SOCIAL SCIENCE AS SOCIAL SEMIOTICS:
BRIDGING THEORIES, METHODS, AND PRACTICES
In memoriam of Michael Halliday
September 25-27, 2018
Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University, Kaliningrad
Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University, Kaliningrad
WORDS OF WELCOME FROM ANDREY KLEMESHEV,
RECTOR OF THE IMMANUEL KANT BALTIC FEDERAL UNIVERSITY
RECTOR OF THE IMMANUEL KANT BALTIC FEDERAL UNIVERSITY
I am pleased to welcome the conference ‘Social Science and Social Semiotics’ to the Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University. We are honoured to host such an important event and to receive world-leading experts in social semiotics, linguistics, and social sciences.
Our conference brings together researchers from different places across the globe – from Moscow to Hong Kong and from Cairo to Saint Petersburg. This gives good grounds to look optimistically to the future. We can confidently expect social semiotics to develop both as an independent discipline and as an interdisciplinary methodology. This line of research is of immense importance to our university, where we view social semiotics as a promising area and a major driver of research in the humanities and social sciences. A brief look at the programme of the conference suggests that social semiotics is both the point of convergence and the common language of very different disciplines – ranging from philology and linguistics to sociology and political science and from UI design studies to research into poetry and photography. Probably, the most persuasive evidence of the considerable potential of social semiotics is that it fascinates young scholars and postgraduate students. |
I am convinced that, on these September days, we will create a stimulating environment for intellectual discussions that will become a source of inspiration both for our guests from other cities and countries and for the IKBFU students and teachers. A synergy of methods, theories, and practices rooted in the traditions of major Russian and international schools of semiotics will inevitably yield rich intellectual harvests this September.
Andrey Klemeshev,
Chair of the Conference Organising Committee,
Rector of the IKBFU.
Chair of the Conference Organising Committee,
Rector of the IKBFU.
WORDS OF WELCOME FROM MIKHAIL ILYIN,
PROGRAMME CHAIRMAN
PROGRAMME CHAIRMAN
Challenges and Responses of Social Semiotics
Kaliningrad conference of September 2018 is a tribute to Michael Halliday who passed away earlier this year on April 15 – right after he turned 93. Three decades ago as well as in our time scholars of various vocations studied different languages as well as the language phenomenon. Linguists explored language system and speech. Sociologists surveyed language as a social institution. Their enterprises were worlds apart. Michael Halliday was daring enough to claim that languages are semiotic makeups as well as social institutions. Those two hypostasespertain to a single phenomenon. Its panoramic and multidimensional vision as well as adequate research can be provided by coupling linguistic and social science outlooks. To this effect he coined the very term social semiotics in 1978. Our conference is also a contribution to a momentous project of social semiotics. Its interpretation as a grand multidisciplinary domain of studies was advanced by Robert Hodge and Gunther Kress about a generation ago in 1988. They extended social semiotic phenomenon beyond the scope of language and communication. They magnified it up to comprehensive human interaction and actual existence of our kind. It had been a major challenge and still remains the one. Three decades that passed by were marked by significant achievements and major breakthroughs. But we are still in the nascent phase of social semiotics – not even half-way to its coming of age. |
The topic of our conference “Social Science as Social Semiotics: Bridging Theories, Methods, and Practices” give us a chance to review both accomplishments and impediments, solid scaffolding of social semiotics and its nebulous allures. We can and should instigate a new commencement to the projects launched by Halliday, his disciples and followers. Time is ripe for new responses to incessant challenges of social semiotics
Mikhail Ilyin,
Programme Chairman,
Professor of Higher School of Economics.
Programme Chairman,
Professor of Higher School of Economics.