Thomas A. Sebeok
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Thomas Albert Sebeok ( hu, Sebők Tamás, ; 1920–2001) was a Hungarian-born American
polymath A polymath ( el, πολυμαθής, , "having learned much"; la, homo universalis, "universal human") is an individual whose knowledge spans a substantial number of subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific pro ...
,Cobley, Paul; Deely, John; Kull, Kalevi; Petrilli, Susan (eds.) (2011).
Semiotics Continues to Astonish: Thomas A. Sebeok and the Doctrine of Signs
'. (Semiotics, Communication and Cognition 7.) Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
semiotician Semiotics (also called semiotic studies) is the systematic study of sign processes (semiosis) and meaning making. Semiosis is any activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, where a sign is defined as anything that communicates something, ...
, and
linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
. As one of the founders of the biosemiotics field, he studied non-human and cross-species signaling and communication. He is also known for his work in the development of
long-time nuclear waste warning messages Long-term nuclear waste warning messages are communication attempts intended to deter human intrusion at nuclear waste repositories in the far future, within or above the order of magnitude of 10,000 years. Nuclear semiotics is an interdisciplina ...
, in which he worked with the
Human Interference Task Force The Human Interference Task Force was a team of engineers, anthropologists, nuclear physicists, behavioral scientists and others convened on behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy and Bechtel Corp. to find a way to reduce the likelihood of futu ...
(established 1981) to create methods for keeping the inhabitants of Earth away from buried nuclear waste that will still be hazardous 10,000 or more years in the future.


Early life and education

Thomas Sebeok was born on November 9, 1920, in
Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...
,
Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...
. He attended secondary school at the famous Budapest-Fasori Evangélikus Gimnázium, which educated notables such as Edward Teller, John von Neumann, and Eugene Wigner. After a brief stint at Cambridge University (Magdalene College) in England, he moved to the United States at the age of 17 and became a
naturalized citizen Naturalization (or naturalisation) is the legal act or process by which a non-citizen of a country may acquire citizenship or nationality of that country. It may be done automatically by a statute, i.e., without any effort on the part of the in ...
in 1944. Sebeok earned a bachelor's degree in 1941 at the
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
. He earned a master's degree in anthropological linguistics, under the external guidance of
Roman Jakobson Roman Osipovich Jakobson (russian: Рома́н О́сипович Якобсо́н; October 11, 1896Kucera, Henry. 1983. "Roman Jakobson." ''Language: Journal of the Linguistic Society of America'' 59(4): 871–883. – July 18,Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
in 1943 and, in 1945, a doctorate at
Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
; his dissertation was titled ''Finnish and Hungarian case systems: their form and function''.


