A term used by Charles Peirce to denote the process of inquiry in which a hypothesis is formed or generated; The result of such a process - the conclusion reached or the assumed guess, respectively, is called retroduction and hypothesis. The word "abduction" has more...
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Abject
A term used by Julia Kristeva to mean something that confuses violates or undermines some established order or stable position. It has this effect because it is in the middle of what we normally consider to be absolute oppositions (eg life/death, human/machine). Many...
Abridgment
Reducing or shortening a word or phrase, such as shortening of "Metropolitan" to "Metro". Abridgment affects signifiers, not words (ie nonverbal or linguistic signifiers). The slightest nod from a person's repertoire of nonverbal communication gestures can replace the...
Abstraction
The process by which certain features of a phenomenon or reality are chosen for consideration and others are downplayed; the product obtained by such a process is ens rationis, a state of mind; his being is available only in thought. If we focus on human beings only...
Actant
A term proposed by A.J. Greimas and accepted by narratologists to indicate the most essential categories of the development of the plot. From the beginning, Greimas suggested having three such categories, each in binary opposition: Subject/object; Sender/recipient;...
Actantial Analysis
Actantial Analysis is the analysis of the narrative in terms of actants, abstract functions, located at the level of the deep structure. For narratologists such as Roland Barthes and A.J. Greimas narrative discourse has both a superficial and a deep structure. What...
Acteme
A term proposed by Kenneth L. Pike to denote the most basic units of communicative behavior, whether verbal or nonverbal. What is the phoneme for linguistic research as a system of aural signs is the same acteme for the study of communications as a behavioral system....
Acteur
An actor or character from the surface field of narrative discourse, other than the abstract function of the actant from the level of the deep structure.
Actuality
Status of existence other than potential. Objects do not just exist in different shapes and sizes; the real way of being one thing may be different from the way other things are. While the newborn is only a potential member of one language community, the competent...
Actualization
The process by which something purely potential becomes real (for example, the emergence of a flower from a seed). A.J. Greimas and J. Courte explain that in the context of semiotics this term means "transition from system to process" Thus language (langue) is a real...
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Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of language. It encompasses the analysis of every aspect of language, as well as the methods for studying and modeling them. The traditional areas of linguistic analysis include phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics,...
Phenomenology
A term used by Charles S. Peirce to denote a discipline of philosophy. The term is also used to denote an important movement in modern philosophy, identified with such thinkers as Edmund Husserl, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Roman Ingarden. It could be said that this...
Feminism
Feminism is an ideology, that, like other ideologies uses reductionism to explain complex issues like, for example, the one that the feminists most commonly cite - the rights to equal pay. Like most ideologies, the feministic too has its roots in somewhat reasonable...
Rationalism
Rationalism in a very general sense means devotion to reason; in a narrower sense, it refers to the doctrine that reason itself has the ability to know reality. In a general sense, then, the rationalist is a defender and advocate of reason. Rationalism is often used...
Intertextuality
Intertextuality is a term introduced by Julia Kristeva and widely accepted by literary theorists to denote the complex way in which a text relates to other texts. Just as there is no sign separate from other signs, there is no text separate from other texts. In...
Free Course in Semiology
A completely and truly free course on Semiology (Semiotics). Learn about the meaning of signs, how and why did the field emerged. What is the relationship between the street signs and the signs that we use every day - words.
