UID:
edocfu_9959236175502883
Format:
1 online resource (323 p.)
Edition:
1st ed.
ISBN:
1-282-31223-5
,
9786612312236
,
90-272-8890-9
Series Statement:
Iconicity in language and literature, v. 8
Content:
Against the background of jargon-ridden and often obscure semiotic literature Sadowski's book offers a reader-friendly yet rigorous account of human communication and its evolution from animal and primate behaviour. What is specifically human about the way we exchange information with other people, and to what extent are our facial expressions, body language, and even emotive elements of speech still indebted to our pre-human ancestors? Why can the chimpanzees, smart as they are, not interpret animal tracks in the ground; why did religions often ban representational art; why is photography perceptually more powerful than painting; how have human syntactic speech and combinatorial grammar enabled the "explosion" of culture; and why do otherwise rational humans often strongly believe in the objective existence of unempirical, virtual entities such as religious and philosophic concepts? These and many other fascinating questions are addressed in the book within the methodological framework of systems theory and evolutionary psychology.
Note:
Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph
,
Intro -- Dedication -- Table of contents -- List of figures -- Acknowledgements -- chapter 1 -- Systems theory -- Why we need a theory -- Problems with philosophy -- Logical deduction -- Postmodern "theory" -- A systems view -- A holistic approach -- chapter 2 -- Towards a systems model of communication -- What is a definition? -- Information as difference -- Contiguous communication -- Indexical communication -- Iconic communication -- Symbolic communication -- Parainformation as meaning -- Communicating meaningful information -- Meaning and significance -- Deception -- Self-deception -- Metainformation as implied meaning -- More useful definitions -- chapter 3 -- Needs as motivators of behaviour -- Needs and emotions -- Types of needs -- Human uniqueness -- Humanism versus dogmatism -- chapter 4 -- From emotive vocalizations to bodily adornments -- Defining index -- Bodily signals and the beginnings of referentiality -- Bodily adornments as the first indexical signs -- From memory to consciousness -- Memory and the beginnings of culture -- Material culture as index -- chapter 5 -- Photography, or the magic of iconic indexicality -- When indexicality is mistaken for contiguity -- Indexical and iconic "magic" -- Brief history of iconic indexicality -- Photography versus painting -- Photography and the human face -- chapter 6 -- Photography plus movement, or even more magic -- The birth of cinema -- The mirror and contiguous iconic indexicality -- Contiguous experience and the birth of television -- Television today - contiguity still reigns supreme -- Contiguity goes global -- chapter 7 -- From mimicry to metaphor -- Iconicity in animal communication -- From mimicry to imitation -- Mimetic culture -- From imitation to mimesis -- The birth of pictorial realism -- Fantastic representations -- Iconic roots of metaphors -- chapter 8.
,
The thrills of visual realism -- Art and ideology -- Religion and realism in art -- The rediscovery of the body -- Physical space rediscovered -- Photography and the decline of realism in painting -- Why we enjoy pictures -- chapter 9 -- Linguistic iconicity and the limits of arbitrariness -- Defining symbol -- Indexical features of language -- The emotive features of language and music -- Phonetic iconicity -- Morphological and syntactic iconicity -- Iconic gestures -- chapter 10 -- The origins of language and the advantages of arbitrariness -- Discrete syntax for the (partly) discrete world -- Selective pressures on early language -- Language and the problem of reference -- The origins of arbitrariness -- How language produces meaning -- Other possible sources of language: sexual selection and gestures -- chapter 11 -- Language and the symbolic compulsion -- It's not all in language -- The excesses of language combinatorial machine -- The conceptual indulgence of philosophic discourse -- The humanities' physics envy -- References -- Index -- The series Iconicity in Language and Literature.
,
English
Additional Edition:
ISBN 90-272-4344-1
Language:
English
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