Cognitive Semiotics

The editorial board and Peter Lang International Academic Publishers are proud to present the first official issue of COGNITIVE SEMIOTICS - Multidisciplinary Journal on Meaning and Mind. We hope you will welcome this new addition to the academic field and help us spread the word to all interested parties. Furthermore, we find this issue to be a real showcase of what Cognitive Semiotics is about and what we aim for with the journal, so please allow yourself a moment to study the table of contents and article abstracts referenced below. We wish you happy reading and hope you will find the journal both exciting and interesting!

Cognitive Semiotics #1, Fall 2007. ISSN 1662-1425

148 pages. Paperback. Art. No. 81602.

Click here for: Table of Contents (pdf)

Click here for: Editorial Preface & article abstracts (pdf)

Finally, click here to: order online at peterlang.com (or click here to download printable order form instead). Alternatively, click on the corresponding links in the sidebar to the right.

- When ordering online, you have the choice to subscribe to either the print version or the electronic version of the journal.

A new batch of Calls for Submissions is ready, this time for:
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Cognitive Semiotics #4 (Spring 2009): Anthroposemiotics vs.
biosemiotics.
EDITORS: Göran Sonesson & Jordan Zlatev
DEADLINE: June 2nd 2008.
- click here to download the full description with all details in PDF-format.
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Cognitive Semiotics # 5 (Fall 2009): Aesthetic Cognition
EDITORS: Peer Bundgaard & Jean Petitot
DEADLINE: December 1st 2008
- click here to download the full description with all details in PDF-format.
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Please read them carefully, consider contributing and/or forward them to anybody you think might be interested in submitting an article!

We are proud to present the first two public call for papers and at the same time introduce readers to our exciting new venture: the Companion to Cognitive Semiotics which is a free online complement to the printed journal and will be published once a year (in December). Click on the second link below for more information.

1. COGNITIVE SEMIOTICS #3 (FALL 2008): NEO-STRUCTURALISM – HOMAGE TO CLAUDE LÉVI-STRAUSS. Deadline: March 3rd 2008.
In celebration of the 100th birthday and continued influence of the legendary French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss (and his structuralist contemporaries) we invite authors to submit articles on the theme of “Neo-Structuralism” for publication in Cognitive Semiotics (Issue 3, Fall 2008).
By using the term “Neo-Structuralism” we refer to the apparent influx of a novel kind of structuralist theory to the humanities following the general rise and influence of the cognitive sciences in recent years. Cognitive Linguistics, Cognitive Musicology, Cognitive Theories of Art and Culture, Cognitive Semantics, and numerous other areas of research now sporting the modifier “Cognitive”, all utilize structuralist tools or frames of reference to get at the inherent meaning of their object…. READ THE FULL CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS HERE (click for pdf-document)

2. COMPANION TO COGNITIVE SEMIOTICS #1 (2008): MEANING AND MATERIALITY. Deadline: May 5th 2008.
We invite submissions for the inaugural volume of the Companion to Cognitive Semiotics, with the special theme of Meaning and Materiality.
Companion to Cognitive Semiotics 1 (2008) will explore the semiotic status of the material world in human cognition, and the material dimension of semiosis and representation. Materiality (and material culture) is not only a rapidly growing research topic in a number of disciplines (anthropology, archaeology, evolutionary biology, linguistics, philosophy, psychology), but a central focus of an emerging new paradigm in the sciences of cognition and communication. The core theme of this issue will be the way in which “things” (objects, the material world) function as signifiers, and not just signifieds. We shall thus emphasize the semiotic dimension of extended, situated and distributed cognitive processes; and the material basis of meaning as more than a merely “mental” phenomenon. The role in cognitive development and evolution of artefacts and material culture is of great importance in this respect, and is increasingly emphasised in anthropology, archaeology and psychology… READ THE FULL CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS HERE (click for pdf-document)

We encourage all visitors to download the Call for Submissions and distribute them to anyone who might be interested in contributing with an article.

A general introduction to the journal

We are pleased to present this very first issue of Cognitive Semiotics. The journal will publish two print issues a year, one in the spring and one in the fall. Additionally, in December each year a special issue of the Companion to Cognitive Semiotics, our free online complement to the printed journal, will be published on this website which also serves as a vital resource for the journal.

