Semiotics, edusemiotics and the culture of education

Abstract

Semiotics is the study of signs addressing their action, usage, communication and signification (meaning). Edusemiotics—educational semiotics—is a recently developed direction in educational theory that takes semiotics as its foundational philosophy and explores the philosophical specifics of semiotics in educational contexts. As a novel theoretical field of inquiry, it is complemented by research known under the banner ‘semiotics in education’, which is largely an applied enterprise. In this respect edusemiotics is a new conceptual framework for both theoretical and empirical studies. Edusemiotics has also been given the status of being a new branch of theoretical semiotics and it was launched as such at the 12th World Congress of the International Association for Semiotic Studies in September 2014 at the New Bulgarian University in Sofia. The article presents ‘semiosis’ as the action of signs across culture AND nature and posits ‘learning’ in terms of developing semiotic consciousness and semiotic competence. Semiosis is a process and as such it defies the Cartesian philosophy of substance-dualism that still informs the culture of education. The paper focuses specifically on university education permeated by disciplinary boundaries and the fragmentation of knowledge grounded in objective science inherited from modernity. Where is semiotics as the science of signs (or relations) in the context of academic culture? The authors conclude by affirming the transdisciplinary character of semiotics and edusemiotics and specify the distinctive focal points of transdisciplinary knowledge afforded by edusemiotics.

Keywords:

• Science
• Peirce’s semiotics
• antidualism
• process philosophy
• culture
• nature

Notes

1. Ultimately, a sign can become a sign of itself; but such relation can be established in the infinite future and for the infinite community extended in space and time or maybe even beyond, according to Peirce. Still we can posit an exception in terms of creating some special conditions within our ordinary experience -- but then wouldn’t we qualify such experience as extraordinary (see Kauffman, 2010; Semetsky, 2013a)? And wouldn’t such experience change the sign in question?