This book is about the interrelationship between nature, semiosis, metarepresentation and (self-)consciousness, and the role played by metarepresentation in evolution. Representations must have emerged via self-organization from non-representational systems (found in physics, chemistry and biology). Major steps have been the evolution of molecules, macromolecules, life, and finally cultural and symbolic systems. Representations and signs are therefore parts of a huge, possibly branching «ladder of beings». Metarepresentations - images representing images, language about language and language-use, thoughts about thoughts - constitute a fascinating theme within such diverse areas of research as philosophy, literature, theology, anthropology and history, neuroscience, psychology and linguistics. The contributions to this book reflect this variety of different, but often interrelated perspectives on metarepresentation. They also exemplify the difficulties of a truly interdisciplinary discourse and show how one may start such a discourse in the field of semiotics, understood as a meta-discipline which brings together all scientific enterprises dealing with human mind and human culture.

In the present book, the starting line is defined by a morphogenetic perspective on human communication and culture. The focus is on visual communication, music, religion (myth), and language, i.e., on the “symbolic forms” at the heart of human cultures (Ernst Cassirer). The term “morphogenesis” has more precisely the meaning given by René Thom (1923-2002) in his book “Morphogenesis and Structural Stability” (1972) and the notions of “self-organization” and cooperation of subsystems in the “Synergetics” of Hermann Haken (1927- ). The naturalization of communication and cultural phenomena is the favored strategy, but the major results of the involved disciplines (art history, music theory, religious science, and linguistics) are respected. Visual art from the Paleolithic to modernity stands for visual communication. The present book focuses on studies of classical painting and sculpture (e.g., Leonardo da Vinci, William Turner, and Henry Moore) and modern art (e.g., Jackson Pollock and Joseph Beuys). Musical morphogenesis embraces classical music (from J. S. Bach to Arnold Schönberg) and political songwriting (Bob Dylan, Leonhard Cohen). The myths of pre-literary societies show the effects of self-organization in the re-assembly (bricolage) of traditions. Classical polytheistic and monotheistic religions demonstrate the unfolding of basic germs (religious attractors) and their reduction in periods of crisis, the self-organization of complex religious networks, and rationalized macro-structures (in theologies). Significant tendencies are analyzed in the case of Buddhism and Christianism. Eventually, a holistic view of symbolic communication and human culture emerges based on state-of-the-art in evolutionary biology, cognitive science, linguistics, and semiotics (philosophy of symbolic forms).

The book offers a novel approach to the question of how to model narrativity against the background of perspectivization. By bringing together contributions from neuro- and cognitive linguistics, literary studies, and picture theory, the volume uncovers basic mechanisms of perspectivization that are common to the different levels of linguistic structure, literary novels, and narrative pictures. As such, it is also a book on narrative perspectivization since its contributions examine in detail the perspectival principles in medieval, romantic and postmodern literature, in the micro-linguistic structure of language, narrative pictures, literary novels, dramatic texts, and everyday stories. In doing so, it contributes both to the theoretical debate on the core definition of narrativity and offers new empirical investigations on perspectival principles in specific historical, medial, and genre constellations. This volume will be of interest to scholars and students of cognitive linguistics, narrative research and (transmedial) narratology, cognitive poetics, and stylistics.

The Manual section of the Handbook of Pragmatics, produced under the auspices of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA), is a collection of articles describing traditions, methods, and notational systems relevant to the field of linguistic pragmatics; the main body of the Handbook contains all topical articles. The first edition of the Manual was published in 1995. This second edition includes a large number of new traditions and methods articles from the 24 annual installments of the Handbook that have been published so far. It also includes revised versions of some of the entries in the first edition. In addition, a cumulative index provides cross-references to related topical entries in the annual installments of the Handbook and the Handbook of Pragmatics Online (at https://benjamins.com/online/hop/), which continues to be updated and expanded. This second edition of the Manual is intended to facilitate access to the most comprehensive resource available today for any scholar interested in pragmatics as defined by the International Pragmatics Association: “the science of language use, in its widest interdisciplinary sense as a functional (i.e. cognitive, social, and cultural) perspective on language and communication.”

The ten volumes of the Handbook of Pragmatics Highlights focus on the most salient topics in the field of pragmatics, thus dividing its wide interdisciplinary spectrum in a transparent and manageable way. While the other volumes select specific philosophical, cognitive, grammatical, cultural, interactional, or discursive angles, this sixth volume focuses on the dynamic aspects of language and reviews the relevant developments in variationist and diachronic scholarship. The areas explored in the volume concern several general themes: specific methodological approaches, from comparative reconstruction to evolutionary pragmatics; issues in intra-lingual variation in terms of standard and non-standard varieties; cross-linguistic variation, including its cross-cultural dimension; and the study of diachronic relations across linguistic patterns, including changes in all areas of pragmatic patterns and categories. The contributions document two prominent and interrelated trends that shape contemporary variationist and diachronic research. One, it has moved from situating change within context-independent systems toward incorporating patterns of language use and the speaker’s role in language change. And two, it has reoriented its focus away from cataloguing instances of variation and toward seeking theoretically informed accounts that aim at explaining variation and change. On the whole, the volume argues for accepting and developing actively a systematic connection between research in diachrony, synchronic variation, and typology, while also incorporating the socio-cognitive perspective in linguistic analysis as a particularly promising source of useful methodology and explanatory models.

