Entry tags:

literature, philosophy, semiotics

Dictionary of Semiotics
Dictionary of Semiotics

By Bronwen Martin and Felizitas Ringham.

Published by Cassell, 2000. Copyright held by the authors.

This is a small paperback measuring 6" by 8.25" and running to 177 pages including the index, introduction, bibliography, and a sample semiotic analysis of Sleeping Beauty.

This book intends to be an introduction to semiotic theory in dictionary form. The introduction talks about what semiotics is, goes a bit into its history, and then talks about its use as a tool for analysis.

The dictionary itself provides definitions of terms in semiotic theory, usually a couple of short paragraphs long, but sometimes longer.

The first fifteen entries in the book are for:

• Absence
  
• Abstract
  
• Achrony
  
• Acquisition
  
• Actant
  
• Actantial narrative schema
  
• Action
  
• Actor
  
• Actorialization
  
• Actualization
  
• Adjudicator
  
• Aesthetics
  
• Agent
  
• Alethic modalities
  
• Anachronism
  

Since many of these entries represent specialized usages of common words, it wouldn't necessarily be obvious that one needed this book; it might just seem like you were dealing with writing that doesn't make sense. That there are more or less technical meanings in the way that these words are used in semiotics is one lesson of the book.

For an example of the kind of thing that is here, here is the full entry for "Spatialization," which is a brief entry:

Spatialization

The term spatialization designates the process whereby places and locations are established in discourse. Like actorialization and temporalization it is a necessary ingredient for a referential illusion or reality effect to work. In line with the temopral organization of discourse, spatial structuring serves the installation of narrative programmes and their sequence. Stages of Little Red Riding Hood's mission are thus linked to (1) her mother's house; (2) the wood; (3) her grandmother's house.

A subject dictionary is usually handy as a reference to the meaning of a specialized term. This one is really not very useful in that way, because to understand the meaning of a term in semiotic theory you have to understand semiotic theory, and will therefore find yourself reading the whole book. That means that this is really a dictionary that must be read cover to cover. As such it's a pretty interesting introduction to semiotics.