Literature Review Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 9

Literature Review - Essay Example We as a society are innovating greater technology and great modern convenience. This continuing dependence on social technology has contributed to a lessening of dependence, desire for, or trust in human interactions. In fact, many experts feel strongly that the inception and popularity of social media is contributing to a deterioration of interpersonal relationships and how people communicate in those relationships (Christofides et. al, 2012). If individuals continue to depend and substitute their personal interactions for social media influenced relationships it will lead to a shallow and superficial future for between human beings. 200 years ago if people wanted to communicate they had to wait long periods of time to receive even a single letter. 150 years ago the telegraph allowed faster and immediate communication over longer distances to be achieved, and finally the telephone changed everything. People could directly talk to people who are very far away. However, despite all of these technological innovations people still interacted with other people regularly and on a continuous basis. There was still a value in having eye to eye contact in a conversation and shaking a man’s hand when making a deal. Technology did not impede that interaction and communication negatively. However, today’s technology has made in completely possible for a person to become a complete shut-in and never speak to another person in person again. It is possible to pay all of your bills online, people can work exclusively from home, and even have their groceries delivered. This is extreme, but people today are slowly b ut surely losing their desire and limiting their opportunity to interact and communicate with others. It has become a part of daily life, getting on the computer, sending text messages, and responding to messages that others send. It is hard to imagine a time when phones

Semiotics. What is it How does it serve the aims of Social Theory Research Paper

Semiotics. What is it How does it serve the aims of Social Theory - Research Paper Example In his work, he showed that signs cannot have a meaning that is definite and it must continue to change. Since then, semiotics have been seen to have very diverse and equally important anthropological dimensions. Some philosophers proposed that every cultural phenomenon can be studied as communication; others, though focus on the logical dimensions of the same, examining areas such as life sciences. In general, however, theories of semiotics take the signs as their objects of study, and have often been divided into syntactic (rules governing word combinations to form sentences), pragmatics and semantics. Michael Alexander Kirkwood Halliday, an Australian linguist describes language as a semiotic system and sees it as a systemic resource for meaning. For him, it holds a meaning potential and from this, he describes linguistics as the study of people exchange of meaning by language. Describing himself as a generalist, he says that he has tried point of view, even though he did favor social language referring it as creating the human society, while still a creature of the same. Halliday, in his book ‘an introduction to functional grammar’ makes some theories and descriptions of grammar, that suggest his view of grammar to be based on a general theory of language as a social semiotic resource as earlier stated. He argues that theoretical categories and their interrelations make an abstract model of language as they are interlocking and defining each other (Stjernfelt et al. 45). The theory’s structure draws from work on the description of natural discourse so that there is no clear distinction between applied and theoretical linguistics. The theory therefore continues to evolve, and has many aspects, considering the fact that our current social settings are being shaped by social media and not the traditional aspects of life as it used to be in