Advanced Research Workshop: "The Semiotics of Writing", University of San Marino, International Center for Semiotic and Cognitive Studies, San Marino, 12-14.11.99. The principal objective for this international interdisciplinary workshop is to bring together, and open up a transdisciplinary conversational space for, eminent scholars from a broad range of research areas, all in one way or another concerned with the theme of written communication. Starting from quite modest beginnings as a field of empirical study in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, writing research has now begun to position itself internationally as a dynamic, pragmatic, and not least highly transdisciplinary field of inquiry, focusing on many different forms of written communication which are studied from the point of view of a wide range of research perspectives. More recently, attention in the field has begun to move towards understanding the complex relationship between the semiotic system of writing and other semiotic or representational systems increasingly found in electronically mediated multimodal texts: photographic images and other forms of visual art, diagrams, animations, video and sound sequences. This shift of attention has naturally enough been provoked by the need to address in meaningful ways the increasing degree of blending of these different ways and means of making meaning in texts linked in networked hypermedia systems, and the interactional aspect of different forms of shared writing environments opened up for by the development of new media technologies.This growth and diversification of the field of writing research parallels similar tendencies in the broader and more general fields of semiotic and cognitive studies over the last thirty years or so. Semioticians have traditionally concentrated their energies on examining processes of meaning-making through the exchange and interpretation of signs – an interdisciplinary and generic term which today in practice is generally taken to mean various forms of texts and/ or utterances, construed as situated acts of communication – as they function in a broad range of socio-cultural contexts. Cognitive scientists, on the other hand, have tended to concern themselves with attempting to understand, through structured empirical forms of research, the relationship between observable, quantifiable aspects of cognition processes – which in practice means different forms of behaviour – and their biological and neuro-physiological correlates. In both the above-mentioned fields, issues relating to aspects of multimodality in communication have been brought more and more to the fore in recent years.Although sometimes seeming to differ quite radically in their basic epistemologies and methodological approaches, and thus still considered by some scholars and scientists as separate, and even incommensurable, fields of inquiry, there is something fundamental which both these domains of research share. This common ground is a deep and passionate belief in the necessity and productivity of transdisciplinary forms of communication, cooperation and understanding in scientific research. As time goes on, it is becoming increasingly clear that vast domains of overlap and common interest do indeed exist across the boundaries of these two domains. This growing sense of scientific fellowship and community in the general area of semiotic and cognitive studies is beginning to create and exciting sense of continuity across the two domains, traversing and transgressing any form of postulated ‘divide’ between them. Those differences in perspective and methodology that do exist merely make for lively and constructive dialogue and healthy controversy. As Marcello Dascal has repeatedly reminded us, truly excellent science cannot develop and spread without healthy forms of controversy, and the discourse dynamic in the zone of proximal development between cognitive and semiotically oriented forms of inquiry provides just such an area of growth.

The Semiotics of Writing: Transdisciplinary Perspectives on the Technology of Writing / Coppock, Patrick John. - (1999).

The Semiotics of Writing: Transdisciplinary Perspectives on the Technology of Writing

COPPOCK, Patrick John
1999

Abstract

Advanced Research Workshop: "The Semiotics of Writing", University of San Marino, International Center for Semiotic and Cognitive Studies, San Marino, 12-14.11.99. The principal objective for this international interdisciplinary workshop is to bring together, and open up a transdisciplinary conversational space for, eminent scholars from a broad range of research areas, all in one way or another concerned with the theme of written communication. Starting from quite modest beginnings as a field of empirical study in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, writing research has now begun to position itself internationally as a dynamic, pragmatic, and not least highly transdisciplinary field of inquiry, focusing on many different forms of written communication which are studied from the point of view of a wide range of research perspectives. More recently, attention in the field has begun to move towards understanding the complex relationship between the semiotic system of writing and other semiotic or representational systems increasingly found in electronically mediated multimodal texts: photographic images and other forms of visual art, diagrams, animations, video and sound sequences. This shift of attention has naturally enough been provoked by the need to address in meaningful ways the increasing degree of blending of these different ways and means of making meaning in texts linked in networked hypermedia systems, and the interactional aspect of different forms of shared writing environments opened up for by the development of new media technologies.This growth and diversification of the field of writing research parallels similar tendencies in the broader and more general fields of semiotic and cognitive studies over the last thirty years or so. Semioticians have traditionally concentrated their energies on examining processes of meaning-making through the exchange and interpretation of signs – an interdisciplinary and generic term which today in practice is generally taken to mean various forms of texts and/ or utterances, construed as situated acts of communication – as they function in a broad range of socio-cultural contexts. Cognitive scientists, on the other hand, have tended to concern themselves with attempting to understand, through structured empirical forms of research, the relationship between observable, quantifiable aspects of cognition processes – which in practice means different forms of behaviour – and their biological and neuro-physiological correlates. In both the above-mentioned fields, issues relating to aspects of multimodality in communication have been brought more and more to the fore in recent years.Although sometimes seeming to differ quite radically in their basic epistemologies and methodological approaches, and thus still considered by some scholars and scientists as separate, and even incommensurable, fields of inquiry, there is something fundamental which both these domains of research share. This common ground is a deep and passionate belief in the necessity and productivity of transdisciplinary forms of communication, cooperation and understanding in scientific research. As time goes on, it is becoming increasingly clear that vast domains of overlap and common interest do indeed exist across the boundaries of these two domains. This growing sense of scientific fellowship and community in the general area of semiotic and cognitive studies is beginning to create and exciting sense of continuity across the two domains, traversing and transgressing any form of postulated ‘divide’ between them. Those differences in perspective and methodology that do exist merely make for lively and constructive dialogue and healthy controversy. As Marcello Dascal has repeatedly reminded us, truly excellent science cannot develop and spread without healthy forms of controversy, and the discourse dynamic in the zone of proximal development between cognitive and semiotically oriented forms of inquiry provides just such an area of growth.
1999
Coppock, Patrick John
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11380/622117
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