TEAM


Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Wildgen

Dr. Peter Holz

Thomas Schultke (M.A.)

PD Dr. Martina Plümacher

Andrea Graumann (M.A.)

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Wildgen


Studies in Semiotics
Department of Language & Literature
University of Bremen
Post Box 330 440
D-28334 Bremen, Germany
University Homepage: http://www.fb10.uni-bremen.de (incl. links to publications; go via 'search' or click here)

Since 1980 I am professor of German and General Linguistics at the university of Bremen. I wrote my PhD-thesis in Sociolinguistics (measuring social codes) and my habilitation-thesis on "Dynamical Semantics" in the continuity of René Thom's semiotics. This difficult endeavor began in 1976 and was only finished in 1999. A series of monographs and scientific articles document this long journey, in which I not only widened the field of formal models: from catastrophe theory to synergetics and chaos theory, but also the fields of application: from sentential semantics to word- and text-semantics. I first met René Thom at the International Congress of Semiotics in Vienna (1979), where I presented some results in catastrophe theoretical semantics, and Jean Petitot in 1982 at a conference on the oeuvre of René Thom in Cérisy ( France). In 1987/88 I spent one month of my sabbatical at the IHES (Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques) in Bures-sur-Yvette (Paris), where René Thom was teaching, and six weeks at the Institute of Cognitive Science and the Linguistics Department in Berkeley (invited by Charles Fillmore). In the eighties I became member of a European semiotic group, called SIGMA, which met at: Aarhus, Paris, Bagne di Lucca, and Leuven. A semiotic network in the Erasmus program organized with participant universities in Italy, France, Spain, Denmark, Portugal, and Germany, furthered the European enlargement of my research in semiotics. An annual semiotic conference in Urbino still gathers the leaders of this network and some of their students. A frequent meeting point is also the "Center of Semiotics" in Aarhus (Denmark), directed by P.A. Brandt. Together with Prof. Brandt I co-edite the series "European Semiotics" of the editor Peter Lang in Bern.

My interests in the history of the dynamical point of view in linguistics and semiotics made me turn to authors like Goethe, Humboldt, Condillac, Kepler, Galilei and I found in the semiotics and the art of memory of Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) an astonishing precursor of dynamical semiotics. During my sabbatical in 1995 I had given lectures in Aarhus on the "Semiotics and the Art of Memory of Giordano Bruno" and I completed this research by intensive studies in libraries (Naples, Rome, Florence, Venice, Paris, London, Prague, Wittenberg and Munich). In 1998 I was able to publish a book called "Das kosmologische Gedächtnis" (the cosmological memory) on Giordano Bruno's semiotics and to organize an exhibition in honor of Bruno's 450th birthday. In the year 2000, when his death on the stake was commemorated in Rome and elsewhere I gave a number of conferences in Rome, Frankfurt, Helmstedt and Nürnberg.

Since my last sabbatical which I spent at the "Konrad Lorenz Institut" near Vienna and at the "Max-Planck-Institute of Psycholinguistics" in Nijmegen (1998/1999) I prepare a book on the "Evolution of Sign Behavior and Language", which shall be finished during my sabbatical in summer 2002.

In cooperation with colleagues in Bremen and Groningen (NL), we prepare a volume on the philosophy of Cassirer and the problem of "representation". The "philosophy of symbolic forms" initialized by Cassirer establishes a specific link between language, art, myth, technique and further symbolic forms. Currently I investigate topics in the "Semiotics of Art" and in "Visual Semiotics". Several papers on Arcimboldo and Leonardo da Vinci given in Aarhus and Limoges and further conferences prepared for Paris and Aarhus in 2002 document this new field of investigation.

Together with PD Dr. Martina Plümacher and Peter Holz, M.A., I founded the "Studies in Semiotics" = SIS (in German "Studienschwerpunkt Semiotik und Sprachtheorie") at the University of Bremen and we began a series of lectures and seminars on semiotic topics. In fall 2002 an international conference on the "Semiotics of the Senses", named "Sense and Sensibility", is planned.

Currently I do research on Visual Semiotics and I prepare contributions on Leonardo da Vinci (cf. my paper of 2001), Turner and Moore and I apply methods of mathematical modeling to these domains.

