Winfried Nöth (born September 12, 1944 in Gerolzhofen) is a German

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

and

semiotician Semiotics ( ) is the systematic study of sign processes and the communication of meaning. In semiotics, a sign is defined as anything that communicates intentional and unintentional meaning or feelings to the sign's interpreter. Semiosis is an ...

. After graduating from high school in 1963 in Brunswick, from 1965 to 1969 Nöth studied English, French and Portuguese in Münster, Geneva, Lisbon and Bochum, and in 1971 acquired his doctoral degrees at the Ruhr University Bochum. In Bochum he also

habilitated Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellen ...

in 1976 and became assistant to Walter A. Koch. After teaching in Bochum and Aachen, in 1978 he was appointed full professor in English Linguistics at the

University of Kassel The University of Kassel () is a university founded in 1971 located in Kassel, Hessen, in central Germany. As of February 2022 it had about 25,000 students and about 3300 staff, including more than 300 professors. A special unit (Studienkoll ...

. In 1985, Nöth was visiting professor at the

University of Wisconsin–Green Bay The University of Wisconsin–Green Bay (UW–Green Bay, UWGB, or Green Bay) is a public university in Green Bay, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1965, it is part of the University of Wisconsin System. As of fall 2024, student enrollment h ...

in Green Bay, Wisconsin, United States, and in 1994 at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo in Brazil. Since 1999 he has been Director of the Scientific Centre for Cultural Research, University of Kassel, and President of the German Society for Semiotics. His ''Handbook of Semiotics'' (first published 1985) gives a comprehensive overview of the history and various orientations of semiotics and presents the most important representatives.

Work

Nöth distinguishes between endophoric and exophoric

iconicity In functional- cognitive linguistics, as well as in semiotics, iconicity is the conceived similarity or analogy between the form of a sign (linguistic or otherwise) and its meaning, as opposed to arbitrariness (which is typically assumed i ...

, exophoric where the

signifier In semiotics, signified and signifier (French language, French: ''signifié'' and ''signifiant'') are the two main components of a Sign (semiotics), sign, where ''signified'' is what the sign represents or refers to, known as the "plane of con ...

is iconic with the

signified In semiotics, signified and signifier ( French: ''signifié'' and ''signifiant'') are the two main components of a sign, where ''signified'' is what the sign represents or refers to, known as the "plane of content", and ''signifier'' which is ...

, and endophoric where the signifier is iconic to another signifier. By endophoric he does not mean "trivial" recurrences like the letter e in one sentence being iconic with the letter 'e' in another sentence, which are not iconic signs of one another according to Nöth. Textual endophoric iconicity can be divided between intratextual and intertextual. An example of intratextual endophroic iconicity is "the various recurrences of the word icon and its derivatives iconic or iconicity....Insofar as the

morpheme A morpheme is any of the smallest meaningful constituents within a linguistic expression and particularly within a word. Many words are themselves standalone morphemes, while other words contain multiple morphemes; in linguistic terminology, this ...

icon refers back to earlier of its recurrences in the text and the traces of them in our memory, it is an iconic sign. Insofar as these morphemes constitute a coherent pattern of relations which create a line of mentation, they form a diagrammatic icon". Intertextual iconicity would include things like

allusion Allusion, or alluding, is a figure of speech that makes a reference to someone or something by name (a person, object, location, etc.) without explaining how it relates to the given context, so that the audience must realize the connection in the ...

s, quotations etc. Specific utterances which adhere to the rules of a language are iconic with one another.

Phoneme A phoneme () is any set of similar Phone (phonetics), speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible Phonetics, phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word fr ...

s can also be iconic with one another in that they could both be

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...

s or

plosives In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lip ...

. Another example is “the relationship between great, greater, greatest….since the morphological pattern of

adjective An adjective (abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word that describes or defines a noun or noun phrase. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives are considered one of the main part of speech, parts of ...

grading is the same as in loud, louder, loudest”.

Selected publications

* Winfried Nöth: ''Strukturen des Happenings''. Olms, Hildesheim/New York 1972 * Winfried Nöth: ''Semiotik: Eine Einführung mit Beispielen für Reklameanalysen''. Niemeyer, Tübingen 1975 * Winfried Nöth: ''Dynamik semiotischer Systeme: Vom altenglischen Zauberspruch zum illustrierten Werbetext''. Metzler, Stuttgart 1977. * Winfried Nöth: ''Literatursemiotische Analysen – zu Lewis Carrolls Alice-Büchern''. Narr, Tübingen 1980 * Winfried Nöth: ''Handbuch der Semiotik''. 2., vollständig neu bearbeitete Auflage. Metzler, Stuttgart/Weimar 2000 * Winfried Nöth/Nina Bishara/Britta Neitzel: ''Mediale Selbstreferenz: Grundlagen und Fallstudien zu Werbung, Computerspiel und Comics''. Halem, Köln 2008.

References

External links

* (Home page) {{DEFAULTSORT:Noth, Winfried 1944 births Living people Linguists from Germany German semioticians People from Gerolzhofen