The contribution that may come from the general science of signs, semiotics, to the planning and development of education and learning at all levels, from early schooling through to university education and learning should not be neglected. As Umberto Eco claims in the “Introduction” to the Italian edition of his book Semiotica and Philosophy of Language (1984: xii, my trans.), “[general semiotics] is philosophical in nature, because it does not study a particular system, but posits the general categories in light (...) of which different systems can be compared. And for general semiotics philosophical discourse is neither advisable nor urgent: it is simply constitutive.” To the title of their book Semiotic Theory of Learning, at the centre of our attention in the present text, Andrew Stables, Winfried Nöth, Alin Olteanu, Sébastien Pesce, and Eetu Pikkarainen, rightly add the subtitle New Perspectives in the Philosophy of Education. This multivoiced contribution to research in learning and education in a semiotic framework has a unifying reference in the semiotics of Charles S. Peirce, but without disregarding an array of other distinguished exponents of the teaching and education sciences from different disciplines, semioticians and philosophers alike. This book, a polyphonic effort, with its appeal to “act otherwise,” and to do so investing in learning and education, no doubt makes a significant contribution in such a direction: education for transformation, for humanizing social change. Beyond evidencing what to us are particularly interesting aspects of the topics under discussion in Semiotic Theory of Learning, we also propose to continue and amplify this multivoiced dialogue. While highlighting still other aspects and contributions made by the same semioticians and philosophers presented by the authors of this book, involving such figures as Charles Peirce, Charles Morris, Thomas Sebeok, John Deely, etc., we have further introduced other voices made to resound throughout, whether directly or indirectly, like that of Victoria Welby, Mikhail Bakhtin, Emmanuel Levinas, Adam Schaff, Ferruccio Rossi-Landi, Marcel Danesi, Augusto Ponzio, and Genevieve Vaughan. (shrink)

BackgroundMental health is a public health problem of great concern. Previous studies show that textual features and individual psychological characteristics can influence the effect of receiving information.PurposeThis study explores whether textual features influence the persuasiveness of teenager students’ mental health education while considering the influence of risk preference.MethodsFrom November to December 2021, a cross-sectional study was conducted among 1,869 teenager students in grade 7–12 in Chongqing, China. Wilcoxon signed-rank test, multiple logistic regression, and subgroup analysis were used to analyze the (...) data.ResultsAmong the four textual features mentioned in this study, a significant difference was reported in the persuasive effects of information with and without numerical features. Combined with those from the risk preference analysis, results showed that the regulatory effect of risk preference was only reflected in emotional conflicts. Students who prefer having no emotional conflict in the text showed the characteristics of risk avoidance, or lower grades, or rural or school accommodation. Most teenager students are also risk averse, especially females and juniors.ConclusionThe numbers, symbols, and positive emotions in the text generate an active effect on teenager students receiving mental health education. Students avoiding risk are inclined to read texts without emotional conflicts. The probability of male choosing texts with positive emotional polarity is 33.5% lower than that of female. Female students and those from lower grades also demonstrate a higher inclination to risk avoidance compared with their male and higher grade counterparts. Therefore, educational materials with different text characteristics should be developed for teenager students with varying characteristics. (shrink)

The hypothesis of this paper is that language is one more Eigenform, the “external” description of which is impossible. It follows that the application of second-order cybernetics to Eigenform might be adequate. In this article, I would like to concentrate on one relatively small aspect of the idea of Eigenform suggested by Foerster, Kauffman and Spenser-Brawn. I will use Foerster`s recursive approach namely that neither observer nor the thing observed can precede each other, but instead mutually assume each other. In (...) my research, language would stand in the place of the observer, and in the place of the thing – the world itself. To specify further, I focus on the problem of noting, and in particular, on how signs correspond to things. Therefore, I will try to show that the sign and the object do not precede one another and do not exist isolated from each other, but on the contrary, condition each other. Thus, language creates the world of objects, but in turn, it is created by the world. Thus it is a model of self-referentiality, which arranges the form of language as Eigenform as the idea of “mutual referentiality,” as we see it in the relation between language and the world. (shrink)

A leading theoretical framework for naturalistic explanation of mind holds that we explain the mind by positing progressively "stupider" capacities ("homunculi") until the mind is "discharged" by means of capacities that are not intelligent at all. The so-called homuncular fallacy involves violating this procedure by positing the same capacities at subpersonal levels. I argue that the homuncular fallacy is not a fallacy, and that modern-day homunculi are idle posits. I propose an alternative view of what naturalism requires that reflects how (...) the cognitive sciences are actually integrating mind and matter. (shrink)

L’une des plus notoires limites en droit international est la possibilité pour les États parties d’émettre des réserves afin de diminuer leur obligation de mettre en œuvre les droits enchâssés dans un traité. Les réserves formulées lors de la ratification de la Convention relative aux droits de l’enfant au regard du droit à l’éducation sont particulièrement notables et seront le sujet d’analyse de cet article. Nous allons dans un premier temps considérer le sens, l’intention sous-jacente, et la portée des réserves (...) en droit international, dans le cadre de la théorie de la « signifique» élaborée par l’éminente sémioticienne Victoria Lady Welby. Dans un deuxième temps, nous allons étudier le contenu des réserves au droit à l’éducation, l’intention des États lors de la rédaction des dispositions en nous référant aux travaux préparatoires de la CDE, et enfin leur « signification». Nous tenterons de répondre à la question suivante: les réserves au droit à l’éducation ont-elles des limites? Finalement, nous effectuerons une analyse sémioéthique de la Convention afin d’identifier des mesures permettant de désamorcer le signe pernicieux que constitue toute réserve au droit à l’éducation. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the semiotic foundations of sociolinguistics. Starting from the definition of “sociolinguistics” given by the philosopher Adam Schaff, the paper examines in particular the notion of “critical sociolinguistics” as theorized by the Italian semiotician Ferruccio Rossi-Landi. The basis of the social dimension of language are to be found in what Rossi-Landi calls “social reproduction” which regards both verbal and non-verbal signs. Saussure’s notionof langue can be considered in this way, with reference not only to his Course of (...) General Linguistics, but also to his Harvard Manuscripts.The paper goes on trying also to understand Roland Barthes’s provocative definition of semiology as a part of linguistics (and not vice-versa) as well asdeveloping the notion of communication-production in this perspective. Some articles of Roman Jakobson of the sixties allow us to reflect in a manner which wenow call “socio-semiotic” on the processes of transformation of the “organic” signs into signs of a new type, which articulate the relationship between organicand instrumental. In this sense, socio-linguistics is intended as being sociosemiotics, without prejudice to the fact that the reference area must be human,since semiotics also has the prerogative of referring to the world of non-human vital signs.Socio-linguistics as socio-semiotics assumes the role of a “frontier” science, in the dual sense that it is not only on the border between science of language andthe anthropological and social sciences, but also that it can be constructed in a movement of continual “crossing frontiers” and of “contamination” betweenlanguages and disciplinary environments. (shrink)