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The need to study the concept of "politeness" from the point of view of its linguistic and cultural nature is caused by the desire to study the national identity of speech etiquette in different cultural spaces and conditions. The aim of the work was to form an idea about the specifics of the implementation and understanding of the concept of "politeness" in the Uzbek information field. In this study, the following methods were used: contextual, conceptual, communicative, linguocultural, analytical-synthetic, and comparative. This study is focused on the study of key lexical meanings (stylistically neutral and marked, basic and additional) that are within the functional-semantic field of the concept "politeness." With the help of contextual study of different variants of the use of the lexeme, the meanings were distributed in the conceptual structure (core, near and far periphery). Also, the key etiquette formulas representing the originality and national-specific features of the Uzbek linguocultural tradition were considered. The importance of politeness in the information space of Uzbekistan is assessed, including with the help of both positive and negative associations, that is, from an axiological point of view. Speech etiquette and linguistic formulas were considered from the point of view of the influence of social, cultural, and political values of the Uzbek people. In the process of analyzing the lexical layer, the boundaries of the functional-semantic field of the concept "politeness" were determined: from the principles of communication and a set of rules of etiquette to the strategy of obtaining benefits from communication and insincere attitude. In the future, this work can be used for comparative analysis of the conceptual structure of politeness with models presented in other close and distant languages, comparison of speech etiquette and linguistic formulas in different national cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I look at a specific Hebrew religious term, Tikkun Olam, to examine the manner in which it signifies differently in two specific cases. While we understand that meaning is carried in both denotation and connotation, and while a genealogy of meaning is often useful to understand the manner in which meaning has changed across time, this paper recounts the manner in which a single word may signify differently synchronically, at a single point in history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Denotation is the literal sense of a word, while connotation is its extended sense. The current paper presents a cognitive computational model of the adjective's connotation (e.g., sweet baby). We tested the model by developing a novel algorithm - ConnoSense - that identifies the sense of an attribute's connotation. More specifically, ConnoSense identifies the sense of an attribute such as in the case of a 'sweet smile' where the attribute/adjective 'sweet' is used in the sense of 'friendly.' Tested on a multiple-choice test of identifying the sense of a connotation (e.g., 'dark thoughts') the algorithm gained 90% accuracy and outperforms two other models that are based on vectorial semantics. These results support the validity of our model. The paper points at the importance of fusing ideas from the semiotics interpretative tradition with experimental psychological knowledge and novel methodologies of computational semantics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interrelation of metaphors and metonymies is manifested in non-verbal sign systems of visual art in various forms: in the fundamental intentions of the works, in the forming of the works' concepts, and in the sign systems of the texts. The systematicity of the interrelations between metaphors and metonymies on these levels can be revealed through the analysis of works by great masters of visual art from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In this essay, Surikov's art serves an example. The metonymies of an intentional character appeared in his mind in his youth and were later realized in the ideas of his fundamental works, in their connections with various metaphors, in the composition of the works, and in various sign systems related to them. These connections are manifested in systems of differences and identities in layers of denotations and connotations. These systems are connected by common organizing structures that allow the sign formations of metaphors and metonymies to emerge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This interdisciplinary research explores the rhetorical and semiological concepts that examine the power, the practice, and the techniques employed by advertisers in cross-cultural settings. While sexual connotations dominate Western advertising, the Iranian government mandates that advertising agencies create ads that comply with Islamic law. A comparative analysis of semiological and rhetorical patterns in women's products advertising in Iran and the U.S. reveals that, despite restrictions, Iranian advertisers try to follow the Western canon of rhetoric. This study creates a prototype for critical analysis of persuasive images in different societies and suggests that advertising reflects the culture and also contributes to its constant change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews and evaluates some aspects of the semiotic heritage from a fundamental treatise on architecture. It shows how the system set in place by Vitruvius at the dawn of our era is being today brought up to date by contemporary architects, yielding a projection know-how that can contribute to the design of virtual worlds. The question is therefore, how can space make sign. According to the Saussurean conception of the arbitrary relationship between signifier and signified and Hjelmslev's concept of connotation, the semiotic of space answers this question and clarifies the various approaches to description of meaning production developed in the theory of architecture. In this way the semiotic theory can give an explanation of the modernist function-oriented conception of the world, as well as of the post-modernist communication-oriented one. For this purpose it questions the concept of generative grammar that the contemporary architects have developed starting from the works of Chomsky. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Being the object of semiotic studies, metonymy demands investigation in the non-verbal domain, i.e., visual sign systems. When analyzing the metonymies of visual artworks, they prove to have different sources: verbal and visual sources refer to codes, languages, contexts, and sign forms of a work (denotations, connotations, and organizing sign structures). Different particular metonymies promote incarnation of a general metonymy of work. In the work structure (or coding), particular metonymies are joined and organized on the basis of this general metonymy. The metonymies interrelated in a complex way on the basis of general metonymy are revealed in the course of semiotic analysis of the paintings by Bruegel the Elder. The sign structures of his works underlie the philosophic generalizations of the great painter and philosopher. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores some major elements in the human capacity to create meaning, or signify. Motivated by a problematic emerging from artificial intelligence and cognitive science research, the article discusses the specific features of natural language that distinguish it from other forms of communication and underlie the difficulties found in designing electronic forms of language processing. In particular, the article proposes a model of human communication based on a quadripartite model composed of language, emotion, embodiment, and community. It discusses some areas of the representational aspects of language, which have been identified by literary approaches to texts, and which any attempt at emulating human intelligence and communication should take into account. The article supports the claim that the human propensity to create meaning lies largely in representational ambiguity, which underlies most forms of symbolism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the present article is the study of the connotative meaning of space, but special theoretical attention is given to the wider theoretical context of such an enterprise. I argue that the whole domain of spatial studies is split between two major and conflicting epistemological paradigms: ‘objectivism,’ which studies ‘space’ as an external object, and ‘subjectivism,’ which approaches space as ‘place,’ that is, as a meaningful, semiotic entity. The existence of these two parallel orientations, both legitimate, points to the need for a holistic approach, allowing the articulation of semiotic phenomena with social structures. The holistic approach helps to clarify three different semiotic approaches: the immanent, the Greimasian sociosemiotic, and the holistic social semiotic approach. The relationship between space and meaning is a metaphorical one, and metaphor belongs to the semantics of connotation. The whole connotative field of a society constitutes its world view or ideology, which is structured by a classification system. The study of the metaphorical meanings of space is set in this article against three different social backgrounds. The first are precapitalist societies. As a case study, I use the example of the Sudanese Dogon of southern Mali and show that cosmogony and cosmology, inextricably linked to an anthropomorphic code, constitute the nucleus of their world view and preside over the organization and morphology of space. The second is western modernism. I conclude that the major ideological urban models of modernism are ruled by an organicist code. The last context studied is western postmodernism. I argue that the postmodern approach to space (which is not a radically new phenomenon) adopts a pseudo-historical stance and uses the overarching metaphor of genius loci. In the context of postmodernism, the ‘metaphorization’ of built space goes hand in hand with its ‘Las Vegasization’ and ‘Disneylandization,’ and meaning, spatial experience, and the search for identity are integrated into the circuit of capitalist profit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]