Academic work

In 1943, Sebeok started work at
Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. Campuses Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI. *Indiana Universit ...
in Bloomington, assisting the Amerindianist Carl Voegelin in managing the country's largest Army Specialized Training Program in foreign languages. He then created the university's department of
Uralic The Uralic languages (; sometimes called Uralian languages ) form a language family of 38 languages spoken by approximately 25million people, predominantly in Northern Eurasia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian (w ...
and
Altaic Altaic (; also called Transeurasian) is a controversial proposed language family that would include the Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic language families and possibly also the Japonic and Koreanic languages. Speakers of these languages are ...
Studies, covering the languages of Eastern Europe, Russia and Asia. He was also the chair of the university's Research Center for Language and Semiotic Studies. As a professor at Indiana University, Sebeok studied both human and non-human systems of signaling and communication, as well as the
philosophy of mind Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the ontology and nature of the mind and its relationship with the body. The mind–body problem is a paradigmatic issue in philosophy of mind, although a number of other issues are addre ...
. He was among the founders of biosemiotics, and coined the term "
zoosemiotics Zoosemiotics is the semiotic study of the use of signs among animals, more precisely the study of semiosis among animals, i.e. the study of how something comes to function as a sign to some animal. It is the study of animal forms of knowing. Consi ...
" in 1963 to describe the development of signals and signs by non-human animal species. He also continued his work as a linguist, publishing several articles and books analyzing aspects of the
Mari language The Mari language (Mari: , ''marij jylme''; russian: марийский язык, ''mariyskiy yazyk''), formerly known as the Cheremiss language, spoken by approximately 400,000 people, belongs to the Uralic language family. It is spoken primar ...
(referring to it by the name "Cheremis"). His transdisciplinary work and professional collaborations spanned the fields of anthropology, biology, folklore studies, linguistics, psychology, and semiotics. Sebeok was the editor-in-chief of the journal ''
Semiotica ''Semiotica'' is an academic journal covering semiotics. It is the official journal of the International Association for Semiotic Studies. Publication Since 2000, the journal publishes five issues per year. It is published in English and French. ...
'', the leading periodical in the field, from its establishing in 1969 until 2001. He was also the editor of several book series and encyclopedias, including ''Approaches to Semiotics'' (over 100 volumes), ''Current Trends in Linguistics'', and the ''Encyclopedic Dictionary of Semiotics''. In the early 1980s, Sebeok composed a report for the US Office of Nuclear Waste Management titled ''Communication Measures To Bridge Ten Millennia'', discussing solutions to the problem of nuclear semiotics, a system of signs aimed at warning future civilizations from entering geographic areas contaminated by nuclear waste. The report proposed a "folkloric relay system" and the establishment of an "atomic priesthood" of physicists, anthropologists, and semioticians to create and preserve a common cultural narrative of the hazardous nature of nuclear waste sites. In addition to his academic work, Sebeok organized hundreds of international conferences and institutes, held leadership roles in organizations such as the
Linguistic Society of America The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) is a learned society for the field of linguistics. Founded in New York City in 1924, the LSA works to promote the scientific study of language. The society publishes three scholarly journals: ''Language'', ...
, International Association for Semiotic Studies, Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, and the
Semiotic Society of America The Semiotic Society of America is an interdisciplinary professional association serving scholars from many disciplines with common interests in semiotics, the study of signs and sign-systems. It was founded in 1975 and includes members from the Un ...
, and supported the creation of linguistic and semiotics teaching programs and scholarly associations throughout the world. Sebeok's personal library on semiotics, comprising more than 4,000 volumes of books and 700 journals, is preserved at the Department of Semiotics at the
University of Tartu The University of Tartu (UT; et, Tartu Ülikool; la, Universitas Tartuensis) is a university in the city of Tartu in Estonia. It is the national university of Estonia. It is the only classical university in the country, and also its biggest ...
in Estonia. His correspondence and research files are held by the Indiana University Archives.


Personal life

Sebeok married Mary Eleanor Lawton (1912–2005) in 1947. They had one child, Veronica C. Wald, and later divorced. Sebeok married Donna Jean Umiker (born 1946, now D. Jean Umiker-Sebeok), a fellow semiotic scholar and his frequent collaborator and co-author, in 1973, and they had two children, Jessica A. Sebeok and Erica L. Sebeok. Sebeok retired from Indiana University in 1991, but he contributed to the field of semiotics until his death in 2001.


