From sensing to knowing: a semiotic study

• Grant number: 11/02584-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Start date: August 15, 2011
• End date: January 29, 2012
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Linguistics - Linguistic Theory and Analysis
• Principal Investigator: Elizabeth Harkot-de-La Taille
• Grantee: Elizabeth Harkot-de-La Taille
• Host Investigator: Jean Marie Klinkenberg
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Université de Liège (ULg), Belgium

Abstract

Our studies, based on French Semiotics, have investigated the role of passions and intersubjective relations and their effects in the construction, maintenance or destruction of social values and images of oneself and of others - the constitution of narrative identity (Ricoeur) - and also the ethos and the "absence" which is necessary and correlate to the presentification of meaning, operated by way of appeal to the body’s senses. Reflections within the cognitive semiotics theoretical framework have examined the sens- perception-meaning process. Among semioticians that also consider the socio-cultural-historical perspective is Professor Jean-Marie Klinkenberg, who intends to receive us in Liege, Belgium. Ricoeurs hermeneutic phenomenology (Ricoeur 1986), if one understands hermeneutic interpretation depending on and resulting in language, seems to us to be at the basis of meaning. We have an amount of researched material that corroborates Ricoeurs "narrative identity": it is clear that if ipse, the socio-historical component of narrative identity, and Alter are both present, in a reasonable balance, we can sketch social values relating to ones " being in the world", values which underly and define relations involving the subject s micro universe (Harkot-de-la-Taille 2001; Harkot-de-la-Taille and Ferreira 2001; Harkot-de-la-Taille and Afonso 2003). However, these findings still need a more systematic formulation. In this study we expect to: a) Bring to the Hjelmslev and Greimas-based semiotics some contribution related to the understanding of the affective components in the production of meaning; b) encourage discussion and further reflection on the integration of other levels of meaning; c) Investigate ways of thinking semiosis in cognitive semiotics, related to the process started with sensory stimuli and "completed" in meaning; d) contribute to the understanding of the cognitive semiotic process which originates in the interpretation the subject gives to his/her perception until the initially "felt/perceived" is valued and considered by the subject as part of him/herself, that is, becomes an integral part of his/her narrative identity. Our interest in this proposal, in addition to researching noteworthy objects, is to hold a substantive set of data and to participate in conceptual discussions and in theoretical and epistemological considerations and elaboration. We are interested in offering our data for discussion and taking part in debates inherent to the test of consistency and relevance ideas need to go through, in order to pass the scrutiny of academic acceptance. The proposed research aims at as accurate as possible a description of the process "from sensing to knowing", based on the data already obtained and other kinds which may show in discussions. At the same time, we seek the comprehension, if not the insertion of what the objects reveal, within the conceptual framework currently shared about the process of signification. Besides, we would like to keep open to surprises new analyses may reveal. (AU)