Search Results (4)

In contrast to the writing practices of many modern languages, Japanese routinely employs four denotative systems that operate in conjunction, but which are actively recognized as distinct from one another: kanji, hiragana, katakana, and the Roman alphabet. Simultaneously, English, as well as English-derived language usages have been noted for their significant intralinguistic roles in Japanese, going far beyond straightforward loan borrowing functionality. Convention informs the implementations of both script choice and language, and yet neither subjective phenomenon is perfectly uniform. Approaching these issues from a perspective of semiotic theory, this article identifies the flexibility and creative syncretism that is made available by virtue of written Japanese’s systemic open-endedness in terms of script and linguistic multiplicity. It assesses the emblematic functionality that is achievable through deliberate variation or shift in these semiotic media of print, and it demonstrates how auxiliary associative, ideological, and emotive meanings are ascribed to specific language instances. Finally, as an applied literary analysis, it evaluates Haruki Murakami’s 1987 novel 『ノルウェイの森』 (Noruwei no mori; Norwegian Wood) in order to clarify prominent semiotic possibilities and to emphasize the easily taken for granted creative aesthetic potential of Japanese’s media-based multiplicity. Full article

The linguistic and social impact of multiculturalism can no longer be neglected in any sector, creating the urgent need of creating systems and procedures for managing and sharing cultural heritages in both supranational and multi-literate contexts. In order to achieve this goal, text sensing appears to be one of the most crucial research areas. The long-term objective of the DigitalMaktaba project, born from interdisciplinary collaboration between computer scientists, historians, librarians, engineers and linguists, is to establish procedures for the creation, management and cataloguing of archival heritage in non-Latin alphabets. In this paper, we discuss the currently ongoing design of an innovative workflow and tool in the area of text sensing, for the automatic extraction of knowledge and cataloguing of documents written in non-Latin languages (Arabic, Persian and Azerbaijani). The current prototype leverages different OCR, text processing and information extraction techniques in order to provide both a highly accurate extracted text and rich metadata content (including automatically identified cataloguing metadata), overcoming typical limitations of current state of the art approaches. The initial tests provide promising results. The paper includes a discussion of future steps (e.g., AI-based techniques further leveraging the extracted data/metadata and making the system learn from user feedback) and of the many foreseen advantages of this research, both from a technical and a broader cultural-preservation and sharing point of view. Full article

This article is part of an on-going research project dedicated to enhancing our understanding of domain-specific knowledge communication across various multiliterate communities, semiotic modes and media contexts. The focus of the present analytical endeavour is on the dissemination of knowledge of academics from the domain of business and management to professionals and other non-academic communicative partners in the context of the Harvard Business Review journal. The central empirical material is constituted by a cluster of videos selected from the Facebook context of the journal whose intention is to function as a bridge between academia and enterprises. For this bridging effort, a number of video genres which are not traditionally used for scientific knowledge communication in academic contexts (e.g., Quick Study, Explainers, Tips & Ideas, etc.) are employed. Furthermore, in accordance with the Facebook context, the videos are accompanied by users’ commentaries that evaluate the knowledge provided or/and contribute to communicating and co-constructing new knowledge. Finally, we include the articles, books and special issues to which the videos refer in the empirical study. This hybrid knowledge-communication setting is studied from a multimodal perspective in order to address the new ways in which semiotic modes and sub-modes enter into a meaning-making interplay at the level of each video and when users comment on the respective videos. The main analytical tools are the concepts of knowledge expansion and knowledge enhancement that characterize the interaction of modes in the knowledge-building process. Across the video genres that have been investigated, we see a tendency towards engaging users of the videos through diminishing the distance to the viewers. As a consequence, the videos have a high number of views, but at the same time there are few comments and hardly any comments engaging in mutual knowledge building. This paradox is discussed in more detail in the concluding section. Full article

The four Old English poems containing the runic Cyn(e)wulf ‘signature’ have continuously provoked debate as to the characters’ intratextual function and proper interpretation. While the prevailing view is that they are predominantly logogrammatic instantiations of traditional runic names, a case has nevertheless also been made for alternative words indicated by initialisms. Referencing both of these lines of reasoning in conjunction with a semiotic literary methodological stance, this article evaluates a single Cynewulf poem (The Fates of the Apostles) and its particular inclusion of runes amongst the bookhand alphabet characters. The assessment demonstrates the poem’s multiliteral destabilization of associative boundaries between different scripts, as well as between perceived boundaries of orality and legibility. In doing so, it identifies in the text an unseen ‘eighth rune’ that is semiotically operative. Full article