Lecture delivered on September 10th 2016 at XXI Early Fall School in Semiotics, Sozopol

1. Institutio Communicationis
Borislav Gueorguiev
South-East European Center for Semiotic Studies,
New Bulgarian University
https://bogeo.net
EFSS
2016

2. Institutio Oratoria
Quintilian
EFSS
2016

3. Contents
1. What is communication?
2. What is institution?
3. What does anthropological approach mean?
EFSS
2016

4. Communication
Definition
Établissement de relations codées
entre un locuteur et un récepteur, à
condition que le récepteur puisse
devenir à son tour locuteur.
B.Toussaint,
Qu’est-ce que la Sémiologie?, Privat, 1978.
Parler c’est
communiquer
EFSS
2016

5. Communication sciences
Établissement de relations codées entre un locuteur et un
récepteur, à condition que le récepteur puisse devenir à son tour
locuteur.
 Linguistics (and Semiotics)
 Psychology
 Anthropology
EFSS
2016

6. Anthropological approach
 Anthropology deals with the mankind, embed in
communities and in the society.
 Anthropology studies the common (unwritten) laws
for co-existence and survival in the community and
society, i.e. the common laws of the institution.
EFSS
2016

7. Institution
Bronislaw Kasper Malinowski
Keywords describing one institution :
1. Law
2. People
3. Norms
4. Tools
5. Activities
6. Functions
EFSS
2016

8. Is the communication an
institution?
Arrangement by
Malinowski:
1. Law
2. People
3. Norms
4. Tools
5. Activities
6. Functions
Arrangements of proofs:
1. People
2. Tools
3. Activities
4. Functions
5. Norms
6. Law
EFSS
2016

9. Tools
Sign systems, based on seven strategic types of
communication
EFSS
2016

10. Strategic types of
communication for humans
1. Touch: hot/cold; soft/hard;
2. Smell: pleasant/unpleasant; soft/hard;
3. Taste: raw (le cru)/cooked (le cuit) – Claude Lévi-Strauss;
pleasant/unpleasant; soft/hard;
4. Hearing: loud/quiet; articulate/non-articulate
5. Sight: clear/cloudy; articulate/non-articulate
6. Oral: loud/quiet; articulate/non-articulate;
instantaneousness/continuity
7. Written: clear/cloudy; articulate/non-articulate;
instantaneousness/continuity
EFSS
2016

11. Activities
Any possible speech act (Austin) and/or language
game (Sprachspiel, Wittgenstein) which can be
performed, and which is performed in different
manner in different cultures (Anna Wierzbicka).
EFSS
2016

12. J. L. Austin (1911 - 1960)
 A British philosopher of language
 Widely associated with the concept of
the speech act and the idea is itself a
form of action
 By uttering X, I am doing X
 How to Do Things With Words, Oxford:
Clarendon, 1962 – written version of
Austin’s William James Lectures
delivered in Harvard in 1955
EFSS
2016

13. Strategic functions
1. Socialization through exchange;
2. Pleasure;
3. Healing / Therapy.
EFSS
2016

14. Socialization
The language is the tool, which
transforms our personal experience
in external and social.
Berthrand Russel
EFSS
2016

15. What do we exchange?
Claude Lévi-Strauss
1. Women (or conjugal/sexual
partners);
2. Goods & services;
3. Ideas (i.e. information).
EFSS
2016

16. Norms
Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor
alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood,
but are very much at the mercy of the particular language
which has become the medium of expression for their
society. It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to
reality essentially without the use of language and that
language is merely an incidental means of solving specific
problems of communication or reflection.
Edward Sapir
EFSS
2016

17. Norms
The fact of the matter is that the 'real world' is to a large
extent unconsciously built upon the language habits of the
group. No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be
considered as representing the same social reality. The
worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds,
not merely the same world with different labels attached...
We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as
we do because the language habits of our community
predispose certain choices of interpretation.
Edward Sapir
EFSS
2016

18. Law
The common (unwritten) laws of communication from
semiotic point of view are equivalent to the pragmatic
principles of communication.
EFSS
2016

19. Pragmatic Principles
1. The Principle of power (The Principle of
commitativity);
2. Co-Operative principle;
3. Politeness principle;
4. Irony principle;
5. Other principles;
EFSS
2016

20. Thank you!
bgueorguiev@nbu.bg
EFSS
2016

21. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8jCV4f7HVE