New Issue of Signs & Media (Autumn 2019)

Dear all, we are delighted to announce the new publication of our Journal Signs & Media (Autumn Issue, 2019). Please feel free to download it by clicking https://www.dropbox.com/sh/imr73vo4r0me1xi/AABcozqcPnzFgxeDROahx03Wa?dl=0

 

Editor’s Note

Victoria Lady Welby and her works have generally been ignored in semiotics research over the last hundred years. We thus present a special section entitled “Victoria Welby’s Significs” to draw our readers’ attention to this important figure in the history of semiotics. In this section, Susan Petrilli elaborates on Welby’s theoretical system of significs. Zhao Xingzhi ponders the origin of the triadic model of meaning by reviewing the correspondence between Welby and Charles S. Peirce. The core concepts proposed in her significs, namely translation, sense and mother-sense, are discussed by Sun Feng, Tu Youxiang and Xue Chen, respectively. These papers not only introduce Lady Welby’s thought, but also–and most importantly–are dedicated to restoring Welby to her rightful position as co-founder of semiotics.

Debate on form and content dates back to the pre-Qin period in China and ancient Greece in the West, and these ideas continue to influence the thinking of scholars today. In an article entitled “Philosophical Semiotics”, Ding Ersu advances a polysemic and dynamic model of the sign after reviewing dyadic and triadic models in semiotic history. Zhang Ying delves into Chomsky’s influence on Julia Kristeva’s semiotic theory. Liu Weibang focuses on the aesthetic turn from spiritual to bodily signs in the digital age. Philosophical semiotics is shown not merely to clarify the role of semiotics in the academic history of philosophy, but also to cope with new challenges and advance new views.

In our regular section “Semiotics of Communication”, Lin Zheng and Jiang Xiaoli explore conative narration in mental health intervention reports, and Li Hongxiu analyses meta-journalism using a co-text framework. The relationships between mobile phone and self, between celebrity and implied author and between image and ideology are also carefully studied in this section by Wang Xiaoyin, Yan Wenjun and Wang Lihui, respectively. A more detailed discussion of film, historical texts, etc., can be found in the section entitled “Theory and Application”.

Contents

 Philosophical Semiotics

Towards a Polysemic and Dynamic Model of the Sign

Ding Ersu

On the Critical Response of Julia Kristeva’s Sémanalyse to Noam Chomsky’s Transformational-generative Grammar

Zhang Ying

The Relationship between Body, Sign and Aesthetics in the Digital Age

Liu Weibang

Victoria Welby’s Significs

On Victoria Welby: Significs and Language

Susan Petrilli

The Birth of Triads of Meaning: Revisiting the Correspondence between Peirce and Lady Welby

Zhao Xingzhi

On Lady Welby’s Translation Philosophy

Sun Feng  Tu Youxiang

Sense and Mother Sense: Core Concepts in Victoria Welby’s Significs

Xue Chen

Semiotics of Communication

Conative Narration of Mental Health Intervention Reportage as Informational Social Support

Lin Zheng  Jiang Xiaoli

Study of Meta-news Discourse within a Co-text Framework

Li Hongxiu

On the Construction and Domestication of the Self through Mobile Internet Access

Wang XiaoYing

The Value Criteria and Contextual Adaptability of Celebrity Signs’ Implied Authors

Yan Wenjun

An Ideological Study of Image Narration in the Era of Visual Culture

Wang LiHui

Theory and Application

To Narrate or to be Narrated: Montage as a Style

Wen Yiming

Semiotics and Translation Studies: A Reinvestigation of Jakobson’s Semiotic View of Translation

Luo Jin

The Narrative Motivation and Meta-characteristics of the Hero’s Journey

Zhang Hongyou

Driving and Braking Forces in Modernisation: A Case Study of Denmark’s Specific Modernisation Trajectory

Xiao Hongde

Book Review

The Communication Pattern in Meaning Production: A Review of Lu Zhenglan’s Popular Music: A Study in Semiotics of Communication

Zhang Li

The Model in Chinese Traditional Semiotic Thoughts Studies：A Review of Su Zhi’s A Semiotic Study in Zhouyi

Yu Hualong