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The cognitive semiotics of the picture sign

På svenska

Author

  • Göran Sonesson

Editor

  • David Machin

Summary, in English

The picture is as original a human creation as language, and yet there has not been any study of pictures as such until recently. In the sixties of the last century, the picture was discovered as a subject of study at the same time, but independently, by French structuralism and by perceptual psychology in the tradition of James Gibson. My own contribution has consisted, from the beginning, in bringing these two traditions to bear on each other, adding the inspiration from those few philosophers, notably Edmund Husserl, who have taken a serious interest in pictures. More recently, it has been possible to realise some experimental studies with children and apes from a semiotical point of view. The present chapter describes some of the main methods and traditions of pictorial semiotics and then goes on to illustrate a cognitive semiotic approach, consisting, in this case, of a detailed text analysis of a picture by Rothko, which is based on results from psychology.

Publishing year

2014

Language

English

Pages

23-50

Publication/Series

Visual Communication

Document type

Book chapter

Publisher

De Gruyter

Topic

  • Languages and Literature

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISBN: 9783110255492
  • ISBN: 9783110255485