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Multiculturalism as Multimodal Communication

A Semiotic Perspective

  • Book
  • © 2019

Overview

Authors:
  1. Alin Olteanu

    1. International Semiotics Institute, Kaunas University of Technology, Kaunas, Lithuania

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  • Presents a new approach to multiculturalism that is grounded in biosemiotics
  • Addresses contemporary and pressing questions in semiotic and multicultural research
  • Offers a much-needed pluralistic logic for developing an altruistic mentality
  • Raises a new epistemological awareness

Part of the book series: Numanities - Arts and Humanities in Progress (NAHP, volume 9)

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Table of contents (6 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xviii
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Multiculturalist Discourse and Theory

    • Alin Olteanu
    Pages 1-32

  3. Cultural Relativism and Politics of Recognition

    • Alin Olteanu
    Pages 33-54

  4. Semiotics and Multiculturalism

    • Alin Olteanu
    Pages 55-68

  5. Language, Culture and Pluralism

    • Alin Olteanu
    Pages 69-85

  6. Biosemiotic Multiculturalism

    • Alin Olteanu
    Pages 87-114

  7. An Embodied Approach to Intercultural Communication

    • Alin Olteanu
    Pages 115-140
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Keywords

About this book

This highly readable book develops a numanistic, and specifically semiotic approach to multiculturalism. It reveals how semiotics provides fresh and valuable insights into multiculturalism: in contrast to the binary logic of dualistic philosophy, semiotic logic does not understand the value of truth in rigid terms of ‘true’ or ‘false’, ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ only. The value of truth resides in meaning, which is a dynamic, evolutionary phenomenon, rooted, nevertheless, in factuality.


Drawing on recent developments in biosemiotics, the book presents a theoretical approach to multiculturalism, regarding the lives of people living in multicultural environments. Rather than analyzing political or economic phenomena, it offers a semiotic analysis of multiculturalism and discusses its educational implications. It also invites readers to regard learning as a phenomenon of ecological sign growth and to understand multiculturalism along the same lines. As such, itbrings together the life and social sciences and the humanities in a unified perspective, in an approach fitting postmodernism.


Developing a postmodern philosophy for contemporary non-experts, which allows distancing from political discourse in favor of a posthumanistic stand, where altruism is seen as an opportunity, not a threat, this book appeals to a wide readership, from scholars seeking state-of-the-art theories to general readers looking for a thought-provoking and enlightening read.

Reviews

“This is a superbly committed, polemical volume which demonstrates the courage to consider the global crisis and to point the finger at its perpetrators: not the usual suspects, such as the media, the power elite or an undifferentiated other, but something closer to home – human conceptions. In the face of STEM and the crass, profit-driven attack on cultural life, and without resorting to unthinking multiculturalism and the liberal defence of human values, Olteanu presents a contemporary semiotic account of the relevant problems, exposing not so much the role of ideology in the humanitarian crisis but the centrality of human cognition and its most recent exercises in glottocentrism. This volume needs to be read by educational policy-makers, liberal academics and students, especially, as well as semioticians and the educated inquisitive reader.” (Paul Cobley, Professor in Language and Media, Middlesex University, UK)

 

 

 

Authors and Affiliations

  • International Semiotics Institute, Kaunas University of Technology, Kaunas, Lithuania

    Alin Olteanu

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