astronomy

Jacques Fontanille

Jacques Fontanille is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Jacques Fontanille rather than just read about it. In short: Jacques Fontanille (born 1948) is a French semiotician. He has authored or co-authored ten books and a number of articles or book chapters whose topics span theoretical semiotics, literary semiotics, and semiotics of the visual.

Key takeaways

Jacques Fontanille belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Jacques Fontanille to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Jacques Fontanille from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Jacques Fontanille (born 1948) is a French semiotician. He has authored or co-authored ten books and a number of articles or book chapters whose topics span theoretical semiotics, literary semiotics, and semiotics of the visual. A former student and collaborator of the founder of the Paris School of Semiotics, Algirdas Julien Greimas, Fontanille is one of the main continuators of Greimas' research program as he collaborated with him in his last published works, and assisted him in the administering and organizing of the Inter-Semiotic seminar at the École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. After Greimas' death, the course continued under Fontanille's mantle until it became his own seminar at the Institut Universitaire de France.

Actual working Fontanille is former Président (2005–2019) at the Université de Limoges in France, where he teaches courses in Linguistics, Semiotics, Stylistics, and Rhetoric. He is a Senior Member of the Institut Universitaire de France. With Greimas, Fontanille elaborated a semiotics of the passions. With Claude Zilberberg, he developed a tensive semiotics. His most recent books include Sémiotique du discours (2003) translated into English as The Semiotics of Discourse in the Berkeley Insights in Linguistics and Semiotics Series (2006), and Soma et séma (2004).

References

External links Jacques Fontanille's Biography & Bibliography - Signo (in English and in French)

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Jacques Fontanille

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Jacques Fontanille claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Jacques Fontanille before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Jacques Fontanille ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Jacques Fontanille

In research: Jacques Fontanille appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Jacques Fontanille in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Jacques Fontanille is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1948 births, Academic staff of the University of Limoges, French male non-fiction writers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Jacques Fontanille outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Jacques Fontanille in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Jacques Fontanille means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Jacques Fontanille out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Jacques Fontanille in simple terms?

Why does Jacques Fontanille matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Jacques Fontanille?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Jacques Fontanille.