Unfolding The Semiotic Web In Urban Discourse

The main focus of this volume is on urbanity as a discursive way of human life in the city. Discourse is specified here in terms of semiotic codes and processes that link city dwellers as communicating selves into interpersonal and intersubjective collectivities when they create and interpret similar meanings embodied in material bearers. Accordingly, the unfolding of the semiotic web is understood, firstly, as detecting and evaluating the growth and manifestation of the sphere of meaning-bearers or a sequence of meaning-bearing events, and secondly, as identifying and explaining the constituents and aspects of discourse in the light of signs and/or sign-processes that aggregate individual participants of communication into discursive linkages on a lower level and discursive communities - on a higher level of social grouping. Some contributions deal with the discursive properties of human individuals in urban environments, and some others are devoted either to the meta-discourses on the city or discourses in the city.

As web applications play a vital role in our society, social media has emerged as an important tool in the creation and exchange of user-generated content and social interaction. The benefits of these services have entered in the educational areas to become new means by which scholars communicate, collaborate, and teach. Social Media and the New Academic Environment: Pedagogical Challenges provides relevant theoretical frameworks and the latest research on social media and its challenges in the educational context. This book is essential for professionals aiming to improve their understanding of social media at different levels of education, as well as researchers in the fields of e-learning, educational science, information and communication sciences, and much more.

This book outlines the future of semiotic research in the study of urban spaces, with chapters authored by leading scholars in the field. It offers thought-provoking explanations of semiotic theory, methodology and applications with the goal of exploring recently developed approaches to the interpretive aspects of urban space. This title contains one or more Open Access chapters.

The study of semiotics underwent a gradual but radical paradigm shift during the past century, from a glottocentric (language-centered) enterprise to one that encompasses the whole terrestrial biosphere. In this collection of 17 essays, Thomas A. Sebeok, one of the seminal thinkers in the field, shows how this progression took place. His wide-ranging discussion of the evolution of the field covers many facets, including discussions of biosemiotics, semiotics as a bridge between the humanities and natural sciences, semiosis, nonverbal communication, cat and horse behavior, the semiotic self, and women in semiotics. This thorough account will appeal to seasoned scholars and neophytes alike.

History and Classics of Modern Semiotics -- Sign and Meaning -- Semiotics, Code, and the Semiotic Field -- Language and Language-Based Codes -- From Structuralism to Text Semiotics: Schools and Major Figures -- Text Semiotics: The Field -- Nonverbal Communication -- Aesthetics and Visual Communication.

This provocative book undertakes a new and challenging reading of recent semiotic and structuralist theory, arguing that films, novels, and poems cannot be studied in isolation from their viewers and readers.