PJOS re-launched under new editorship
Since May 2013, Prof. Jordan Zlatev at Lund University, Sweden assumed the role of editor-in-chief of the Public Journal of Semiotics (PJOS), whereas founding editor Prof. Paul Bouissac concentrated his energies on other semiotic projects. Along with this transition, a few other changes took place, with PJOS migrating physically to Lund University, and using the Open Journal System (OJS) supported by that academic institution. The URL is as before pjos.org, and from there one is automatically redirected to the local site. The new system offers state of the art support for reviewing and tracking the evolution of papers from first versions to camera ready documents.
Other changes have concerns the international editorial board, which at present includes, in alphabetical order, Line Brandt (Copenhagen Business School, Denmark), Jan M. Broekman (Penn State University, USA), Lars Elleström (Linnæus University, Sweden), Charles Forceville (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands), David Machin (Cardiff University, UK), Paul Manning (Trent University, Canada), Rob Shields (University of Alberta, Canada), Göran Sonesson (Lund University, Sweden) and Anne Wagner (Universite Cote d’ Opale, France). In this list, we can witness some understandable Scandinavian tendencies, but also considerable overlap with the previous editorial board.
The Public Journal of Semiotics will continue to be a non-profit organization, with editorial work performed by Prof. Zlatev and assistants on completely pro bono basis. There will be no costs for authors or readers, while all contributions are guaranteed to pass through a rigorous peer-review process. As before, the major aim is to publish original research articles in domains relating to semiotics, understood broadly as the systematic study of meaning, irrespective of theoretical orientation. The journal thus welcomes contributions that could also be seen as belonging to related fields such as (cognitive) linguistics, gesture studies, psychology, sociology etc. – given that they are devoted to reporting the results of well-grounded empirical inquiries, theoretical reflections based on consistent arguments and innovative models of various semiotic phenomena.
The annual rate of publication is envisioned to be approximately two general issues of four articles each, plus one thematic issue. Recently, the first issue of the “new” PJOS appeared, a thematic issue devoted to sound-symbolism as vol 5(1). The fours papers in it, following a short editorial introduction, are “Motivations for sound symbolism in spatial deixis: A typological study of 101 languages” by Niklas Johansson and Jordan Zlatev, “Constraints on the semantic extension of onomatopoeia” by Kimi Akita, “Mappings between linguistic sound and motion” by Christine Cuskley and “Emotional prosody in interjections: A case of non-arbitrariness in language” by Åsa Abelin.
The following issue 5(2), soon to be published, will feature inter alia papers on a Marxist-semiotic analysis of new-liberal “workfare” discourse and practices by John Jordan, a Peircian analysis of reference in nouns and pronouns by Donna West, and an investigation of the spatial structure of narrative displayed in gesture by Michael Kimmel. Readers and authors are warmly welcome to register at pjos.org.
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