"Semiotics of onymy" Section at the International Conference Semiotica 2015

http://semiotica.uni.lodz.pl/

Semiotica 2015 – INTERNATIONAL SEMIOTIC CONFERENCE

GUEST OF HONOUR

PROF. UMBERTO ECO

UNIVERSITY OF ŁÓDŹ
FACULTY OF PHILOLOGY
DEPARTMENT OF ITALIAN STUDIES, INSTITUTE OF ROMANCE STUDIES
DEPARTMENT OF PRAGMATICS, INSTITUTE OF ENGLISH STUDIES
INTERDISCIPLINARY CENTER OF HUMANISTIC SCIENCES

ISTITUTO ITALIANO DI CULTURA DI VARSAVIA

24-27 MAY 2015

UNDER THE AUSPICES OF Embassy of Italy in Poland President of the University of Łódź Faculty of Philology, University of Łódź Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Varsavia Centro Internazionale di Scienze Semiotiche Polish Pragmatics Association Polish Semiotic Association Linguistics Committee, Polish Academy of Sciences, Łódź Committee of Slavic Onomastics, c/o International Slavic Committee 

CONFERENCE VENUE Faculty of Philology University of Łódź Pomorska 171/173 90-236 Łódź Conference Center of the University of Łódź Kopcińskiego 16/18 90-232 Łódź

ORGANIZERS Department of Italian Studies, University of Lodz www.italianistyka.uni.lodz.pl Department of Pragmatics, University of Lodz anglistyka.uni.lodz.pl/ZPJ?department Interdisciplinary Center of Humanistic Sciences centrumhumanistyczne.uni.lodz.pl CO-ORGANIZER Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Varsavia www.iicvarsavia.esteri.it

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE Prof. Dr. Artur Gałkowski, Prof. Dr. Piotr Cap, Prof. Dr. Krystyna Pietrych, Dr. Paola Ciccolella (Conference Co-Chairs) Dr. Monika Kopytowska, Dr. Joanna Ciesielka, Dr. Tamara Roszak, Ms. Joanna Ozimska, Dr. Sebastian Zacharow (Conference Secretaries) Prof. Dr. Jadwiga Czerwińska, Prof. Dr. Tomasz Cieślak, Dr. Anna Miller-Klejsa, Ms. Aleksandra Sowińska, Ms. Diana Dąbrowska, dott. Ilario Cola, dott. Stefano Cavallo (Conference Team)

 

CONFERENCE SCOPE AND THEMES

 „The print does not always have the same shape as the body that impressed it, and it doesn’t always derive from the pressure of a body. At times it reproduces the impression a body has left in our mind: it is the print of an idea. The idea is a sign of things, and the image is a sign of the idea, the sign of a sign. But from the image I reconstruct, if not the body, the idea that others had of it.”

 Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose 

A sign is what we perceive and realize. It comprises a whole range of phenomena, objects, and beings, as well as ideas within our mental maps. Each fragment of material and immaterial reality perceived by our mind and senses has to be processed by human thought, which becomes the first and most basic tool we use to harness knowledge expressed by various types of signs. It is thus not a truism to say that, seen from this perspective, human thought is boundless. Can it, however, encompass the totality of the world? Individually, it certainly cannot; socially and historically, depending on the accessibility of the surrounding world – both real and fictional – and depending on the language used to assign meanings to things once they are perceived, it can strive to reach the limits of its potential. And here is where a word comes into play. Being a sign itself, it can be used to indicate, describe and conceptualize a selected fragment of any material, spiritual, or imagined space. A sign and an idea give life to words. Is the reverse process possible? There are spheres where words, as parts of larger structures, describe and create the world. They are endowed with agency and performative potential. Merged with a sign by the thought, a word creates meaning for both the creator herself and the addressee. The “matter” of the word is thus constituted by acts of speaking and acts of encoding its meaning in writing. What emerges as a result of these two processes is work, the totality of what is communicated. Understood in this way, the work can be situated within the frames of various discourses, within the sphere of both everyday or specialized communication, and, last but not least, within the realm of literature. Hence, it should be viewed in the widest perspective possible, allowing for new interpretations and understandings. 

