Tourists, Signs and the City

Tourists, Signs and the City
Author: Michelle M. Metro-Roland
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 196
Release: 2016-02-24
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1317009339

Drawing upon the literature of landscape geography, tourism studies, cultural studies, visual studies and philosophy, this book offers a multi-disciplinary approach to understanding the interaction between urban environments and tourists. This is a necessary prerequisite for cities as they make themselves into enticing destinations and compete for tourists' attention. It argues that tourists make sense of, and draw meaningful conclusions about, the places in which they tour based upon the interpretation of the signs or elements encountered within the built environment, elements such as graffiti and lamp posts. The writings of the American pragmatist Charles S. Peirce on interpretation provide the theoretical model for explaining the way in which mind and world, or thoughts and objects, result in tourists interacting with place. This theoretical framework elucidates three applied studies undertaken with foreign visitors to the Hungarian capital of Budapest. Based upon extensive ethnographic field work, these studies focus on tourists' interpretation of the urban landscape, with particular attention paid to the encounters with national culture, the role of architecture and the importance of the prosaic in urban tourism.

Urban Semiotics: the City as a Cultural-Historical Phenomen

Urban Semiotics: the City as a Cultural-Historical Phenomen
Author:
Publisher: Tallinn University Press / Tallinna Ülikooli Kirjastus
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2015
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 998558807X

This collection of essays presents the materials of the Third Annual Juri Lotman Days at Tallinn University in Estonia (3–5 June 2011). The participants discussed the semiotics of urban space from the perspective of the Tartu-Moscow School in comparison with contemporary approaches. This book consists of four sections. The articles in the first section discuss how “urban texts” function in modern and contemporary Baltic cultures. The papers in the second section focus on the semiotics of place in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Russian and Soviet culture from the perspective of linguistic poetics, cultural semiotics, and new materiality. The last two sections are devoted to the visual perceptions of the cityscape and their ideological interpretations as exemplified by Ukrainian, Estonian, Korean, Chinese, and North American illustrations.

Existential Semiotics

Existential Semiotics
Author: Eero Tarasti
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 227
Release: 2001-02-22
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0253028531

Existential semiotics involves an a priori state of signs and their fixation into objective entities. These essays define this new philosophical field.

Encyclopedic Dictionary of Semiotics, Media, and Communication

Encyclopedic Dictionary of Semiotics, Media, and Communication
Author: Marcel Danesi
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 284
Release: 2000-08-01
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1442690860

Semiotics, Media Studies and Communication Studies are three closely interlinked fields. Briefly stated, Semiotics, the science of signs, looks at how humans search for and construct meaning; Communication Studies is concerned with how meaning is conveyed; and Media Studies considers the ways in which messages are transmitted and received. This dictionary is designed to help students and general readers unlock the significance of the terminology and jargon commonly used in these fields. Being interdisciplinary in nature, Semiotics, Media, and Communication Studies are cluttered with notions derived from other disciplines. Hence, this dictionary also encompasses basic concepts from the fields of anthropology, archaeology, psychology, psychoanalysis, linguistics, philosophy, artificial intelligence, computer science, and biology. Collected here are the terms, concepts, personages, schools of thought, and historical movements that appear frequently in the relevant literature. The basis of each entry is a simple definition, which often includes the term's origin. Illustrations are provided where necessary, along with historical sketches of movements or schools of thought. The commentary on personages consists of brief statements about their contribution and relevance. Thus, the dictionary not only defines what a term means, but often goes into its history, applications, and broad implications. Terms are cross-referenced and their etymology is given where possible. This is a compact, practical research manual that will relieve much tension for students in semiotics and related fields. Because of its interdisciplinary approach, it will also provide a range of scholars with a handy reference to disciplines distinct from but related to their own.

Semiotics, Self, and Society

Semiotics, Self, and Society
Author: Benjamin Lee
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 332
Release: 2015-03-30
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 311085922X

Semiotics and Dis/ability

Semiotics and Dis/ability
Author: Linda J. Rogers
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2001-03-22
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0791490939

This book brings together a unique collection of personal narratives and summaries of studies that problematize existing meanings of "disability" and "difference." Using applied semiotics as an analytical lens, the contributors examine the ways that these labels are socially and culturally constructed. Contributors include anthropologists, teacher educators, special educators, disability studies scholars, educational psychologists, American Sign Language instructors, semioticians, school psychologists, linguists, and parents. Each author was asked to examine his or her experience(s) and consider the "markers" of lives that are considered different.

Diaspora of the Gods

Diaspora of the Gods
Author: Joanne Punzo Waghorne
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 311
Release: 2004-09-16
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 0195156633

Many Hindus today are urban middle-class people with religious values similar to those of their professional counterparts in America and Europe. Just as modern professionals continue to build new churches, synagogues, and now mosques, Hindus are erecting temples to their gods wherever their work and their lives take them. Despite the perceived exoticism of Hindu worship, the daily life-style of these avid temple patrons differs little from their suburban neighbors. Joanne Waghorne leads her readers on a journey through this new middle-class Hindu diaspora, focusing on their efforts to build and support places of worship. She seeks to trace the changing religious sensibilities of the middle classes as written on their temples and on the faces of their gods. She offers detailed comparisons of temples in Chennai (formerly Madras), London, and Washington, D.C., and interviews temple priests, devotees, and patrons. In the process, she illuminates the interrelationships between ritual worship and religious edifices, the rise of the modern world economy, and the ascendancy of the great middle class. The result is a comprehensive portrait of Hinduism as lived today by so many both in India and throughout the world. Lavishly illustrated with professional photographs by Dick Waghorne, this book will appeal to art historians as well as urban anthropologists, scholars of religion, and those interested in diaspora, transnationalism, and trends in contemporary religion. It should be especially appealing for course use because it introduces the modern Hinduism practiced by the friends and neighbors of students in the U.S. and Britain.

Mental Territories

Mental Territories
Author: Katherine G. Morrissey
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 236
Release: 1997
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780801483264

Rarely recognized outside its boundaries today, the Pacific Northwest region known at the turn of the century as the Inland Empire included portions of the states of Washington and Idaho, as well as British Columbia. Katherine G. Morrissey traces the history of this self-proclaimed region from its origins through its heyday. In doing so, she challenges the characterization of regions as fixed places defined by their geography, economy, and demographics. Regions, she argues, are best understood as mental constructs, internally defined through conflicts and debates among different groups of people seeking to control a particular area's identity and direction. She tells the story of the Inland Empire as a complex narrative of competing perceptions and interests.