SIGNS IN SOCIETY - STIBA Malang

viii I Contents
Part III Comparative Perspectives on Complex Semiotic Processes 99
Tropical Semiotics
Levels of Semiosis
IOI
Collectivizing and Differentiating Symbolization 104
Convention and Innateness 106
Obviational Exchange
Tropes and Narrative 113
Foi Cultural Semiotics 120
The Semiotic Regimentation of Social Life 125
Social Action and Semiotic Text 12.5
Context and Type in Ritual Performativity 128
Institutional Regimentation of Touristic Experience 134
Ideological Regimentation in Advertising 142
Part IV Social Theory and Social Action 157
Comparison, Pragmatics, and Interpretation 159
Models and Strategies of Comparison 159
Comparative Philosophy of Religion as a Discipline 165
Comparison and Interpretation as Practical Reason 167
Directions for Future Research 173
Naturalization of Convention 175
Arbitrariness and Motivation 175
Naturalization in Social Theory i 7
8
Naturalization and Conventionalization in Social Reality 185
Conclusion 191
Notes 193
References 199
Index 220
IOI
n o
Acknowledgments
IWOULD LIKETO thank Tom Kirsch, who advised my first foray into semiotic
anthropology in an undergraduate reading course at Princeton University in
1969—70. Subsequent course work with Steve Barnett, Vincent Crapanzano,
Mark Leone, Alfonso Ortiz, and Martin Silverman provided the impetus for my
graduate studies and professional research in anthropology. The initial opportunity
to carry out research on Peircean semiotics was provided by a postdoctoral
fellowship (1981—82) at the Center for Psychosocial Studies in Chicago. In addition,
the Center helped to fund my field research in Belau (1978—80), provided
support during a sabbatical leave (1986), and sponsored many of the conferences
where the chapters in this book were first presented. "Signs at the Center" would
have been an equally appropriate title for this book. To Bernard Weissbourd and
Ben Lee I extend my thanks.
That I still acknowledge the powerful influence of Michae} Silverstein more
than ten years after I ceased being his student is testimony both to the continuing
relevance of my educational experience in his classes at the University of Chicago
and to the constantly expanding corpus of his publications. All eight of the chapters
as well as the overall organization of the volume are indebted to his pioneering
efforts in anthropological linguistics and semiotically informed social theory.
He has provided oral responses or written comments on most of the chapters in
this book. Specifically, I acknowledge the importance of his work on the pragmatic
codes of culture, on the contrast between explicit and implicit
metapragmatics, on the .limits to semiotic awareness, and on metasemiotic regimentation.
In the years that I have been working in the area of semiotic anthropology I
have benefited from the insight, advice, conversation, and criticism of friends and
colleagues in several disciplines who have been my "universe of discourse": Jim
Collins, Craig Davis, Judy Irvine, Naomi Janowitz, Don Joralemon, Ben Lee,
Laurie Lucking, John Lucy, Nina Kammerer, Beth Mertz, David Murray, Bob
Petersson, Alfonso Procaccini, Nancy Rubin, and Benigno Sanches-Eppler. In addition,
I gratefully acknowledge several individuals who provided sponsoring
support, research assistance, and critical comments on specific chapters: Martha
Denney and Deborah Toribiong (Ch. 3), Vincent Crapanzano and Anita Skang
Jordan (Ch. 4), Roy Wagner and James Weiner (Ch. 5), Moise Postone (Ch. 6),
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