From its beginnings narratology has incorporated a communicative model of literary narratives, considering these as simulations of natural, oral acts of communication. This approach, however, has had some problems with accounting for the strangeness and anomalies of modern and postmodern narratives. As many skeptics have shown, not even classical realism conforms to the standard set by oral or ‘natural’ storytelling. Thus, an urge to confront narratology with the difficult task of reconsidering a most basic premise in its theoretical and analytical endeavors has, for some time, been undeniable. During the 2000s, Nordic narratologists have been among the most active and insistent critics of the communicative model. They share a marked skepticism towards the idea of using ‘natural’ narratives as a model for understanding and interpreting all kinds of narratives, and for all of them, the distinction of fiction is of vital importance. This anthology presents a collection of new articles that deal with strange narratives, narratives of the strange, or, more generally, with the strangeness of fiction, and even with some strange aspects of narratology.

Bloomsbury Semiotics offers a state-of-the-art overview of the entire field of semiotics by revealing its influence on a wide range of disciplinary perspectives. With four volumes spanning theory, method and practice across the disciplines, this definitive reference work emphasizes and strengthens common bonds shared across intellectual cultures, and facilitates the discovery and recovery of meaning across fields. It comprises: Volume 1: History and Semiosis Volume 2: Semiotics in the Natural and Technical Sciences Volume 3: Semiotics in the Arts and Social Sciences Volume 4: Semiotic Movements Written by leading international experts, the chapters provide comprehensive overviews of the history and status of semiotic inquiry across a diverse range of traditions and disciplines. Together, they highlight key contemporary developments and debates along with ongoing research priorities. Providing the most comprehensive and united overview of the field, Bloomsbury Semiotics enables anyone, from students to seasoned practitioners, to better understand and benefit from semiotic insight and how it relates to their own area of study or research. Volume 3: Semiotics in the Arts and Social Sciences presents the state-of-the art in semiotic approaches to disciplines ranging from philosophy and anthropology to history and archaeology, from sociology and religious studies to music, dance, rhetoric, literature, and structural linguistics. Each chapter goes casts a vision for future research priorities, unanswered questions, and fresh openings for semiotic participation in these and related fields.

Language is intimately related to interaction. The question arises: Is the structure of interaction somehow mirrored in language structure and use? This book suggests a positive answer to this question by examining the ubiquitous phenomenon of fictive interaction, in which non-genuine conversational turns appear in discourse, even within clauses, phrases, and lexical items (e.g. “Not happy? Money back! guarantee”). The book is based on a collection of hundreds of examples of fictive interaction at all grammatical levels from a wide variety of spoken, written, and signed languages, and from many different discourse genres. Special attention is devoted to the strategic use of fictive interaction in legal argumentation, with a focus on high-profile criminal trials. Both trial lawyers and lay jurors often present material evidence or murder victims as speaking, and express emotions and intentions in conversational terms. The book thus establishes the role of the conversational turn—rather than the sentence—as the basic unit of language, and the role of conversation as a frame that structures cognition, discourse, and grammar.

The Italian author Giovanni Gentile (1875-1944) occupied a radical position among philosophers of the first half of the twentieth century. He tried in earnest to revolutionize idealist theory, developing a doctrine that retained the idealist conception of the thinking subject as the centre and source of any intelligible reality, while eschewing many of the unwarranted abstractions that had pervaded earlier varieties of idealism and led their adherents astray. Given his great prominence during his lifetime, it is perhaps remarkable that Gentile is so little discussed, and even then so poorly understood, in the English-speaking world. Few of his works have ever been translated into English, and these represent only a fraction of his great corpus and the many topics discussed therein. This neglect is partly explained by his close association with the Partito Nazionale Fascista (National Fascist Party), of which he remained a loyal member and supporter between 1923 and his assassination in 1944. The volume comprises eleven essays. Seven of these are new pieces written especially for Thought Thinking, and are intended both to contribute to ongoing debates about Gentile's philosophy and to indicate just a few of its many aspects that continue to draw the attention of philosophers, political theorists and intellectual historians. These are supplemented by new English translations of four of Gentile's shorter works, selected to offer some direct insight into his ideas and style of writing.