Preface xisemiotic modalities) are used to construe meanings in Science Discourse, I argue that in
addition to Halliday‘s and Lemke‘s three-level typology, a fourth aspect of meaning, the
epistemological, is necessary. The epistemological aspect of meaning will refer to the nature
of science, including the values involved in constructing scientific theories/knowledge. A
historical analysis of the creation of scientific knowledge shows that shared values shape the
nature of scientific knowledge. Hence, the epistemological aspect is integral to meaning
making in Science Discourse. The application of this Four-Level Semiotics Discourse
Analysis framework is illustrated within two physics teachers‘ teaching practices. Analysis of
the way these physics teachers signify and communicate scientific knowledge and the nature
of science through multiple modalities such as verbal language and visual diagrams is
presented. The proposed analytical framework has the potential to guide semiotics research in
the Science Education field and illuminate meaning making in Science Discourse. It furthers
the field of semiotics by considering how signs communicate epistemological aspects of
meaning.
Chapter 8 - Living systems are self-maintained semiotic structures open for material and
energy flows but ―closed for efficient causation‖ (Robert Rosen). The factor which introduces
the organizational invariance and generates such a closure has a fundamentally semiotic
nature.
The system having the semiotic parameter of organizational invariance physically
exhibits stable non-equilibrium and is able to transform and evolve according to basic
symmetric and combinatorial rules. The living process is self-referential: the biological
system in its development and reaction to external stimuli makes an internal choice by
reducing indeterminacy of the potential field in interaction with the environment. In other
words, the system measures itself as embedded into the recognized part of the environment,
the Umwelt.
This reflective action is based on the semiotic structure of living system, which includes
the inherited description with rigid grammar and the flexible combinatorial rearrangements
generating possibilities of internal choice. The inherited description itself can evolve towards
incorporation of the environmental inputs as recognized (i.e. signified) by the system. The
social evolution starts when the parameters designating the world as a whole and representing
the actual infinity are encoded within the semiotic system. This allows the semiotic expansion
of the Umwelt by using the external elements as labor tools, by directing human-driven
evolution, and by discovering new energy sources.
Chapter 9 - Within the broad domain of Cognitive Linguistics, empirical methods do not
yet attract deserved attraction to become a dominant tendency. Therefore, Corpus-based
Approaches to Metaphor and Metonymy (edited by Anatol Stefanowitsch and Stefan Th.
Gries) makes a vital contribution by providing corpus-based studies into a most important
subfield of cognitive linguistics, Conceptual Metaphor Theory. Meanwhile, Corpus-based
Approaches to Metaphor and Metonymy is a companion volume to Metaphor and Metonymy
at the Crossroads: A cognitive perspective (2000), edited by Antonio Barcelona, and
Metaphor and Metonymy in Comparison and Contrast (2003), edited by René Dirven and
Ralf Pörings. It is obvious that the intriguing phenomenon of metaphor and metonymy has
been the pet subject of cognitive linguists. But these previous researches are mainly on the
differences and similarities between metaphor and metonymy, and are traditional in their
intuitive or introspective approaches. In the book under review, instead, the researchers argue
for the objectivist basis of linguistic descriptions by ―laying the methodological foundations