Such a multidimensional perspective will be encouraged, explored and implemented in conference presentations and discussions on the dynamic nature of and relationships between four interrelated concepts: sign, thought, word, and work. The notions which are at the core of both domain-oriented and interdisciplinary semiotic research will become the focus of academic investigations and critical reflections in which we invite all those who are interested in semiotics to engage: linguists concentrating on the theory of language and its social function, philosophers, literary scholars and critics, translators rendering the work in another language, and humanists open to knowledge about the world and the signs present in it.

MAIN THEMES

 - semiotics of communication and culture - cognitive semiotics - semiotics of art. - literary semiotics - media and film semiotics - semiotics of advertising - forms and functions of signs - signs in discourse - sign aesthetics - words and signs - from thoughts to signs and works - pragmatic perspective on sign/word/work - semiotics of lexis - semiotics of onymy - semiotics of visual design - rhetoric of sign-oriented discourse - defining literary, artistic and applied works - text typology - semiotic strategy and stylistic convention of text/work - intentio operis, intentio auctoris and intentio lectoris in text reading and interpretation - palimpsest story: the role of history in literary work   

SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE 

Prof. Patrizia Bertini Malgarini, Libera Università Maria Ss. Assunta LUMSA, Italy Prof. Ingeborga Beszterda, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland Prof. Orazio Antonio Bologna, Università Pontificia Salesiana, Italy Prof. Paolo Bosisio, Università Statale di Milano, Italy Prof. Piotr Cap, University of Łódź, Poland Prof. Paul Chilton, Lancaster University, UK Prof. Tomasz Cieślak, University of Łódź, Poland Prof. Aleksandra Cieślikowa, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland Prof. Jadwiga Czerwińska, University of Łódź, Poland Prof. Paolo D’Achille, Università degli Studi Roma Tre, Italy Prof. Paolo Fabbri, Libera Università Internazionale di Studi Sociali LUISS, Centro Internazionale di Scienze Semiotiche CiSS dell'Università di Urbino, Italy Prof. Mieczysław Gajos, University of Łódź, Poland Prof. Artur Gałkowski, University of Łódź, Poland Prof. Giovanni Gobber, Università del Sacro Cuore, Italy Prof. Jean-Pierre Goudaillier, Université René Descartes Paris 5 Nouvelle Sorbonne, France Prof. Bob Hodge, University of Western Sidney, Australia Prof. Elżbieta Jamrozik, University of Warsaw, Poland Prof. Alicja Kacprzak, University of Łódź, Poland Prof. Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, University of Łódź, Poland Prof. Mirosław Loba, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland Prof. Justyna Łukaszewicz, University of Wrocław, Poland Prof. Jadwiga Miszalska, Jagiellonian University, Poland Prof. Joanna Odrowąż-Sypniewska, University of Warsaw, Poland Prof. Jerzy Pelc, University of Warsaw, Poland Prof. Krystyna Pietrych, University of Łódź, Poland Prof. Steven Pinker, Harvard University, USA Prof. Jarosław Płuciennik, University of Łódź, Poland Prof. Paolo Poccetti, Università degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata, Italy Prof. Piotr Salwa, University of Warsaw, Poland; Polish Academy of Sciences in Rome Prof. John R. Searle, University of California, Berkeley, USA Prof. Hanna Serkowska, University of Warsaw, Poland Prof. Tadeusz Sławek, University of Silesia, Poland Dr Marcin Sobieszczański, Université de Nice – Sophia Antipolis, France Prof. Roman Sosnowski, Jagiellonian University, Poland Prof. Piotr Stalmaszczyk, University of Łódź, Poland Prof. Rudolf Šrámek, Masaryk University, Czech Republic Prof. Ugo Vignuzzi, Università di Roma La Sapienza, Italy Prof. Maria Patrizia Violi, Università di Bologna, Italy Prof. Ugo Volli, Università degli Studi di Torino, Italy Prof. Stanisław Widłak, Jagiellonian University, Poland Prof. Monika Woźniak, Università di Roma La Sapienza, Italy Prof. Krzysztof Żaboklicki, University of Warsaw, Poland

CONFERENCE LANGUAGES 

English, Italian, French, Polish