René de Saussure and the theory of word formation

This volume presents two works elaborating a general theory of words and their structure written by René de Saussure, younger brother of Ferdinand de Saussure. Although originating in René de Saussure's concerns for the structure of Esperanto, these essays are clearly intended to articulate a general account of word formation in natural language. They appear here in the French original with facing English translations, accompanied by some remarks on René de Saussure's life and followed by essays on the Esperantist background of his analysis (by Marc van Oostendorp), the contemporary relevance of his morphological theory (by Stephen Anderson), and the semantic theory of words underlying his analysis (by Louis de Saussure). These two works have remained essentially unknown to the community of scholars in general linguistics since their publication in 1911 and 1919, respectively, although Esperantists have been aware of them. They develop in quite explicit form a theory of what would later be called morphemic analysis, based primarily on data from French (with some material from German and English, as well as occasional examples from other Indo-European languages). In its fundamental aspect, René's view of word formation differed significantly from that of his brother, who saw the structure of complex words as revealed not through their decomposition into smaller "atomic" units but rather in the relations between words, relations which could be presented in analogical form and which anticipate rule-based theories of morphological structure. The contrast between the two brothers' views thus anticipates basic issues in current theorizing about word structure

René de Saussure and the theory of word formation

This volume presents two works elaborating a general theory of words and their structure written by René de Saussure, younger brother of Ferdinand de Saussure. Although originating in René de Saussure's concerns for the structure of Esperanto, these essays are clearly intended to articulate a general account of word formation in natural language. They appear here in the French original with facing English translations, accompanied by some remarks on René de Saussure's life and followed by essays on the Esperantist background of his analysis (by Marc van Oostendorp), the contemporary relevance of his morphological theory (by Stephen Anderson), and the semantic theory of words underlying his analysis (by Louis de Saussure). These two works have remained essentially unknown to the community of scholars in general linguistics since their publication in 1911 and 1919, respectively, although Esperantists have been aware of them. They develop in quite explicit form a theory of what would later be called morphemic analysis, based primarily on data from French (with some material from German and English, as well as occasional examples from other Indo-European languages). In its fundamental aspect, René's view of word formation differed significantly from that of his brother, who saw the structure of complex words as revealed not through their decomposition into smaller "atomic" units but rather in the relations between words, relations which could be presented in analogical form and which anticipate rule-based theories of morphological structure. The contrast between the two brothers' views thus anticipates basic issues in current theorizing about word structure

Computer memories: the history of computer form

This paper looks at the computer as a truly global form. The similar beige boxes found in offices across the world are analysed from the perspective of design history rather than that of the history of science and technology. Through the exploration of an archive of computer manufacturer's catalogues and concurrent design texts, this paper examines the changes that have occurred in the production and consumption of the computer in the context of the workplace, from its inception as a room-sized mainframe operated through a console of flashing lights, to the personal computer as a 'universal' form, reproduced by many manufacturers. It shows how the computer in the past has been as diverse as any other product, and asks how and why it now appears as a standardised, sanitised object. In doing so our relationship with the office computer, past and present is explored, revealing a complex history of vicissitude.</p

Affective iconic words benefit from additional sound–meaning integration in the left amygdala

Recent studies have shown that a similarity between sound and meaning of a word (i.e., iconicity) can help more readily access the meaning of that word, but the neural mechanisms underlying this beneficial role of iconicity in semantic processing remain largely unknown. In an fMRI study, we focused on the affective domain and examined whether affective iconic words (e.g., high arousal in both sound and meaning) activate additional brain regions that integrate emotional information from different domains (i.e., sound and meaning). In line with our hypothesis, affective iconic words, compared to their non‐iconic counterparts, elicited additional BOLD responses in the left amygdala known for its role in multimodal representation of emotions. Functional connectivity analyses revealed that the observed amygdalar activity was modulated by an interaction of iconic condition and activations in two hubs representative for processing sound (left superior temporal gyrus) and meaning (left inferior frontal gyrus) of words. These results provide a neural explanation for the facilitative role of iconicity in language processing and indicate that language users are sensitive to the interaction between sound and meaning aspect of words, suggesting the existence of iconicity as a general property of human language

An unfolding signifier: London's Baltic Exchange in Tallinn

In the summer of 2007 an unusual cargo arrived at Muuga and Paldiski harbors outside Tallinn. It consisted of nearly 50 containers holding over 1,000 tons of building material ranging from marble columns, staircases and fireplaces, to sculpted allegorical figures, wooden paneling and old-fashioned telephone booths. They were once part of the Baltic Exchange in the City of London. Soon they will become facets of the landscape of Tallinn. The following article charts this remarkable story and deploys this fragmented monument to analyze three issues relating to the Estonian capital: the relocation of the ‘Bronze Soldier’, the demolition of the Sakala Culture Center, and Tallinn’s future role as European Cultural Capital in 2011

Unravelling social constructionism

Social constructionist research is an area of rapidly expanding influence that has brought together theorists from a range of different disciplines. At the same time, however, it has fuelled the development of a new set of divisions. There would appear to be an increasing uneasiness about the implications of a thoroughgoing constructionism, with some regarding it as both theoretically parasitic and politically paralysing. In this paper I review these debates and clarify some of the issues involved. My main argument is that social constructionism is not best understood as a unitary paradigm and that one very important difference is between what Edwards (1997) calls its ontological and epistemic forms. I argue that an appreciation of this distinction not only exhausts many of the disputes that currently divide the constructionist community, but also takes away from the apparent radicalism of much of this work

Exploring Interface Sign Ontologies for Web User Interface Design and Evaluation: A User Study

Part 2: Organizational Semiotics and ApplicationsInternational audienceThe aim of this paper is twofold: firstly, to find the set of ontologies (i.e., the set of concepts and skills) presupposed by users when interpreting the meaning of web interface signs (i.e., the smallest elements of web user interfaces), and secondly, to investigate users’ difficulties in interpreting the meanings of interface signs belonging to different kinds of ontologies. In order to achieve these aims an empirical user study was conducted with 26 test participants. The study data was gathered by semi-structured interviews and questionnaires. Following an empirical research approach, descriptive statistics and qualitative data analysis were used to analyze the data. The study results provide a total of twelve ontologies and reveal the users’ difficulties in interpreting the meanings of interface signs belonging to different kinds of ontologies