Semiotic Investigations: Towards an Effective SemioticsIn Semiotic Investigations, Alec McHoul develops a theory of meaning that he calls "effective semiotics" - a theory that investigates "the ways in which signs have meaning by virtue of their actual uses." McHoul expounds his theory of effective semiotics - of "meaning-as-use" - in a series of provocative chapters on diverse topics. He begins by examining the relations between semiotics and history and between semiotics and specific communities. He elaborates on the nature of these relations by demonstrating the "effective semiotics" of a particular photograph from the 1880s, episodes from the film Singin' in the Rain and the Batman comics, literary works, children's primers, popular accounts of science, and many other objects, artifacts, and experiences. Semiotic Investigations advances its own comprehensive theory of signs while ably examining works by such distinguished philosophers and theorists as Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Derrida, Foucault, Habermas, Lyotard, Kuhn, and others. Yet the book is also down-to-earth and clearly written, with an eye towards a startling range of "ordinary" and "uncommon" experiences. It will be required reading for linguists, philosophers, semioticians, anthropologists, literary theorists, and students of cultural studies. |
Contents
Signifying History | 3 |
Framing Photographs | 19 |
Culture and Community | 41 |
Signs and Notsigns | 55 |
Reading Practices | 65 |
PART TWO From Formalism and Ethnomethodology to Ethics 89 658 | 89 |
Reflexivity Problems and Solutions | 91 |
Public Methods for Private Practices | 101 |
Signing in the Rain | 147 |
Closing off Openings | 153 |
Gatekeeping Logic | 165 |
Converse Communities | 173 |
Analytic Ethics | 191 |
Notes | 213 |
231 | |
243 | |
Intelligibility Actionability and Historicity | 131 |
Indexicalitys Horizon of Possibility | 137 |
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Common terms and phrases
action actual analysis analytic argue Barnardo basal reader Batman Camera chapter classroom comics competence concept critical critique culture definite Derrida Detective Comics discourse discourse analysis domain effective semiotics Emperor's New Mind empirical ethics ethnomethodology event everyday example fact formal forms Foucault frame Garfinkel grammar Harvey Sacks Hence idea indeterminacy indexical potential intelligibility investigation kind language least lecture limits linguistic logical look Marxism mathematical matter meaning ment mental methodic activities moral Nietzsche not-sign object Oliver North paradox particular Penrose perhaps philosophical photograph political position possible postmodern precisely principle produced pure question readers reading realism refer reflexive relation reflexivity relation relevances routine Sacks Sarah Burge semiosis sense sexual sign's simply social semiotics socio-logical problems Sociology solutions space specific studies talk theory things tion traditional truth types utterances Wagner and Lloyd Wittgenstein