Sebeok Fellow Award

The Sebeok Fellow Award "recognizes outstanding contributions to the development of the doctrine of signs" and is the highest honor given by the
Semiotic Society of America The Semiotic Society of America is an interdisciplinary professional association serving scholars from many disciplines with common interests in semiotics, the study of signs and sign-systems. It was founded in 1975 and includes members from the Un ...
. It is awarded every 2 to 4 years. Recipients have included David Savan (1992),
John Deely John Deely (April 26, 1942 – January 7, 2017) was an American philosopher and semiotician. He was a professor of philosophy at Saint Vincent College and Seminary in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. Prior to this, he held the Rudman Chair of Gra ...
(1993), Paul Bouissac (1996),
Jesper Hoffmeyer Jesper Hoffmeyer (21 February 1942 – 25 September 2019) was a professor at the University of Copenhagen Institute of Biology, and a leading figure in the emerging field of biosemiotics. He was the President of the International Society for Bios ...
(2000),
Kalevi Kull Kalevi Kull (born 12 August 1952, Tartu) is a biosemiotics professor at the University of Tartu, Estonia. He graduated from the University of Tartu in 1975. His earlier work dealt with ethology and field ecology. He has studied the mechanisms o ...
(2003), Floyd Merrell (2005),
Susan Petrilli Susan Petrilli (born 3 November 1954) is an Italian semiotics, semiotician, professor of philosophy and theory of languages at the University of Bari, University of Bari, Aldo Moro, Italy, and the seventh Thomas Sebeok, Thomas A. Sebeok Fellow o ...
(2008), Irmengard Rauch (2011), Paul Cobley (2014),
Vincent Colapietro Vincent Colapietro is a Liberal Arts Research Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Pennsylvania State University (University Park Campus). His education includes a bachelor's degree from Saint Anselm College, a master's degree from Marque ...
(2018), Nathan Houser (2019),
Marcel Danesi Marcel Danesi (born 1946) is Professor of Semiotics and Linguistic Anthropology at the University of Toronto. He is known for his work in language, communications and semiotics and is Director of the program in semiotics and communication theory. H ...
(2020).'Introducing the Tenth and Eleventh SSA Sebeok Fellows: Vincent Colapietro and Nathan Houser'
''The American Journal of Semiotics'', Volume 36, Issue 1/2, 2020 (Sebeok Fellows Issue: Vincent Colapietro and Nathan Houser).


Selected English publications

* * * * * * *Sebeok, Thomas A., ed. ''Style in Language.'' New York and London: The Technology Press of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, 1960. * * * * *Sebeok, Thomas A, Donna J. Umiker-Sebeok, and Adam Kendon. ''Nonverbal Communication, Interaction, and Gesture: Selections from Semiotica''. The Hague: Mouton Publishers, 1981. *, 236 pages. Ten essays on methods of abductive inference in Poe's
Dupin Dupin is a French surname. Notable people with the surname include: * André Marie Jean Jacques Dupin (1783–1865), French advocate * C. Auguste Dupin, a fictional detective * Charles Dupin (1784–1873), French Catholic mathematician * Jacques Du ...
,
Doyle Doyle is a surname of Irish origin. The name is a back-formation from O'Doyle, which is an Anglicisation of the Irish (), meaning "descendant of ''Dubhghall''". There is another possible etymology: the Anglo-Norman surname ''D'Oyley'' with agglu ...
's
Holmes Holmes may refer to: Name * Holmes (surname) * Holmes (given name) * Baron Holmes, noble title created twice in the Peerage of Ireland * Chris Holmes, Baron Holmes of Richmond (born 1971), British former swimmer and life peer Places In the Uni ...
, Peirce and many others. *Sebeok, Thomas A, Marcia E. Erickson, Umberto Eco, V V. Ivanov, and Mônica Rector. ''Carnival!'' Berlin: Mouton Publishers, 1984. *Sebeok, Thomas A, Donna J. Umiker-Sebeok, and Evan P. Young. ''The Semiotic Web'', 1989. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1990. *Sebeok, Thomas A, and Marcel Danesi. ''The Forms of Meaning: Modeling Systems Theory and Semiotic Analysis'', 2000. *Sebeok, Thomas A. ''Signs: An Introduction to Semiotics.'' Toronto, Ont: University of Toronto Press, 2001.


References


External links


Thomas Sebeok papers, 1940-2001 and undated
at the Indiana University Archives.
Indiana University School of Library and Information Science Press Release: "Thomas A. Sebeok, Senior Fellow at SLIS, Passes On


by Thomas A. Sebeok {{DEFAULTSORT:Sebeok, Thomas Hungarian emigrants to the United States University of Chicago alumni Princeton University alumni American semioticians 1920 births 2001 deaths American skeptics Linguists of Muskogean languages Linguistic Society of America presidents Presidents of the Semiotic Society of America