Cover not available

In:The Complexity of Social-Cultural Emergence: Biosemiotics, semiotics and translation studies
Edited by Kobus Marais, Reine Meylaerts and Maud Gonne
[Benjamins Translation Library 164] 2024
► pp. 173–191

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload Book EPUB
authorization required

Chapter 8
The complex time of signs

 | University of the Free StateBloemfontein
Published online: 3 May 2024
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.164.08ata
Abstract
Semiosis develops under the conditions of semiotic complexity. Translation directly addresses such conditions, like non-linearity, perspective pluralism, emergence, material diversity. In this work, I suggest that the complexity of sign processes is related to their time. I make use of C. S. Peirce’s theory of categories and process philosophy, to suggest that the complex nature of sign action is related to the way the time of signs is multilayered. In this framework, translation can be conceptualised as a temporal operation that redistributes the time of signs so that source signs habitually recur in target signs. This approach suggests a focus on the irreducible gaps in the time of signs, such as in situations of surprise, or break of habit.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • The time of signs
  • Sign action as a triadic change
  • The multilayered time of signs
  • The time of indeterminate change
    • The time of irregular events
    • The time of general habits
    • Change of changes
  • Complexity in the time of signs
  • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (28)
References
Atã, P., and J. Queiroz. 2016a. “Multilevel Poetry Translation as a Problem-Solving Task.” Cognitive Semiotics 9, no. 2, 139–47. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2016b. “Habit in Semiosis: Two Different Perspectives Based on Hierarchical Multi-Level System Modelling and Niche Construction Theory.” In Consensus on Peirce’s Concept of Habit: Before and Beyond Consciousness, edited by D. E. West, and M. Anderson, 109–19. Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics. Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bickhard, M. H. 2003. “Process and Emergence: Normative Function and Representation.” Axiomathes 14, no. 1–3: 121–55. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Clark, A. 2004. Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2005. “Word, Niche and Super-Niche: How Language Makes Minds Matter More.” Theoria 54: 255–68. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fisch, M. H. 1986. Peirce, Semeiotic, and Pragmatism: Essays by Max H. Fisch. Edited by K. Laine Ketner and C. J. W. Kloesel. Indiana University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Foster, M. I., and M. T. Keane. 2015. “Why Some Surprises are More Surprising Than Others: Surprise as a Metacognitive Sense of Explanatory Difficulty.” Cognitive Psychology 81: 74–116. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gallagher, S. 2013. “Husserl and the Phenomenology of Temporality. In A Companion to the Philosophy of Time, edited by H. Dyke, and A. Bardon. Wiley-Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Harman, G. 2011. The Quadruple Object. Zero Books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hausman, C. R. 1993. Charles Peirce’s Evolutionary Philosophy. Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hoffmeyer, J., and F. Stjernfelt. 2016. “The Great Chain of Semiosis. Investigating the Steps in the Evolution of Semiotic Competence.” Biosemiotics 9, no. 1: 7–29. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hofstadter, D. R. 1999. Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (20th anniversary ed.). Basic Books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hutchins, E. 2014. “The Cultural Ecosystem of Human Cognition.” Philosophical Psychology 27, no. 1: 34–49. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Laland, K. N., J. Odling-Smee, and M. W. Feldman 2000. “Niche Construction, Biological Evolution, and Cultural Change.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 23, no. 1: 131–75. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Latour, B. 2004. “How to Talk About the Body? The Normative Dimension of Science Studies.” Body and Society 10, no. 2–3: 205–29. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Marais, K. 2020. “Translation and Translatability in Intersemiotic Space.” Punctum. International Journal of Semiotics 6, no. 1: 109–31. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2014. Translation Theory and Development Studies. Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Noë, A. 2004. Action in Perception. The MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nöth, W. 2014. “The growth of signs.” Sign Systems Studies 42, no. 2/3: 172–192. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Peirce, C. S. 1931–1958. The Collected Papers of C. S. Peirce. 8 vols. Vols. 1–6. Edited by C. Hartshorne and P. Weiss. Vol. 7–8. Edited by A. W. Burks. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1992, 1998. “The Essential Peirce: Selected Philosophical Writings. Vol. 1.” In Vol. 2, The Peirce Edition Project, edited by N. Houser and C. Kloesel. Indiana University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Queiroz, J., and A. Pedro A. 2014. “Iconicity in Peircean Situated Cognitive Semiotics.” In Charles Sanders Peirce in his own words – 100 years of semiotics, communication and cognition, edited by T. Thellefsen, and B. Sorensen. De Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Reisenzein, R., G. Horstmann, and A. Schützwohl. 2019. “The Cognitive-Evolutionary Model of Surprise: A Review of the Evidence.” Topics in Cognitive Science 11, no. 1: 50–74. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rescher, N. 2000. Process Philosophy. A Survey of Basic Issues. University of Pittsburgh Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Savan, D. 1988. An Introduction to C. S. Peirce’s Full System of Semeiotic. Toronto Semiotic Circle.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Seibt, J. 2018. Process Philosophy. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by E. N. Zalta, and U. Nodelman. Stanford University Press. [URL]Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shklovsky, V. 2015. “Art, as Device.” Translated by A. Berlina. Poetics Today 36, no. 3: 151–74. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Trivedi, H. 2006. “In Our Own Time, on Our Own Terms: ‘Translation’ in India.” In Translating Others Vol. 1, edited by T. Hermans, 102–19. Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue