Date: 21-Dec-2004 From: Katie Sayers <ksayerscontinuumbooks.com> Subject: Agency and Consciousness in Discourse: Thibault
Title: Agency and Consciousness in Discourse
Subtitle: Self-Other Dynamics as a Complex System
Publication Year: 2004
Publisher: Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd
http://www.continuumbooks.com
In the past two decades there has been considerable interest in the ways in
which subjects are positioned in discursive practice. This interest has
entailed a focus on the role of language and discourse in the processes in
and through which subjects are constituted in discourse. However, questions
of agency and how it relates to consciousness have received less attention.
This book explores the ways in which agency and consciousness are created
through transactions between self and other. The book argues that it is
necessary to regard body-brain interactions in the context of the social
and discursive practices which act upon human bodies. These issues of
agency and individuation are explored in relation to infant semiosis, as
well as in relation to children's symbolic play. Thibault looks at the
importance of the self-referential moral conscience in relation to the
interpersonal dimension of all acts of meaning-making. This conscience is
also connected to the development of a self-referential viewpoint which the
book argues is connected to the ecosocial semiotic systems of thinking
about consciousness as a complex system operating on many different levels.
The author discusses and evaluates the work of linguists, psychologists,
biologists, semioticians, and sociologists such as Basil Bernstein, Mikhail
Bakhtin, J. J. Gibson, M. A. K. Halliday, Walter Kauffman, Lakoff &
Johnson, Jay Lemke, Jean Piaget and Stanley Salthe, to develop a new theory
of agency and consciousness.
Linguistic Field(s): Discourse Analysis
Psycholinguistics
Semantics
Sociolinguistics
This book examines mathematical discourse from the perspective of Michael
Halliday's social semiotic theory. In this approach, mathematics is
conceptualized as a multisemiotic discourse involving language, visual
images and symbolism. The book discusses the evolution of semiotics in
mathematics, and proceeds to examine the grammar of mathematical
symbolism, the grammar of mathematical visual images, intersemiosis between
language, visual images and symbolism and the ways in which mathematics
orders reality. The focus of this investigation is written mathematical texts.
Mathematics is a key semantic area as it underlies the scientific view of
the world which permeates our everyday existence. The aim of this book is
therefore to understand the nature and implications of a social semiotic
perspective of mathematics so that the limitations and metaphorical
expansions which occur in mathematical and scientific discourse may be
appreciated. The book is intended for linguists and those interested in
mathematics and science education. The book also has implications for
other studies in systemic functional approaches to multimodality.
Linguistic Field(s): Discourse Analysis
Semantics
Sociolinguistics
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