<em>The Emperor's New Clothes</em>: When Nothing is Everything

Giampaolo Proni

doi:10.6092/issn.2611-0563/15755

Autori

Giampaolo Proni University of Bologna, Department for Life Quality Studies

Giampaolo Proni is Professor of Semiotics at the University of Bologna, Department of Life Quality Studies. His first field of research is the philosophy and semiotics of Charles S. Peirce. Other research interests are in applied semiotics, specifically qualitative analysis of urban spaces, consumption behaviour and fashion retail. His main research activity, since 2009, has focused on the semiotics of design, in the attempt to unify functionalism and symbolism in the light of pragmaticism. He also writes fiction. He teaches in programs on fashion (ZoneModa) in the Rimini campus.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2611-0563/15755

Parole chiave:

Hans C. Andersen, Semiotics of Text, Semiotics of Fashion, Sociosemiotics of Fashion, Pluralistic Ignorance

Abstract

The Emperor's New Clothes (Danish: “Kejserens nye klæder”, 1837) is one of the most famous Andersen’s fairy tales. It’s a typical apologue, with the vice of vanity as its target. The text will be subjected to a first reading to evince the narrative strategy and moral themes. A further, semiotic analysis of the text will be conducted on the basis of the first reading, so to expose the coding implied in the narration. Those codes will show the connection between dressing behaviour and the general system framing a human society. A narrative text, as Andersen’s tale, encodes the author’s implementation and re-writing of the social system, its map of values, both normative (moral) and phenomenological (experiential), and the reciprocal interaction. In particular, the semiotic analysis of The Emperor's New Clothes allows us to extract a representation of dressing behaviour and highlight its structure and dynamics.

Riferimenti bibliografici

Andersen, H. C. “Keiserens nye Klæder.” Andersens Eventyr. 1837, accessed June 28, 2022, https://www.andersenstories.com/da/andersen_fortaellinger/kejserens_nye_klaeder.

Baumeister, Roy F. and Vohs, Kathleen D. “Pluralistic Ignorance.” Encyclopedia of Social Psychology, Vol. 1 (October 2007): 674–674. Accessed June 28/2022. https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412956253.n402.

Eco, Umberto. “Horns, Hooves, Insteps. Some Hypotheses on Three Kinds of Abduction.” In The Sign of Three. Dupin, Holmes, Peirce, eds. Umberto Eco and Thomas A. Sebeok, 198–220. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983.

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Kawamura, Yuniya. Fashion-ology. An Introduction to Fashion Studies. London, New Delhi, New York, Sydney: Bloomsbury, 2005.

Peirce, C. S. “A Survey of Pragmaticism.” In Collected Papers of C. S. Peirce, 8 voll., Voll. I–VI 1931–1935, ed. C. Hartshorne and Paul Weiss. Voll.VII–VIII, 1958, ed. A. Burks (USA: Harvard U.P., Cambridge, Mass.) par. 5.11–13, 5.464–496.

Prentice, D. A., and Miller, D. T. “Pluralistic ignorance and alcohol use on campus: Some consequences of misperceiving the social norm.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64(2), (1993): 243–256. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.64.2.243.

The Emperor's New Clothes: When Nothing is Everything

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