Arthur Asa Berger,
Signs in Contemporary Culture
An Introduction to Semiotics,
Second Edition
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Description:
This text is a methodology book which discusses some fundamental principles of
semiotics in a manner that makes the subject accessible to the ordinary reader.
But it is more than a methodology book because it applies semiotics to a wide
range of subjects: everything from digital watches to pop art, from comics to
baseball. Why learn a methodology unless you can use it? What better way to
show the utility of a concept than to apply that concept to a topic of interest
to students?
Second edition features:
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Four completely new chapters covering metaphor, metonymy, language and
speaking, and syntagmatic analysis of texts
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enhanced discussion of semiotics to give readers a better and more complete
understanding of the roles played by signs in their lives and in contemporary
culture
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updated and revised throughout
Review:
“Berger’s is one of the clearest and most accessible intros to semiotics that I
have seen.” —Steven Smith, University of Virginia
Excerpt:
Signs are things which stand for
other things or, to add a different dimension to the matter, anything that can
be made to stand for something else. As C.S. Peirce put it, a sign “is
something which stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity.”
(1958, 2:228) Among the most important kinds of signs are words. The word
“tree,” and what it stands for, “a woody perennial plant having a single
usually elongated stem generally with few or no branches on its lower part,”
are not the same. The word is used as a sign of the idea or concept. And there
is an intent to communicate that must also be kept in mind. Signs “mean”
something. What they mean, how they generate meaning, how we use signs – these
questions are what this book is about.
Table of Contents:
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Chapter 1 - Definition
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Chapter 2 - How Signs Work
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Chapter 3 - Signs, Symbols and Signals
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Chapter 4 - Metaphor: Communicating by Analogy
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Chapter 5 - Metonymy: Communicating by Using Associations
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Chapter 6 - Language and Speaking
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Chapter 7 - Syntagmatic Analysis of Texts
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Chapter 8 - Forms of Signs
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Chapter 9 - Visual Aspects of Signs
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Chapter 10 - Problems of Signs
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Chapter 11 - Denotation and Connotation
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Chapter 12 - Imaginary Signs
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Chapter 13 - Signs that Lie
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Chapter 14 - Men's Looks: Signifiers and Life-Style
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Chapter 15 - Coherence in Signs
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Chapter 16 - Who uses Signs?
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Chapter 17 - Signs and Identity
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Chapter 18 - Terms Associated with Signs
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Chapter 19 - Signs and Images
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Chapter 20 - No Sign as Sign
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Chapter 21 - Signs that Confound
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Chapter 22 - Sign Modifiers
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Chapter 23 - Manifest and Latent Meaning in Signs
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Chapter 24 - Analyzing Signs and Sign Systems
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Chapter 25 - Codes
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Chapter 26 - Characteristics of Codes
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Chapter 27 - Meaning
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Reference
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A Selected Bibliography
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Dictionary of Concepts
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Index
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