Graphics Reference
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a structure may hold common traits. However it
is difficult to assign one common definition to the
notion of articulation when it refers to mathemat-
ics, geometry, and fractal geometry, computer
languages, computer graphics, linguistics, music,
telecommunication, architecture, material sci-
ences, medicine, and biology, among other options.
Several structures existing in various systems, such
as natural or programming languages or biological
forms are combined in a set of signs that makes
a code. They are thus meaningfully articulated.
In a similar way, the concept of translation has
various meanings in individual disciplines such
as mathematics, geometry, and fractal geometry,
computer languages, computer graphics, verbal
communication, language arts and linguistics,
literature, fine arts, art history, philosophy, phe-
nomenology, molecular biology and genetics,
material science, and many technology systems.
take a specific meaning for a particular context.
Musicians articulate multiple notes or sounds
supporting their continuous transition. When it
comes to telecommunication, specialists measure
the intelligibility of a voice system as the articula-
tion score. Instructional designers and educators
articulate curricula by comparing the content of
courses between colleges and universities. Ar-
chitects use the notion of articulation to describe
the styling of the joints as the formal elements
of design. The term articulation is also used to
denote mechanical properties of parts joined into
a whole. For example, the articulation in anatomy
tells about the ability of flexing limbs where two
or more bones make contact; in a similar way,
axle articulation in engineering means a car's
ability to flex its suspension: pivoted joints are
articulated or hinged. In botany as a study of plant
life, types of joints between separable parts, as a
leaf and a stem, are described as articulation. In
a graph theory, the articulation points of a graph
are vertices in this graph.
ARTICULATION
Articulation Applied in
Many Domains
Articulation of Signs in Natural
and Programming Languages
The notion of articulation may assume disparate
meanings, so it may lack a common definition.
We may spot the concept of articulation in vari-
ous disciplines and areas of life. We may say that
articulation happens when we assign a form (in
words, notes, or algorithms) to an idea, informa-
tion, or a feeling. Many of the meanings relate to
linguistics where articulation may refer to putting
an idea into words by the marking of information
in a clause. In human speech articulation may
mean the clarity, sharpness, and expressiveness of
one's pronunciation and a way of uttering sounds,
but also the way individuals adopt cultural forms
and practices that are characteristic of their social
status. As linguistics, the science of language
concerns with several domains such as phonet-
ics, morphology, syntax, semantics, phonology,
pragmatics, and historical study, articulation may
A collection of signs used to communicate or to
express something can be combined in a system
and make a code, simple or double articulated
one. Semioticians use the term articulation with
reference to a code structure applied in structural
linguistics (Martinet & Palmer, 1982); they are
studying signs, relations between signs and mean-
ing, codes, and communication related cultural
events. Roland Posner (1992, 1993), a Czech-
German semiotician and linguist called the string
codes those sign systems that have all complex
signs reducible to strings; as examples of sign
systems, he included natural languages, writing
systems, musical notations, codes related to cloth-
ing, culinary codes, and traffic signs. A formal
language indicates in linguistics, mathematics,
and computer science a set of strings of symbols
defined by their structural patterns. Communica-
