Seuss?

17. Do you agree or disagree with the idea that verbal communication is potentially always a dangerous act? Explain your answer.

6 METAPHOR

ACTIVITIES

1. Define the following terms in your own words, using illustrations or cases-in-point to show their meaning:

conceptual metaphor

conceptual metonym

cultural model

ground

image schema

irony

metaphor

metaphorology

metonymy

source domain

synecdoche

target domain

topic

trope

vehicle

2. Give 5-6 examples of each of the following conceptual metaphors and conceptual metonyms (i.e. actual sentences exemplifying the concepts):

life is a stage

justice is blind

hope is breathing

love is a mental disease

friendship is a journey

the part for the whole

the producer for the product

the place for the institution

the institution for the people responsible

the object used for the user

3. Summarize or explain:

the image schematic basis of metaphor

the manifestations of the face is the person conceptual metonym in society

the functions of irony in discourse and social interaction

the interconnectedness between metaphor and grammar

4. Give the meanings of each of the following metaphors, discussing how each metaphor creates its meaning, and then identifying the conceptual metaphor that it exemplifies:

My life is a comedy.

Their marriage is a sitcom.

I have lost all hope.

You must weigh all the evidence.

That mistake cost me several hours.

5. Identify the conceptual metaphors that the following utterances reveal about love, giving more examples of your own for each one, and then drawing a cultural model of love:

There were sparks between us.

We are attracted to each other.

My life revolves around her.

I am magnetically drawn toward her.

Theirs is a sick relationship.

Their marriage is dead; it can’t be revived.

Their relationship is in good shape.

I’m crazy about her.

I’m constantly raving about her.

He’s gone mad over ner.

I’ve lost my head over her.

She cast a spell over me.

The magic is gone.

She has bewitched me.

I’m in a trance over her.

6. Develop cultural models of:

anger

friendship

happiness

hope

justice

sadness

7. Can you give any examples of mythical residues in common discourse?

8. What is a proverb? Recite any proverbs you know, identifying the kinds of advice they offer.

9. Does the formula happiness is up/sadness is down appear in Western social rituals and behaviors? Give examples.

10. Can you give examples of the grammaticalization and lexicalization of conceptual metaphors/metonyms in English?

DISCUSSION

11. Discuss the notion that all abstract thought is metaphorical in its origin. Do you agree? Explain your answer.

12. Do you think that most scientific knowledge is forged by metaphor? Explain your answer.

13. Do you think that metaphor is a symptom of fantasia, as Vico called the human imagination? Explain your answer.

14. The following metaphor was uttered by a four-year-old child, in referring to his father’s baldness: “My father has a hole in his head.” What do you think it reveals about the development of reasoning in children?

15. Why do you think metaphor is so pervasive in ordinary discourse?

7 SPACE

ACTIVITIES

1. Define the following terms in your own words, using illustrations or cases-in-point to show their meaning:

architecteme

architecture

Bauhaus school

map

modernism

postmodernism

shelter

spatial code

2. List various ways in which buildings and places are interconnected with the other codes of the signifying order of a culture.

3. List the various meanings associated with:

the home

the rooms within the home

a sacred space

a mall

4. Describe the semiotic features of maps.

5. Get a map of your region. Does it reflect any culture-specific features or needs? Explain them.

6. Explain the differences among public, private, and sacred spatial codes.

7. Give a brief summary of the salient points of the history of Western architecture.

9. List the various meanings that are associated with buildings in your city. Explain them in semiotic terms.

10. Give examples of buildings that are considered works of art.

11. Which part of your city do you find to be the most aesthetically pleasing? Why?

DISCUSSION

12. Do you perceive any survival function in the differentiation between private and public spaces? Explain your answer.

13. What do you think sacred spaces and buildings tell us about the human species?

14. Why do you think people go to malls? Explain your answer.

15. Do you think that someone’s personality can be figured out from the type of home s/he lives in? Explain your answer.

16. Do you think that the structure of cities influences people’s worldview?

8 ART

ACTIVITIES

1. Define the following terms in your own words, using illustrations or cases-in-point to show their meaning:

aesthetics

art

catharsis

cinema

color signifiers

commedia dell’arte

drama

linear signifiers

music

performance

perspective

photography

pictoreme

postmodern art

shape signifiers

theater

value signifiers

2. Summarize the main theories and perspectives of art.

3. Summarize the discussion of:

cinema

music

photography

the performing arts

visual art

4. Bring to class samples of your favorite type of musical or visual art. Discuss what each sample means.

5. Compare a painting by Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) with one by Andy Warhol in terms of what each one means and how it delivers its meaning.

