1,721,012 research outputs found
Umberto Eco’s semiotics of the text: Theoretical observations and an analysis of the parable of the banquet
Full text linkIn this article I have attempted to use Umberto Eco’s semiotics of the text
in order to analyze the famous “parable of the banquet,” which has come down to
us in three versions from the gospels of Luke (14,15–24), Matthew (22,1–14) and
Thomas (logion 64). In particular I have tried to consider (i) the socio-cultural
context, or in other words the Sitz im Leben of the community within which the
parable was written; (ii) the narrative structure of the parable, with the narrative
nodes that stimulate the reader to cooperate in the work of interpretation and to
draw inferences; (iii) the way in which the Model Author is portrayed in the text;
(iv) the kind of Model Reader who is prefigured in the parable. The analysis has
shown how in the parable of the banquet, the original level (deriving directly from
the preaching of Jesus) characterized by a salvationist and social slant is always
overlaid with another level that is hortatory, pedagogical or ecclesiological, and
which takes on different connotations according to the different contexts. Generally
the Evangelists are suggesting to their communities that theymake changes in their
behavior ranging from renunciation of wealth to the resetting of social ties, from a
stance of constant vigilance to the practice of an active faith, from healthy detachment
from worldly frivolity to a rigorous asceticism. Thus the editorial layers reveal
differing narrative nodes in function of particular interpretative responses, different
Model Authors and different Model Readers
Due prospettive a confronto sulla post-verità: il «nuovo realismo» e la semiotica
Full text linkNell'articolo vengono messe a confronto due prospettive sulla "post-verità": la prospettiva del «nuovo realismo» e la prospettiva semiotica. Alla fine vengono discussi dei casi per delineare alcune caratteristiche testuali delle fake-news
Comunicazioni emotive dei media nell’epoca della «post-verità»: le isole di plastica negli oceani raccontate da la Repubblica
Full text linkStarting from the debate on the presence of plastic islands in the oceans, in this article I will report the findings of a semiotic analysis of ten articles of the “Usa e Rispetta” campaign against pollution and for a sustainable use of plastics, launched by La Repubblica newspaper on 22 April 2018. Then, I will focus on the analysis of a fanpage.it video about a mass of floating garbage in a corner of the Caribbean Sea, a video which became viral at the end of 2017. In both cases, the emotional component is strongly present, alongside with the following recurrent elements: effects of spatial decontextualization, effects of temporalization oriented towards an apocalyptic future, the use of actors with legitimizing functions (the experts). These analyses suggest the central role of emotions in mass media discourses. As a matter of facts, the appeal to emotions makes information more interesting and immediate to the public than logical and rational elements such as data, counterexamples, refutations and statistics, elements that would make the argumentation complex and articulated
Pinocchio e il suo senso del futuro
No full textHow does Pinocchio imagine his future? In this article I try to imagine two Pinocchios – a Pinocchio1 Subject and a Pinocchio2 Anti-Subject – who have two opposite and perhaps complementary ideas of the future. Pinocchio1 envisions a future centered around education and diligent work, aspiring to achieve a heightened state of culture. Conversely, Pinocchio2, desiring to preserve a state of nature, foresees a future marked by inevitable demise. In both scenarios, the trajectory of the future is intricately woven into the fabric of the past and present, leaving little room for divergent possibilities. An alternative future emerges in the Russian remake of Aleksej Nikolaevič Tolstoj. Unlike Collodi’s Pinocchio1, who navigates a capitalist system rooted in individualism, in Tolstoj’s La chiavina d’oro (Golden Key) the Puppet seeks salvation together with his companions
Nuovi modelli familiari negli spot delle auto
Full text linkThis article deals with the semiotic analysis of advertising in the automotive sector, starting from a research carried out a few years ago, in which I analyzed five commercials of minivan cars (from 2009 to 2014). The aim of that study was to see which type of family was represented in these commercials and how it was represented. The findings highlighted that, in advertising, a traditional representation of family prevailed, whereas signs of social transformations were still less frequent. Now, I try to update that work by analyzing some commercials of familiar–car, from 2015 to 2020. In this interval of observation, changes have been numerous: among them, the focus on the practical (technological) valorization of the cars and the accent on individualism in the representation of the actors. Therefore, the representation of family seems less present and less marked than in the past corpus, but it is not absent: as usual, the advertising language metabolizes social innovations carefully and represents them gradually, without destabilizing the public
La struttura assente e il principio di immanenza. Qualche riflessione sul metodo semiotico
Full text linkAnalytic semiotics has always created structures for describing and analysing texts. As was inevitable, ontological questions have emerged on these structures' modes of existence: are they real or abstract? Do they exist in texts, or inside people's heads? Umberto Eco reflected on the status and location of structures almost fifty years ago in his book La struttura assente, in a section of the book that became famous, Section D, which is dedicated to the epistemology of structural models (Eco 1968). In this article I take as my starting point some observations made by Eco at the end of the 1960s in order to see how some assumptions of structuralism influenced the development of semiotics over the decades that followed
Il ricordo della Shoa: indagine semiotica e metodo storiografico per analizzare la retorica della memoria. A proposito del libro I Guardiani della Memoria di Valentina Pisanty
No full textLe avventure intellettuali di Umberto Eco
No full textIn questo libro si tenta di ricostruire il pensiero complesso e poliedrico di Umberto Eco. L'autore parte dalla tesi di laurea sul pensiero estetico in Tommaso d’Aquino, prosegue con gli studi sulle avanguardie e sulla cultura di massa con i quali si è affermato negli anni Sessanta e arriva alla teoria semiotica nella quale Eco affronta con metodo scientifico lo studio dei segni, dei codici, dell’interpretazione. Ripercorre quindi i romanzi che lo hanno reso celebre in tutto il mondo, analizzandone le trame, le tecniche della narrazione e gli snodi filosofici, e ricostruisce le sue riflessioni sui media e le comunicazioni di massa, laboratorio privilegiato in cui Eco ha affinato il suo sguardo critico sulla società e ha messo a punto gli strumenti dell’analisi semiotica. Conclude con alcune note sulla morte, molto presente in tutti i suoi romanzi e oggetto di riflessioni anche ironiche in certi scritti occasionali
The slow pace of change in advertising: new family types in advertisements for people carriers
Full text linkThe aim of this article is to examine in the context of today a theory put forward by Umberto Eco in 1968 (in his book La struttura assente, The Absent Structure). Eco stated that advertising does not increase public understanding and is simply a consolatory art. In this paper I shall analyse a number of advertisements (made between 2009 and 2014) for 5 different models of people carrier to see what type of families are portrayed and how, in order to see if Eco’s theory still holds true. The analyses in fact show that the way families are portrayed in advertising continues to favour traditional models and values, even though there are some indications of social changes that are taking place. In addition, as recent sociosemiotic studies have shown, advertising communication has a dual social and commercial status that obliges it to move slowly: so while it can portray innovations and increase public understanding, this must be done without any destabilizing effects and therefore must always take place very gradually
- …
