Semiotics of Drink and Drinking

Semiotics of Drink and Drinking PDF Author: Paul Manning
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1441137742
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
A comparative study of how drinks and drinking, as embodied semiotic and material forms, mediate modern social life.

Semiotics of Drink and Drinking

Semiotics of Drink and Drinking PDF Author: Paul Manning
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1441137742
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
A comparative study of how drinks and drinking, as embodied semiotic and material forms, mediate modern social life.

A Buddhist Theory of Semiotics

A Buddhist Theory of Semiotics PDF Author: Fabio Rambelli
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1441154736
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
One of the first attempts ever to present in a systematic way a non-western semiotic system. This book looks at Japanese esoteric Buddhism and is based around original texts, informed by explicit and rigorous semiotic categories. It is a unique introduction to important aspects of the thought and rituals of the Japanese Shingon tradition. Semiotic concerns are deeply ingrained in the Buddhist intellectual and religious discourse, beginning with the idea that the world is not what it appears to be, which calls for a more accurate understanding of the self and reality. This in turn results in sustained discussions on the status of language and representations, and on the possibility and methods to know reality beyond delusion; such peculiar knowledge is explicitly defined as enlightenment. Thus, for Buddhism, semiotics is directly relevant to salvation; this is a key point that is often ignored even by Buddhologists. This book discusses in depth the main elements of Buddhist semiotics as based primarily on original Japanese pre-modern sources. It is a crucial publication in the fields of semiotics and religious studies.

The Semiotics of Clowns and Clowning

The Semiotics of Clowns and Clowning PDF Author: Paul Bouissac
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472525086
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
During the last 300 years circus clowns have emerged as powerful cultural icons. This is the first semiotic analysis of the range of make-up and costumes through which the clowns' performing identities have been established and go on developing. It also examines what Bouissac terms 'micronarratives' - narrative meanings that clowns generate through their acts, dialogues and gestures. Putting a repertory of clown performances under the semiotic microscope leads to the conclusion that the performances are all interconnected and come from what might be termed a 'mythical matrix'. These micronarratives replicate in context-sensitive forms a master narrative whose general theme refers to the emergence of cultures and constraints that they place upon instinctual behaviour. From this vantage point, each performance can be considered as a ritual which re-enacts the primitive violence inherent in all cultures and the temporary resolutions which must be negotiated as the outcome. Why do these acts of transgression and re-integration then trigger laughter and wonder? What kind of mirror does this put up to society? In a masterful semiotic analysis, Bouissac delves into decades of research to answer these questions.

The Oxford Handbook of Ritual Language

The Oxford Handbook of Ritual Language PDF Author: David Tavárez
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192694081
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 625

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Book Description
This volume brings together representative case studies and surveys that explore research into ritual language, covering theoretical and methodological approaches that reflect traditional inquiries and more recent studies. This recent literature contends that ritual language hinges on the construction of authoritative ontological models about the cosmos and its inhabitants. Ritual speech also orchestrates performances that articulate representations of collective identities, and rests on the diversity of hierarchical forms of authoritative knowledge, displayed in both oblique and direct terms. Moreover, performances, texts, and narratives associated with ritual practices are closely entwined with historical accounts that navigate current memories, recast in a diversity of ways, about ancestral beings and distant or recent pasts, or delimit a terrain in which dialectical relationships with colonial hegemony and Christian indoctrination emerge to transform the social order. Ritual narrative often offers in its structure and delivery momentous representation of the social order, social institutions, social difference, and collective identities, and may also be constituted by claims about relations among species, non-human actors, and material culture. The Oxford Handbook of Ritual Language addresses foundational questions regarding the scope, structuring, use, and consequences of ritual language. The chapters examine the relationship between speakers' consciousness and verbal ritual performances, and between ritual language, hegemony, collective authority, and the social world. As the study of ritual speech hinges on extensive analyses of linguistic choices and styles, the contributors draw on data from a wide range of language groups and societies in the Americas, the Middle East, the Pacific, South Asia, and the Indian Ocean.

Consumer Culture, Branding and Identity in the New Russia

Consumer Culture, Branding and Identity in the New Russia PDF Author: Graham H.J. Roberts
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317936310
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
As shopping has been transformed from a chore into a major source of hedonistic pleasure, a specifically Russian consumer culture has begun to emerge that is unlike any other. This book examines the many different facets of consumption in today’s Russia, including retailing, advertising and social networking. Throughout, emphasis is placed on the inherently visual - not to say spectacular - nature both of consumption generally, and of Russian consumer culture in particular. Particular attention is paid to the ways in which brands, both Russian and foreign, construct categories of identity in order to claim legitimacy for themselves. What emerges is a fascinating picture of how consumer culture is being reinvented in Russia today, in a society which has one, nostalgic eye turned towards the past, and the other, utopian eye, set firmly on the future. Borrowing concepts from both marketing and cultural studies, the approach throughout is interdisciplinary, and will be of considerable interest, to researchers, students and practitioners wishing to gain invaluable insights into one of the most lucrative, and exciting, of today’s emerging markets.

