Ivan Fomin
Semiotic beyond semiotics: Revisiting the (sub)disciplinary boundaries
Abstract
Charles Morris (1938) argues that semiotics can be developed into two subdivisions, which are pure semiotic and descriptive semiotic. But, as Hans-Heinrich Lieb (1971) marks, it is “tentative” to develop this dichotomy into a trichotomy of general
semiotic, special semiotic and applied semiotic.
I would try to contribute to the idea of tripartite semiotics using Peirce’s concept of Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness and proposing to distinguish between third, second and first semiotics. I suggest to define third semiotic as the semiotic of general laws (= general semiotic, legisemiotic), second semiotic as the semiotic related to specific actualities (= special semiotic, sinsemiotic, semiology) and first semiotic as the quality of being semiotic (= qualisemiotic, “semioticness”, i.e. the
feature of being semiotic, existing both inside and outside the disciplinary boundaries of semiotics).
The idea of first semiotic allows better describing the situation of how semiotics de facto works, since besides the core semiotics (semiotic in semiotics) there also exist external semiotics, which is a nebula of semiotic concepts and methods that are used outside semiotics. Those external semiotics are mostly applied ones, but they can be pure as well. The notion of first semiotic allows grasping the idea that those tools are also semiotic ones, as they have the quality of semiotic, even though they are not parts of semiotics.
Seeing semiotics from this perspective can be a hint to reframe the way we practice and teach semiotics. A wide range of various quasisemiotic, cryptosemiotic and near-semiotic tools can thus be recognized as something of semiotic, without being
made part of semiotics. Besides, this allows building an effective interface for the semiotics to interact with other fields of knowledge – by conceiving the disciplinary boundary of semiotics not as a border, but rather as a frontier.
Bionote
Candidate of political sciences; senior lecturer at the National Research University –Higher School of Economics (Moscow); research fellow at the INION institute (Moscow).
Abstract
Charles Morris (1938) argues that semiotics can be developed into two subdivisions, which are pure semiotic and descriptive semiotic. But, as Hans-Heinrich Lieb (1971) marks, it is “tentative” to develop this dichotomy into a trichotomy of general
semiotic, special semiotic and applied semiotic.
I would try to contribute to the idea of tripartite semiotics using Peirce’s concept of Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness and proposing to distinguish between third, second and first semiotics. I suggest to define third semiotic as the semiotic of general laws (= general semiotic, legisemiotic), second semiotic as the semiotic related to specific actualities (= special semiotic, sinsemiotic, semiology) and first semiotic as the quality of being semiotic (= qualisemiotic, “semioticness”, i.e. the
feature of being semiotic, existing both inside and outside the disciplinary boundaries of semiotics).
The idea of first semiotic allows better describing the situation of how semiotics de facto works, since besides the core semiotics (semiotic in semiotics) there also exist external semiotics, which is a nebula of semiotic concepts and methods that are used outside semiotics. Those external semiotics are mostly applied ones, but they can be pure as well. The notion of first semiotic allows grasping the idea that those tools are also semiotic ones, as they have the quality of semiotic, even though they are not parts of semiotics.
Seeing semiotics from this perspective can be a hint to reframe the way we practice and teach semiotics. A wide range of various quasisemiotic, cryptosemiotic and near-semiotic tools can thus be recognized as something of semiotic, without being
made part of semiotics. Besides, this allows building an effective interface for the semiotics to interact with other fields of knowledge – by conceiving the disciplinary boundary of semiotics not as a border, but rather as a frontier.
Bionote
Candidate of political sciences; senior lecturer at the National Research University –Higher School of Economics (Moscow); research fellow at the INION institute (Moscow).