Introduction to Peircean Visual Semiotics

Description

Contemporary culture is as much visual as literary. This book explores an approach to the communicative power of the pictorial and multimodal documents that make up this visual culture, using Peircean semiotics. It develops the enormous theoretical potential of Peirce’s theory of signs of signs (semiotics) and the persuasive strategies in which they are employed (visual rhetoric) in a variety of documents. Unlike presentations of semiotics that take the written word as the reference value, this book examines this particular rhetoric using pictorial signs as its prime examples. The visual is not treated as the ‘poor relation’ to the (written) word. It is therefore possible to isolate more clearly the specific constituent properties of word and image, taking these as the basic material of a wide range of cultural artefacts. It looks at comic strips, conventional photographs, photographic allegory, pictorial metaphor, advertising campaigns and the huge semiotic range exhibited by the category of the ‘poster’. This is essential reading for all students of semiotics, introductory and advanced. Cover HalfTitle Series Title Copyright Dedication Contents Acknowledgements Introduction The zoologists and the hunters Why Peirce? The philosophy of representation Organization of the book Conventions and abbreviations Further reading Chapter One Signs and things1 1.1 Semiotics as logic 1.1.1 The core elements 1.1.2 The action of the sign 1.1.3 The structure of semiosis and the medium 1.1.4 An illustration 1.2 The mature system 1.2.1 Sign or representamen? 1.2.2 Two objects 1.2.3 Three interpretants 1.3 Continuous semiosis 1.3.1 Continuity and the interpretant 1.3.2 Concluding remarks 1.4 Summary Chapter Two How shall a sign be called? 2.1 Two preliminary distinctions 2.2 Peirce’s first division 2.2.1 Three subclasses of signs 2.2.1.1 Legisigns and replicas 2.2.1.2 Sinsign or replica? 2.2.1.1 Legisigns and replicas 2.2.1.2 Sinsign or replica? 2.2.2 Non-verbal communication 2.3 Illustrations 2.3.1 Iconography 2.3.2 ‘Body language’10 2.3.3 Personification 2.4 Issues 2.4.1 Code or legisign? 2.4.2 Type, token/instance, mark 2.5 Summary Chapter Three Peirce 3.1 The philosopher 3.1.1 Select biography 3.1.2 The epistemological background 3.1.2.1 Idealism 3.1.2.2 Realism 3.1.2.3 Empiricism 3.1.2.1 Idealism 3.1.2.2 Realism 3.1.2.3 Empiricism 3.1.3 Mind, language and classification 3.2 Inference and perception 3.3 Complexity and the categories 3.3.1 Architectonic 3.3.2 Quality, existence, generality 3.3.2.1 Legisign and replica 3.3.2.2 The implication principle 3.3.2.1 Legisign and replica 3.3.2.2 The implication principle 3.3.3 Two conceptualizations of the sign 3.3.3.1 Saussure 3.3.3.2 Peirce 3.3.3.1 Saussure 3.3.3.2 Peirce 3.4 Methodology and the 1903 classification of signs 3.4.2 Putting it all together 3.5 Summary Chapter Four Modes of representation 4.1 Three orders of complexity 4.2 Modes of representation 4.2.1 The icon 4.2.2 The index 4.2.3 The symbol 4.3 The object revisited 4.3.1 The dynamic object 4.3.2 The immediate object 4.4 Summary Chapter Five Medium matters 5.1 An ecology of signs 5.1.1 Degrees of complexity and their implications for the structure of signs 5.1.2 Medium and structure of the sign 5.2 The hypoicons 5.2.1 Hypoiconicity introduced 5.2.1.1 Image 5.2.1.2 Diagram 5.2.1.3 Metaphor 5.2.1.1 Image 5.2.1.2 Diagram 5.2.1.3 Metaphor 5.2.2 Hypoiconicity in pictorial documents 5.2.2.1 Image, diagram, metaphor 5.2.2.2 Metaphor and simile 5.2.2.1 Image, diagram, metaphor 5.2.2.2 Metaphor and simile 5.3 Beyond metaphor: The structure of allegory and personification 5.4 Post scriptum 5.4.1 Metaphor, atomism and the code 5.4.2 Jakobson and iconicity theory 5.5 Summary Chapter Six The mute poem 6.1 The paradox of the still image 6.1.1 The mute poem 6.1.2 Informative potential 6.2 Peirce and information 6.3 The third trichotomy 6.3.1 The dicent sign 6.3.2 The rheme 6.3.3 Pictura loquens 6.3.4 The argument 6.3.4.1 Abduction, deduction, induction 6.3.4.2 ‘Moving pictures of thought’ 6.3.4.1 Abduction, deduction, induction 6.3.4.2 ‘Moving pictures of thought’ 6.3.5 Hypoiconicity again 6.4 Classifying signs 6.5 Summary Chapter Seven Rhetoric of the image 7.1 Theoretical considerations 7.1.1 Common science and special science 7.1.2 From semiotics to rhetoric 7.2 Rhetoric 7.2.1 Rhetoric theory 7.2.1.1 Oratory 7.2.1.2 The loci of classical rhetoric 7.2.1.1 Oratory 7.2.1.2 The loci of classical rhetoric 7.2.2 Speculative rhetoric 7.2.3 Intersubjectivity and the field of the interpretant 7.3 Case studies: Ideology and inflection5 7.3.1 The 2006 Home Office ‘consent’ campaign 7.3.2 Spread the word around . . . 7.3.3 ‘Savoir d’où l’on vient’ 7.4 Summary Chapter Eight Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index