Signifying and Understanding: Reading the Works of Victoria Welby and the Signific Movement

Susan Petrilli

Published by De Gruyter Mouton 2009

Signifying and Understanding

Reading the Works of Victoria Welby and the Signific Movement

Susan Petrilli

Volume 2 in the series Semiotics, Communication and Cognition [SCC]

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110218510

Overview
Contents

About this book

The theory of signifying (significs), formulated and introduced by Victoria Welby for the first time in 1890s, is at the basis of much of twentieth-century linguistics, as well as in other language and communication sciences such as sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, translation theory and semiotics. Indirectly, the origins of approaches, methods and categories elaborated by analytical philosophy, Wittgenstein himself, Anglo-American speech act theory, and pragmatics are largely found with Victoria Lady Welby. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say, in addition, that Welby is the "founding mother" of semiotics. Some of Peirce's most innovative writings - for example, those on existential graphs - are effectively letters to Lady Welby. She was an esteemed correspondent of scholars such as Bertrand Russell, Charles K. Ogden, Herbert G. Wells, Ferdinand S. C. Schiller, Michel Bréal, André Lalande, the brothers Henry and William James, and Peirce, as well as Frederik van Eeden, Mary Everst Boole, Ferdinand Tönnies, and Giovanni Vailati. Her writings directly inspired the Signific Movement in the Netherlands, important for psycholinguistics, linguistics and semantics and inaugurated by van Eeden and developed by such authors as Gerrit Mannoury.

This volume, containing introductions and commentaries, presents a selection from Welby's published and unpublished writings delineating the whole course of her research through to developments with the Significs Movement in the Netherlands and still other ramifications, contemporary and subsequent to her. A selection of essays by first-generation significians contributing to the Signific Movement in the Netherlands completes the collection, testifying to the progress of significs after Welby and even independently from her. This volume contributes to the reconstruction on both the historical and theoretical levels of an important period in the history of ideas. The aim of the volume is to convey a sense of the theoretical topicality of significs and its developments, especially in semiotics, and in particular its thematization of the question of values and the connection with signs, meaning, and understanding, therefore with human verbal and nonverbal behavior, language and communication.

Author / Editor information

Susan Petrilli, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Italy.

Topics

Frontmatter Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	i
Contents Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xv
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Chapter 1
Welby’s intellectual development and writings Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	7
The texts Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	41
Chapter 2
Moving towards What is Meaning? (1903) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	137
The texts Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	197
Chapter 3
A theory of meaning. Significs Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	253
The texts Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	302
Chapter 4
Modelling signifying processes. Imagery, critique of language, education and temporality Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	351
The texts Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	407
Chapter 5
Translation and meaning from a significal perspective Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	517
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Chapter 6
Mother-sense and subjectivity Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	573
The texts Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	617
Chapter 7
Welby’s influence. Theories and movements Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	731
The texts Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	767
Chapter 8
Review of the literature. Writings on Welby and significs Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	887
The texts Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	904
Backmatter Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	927

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter Mouton
Audience: Research Libraries, Students and Researchers of Semiotics, Communication Studies, History of Linguistics
Pages
- Front matter: 20
- Main content: 1048
Keywords: Semiotics; Communication; History of Linguistics

eBook

Published: December 15, 2009
ISBN: 9783110218510

Hardcover

Published: December 18, 2009
ISBN: 9783110218503