"Semio 2004" (Lyon) - 8. Congrès de l'Association International de Sémiotique

Wolfgang Wildgen - Morphogenesis of the Limits and Semiogenesis of Difference in Discourse

Wolfgang Wildgen - Cross-cultural dynamics of picture and text

Conference: Semiotica delle macchine / Sémiotique des machines / Semiotics of machines, Urbino, 15th - 17th July 2004

Wolfgang Wildgen - De la technologie néanderthalienne au robots cognitifs. Le rôle de la forme symbolique « technique » dans l'évolution culturelle

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Dr. Peter Holz

Research Assistant for Applied Linguistics
University of Bremen
Department of Languages & Literature
Bibliothekstraße 1
D-28359 Bremen
Phone: +49 421 218-8238
Room: B 3270 (Building: GW-2)
E-mail: pholz@uni-bremen.de
Private homepage (incl. list of publications)

Curriculum vitae

Born: 27. January 1970
1989: A-Levels
1989 - 1991: Alternative civilian service
1991 - 1999 Studies in
German Literature and Language, Philosophy, Cultural Sciences (Universities of Vechta/GER and Bremen/GER)
Linguistics and Phonetics (University of Leeds/GB)
Semiotics (Center for Semiotic Research, Aarhus/DK)
March 1999: M.A. (Bremen)
1999 - 2001: Assistant Lecturer for General Linguistics at the University of Bremen
2001 - 2004: Research Assistant at the University of Bremen, associated with Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Wildgen and the research section Studies in Semiotics (SIS)
2004 - 2005: Bachelor/Master Coordinator (Faculty Administration)
February 2005: Dr. phil.
2005 - 2006: Post-Doc period: Research Project "Representation"
Since April 2006: Lecturer for Communication Studies at the University of Oldenburg and at the University of Bremen
Since October 2006: Research Assistant for Applied Linguistics at the University of Bremen

"God hath given you one face; and you make yourselves another."
William Shakespeare

Right or wrong - my culture !?

Recently, I had a quick word with a colleage in front of my office door. Knowing he speaks turkish fluently, I put forth some thoughts about plural morphemes in turkish I had read about before, when he - at some point - started shaking his head automatically. Immediatly I stopped my assumingly reasonable monologue and switched over to the babbling of some "ehhhms" and "hhms". He said then, realizing my confusion: "Sorry, Peter, just go on talking. In the turkish culture the shaking of the head during face-to-face conversation means: 'Keep on talking, I didn't get your point yet'". (I never knew he has also internalised turkish cultural habits that deeply.)
I, of course, having been socialised in the so called 'western civilisation' interpreted his head shaking as something like: 'No, no way or you're wrong'.
Fortunately we managed to clear up the confusion by talking about it. (There are in fact only two morphemic variants to indicate the plural in turkish).

No need to despair !

In December 2001 I visited Gdansk (Poland) in order to give a talk for the Philological faculty of the University.
I spent the following day strolling around in the city like a kind of baudelaireian flaneur. When I went into a café to warm up with a cup of tea and a cigarette I - coming out of the cold - suddenly felt a certain need. Looking then for the lavatory doors I noticed two symbols that I have never before seen attached to doors. They were Ο and ∇. Some instinct told me to chose the door with the latter and - I was right: it was the gents' toilet! What a lucky guy Peter, having some sort of sense of semiotics. What happened here? Why was I able to choose the right door?

What is basically interesting to me in Semiotics is the everyday experience that our common behaviour in daily life is exceedingly organised (one might often say: manipulated) by the use of various kinds of signs.
A basic notion of representation, namely the relation 'something stands for something different' can be observed in any sign system. To make transparent by description and thus to unravel what stands for what and why in what cultural, communicative and linguistic contexts is my basic passion in semiotics.
What head shaking can mean is highlighted in the first anecdote. But is there an explanation why the same bodily movement can refer to a very different kind of social behaviour? Are the meanings of bodily signs arranged only by convention in certain cultural contexts? Or is there an explanation how they can be understood by people from outside the system?
And what about the second anecdote? You can easily figure out what Ο and ∇ stand for. But I leave the interpretation to you, why exactly these symbols are chosen in Poland to indicate toilets for women/men. Just a convention, or is there a logical motivaton behind it? And how to describe it?
Since I consider communication (not only via language) as the crucial feature to bringing different cultures, hence differently speaking and behaving human beings, together, I think the research field of semiotic systems should be one of prime endeavour to achieve more mutual understanding, respect and tolerance in the world - and these are at least three things that we need urgently.

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Thomas Schultke (M.A.)

