The Department of Translation at the College of Arts/ University of Basrah held a panel discussion entitled (Abstracts and Perceptions in the Light of Normal Linguisic Language and Other Tools) on Monday 28/3/2022.

The panel discussion, in which Dr. Rafid Abdul-Hussein Khalaf lectured, and presented by the head of the translation department, Prof. Zainab Sami, included talking about the natural linguistic language as the important tool for expressing meaning for all peoples and languages, but it is not the only tool for expressing meaning. We can understand serial illustrated stories or visual presentation, silent signs, traffic lights, deaf signs, and all of these signs tell us meanings and ideas that can be understood without using natural linguistic language.

Khalaf pointed out that the most important person who considered this was the French Grimas, who relied on general semiology and identified it before entering into the details of the theory. He adopted general semiotics away from any external theoretical interference that could impose its dominance on the text such as history, psychology and descriptive theories in sociology, and he established his theory based on the principle that meanings and ideas may reach others without the use of normal linguistic language.