Issue #0 (Spring 2007) - click here for a full version of the cover

As a whole Cognitive Semiotics offers its readers the opportunity to engage with ideas from the European and American traditions of cognitive science and semiotics, and to follow developments in the study of meaning – both in a cognitive and in a semiotic sense – as they unfold internationally. The intention of the journal is to create and facilitate dialogue, debate, and collaboration among those interested both in human cognition and in human semiotic experiences and behavior.

This intention is inherited from its Danish antecedent, the journal Almen Semiotik, published by the Aarhus University Press (1990 – 2002). The initiative to create a transatlantically based journal comes from the Center for Cognition and Culture, at the department of Cognitive Science at Case Western Reserve University, and from a group of researchers trained at the Center for Semiotics, in Denmark, and based in Aarhus and Copenhagen. These joint editors identify the present issue as issue number “0” to signify its transitional status. We are happy that Cognitive Semiotics will be published by Peter Lang AG, where the book series European Semiotics, created in 1999, is also housed.

Let us briefly explain the general content of this journal, the field of thinking and research we name cognitive semiotics.

Human minds ‘cognize’ and ‘signify’ as complementary aspects of their capacity to think and feel. If we accept the metaphor of ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ levels of cognition, and the idea of seeing the ‘higher levels of cognition’ as those responsible for abstraction, language, discourse, institutions, law, science, music, visual arts, and cultural practices in general, grounded in the use of conventionally established and intentionally used signs (often called symbols), then semiotics is the discipline committed to the study of these ‘higher levels’. Relying predominantly on expressionbased communication, the contents of these higher-level cognitive feats can be shared by expressive exchanges of signified meanings (GE: Bedeutungen; FR: sens).

These meanings, in turn, can be made the subject of inquiry, their semiotic structure and significance indicators of how minds cognize together, and of the cognitive mechanisms which make their production and comprehension possible in the first place.

The mental activities of thinking and communicating are importantly interrelated in our species. Human societies and cultures, and civilization at large, are the results of cooperating and conflicting minds, connected through cognitive-semiotic functions and processes. To gain scientific knowledge about these often still unexplored phenomena, found increasingly important by the scientific community, the journal is devoted to high quality research, integrating methods and theories developed in the disciplines of cognitive science with methods and theories developed in semiotics and the humanities, with the ultimate aim of providing new insights into the realm of human meaning production and the modalities of its embodiment and disembodiment.

Cognitive Semiotics (and Companion to Cognitive Semiotics) will publish peer-reviewed manuscripts according to a doubleblind protocol. We invite authors to submit manuscripts on the above-mentioned and related topics to the coordinating editor, Jes Vang, at jv@cognitivesemiotics.com. Also, we encourage everyone to visit our website frequently for relevant updates and news, and to sign up for our electronic newsletter to be informed of the upcoming editions of the journal (you do so by sending your name and email address to info@cognitivesemiotics.com).

- The editorial group

PS: A free, electronic version of issue #0 is available for download and personal distribution. Just click on the link in the sidebar.

Welcome to the news blog for Cognitive Semiotics - a new peer-reviewed journal for international science and the humanities. Here we will provide information about the journal, its themes and publication progress, as well as offer information on future subscription offers and call for papers, and the like - so remember to check back regularly!

The first issue, due for publication in April 2007, bears the theme “Agency” and contains articles by Shaun Gallagher, Merlin Donald, Rick Grush, Søren Overgård & Thor Grünbaum, Kristian Tylén, and Mikkel Holm Sørensen & Tom Ziemke.

This inaugural issue will in turn celebrate the successful transition from being a locally based endeavour at Aarhus University, Denmark to becoming a true international journal with prominent editorial board members positioned on both sides of the Atlantic; in Denmark at the University of Aarhus and the University of Copenhagen, and in the United States at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. The latter will also serve as the official future home for the journal.

More info will follow as the journal and our international cooperation progresses. This is just a short welcome to let you know of our existence and, hopefully, to spark your interest in our journal!