E-mail: schultke@uni-bremen.de
Private homepage

Lecture SoSe 2006:

Der Filmkanon - Filme, die man kennen muß?

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PD Dr. Martina Plümacher

Born: 18. November 1958
Spring 1977: Abitur
1977-1985 Studies in philosophy, history and education at the University of Düsseldorf (GER)
1984/1985 First Examinations for the teaching profession
1991-1993 Studies in the fine arts in evening classes of the art college "Städel" in Frankfurt/Main (GER)
1993 Doctor of Philosophy, on the basis of the work "Identität in Krisen. Selbstverständigungen und Selbstverständnisse der Philosophie in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland nach 1945" (Identity in Crises. Concept formation and conceptions of philosophy in the West German philosophy after 1945)
1994-2001 Research Assistant at the Department of Philosophy of the University of Bremen, associated with Prof. Dr. Hans Jörg Sandkühler
2000 Habilitation in philosophy
Since september 2001 Research Assistant at the Department of Linguistics and Literature, associated with Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Wildgen

Man cannot live his life without expressing his life. The various modes of this expression constitute a new sphere. They have a life of their own, a sort of eternity by which they survive man's individual and ephemeral existence. In all human activities we find a fundamental polarity, which may be described in various ways. We may speak of a tension between stabilization and evolution, between a tendency that leads to fixed and stable forms of life and another tendency to break up this rigid scheme. Man is torn between these two tendencies, one of which seeks to preserve old forms whereas the other strives to produce new ones. There is a ceaseless struggle between tradition and innovation, between reproductive and creative forces.

Ernst Cassirer, An Essay on Man (1944)

We find signs or even sign systems at whatever we look. Human knowledge, purposes in life, self-images, rules and norms of social life are expressed in the diversity of signs and sign systems. Thus, my philosophical research on epistemology - that part of philosophy that deals with questions about knowledge, understanding, explanation and argumentation, scientificality etc. - led me to the semiotics. Philosophers like Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Charles Sanders Peirce, Edmund Husserl (in his earlier works), Ernst Cassirer among other made clear how the evolution of human knowledge is connected with the development of sign systems.
For several years I have worked on Ernst Cassirer, Edmund Husserl, the development of the psychological Gestalt theory, philosophical theories of perception, knowledge and representation. My present research concentrates upon the visual semiotics, especially upon pictorial systems, further upon categorization, and holistic approaches to knowledge and understanding.

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Andrea Graumann (M.A.)

PhD Student
University of Bremen
Department of Language & Literature

Phone: +49 421 218-9411
Room: GW2 B 3510
E-mail: graumann@uni-bremen.de

Curriculum Vitae
Born: 18th January 1970
1990: Abitur
1990 - 1999: Studies in German Literature and Linguistics, English Literature and Linguistics (University of Bremen, Germany), Semiotics and Philosophy (Universidad del Pais Vasco, Spain)
1999: M.A. (Bremen)
1999 - 2002: Assistant Lecturer for General Linguistics at the University of Bremen
since April 2002: PhD Student at the University of Bremen, associated with Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Wildgen

"It has never been in my power to study anything, - mathematics, ethics, metaphysics, gravitation, thermodynamics, optics, chemistry, comparative anatomy, astronomy, psychology, phonetics, economics, the history of science, whist, men and women, wine, metrology, except as a study of semeiotic." (Charles S. Peirce)

Many times when I tell friends that I am part of the semiotics-division of the Department of Language & Literature at the University of Bremen I find that they first react with a frowning look and then hesitatingly ask: "Well, sounds great ... but what exactly does semiotics mean?" After a frowning look of puzzlement from my side (how can anyone not know what semiotics is?!) my answer is usually as correct as it is superficial: "Semiotics is the theory of signs." The non-verbal reaction and a verbal "Ohhh, I see" then usually signifies to me, that (especially from a semiotic point of view) my explanation wasn't too convincing.

But still, that's what semiotics is; a theory of signs. And yet, as a theory of signs it covers different sign systems and all areas of human life (see motto) and can't be explained easily with a few words.

One of the semiotic systems is language. In the same (or rather similar) way that human thoughts, ideas and emotions are expressed through the signs of music, art, architecture etc., they are expressed through language.

Research in the different fields of semiotics is a way to investigate and explain human behavior and means of communication (in general), to make other cultures accessible and other humans understandable. To find out and to describe how language as such and how language as a semiotic system functions is therefore a way to reveal what lies behind the surface of human interaction, helping us to accept and understand others.

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