Tuesday 17 October 2017

"The semiotics of animal representations" intro chapter cited in Hübben 2017

My co-edited book The Semiotics of Animal Representations (Rodopi 2014, edited with Kadri Tüür) has been cited in 

Hübben, Kelly 2017. Mr. Dog Is a Conservative. In: Anna Feuerstein & Carmen Nolte-Odhiambo (eds), Childhood and Pethood in Literature and Culture - New Perspectives on Childhood Studies and Animal Studies. New York & Abingon: Routledge.

Excerpt (p. 2-3 in that chapter):
As Kadri Tüür and Morten Tønnessen argue, representation in general is a form of meaning making distinct from communication and signification; on the other hand, the dynamic meaning-making process of representation takes place within cultural frameworks, where there is some room for overlap between representation, signification, and communication (12). Tüür and Tønnessen perceive the relation between real animals and their representations as two-directional, so that "the way we represent reality tends to influence the way we perceive reality (we only see what we are looking for)" (11). For representation of pets in picture books, it is significant to acknowledge this connection to the reality of human-animal interactions, since picture books, especially those that target a young readership, have a socializing and educational function (Stephens 158).

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