So ya decided to do a little more digging? Each of these items discusses an interesting aspect of Semiotics. All of the links worked as of 10/15/98. However, as with anything on the web, I can't promise they are still up and going. Also, neither I nor Ohio University claims any responsibility for offensive items you may find.
Biosemiotics: Functional-evolutionary approach to the analysis of the sense of information.
Alexei A. Sharov
The subject of biosemiotics, a new inter-discipline branch of science, is investigation of the biological nature of signs and semiotic base of biology. Information is considered as a micro-state of a system affecting the choice of system trajectories at bifurcation points. Sense of information has two components: meaning and value. Meaning is a set of bans and limitations set by information on the trajectories of system development and behavior, and value is measured by the contribution of information to the safety of self-maintenance and self-reproduction of the system. Meaning and value are considered at the material and ideal level. Sense evolution is characterized by its extension over time and space, and by complication of its structure. This process went gradually from pre-biological systems till the man."
http://www.gypsymoth.ento.vt.edu/~sharov/biosem/txt/biosem.html
Communication and Signification within Semiotics
Paolo Teobaldell
"In this paper I analyze the relation of the two basic conceptual categories, that of communication and of signification in the domain of semiotics. The basic approach consists in the analysis of a basic semiotic concept, that of sign, considered firstly in its classic version and then in the innovative one, the cybernetic-informational one."
http://www.megi.it/raven/default.htm
Critical Semiotics
Scott Simpkins
This web sight is an eight-section lecture covering possibly any aspect that one could cover regarding Semiotics. This course introduces semiotics by examining contemporary critiques of it. The lectures build on an overview of basic concepts of semiotics by discussing several prominent critics of modern semiotics. An analysis of James Thurber's short story, "The Catbird Seat," is used as a conclusion to demonstrate potential applications of the techniques and principles associated with semiotic analysis.
http://www.epas.utoronto.ca:8080/epc/srb/cyber/sim1.html
Communication Science vs. Semiotics
Carlos Colon
"Marcel Danesi says, "communication theorists generally focus more on the study of message-making as a process, whereas semioticians center their attention more on what a message means and on how it creates meaning" (Messages and Meanings: An Introduction to Semiotics, 1994). He implies that both communication science and semiotics are systematic studies of signs. Interestingly, Danesi comments that semiotics studies signification first and communication second.
Danesi's definitions and distinctions about communication science and semiotics captured my interest because of the way he draws the line between two areas of study that are very closely related. In this paper I will try to elaborate on those differences. I have to admit that until now I am not completely convinced about the way to distinguish among semiotics and communication science. However, I believe that it is worth the effort. Reflection about these topics will help me and possibly the reader to understand them better."
http://php.indiana.edu/~ccolon/Semiotics/ccolon1.html
Research Center for Semiotics RCS
Prof. Dr. Roland Posner and Prof. Dr. Evelyn Dolling
"This web site is has a list of links containing information that has been compiled by the authors regarding Semiotics. The link titles are Research Center of Semiotic. This has information concerning the Research Center of Semiotics: aims, activities, main areas of research, and publications. The Semanitics and Pragmatics of Everyday Gestures, an international symposium of the interdisciplinary research project: Gesture Recognition with Sensor Gloves. Scholars, an introduction to the scholars working at or in association with the Research Center of Semiotics. Post-graduate curriculum in semiotics has information concerning the Post-graduate Curriculum in Semiotics. Dissertation and research projects has a short description of the persons and their topics of research. Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Semiotik (DGS) e.V., an introduction to the German Society of Semiotics, its aims and activities."
http://www.tu-berlin.de/~afs/index.htm
Do the Dead Wear Underwear?: The Semiotics Of Death Ritual
"Death is a rich field for the semiotician for it represents the ultimate, final signified. Death is at once abstract and unknowable but all too real in its painful, physical byproduct, the corpse. And it is this corpse as sign, that constructs the way a culture stabilizes and represents itself. The corpse, represents both the contents of the once living and the ungraspable absence of content, death. Through the rituals of death, cultures try and represent the unrepresented. They attempt to diffuse deaths power by returning a voice to the once living. Death rituals are filled with codes that attempt to reconcile the opposites of life and death. And, while these codes may be culturally specific, they are bound up in an inescapable, universal sign."
http://educ.queensu.ca/~warrenp/death.html


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This page was last updated 10/15/98 by Chad Daniels

Copyright, 1998