6. Now, compare a work by any classical Western composer to any work by a folk or popular music composer in terms of what each one means and how it delivers its meaning.

7. Discuss the influence of Darwinian evolutionary theory on the emergence of the postmodern worldview.

8. Read Waiting for Godot or watch a video of the play. Then, discuss the following elements of the play:

its characters

its costumes

its language

its plot

its scenery

its symbols

9. Watch Koyaanisqatsi, and Blade Runner on video. Then, give your own interpretation of the meaning of each one.

10. Discuss any current movie that you think displays postmodern techniques.

11. Can you find examples of postmodern technique in the musical arts?

DISCUSSION

12. Why do you think art is so intrinsic to human life?

13. Do you agree that cinema is the dominant art form of the contemporary world? Explain your answer.

14. Discuss how one derives meaning from a performance, a musical composition, and a painting.

15. Do you think that people are transformed permanently by great art? Explain your answer.

9 OBJECTS

ACTIVITIES

1. Define the following terms in your own words, using illustrations or cases-in-point to show their meaning:

animism

artifact

artificial intelligence

eating event

fetish

fetishism

food code

gusteme

neomania

object

objectification

pop art

technology

2. Summarize the notion of objectification in your own words.

3. Explain why artifacts allow archeologists to reconstruct a culture.

4. Referring to the case of the Cabbage Patch doll craze, discuss any other “toy crazes” that you know of.

5. Explain the difference between food and cuisine in terms of the dimensionality principle.

6. Explain Lévi-Strauss’s distinction between “the raw” and “the cooked.”

7. In the “Robinson Crusoe” vignette depicted in this chapter, what do you think would happen if the people in the vignette all spoke different languages?

8. List the various ways in which food and eating are interconnected with the other meaning systems of a culture.

9. What do the following food/drink items symbolize in your culture?

apple

banana

bread

grapes

lamb meat

milk

peach

potatoes

wine

10. Describe the table-manner code that applies to each of the following situations:

eating at home

eating at McDonald’s

eating at a high-class restaurant

eating at a wedding

11. Discuss the characteristics of Gutenberg’s Galaxy and Babbage’s Galaxy.

12. Explain and compare the various manifestations of objectification.

13. Discuss what pop art is.

14. Discuss Barthes’ notion of neomania. Do you think it describes the consumerist frame of mind accurately?

DISCUSSION

15. Why do you think people are judged on the basis of what they eat?

16. Recall the toys you used to play with. Which ones were your favorites? Explain why, using semiotic reasoning.

17. What do you think the gendering of toys implies? Explain your answer in semiotic terms.

18. Do you think technology has become an extension of the human species? Explain your answer.

19. Why do you think fetishes are so powerful sexually? Explain your answer.

20. Do you think that some of the art produced by pop artists will last beyond the contemporary world? Explain your answer.

10 NARRATIVE

ACTIVITIES

1. Define the following terms in your own words, using illustrations or cases-in-point to show their meaning:

actant

biography

birth and rebirth myth

character

cosmogonic myth

culture hero myth

eschatological myth

fiction

generative trajectory

intertext

myth

mythology

narrative

narrative structure

narratology

narrator

narreme

novel

Othello effect

plot

plot grammar

setting

subtext

2. Give examples of:

ancient works of fiction

the different narrator-induced perspectives

actants

subtexts and intertexts in narratives you are familiar with

residues of myth in modern-day signifying orders

3. Summarize or explain:

why narrative is intrinsic to human life

the origin and growth of fiction

Propp’s idea of “plot grammar"

the various views of myth

the various types of myth

the difference between myth and mythology

the origin and development of the novel

4. Carry out a narratological analysis of the plot, character, and setting of any novel, movie, or TV program. Do you think that these cohere into a single meaning, or levels of connotative meanings?

