Anthroposemiotics of literature: The cultural nature

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Semiotics is not merely about knowledge but primarily about knowing. Representation is about knowledge while literature as a semiotic medium is about modeling. Modeling is not a technique used by writers to represent the world but a target meant to show the way the writer models the world so that the reader responds accordingly and offers her/his own model. Knowing as semiosis is produced from such a kind of comparison between the two models. Meaning itself, knowledge, does not interest semioticians, whose concern is rather with the way it is produced. Literature teaches us how to learn more about our nature. Literature trains our natural faculties of modeling. All possible fragments of knowledge we may get from a literary text and the cognitive and emotional responses they provoke are only parts of a whole. They are associated with the mega-meaning of literature. In literature, knowing stands for mega-meaning, whereby it becomes an anthroposemiotic concept. In this paper, I hope to contribute to the new wave of interest in the natural linkage between anthroposemiotics and literary study through three major possible epistemologies tightening the linkage between both fields: evolutionary epistemology, emotional and cognitive activities, and cultural, including social and historical, conventions. All of these three levels conduct some kind of communication and naturally work together in harmony.

Original languageAmerican English
Pages (from-to)435-455
Number of pages21
JournalSemiotica
Volume2016
Issue number213
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Nov 2016

Keywords

  • The interrelations between anthroposemiotics and literary study

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Language and Linguistics
  • Linguistics and Language
  • Literature and Literary Theory

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