The present book represents a collection of essays written by prominent semioticians, focusing on the truth and post-truth phenomena in social sciences and semiotics in general.

The concept of post-truth has been on the world’s agenda since 2016. Perhaps this concept, which is frequently encountered in political life, provides the speaker with a freer speaking platform. Politicians, instead of presenting the reality to their constituents as it is, want to reshape this reality according to their own ideology and present it to the recipient. Politicians have certain objectives in creating such a virtual reality. These aims can be listed as keeping the voters, increasing the voting potential, and attracting undecided voters to their favor. The common result of all these aims is to gain political power or to remain in the existing power. Post-truth reality is constructed relatively more easily in social media environments. The construction of reality can be through beliefs or emotions. In such ways, the recipient is tried to be persuaded, and thus behavioral change is achieved. One of the most necessary subjects for this artificial reality atmosphere is the anti-subject. The idea that the anti-subject does not know the truth that we (you and I) know and believe and is trying to destroy it is the main theme of post-truth discourse. Politicians try to persuade the voters to believe in their own truth by expressing this idea to them. There are many examples of this around the world. In this study, firstly, the concept of post-truth is examined and its various definitions are discussed. The distinctions between the concepts of real and truth are analyzed and then it is explained how and for what purposes the concept of post-truth is used in politics. Following the comparison of post-truth and fake news, the concept is discussed within the framework of sender-receiver interaction in terms of communication. The concept is tried to be elucidated with the modalities such as /convincing/, /believing/, /being/, /appearing/. Besides, using the semiotic square, the study also tries to reveal the different purposes and forms of use of the concept of post-truth. As a result, it has been observed that the concept of post-truth is effective in many areas of contemporary societies, and rather than real information, expected and desired information has become more important. Keywords: semiotics; discourse; politics; post-truth; fake news

AMGA-Türkiye Göstergebilim Araştırmaları Dergisi göstergebilim çalışmalarını desteklemek amacıyla faaliyet gösteren uluslararası akademik bir yayındır. Göstergebilimin tüm geleneklerine açık olan dergi disiplinlerarası ve disiplinlerötesi yaklaşımlarla alana yenilik katan kuramsal, yöntemsel ve uygulamalı özgün inceleme yazılarını yayınlamaktadır. Dergi sosyal, kültürel, toplumsal ve doğal gösterge dizgelerinde anlamın üretiliş biçimleri, göstergeler arası ilişkileri ve göstergelerin dizge içi ve dizge dışı gösterge türleriyle iletişimleri üzerine betimleyici ve eleştirel araştırmalara odaklanmaktadır. Dergi Türkçe, İngilizce ve Fransızca dillerinde nitelikli ve özgün bilimsel makale ve kitap incelemeleri yayınlamaktadır. TAMGA-Türkiye Göstergebilim Araştırmaları Dergisi Bahar (Haziran) ve Güz (Aralık) dönemlerinde olmak üzere, yılda iki kere yayımlanan hakemli, bilimsel, süreli, uluslararası ve açık erişimli bir dergidir. Derginin hedef kitlesini akademisyenler, araştırmacılar, öğrenciler, profesyoneller ve ilgili mesleki, akademik kurum ve kuruluşlar oluşturmaktadır. Dergi zaman zaman özel ilgi alanlarına ayrılmış Özel Sayılar da yayınlamaktadır.

Today, all kinds of instructive or artistic texts that contain a specific message, regardless of the field, have emerged through the meaningful sequence of signs. For instance, an anatomy text for the medical sciences, a physics text for the engineering sciences, or a biology text for the natural sciences can be given as examples for the instructive text type. The other type of text appears in the artistic field, which has a robust aesthetic side and requires interpretation. On the other hand, the sub-texts that contribute to forming the central texts in the artistic field are generally narrative and representational texts. Along with the instructive texts produced by verbal and/or nonverbal signs, artistic texts have also become an essential part of the teaching/learning process. Many of the texts are frequently used as supplementary material in language classrooms. Thus, artistic texts make thematic or linguistic achievement and signification processes active and promote the teaching/learning continuum. It is possible to shape the adjuvant process with different theoretical backgrounds, methods, and techniques. One of these theories is semiotics: New ways of thinking, understanding, and interpretation methods have been developed throughout human history. Humans produce meaningful structures and use various methods to comprehend them efficiently. Semiotics has gained importance as one of the study fields that analyzes conditions of sign production and their meanings. It is one of the critical scientific fields of the twenty-first century that attempts to explain the facts and phenomena of different systems belonging to nature and culture. In recent years, semiotics has interacted with different fields of science and daily life thanks to the studies done by semioticians. Thus, the study field has been associated with different disciplines, leading to increased interdisciplinary studies. Therefore, semiotics is a field of science that can signify many systems from social sciences to engineering sciences, from fine arts to natural sciences, from human sciences to everyday life (Kalelioğlu, 2023, pp. 109-110). Semiotics closely relates to all fields of science and paves the way for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary studies. However, perhaps since there is the investigation of an abstract concept of “meaning” at the core of semiotics, there are not many researchers and practitioners in our country who conduct studies in semiotics and transfer the results of the studies to the in-classroom teaching/learning period. For this reason, one of the key objectives of this study is to propose an applicable methodology on how semiotic theory, techniques, and analysis instruments can be used in research and classroom practice. Since the object of this study is a literary artwork, we placed a short story genre, which is more of a narrative text type, at the center of the investigation. “The Lottery”, written by Shirley Jackson, has been selected for this study. Throughout the study, how meaning is constructed in various semantic layers within the formation process and how each layer is articulated to form the semantic universe of the text by the author of the narrative will be addressed.