Down and Out in the New Economy

Down and Out in the New Economy PDF Author: Ilana Gershon
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022645214X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
Finding a job used to be simple. You'd show up at an office and ask for an application. A friend would mention a job in their department. Or you'd see an ad in a newspaper and send in your cover letter. Maybe you'd call the company a week later to check in, but the basic approach was easy. And once you got a job, you would stay--often for decades. Now . . . well, it's complicated. If you want to have a shot at a good job, you need to have a robust profile on LinkdIn. And an enticing personal brand. Or something like that--contemporary how-to books tend to offer contradictory advice. But they agree on one thing: in today's economy, you can't just be an employee looking to get hired--you have to market yourself as a business, one that can help another business achieve its goals. That's a radical transformation in how we think about work and employment, says Ilana Gershon. And with Down and Out in the New Economy, she digs deep into that change and what it means, not just for job seekers, but for businesses and our very culture. In telling her story, Gershon covers all parts of the employment spectrum: she interviews hiring managers about how they assess candidates; attends personal branding seminars; talks with managers at companies around the United States to suss out regional differences--like how Silicon Valley firms look askance at the lengthier employment tenures of applicants from the Midwest. And she finds that not everything has changed: though the technological trappings may be glitzier, in a lot of cases, who you know remains more important than what you know. Throughout, Gershon keeps her eye on bigger questions, interested not in what lessons job-seekers can take--though there are plenty of those here--but on what it means to consider yourself a business. What does that blurring of personal and vocational lives do to our sense of our selves, the economy, our communities? Though it's often dressed up in the language of liberation, is this approach actually disempowering workers at the expense of corporations? Rich in the voices of people deeply involved with all parts of the employment process, Down and Out in the New Economy offers a snapshot of the quest for work today--and a pointed analysis of its larger meaning.

The Semiotics of X

The Semiotics of X PDF Author: Jamin Pelkey
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1474273831
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
The X figure is ubiquitous in contemporary culture, but attempts to explain our fixation with X are rare. This book argues that the origins and meanings of X go far beyond alphabets and archetypes to remembered feelings of body movements - movements best typified in the performance of “spread-eagle” as a posture or gesture. These body memories are then projected onto other patterns and dynamics to help us make sense of the world. The argument is accomplished using a blend of insights from linguistic anthropology, cognitive linguistics, rhetoric culture and process semiotics to bring together revealing clues from languages, cultures and thinkers around the world. Chief among the uses and experiences of X are its tendencies to involve us in surprising reversals and blends. In ancient times the X-pattern was discussed as “chiasmus”, a figure which, according to Maurice Merleau-Ponty, informs the most basic elements of our bodily experience, calling into question polarized dichotomies such as subject versus object. Pushed to extremes, presumed opposites like these tend to reverse suddenly. Likewise, blended experiences of our bodily extremities - arms and legs, toes and fingers, hands and feet - provide a plausible source of grounding for unique human abilities like analogy and double-scope conceptual integration. The book illustrates these dynamics by drawing attention to uses of X in history, prehistory and daily life, from sports and advertising to world mythology and languages around the world. The Semiotics of X is the first step towards developing a larger argument on the important but neglected role that chiasmus plays in cognition. It aims to inspire continued exploration on the figure, with the full expectation that chiasmus will become for the 21st century what metaphor became for the 20th century: a revolution in thinking about the way we think.

Language and Materiality

Language and Materiality PDF Author: Jillian R. Cavanaugh
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107180945
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
Language and Materiality argues the importance of analyzing language use with an eye toward new materialisms, semiotics, and ideology.

Introduction to Peircean Visual Semiotics

Introduction to Peircean Visual Semiotics PDF Author: Tony Jappy
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1441109404
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
Peircean introduction to visual rhetoric and a powerful systemic of semiotics different to the structuralist Saussurian mainstream.

The Semiotics of Che Guevara

The Semiotics of Che Guevara PDF Author: Maria-Carolina Cambre
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472512227
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
Alberto Korda's famous photograph of Che Guevara titled the "Guerrillero Heroico" has been reproduced, modified and remixed countless times since it was taken on March 5, 1960, in Havana, Cuba. This book looks again at this well-known mass-produced image to explore how an image can take on cultural force in diverse parts of the globe and legitimate varying positions and mass action in unexpected global political contexts. Analytically, the book develops a comparative analysis of how images become attached to a range of meanings that are absolutely inseparable from their contexts of use. Addressing the need for a fluid and responsive approach to the study of visual meaning-making, this book relies on multiple methodologies such as semiotics, research-creation, multimodal discourse analysis, ethnography and phenomenology and shows how each method has something to offer toward the understanding of the social and cultural work of images in our globally oriented cultures.