IMS seminarium: Lars Elleström, 'Symbolicity'

This seminar is in English.

This week, we will discuss an article draft by Lars Elleström on 'Symbolicity'.

Abstract: In this article, the broad applicability of the concept of symbol in human communication is demonstrated, beyond but including verbal language. The starting point is Charles Sanders Peirce’s understanding of symbolicity as signification grounded on habits. The goal is to be able to semiotically conceptualise mediality in general and media interrelations in particular. Based on a multimodal view on media, the author provides a systematic overview of symbolicity within the context of communication among human minds structured around two crossing parameters: symbols being limited or widespread among people and symbols not being part of or being part of systems – languages. After that, he discusses the role of culture in language notions and conceptualizes language in relation to mediality. He furthermore suggests a way of more precisely describing similarities and differences between languages and media types, without either conflating or totally separating the two concepts. Finally, the author investigates how the dependence of language and media type conceptions on culture affects the idea of intermediality. Together, these overviews and conceptualizations promote a more comprehensive understanding of symbolicity in general and a deeper knowledge of the role of symbolicity in human communication and intermedial relations involving all kinds of different media types.

Contact us at ims@lnu.se, if you want to participate via Zoom.

Photo: 'Aurora - Connecting Senses’, Cristina Pop-Tiron & Signe Kjær Jensen