Phenomenology and Semiotics. Crossing Perspectives.

In recent years the study of relationships between semiotics andphenomenology seems to be entering a period of renewed vitality andcreativity (CADIOT & VISETTI 2001; ROSENTHAL & VISETTI 2008; 2010; PIOTROWSKI2009; FONTANILLE 2008; BONDÌ 2012). For a variety of theoretical and historicalreasons, there has been a constant osmosis between phenomenological andsemiotic methods. In short, on one side, the works and investigations ofphenomenologists have provided essential tools to semiotics. To give just anexample: the greimasian semiotics theory refers to the process of meaningformation in terms of perceptual apprehension thanks to his original recoveryof Merleau-Ponty’s perception theory. On the other, and at the same time,phenomenology is engaged in describing the activity of language and, inparticular, the speaking activity (prise de la parole) of a subject which is a “beingin-the-world” (être-au-monde) and a “being-in-the-language” (être-au-langage):this is the paradigmatic case of Merleau-ponty and of his own model oflinguistic gesture as emblem of expression. Furthermore, and more deeply,phenomenology and semiotics are methods rather than disciplines (BORDRON2011). By means of the epoché, phenomenology has tried to return thearticulation of the sensible and of the intelligible, and, on the other, theconnections between subjectivity and intersubjectivity. Similarly, semiotics hasproposed methods of analysis that are applicable to a wide range of domains:from narrative values to social identities, from textual traces to culturalpractices with particular reference to their conditions of emergence.In this simultaneously archaeological and constructive orientation,phenomenology and semiotics have brought new challenges concerning thedescription of the phases of the meaning constitution.