Toronto studies in semiotics

When loved ones leave you, it's time to change your life. A poignant and uplifting new novel about love and loss, for fans of Nora Roberts.Recently widowed March Cantrell must deal with her beloved husband's death while trying to escape the constant interference from her well meaning grown-up children.All her children that is, apart from Molly. March discovers that the new man she's dating, Spider Olsen, is 23 years older than her daughter - and believes the relationship is doomed to failure. However, any attempt to talk to Molly only drives them further apart. Meanwhile, March's sons are fighting for control of the family business.In order to heal the growing rifts between them all, the family decides to spend Christmas at their mountain home in Lake Tahoe. Whilst skiing one day, March finds herself stranded with a young man called Rio and is surprised to discover that she is attracted to him.A few weeks after the holidays, March returns to the mountains. One lonely night, whilst dining alone, March is joined by Rio. What starts as a one-night stand becomes something much more.Her children think March has lost her mind. However, somewhere in this tangled chaos, in the betrayal and competition and the innocence of new love, is the answer for all the Cantrells.

C.S. Peirce was the founder of pragmatism and a pioneer in the field of semiotics. His work investigated the problem of meaning, which is the core aspect of semiosis as well as a significant issue in many academic fields. Floyd Merrell demonstrates throughout Pierce, Signs, and Meaning that Peirce's views remain dynamically relevant to the analysis of subsequent work in the philosophy of language. Merrell discusses Peirce's thought in relation to that of early-twentieth-century philosophers such as Frege, Russell, and Quine, and contemporaries such as Goodman, Putnam, Davidson, and Rorty. In doing so, Merrell demonstrates how quests for meaning inevitably fall victim to vagueness in pursuit of generality, and how vagueness manifests an inevitable tinge of inconsistency, just as generalities always remain incomplete. He suggests that vagueness and incompleteness/generality, overdetermination and underdetermination, and Peirce's phenomenological categories of Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness must be incorporated into notions of sign structure for a proper treatment of meaning. He also argues that the twentieth-century search for meaning has placed overbearing stress on language while ignoring nonlinguistic sign modes and means.

"Being interdisciplinary in nature, semiotics, media studies, and communication studies draw from ideas and terminology derived from other disciplines. Hence, this dictionary also encompasses basic concepts from the fields of anthropology, archeology, psychology, psychoanalysis, linguistics, philosophy, artificial intelligence, computer science, and biology. Collected here are definitions and descriptions of terms, concepts, personages, schools of thought, and historical movements that appear frequently in the literature.". "The basis of each entry is a simple definition, which often includes the term's origin and important cross-references. Illustrations are provided where necessary, along with historical sketches of movements or schools of thought. The commentary on personages consists of brief statements about their contribution and relevance. Thus, the dictionary not only defines what a term means, but often delves into its history, applications, and broad implications.". "This is a compact, practical guide that will be valuable to students in semiotics, media, and communication studies. Because of its interdisciplinary approach, it will also provide a wide range of scholars with a handy reference to disciplines other than but related to their own."--BOOK JACKET.