27-29 Haziran 2024 tarihleri arasında Balıkesir’de (Türkiye) II. Asya Uluslararası Göstergebilim Kongresi düzenlenecektir. Kongrenin ana teması Asya’nın Göstergeleri: Hüzün Umut olarak belirlenmiştir. Kongre, merkezi Seul’de bulunan Uluslararası Asya Göstergebilim Derneği, Anadolu Semiyotik Araştırmaları Derneği (ANASEM), Türkiye Göstergebilim Çevresi (TGÇ), Balıkesir Üniversitesi, Kore Üniversitesi, Balıkesir Büyükşehir Belediyesi, N10 Şehir Araştırmaları ve Teknoloji Geliştirme Merkezi ve Tamga Dergisi gibi kurum kuruluşların değerli destekleriyle gerçekleştirilecektir. Asya II. Uluslararası Göstergebilim Kongresi’nde çağımız insanın estetik dünyasında başlıca sorunlarının neler olduğu, kötümserliğin ve umudun göstergeleri, sosyal medyanın işlevleri, çağdaş söylemlerde hüzün ve umut gibi konular ele alınacaktır. Ayrıca Asya kültüründe hüzün ve umuda gönderme yapılan kavramlar, edebiyat, mimari, resim, müzik, animasyon, modern tasarımlarda hüzün ve umudun nasıl anlatıldığı gibi meseleler göstergebilimin metodoloji ve terminolojisiyle hüzün ve umut bağlamında tartışılacaktır. Kongreye katılım ücretsizdir. Asya II. Göstergebilim Kongresine Çin, Fransa, Güney Kore, İran, İtalya, Japonya, Kazakistan, Meksika, Romanya gibi ülkelerden saygın bilim insanlarının katılacağı şimdiden kesinleşmiştir. Bu bakımdan dünyada göstergebilim alanında kuramsal ve uygulamalı çalışmalardan haberdar olmak, dünya göstergebilim araştırmacılarıyla olası müşterek çalışmalarla ilgili fikir alışverişinde bulunmak isteyen araştırmacıların kongreye katılmasından organizasyon komitemiz onur duyacaktır. Kongrenin dili Türkçe, İngilizce ve Fransızcadır. Edebî, siyasî, ahlâkî, dinî, felsefi metinleri göstergebilimin metotlarından hareketle incelemek isteyen araştırmacılar ile söz konusu alanlarda yüksek lisans ve doktora yapan öğrenciler içiin kongredeki tartışmaların faydalı olacağına inanıyoruz. Ayrıca mimari, müzik, resim, animasyon, iletişim, tiyatro, basın-yayın vb. alanlardaki araştırmacılar için de Asya II. Uluslararası Göstergebilim Kongresi önemli bir fırsattır. Bu sebeple yukarıda belirtilen alanlarla ilgilenenlerin bildirili veya bildirisiz Asya II. Uluslararası Göstergebilim Kongresine katılımlarını bekler, saygılar sunarız. (In the 21st century, important changes and transformations are taking place in the world on behalf of humanity. The most prominent of these is the tendency of the world's power centers to move from the West to the East. In this regard, in the last fifty years, nations living in Asian countries, especially Japan, Korea, China, and India, have made significant progress in almost every field affecting the development of humanity, such as science, art, trade, and tourism, and have been great pioneers of change in the world. Depending on the aforesaid change, Asian countries have also endeavored to create their own institutions in every field. One of the institutions established in Asian countries is the Asian Semiotics International Association, headquartered in Seoul (ASIA: Asian Semiotics International Association). Founded in 2021, ASIA first planned to organize biennial Asian International Semiotics Congresses. Within this context, the first congress was held in Seoul (South Korea) on October 15-17, 2022. The second International Semiotics Congress of ASIA will be held in Balıkesir (Türkiye) in June 2024 in cooperation with Balıkesir University, Balıkesir Metropolitan Municipality, ANASEM (Anatolian Association for Semiotic Studies/AASS) TGÇ (Semiotics Circle of Türkiye) NE10 Urban Research and Technology Development Center. The theme of "The signs of Asia: Blues and Hope" is proposed for the congress to be held in Balıkesir.)

The subject of semiotics is not to answer the questions such as what does the text says, who says the text, or what are the possible external— societal, individual, and historical—effects on the text. Instead, it is mainly interested in how signs are created, how they are articulated with each other to create the meaning in the text, and in what ways the meaning is created in different semantic layers within its system. The study necessitates focusing on the relations of the formative elements in the text which leads us to reach the narrative syntax that makes it possible to observe the underlying structures in different semantic strata of the text. Moreover, the approach helps us to analyze the meaning production process, as well as to observe the ways of the articulation process of meaningful items with each other to create the whole text. The main purpose of this study is to figure out the semantic organization of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four narrative within the scope of Greimas's semiotic trajectory.

In recent years, semiotics has put “life” at the center of the subject of study. There is the desire to be successful in the lifestyle and the desire to convey the right knowledge to the recipient or the correct use of practices in life. A semiotic theory developed by Jacques Fontanille recently showed that strategy can also be used in semiotic analysis. So, theway of life that Fontanille talks about is not just strategy. The process we call “lifestyle” has an order from small to large: There are basic signs, texts, objects, actants, practices, action phases, strategies, and finally lifestyle. In this study, we question the function of strategy, but generally of productive pursuit, in the analysis of political discourses. In our study, we reveal the approach of semiotics to political discourses that concern the whole world and discuss whether they are valid in every society.We emphasize political semiotics, which is used to understand the general structure of political discourses, and show the general functioning of political discourses with Greimas’ Actantial Model. We conclude that politicians can influence target audiences by using various methods and discourse strategies.