5. Explain Greimas’ concept of narrative grammar in your own words. Then take any novel, short story, or comic book and carry out a schematic Greimasian actantial analysis, similar to the one of Madame Bovary.

6. Explain the use of myth in psychoanalysis. Do you think this is scientifically legitimate? Explain your answer.

7. Give examples of other mythological rituals, like the football example.

8. Give examples of other mythological concepts, like the one of childhood.

DISCUSSION

9. Why do you think stories are remarkably similar the world over?

10. Do you think that the ways in which we relate our autobiographies are a part of the presentation of Self? Explain your answer.

11. Why do you think the human species has a “narrative instinct"?

12. Why do you think myth has not disappeared from modern-day thinking? Explain your answer.

13. Why do you think mythologies influence social behavior? Discuss the influence on social life that the following mythologies have had:

the mythology of gender

the mythology of adolescence

the mythology of fatherhood

the mythology of motherhood

14. Do you think that art forms other than narrative writing (novel, short story, etc.) and cinema manifest narrative structure? Explain your answer, providing illustrations.

15. Who determines what the meaning(s) of a novel is? Explain your answer.

11 TELEVISION AND ADVERTISING

ACTIVITIES

1. Define the following terms in your own words, using illustrations or cases-in-point to show their meaning:

advertising

alliteration

brand image

cognitive compression effect

cognitive style

connotative sequence

decoding

encoding

history fabrication effect

medium

mythologizing effect

positioning

propaganda

public relations

publicity

sense ratio

television

2. Summarize the history of TV in your own words.

3. Give concrete examples of the mythologizing, history fabrication, and cognitive compression effects.

4. What is a social text? Give examples of different kinds of social texts.

5. Describe current programs in terms of their meanings and textual functions:

any soap opera

any news and information program

any sitcom

any documentary

any specialty program (sports, movies, etc.)

6. Summarize in your own words the discussion of sense ratios.

7. Give an overview of advertising, focusing on its development as social discourse.

8. Describe the two main techniques of lifestyle advertising—positioning and brand image—with reference to various lifestyle products.

9. Find and bring in an example of each of the following ads, taking each one at random from a magazine. Then analyze each ad semiotically:

a men’s perfume ad

a women’s perfume ad

a watch ad

a cigarette ad

a men’s clothing ad

a women’s clothing ad

10. Give examples from current advertising of:

jingles

slogans

the use of the imperative form

formulas

alliteration

intentional omission

the strategic use of tone of voice (in radio or TV commercials)

11. Give examples of the names of the following, discussing their significance:

a perfume

a soft drink

a record label

a luxury car

DISCUSSION

12. Do you agree with McLuhan that the “medium is the message?” Explain your answer.

13. What do you think will replace TV as the next culture-wide social text?

14. If you had the power to transform TV, what would you do and why?

15. Why do you think advertising is so appealing?

16. Do you think that advertising is effective in enhancing desire for a product? Explain your answer.

12 SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS

ACTIVITIES

1. Define the following terms in your own words, using illustrations or cases-in-point to show their meaning:

closed text

consciousness

macrosignified

microsignified

open text

2. Decribe in your own words what a semiotic approach to culture analysis entails.

3. What are the three stages of cultural semiotic analysis? Give a brief account of how you would conduct research on the following cultural phenomena according to this three-stage methodology:

courtship rituals

the meanings of a popular song

4. Carry out a macrosemiotic analysis of the following image schemas inherent in North American culture, giving examples of their interconnectdness across various codes:

life is a journey

love is magic

5. Carry out a microsemiotic analysis of:

any contemporary lifestyle ad

any love poem

6. Explain the religious, physicalist, and humanist perspectives on human nature in your own words.

7. Summarize in your own words what the signifying order entails in terms of groupthink and individual thinking.

8. Explain the interrelation between the body, the mind, and culture in dimensionality terms.

DISCUSSION

9. After having worked through this manual, how would you define cultural semiotics? Do you think that the semiotic approach to culture is a useful one or not? Explain your answer.

10. How do you think Homo culturalis will evolve? Explain your answer.

11. If knowledge is intertwined with representation, will it ever be possible to know the “truth” about the world? Explain your answer.

12. Do you think that representational activities such as art, music, narrative, etc. enhance survivability? Explain your answer.