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Society as mind
Society as mind
Ryan Schram
ANTH 2700: Key debates in anthropology
ryan.schram@sydney.edu.au
Social Sciences Building 410 (A02)
Week of March 08, 2021 (Week 2)
Slides available at http://anthro.rschram.org/2700/2021/2
Main reading: Bashkow (2006)
Other reading: Hanks (1996)
Signs can be signifiers, a diagram
Here's a diagram.
( ( “rose” | 🌹 ) | ___ )
Remember algebra. This diagram has one parenthetical term nested inside another, larger parenthetical terms. We work from the inside out. The inner term we know: its a sign. It has a signifier and a signified. This is a basic building block of the langue of English.
This whole sign as a unit is slotted into the place of the signifier in the outer term, another sign.
What emoji goes in the place of the signified in the outer parentheses?
What do you need to have in order to be able to answer that question?
test
A sign is:
- a signifier, or “sound-image” * a signified, an idea.
( “horse” | 🐎 )
( “cat” | 😹 )
( Signifer | Signified )
in English there are two signs:
( “sheep” | 🐑 )
( “mutton” | 🍖 )
but in French there's one:
( “mouton” | 🐑 🍖)
A closed economy of signs means each culture is ethnocentric
( “ejeba” | 🪶 )
( “boka” | 🪨 )
( ( “ejeba” | 🪶 ) | 🙎🏻♂️ 🚀 💵 )
( ( “boka” | 🪨 ) | 😀 )
References and further reading
Bashkow, Ira. 2006. The Meaning of Whitemen: Race and Modernity in the Orokaiva Cultural World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Hanks, William F. 1996. “The Language of Saussure.” In Language and Communicative Practices, 21–38. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press. https://search.alexanderstreet.com/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cdocument%7C1677290?account_id=14757&usage_group_id=95408.